Aung soe

The Hague: In a wood-panelled hall of the ornate Peace Palace at The Hague, lawyers pressing a case against Myanmar for alleged genocide against its Muslim Rohingya minority will next week ask judges to order immediate action to protect them from further violence. Gambia, a tiny, mainly Muslim West African country, filed a lawsuit in November accusing Myanmar of genocide, the most serious international crime. During three days of hearings starting December 10, it will ask the 16-member panel of U.N. judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to impose "provisional measures" to protect the Rohingya before the case can be heard in full. More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh since a 2017 military crackdown, which U.N. investigators found in August to have been carried out with "genocidal intent". Myanmar vehemently denies allegations of genocide. The office of Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize laureate, has … [Read more...] about In Rare Legal Test for Myanmar, Leader Aung Suu Kyi Faces Rohingya Genocide Hearings at The Hague

YANGON (Reuters) - The last time Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi traveled to western Europe, she was feted as the freshly elected civilian ruler of a fledgling democracy who had brought an end to half a century of military dictatorship. FILE PHOTO: Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi walks off the stage after delivering a speech to the nation on the Rakhine and Rohingya situation, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar September 19, 2017. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun/File Photo When the Nobel peace prize laureate returns next week, her first trip to the region since a 2017 military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar, it will be to face accusations of genocide, alongside the army she spent much of her life battling. Gambia, a tiny, mainly Muslim West African state backed by the 57-nation Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), lodged a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last month against Myanmar for genocide, including mass murder and rape. Myanmar denies the … [Read more...] about The Lady and The Hague: Myanmar leader Suu Kyi courts home audience

Illustrative image (Photo: dauthuanvien.blogspot.com) Hanoi (VNA) – The wrongdoings in State-owned Mobifone’s acquisition of the Audio Visual Global Joint Stock Company (AVG) are attracting public attention, with wide expectations that the case should be handled strictly and lost State asset must be recovered. Inspection of the acquisition was launched in September 2016, but due to the complicated nature and seriousness of the deal, the Government Inspectorate (GI) only released conclusion on the inspection outcomes on March 14. Mobifone’s purchase of 95 percent of AVG was a major deal between a State-owned enterprise and a private company, but what made it come under spotlight was the lack of transparency. In the first quarter of 2016, Mobifone announced the decision to buy 95 percent of AVG, but did not disclose the value of the transaction. The company’s leadership refused to answer the press on this question, claiming that it was classified information. … [Read more...] about Public expects strict handling of wrongdoings in Mobifone’s acquisition of AVG

She is brave, eloquent and defiant in a country where government critics have been detained, imprisoned and sometimes killed for speaking out. Now Mu Sochua, Cambodia's leading female opposition MP, is once again calling for change as she campaigns ahead of national elections on Sunday. Her calls are falling on highly receptive ears: the opposition party was given a boost by the recent return from self-exile of its French-educated firebrand leader, Sam Rainsy. With their leader back, the Cambodia National Rescue party has a renewed fervour, promising free healthcare, education and pensioner rights; an increase in factory and civil servant wages; an end to illegal land grabs and forced evictions; and lowered prices for rice, electricity and petrol – incentives that have the potential to sway a huge chunk of the 9 million voters. No one expects the CNRP to win outright: Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's party (CPP) holds 90 of the 123 National Assembly seats and won the … [Read more...] about Cambodian opposition power figure Mu Sochua relishes election fight

BANJUL (Reuters) - The genocide case brought against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) - the first of its kind initiated since the 1990s - may not have happened at all but for a scheduling conflict. In May last year, Gambia’s foreign minister pulled out at the last minute from the annual conference of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Bangladesh, sending Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou instead. For Tambadou, who spent more than a decade prosecuting cases from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, what he saw and heard in Bangladesh jogged some painful memories. He joined an OIC delegation visiting overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, where some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who had fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar since August 2017 recounted how, they said, security forces had burnt Rohingya children alive, raped women and killed men. “I saw genocide written all over these stories,” Tambadou said in an … [Read more...] about With memories of Rwanda: The Gambian minister taking on Suu Kyi