Pope Francis heads to Myanmar, Bangladesh; hopes to soothe Rohingya pain

Pope Francis set off on his 21st and possibly most delicate overseas trip yet, a six-day visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh against the backdrop of the unfolding Rohingya refugee crisis.

The 80-year-old pontiff's plane left Rome en route for Yangon, Myanmar's main city, shortly after 2100 GMT.

He will touch down around 0700 GMT on  hoping to encourage efforts to contain a crisis that has seen many of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in the mostly Buddhist Myanmar, forced from their homes and left languishing in squalid refugee camps over the border in Bangladesh.

"I ask you to be with me in prayer so that, for these peoples, my presence is a sign of affinity and hope," Francis told 30,000 believers in St Peter's Square, shortly before packing his bags for the diplomatically fraught trip.

Some 620,000 Rohingya, more than half their total number, have fled from Myanmar's Rakhine state to Bangladesh since August as a result of violence that the UN and the United States have described as ethnic cleansing.

Aides say Francis will seek to encourage reconciliation, dialogue and further efforts to alleviate the crisis following last week's tentative agreement between the two countries to work towards a return of some of the Rohingya to Myanmar.
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Young Rohingya hacks to death Bangladeshi amid rising tensions

A young Rohingya man hacked to death a Bangladeshi man on Saturday, police said, amid growing tensions in southeastern Bangladesh which has seen a massive influx of refugees from neighbouring Myanmar.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in Myanmar in August triggered an exodus, straining resources in the impoverished country.

Police said the attack by the Rohingya man was linked to a family dispute. It is the latest of a string of crimes in the area which have alarmed local authorities.

"We've stepped up security after these incidents," deputy chief of Cox's Bazar district Afruzul Haq Tutul told AFP.

The district's state prosecutor Mamtaz Ahmed told AFP that crime had recently increased in the area.

The UN has described Myanmar's crackdown on the Rohingya as "textbook" ethnic cleansing, and many of the refugees who arrive in Bangladesh bring horrific stories of brutalities including murders, rapes and arson.

This has prompted an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy in Muslim majority Bangladesh.

But Rohingya now outnumber Bangladeshis by two to one in the two main refugee towns of Teknaf and Ukhia in Cox's Bazar district, and local tensions are rising.
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Rohingya crisis: Mass exodus to Bangladesh continues

The influx of Rohingya refugees arriving in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in Myanmar continued on Saturday despite the two countries signing an agreement to stop the exodus.

"I do not see that the Rohingya influx has stopped. Normally, 1,000 to 2,000 Rohingyas enter Bangladesh daily, and it is continuing," Shah Kamal, secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, told Efe news on Saturday.

"The influx did not stop. We cannot even say it has slowed down."

According to the official, at least 500 Rohingyas entered the county on Friday.

He said that in the last four to five days, 500-700 Rohingyas had been arriving every day.

"We do not see any change in the number of Rohingyas entering Bangladesh after the agreement."

In its latest report on Friday, the UN Inter Sector Coordination Group said that around 605,000 Rohingyas had arrived in Bangladesh in the last two months, excluding around 1,125 who had arrived a day before and had not been counted as they were still in transit.

The crisis began on August 25 when an insurgent group of the Rohingya Muslim minority staged a series of attacks on police and army posts in Myanmar's Rakhine state, to which the Myanmar military responded with an ongoing large-scale offensive.
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Bangladesh builds one of world's largest refugee camps for 100,000 Rohingya

Hard-pressed to find space for a massive influx of Rohingya Muslim refugees, Bangladesh plans to chop down forest trees to extend a tent city sheltering destitute families fleeing ethnic violence in neighbouring Myanmar.

More than half a million Rohingya have arrived from Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine since the end of August in what the United Nations has called the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency.

The exodus began after Myanmar security forces responded to Rohingya militants’ attacks on Aug. 25 by launching a brutal crackdown that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar has rejected that accusation, insisting that the military action was needed to combat “terrorists” who had killed civilians and burnt villages.

But it has left Bangladesh and international humanitarian organisations counting the cost as they race to provide life-saving food, water and medical care for the displaced Rohingya.

Simply finding enough empty ground to accommodate the refugees is a huge problem.

“The government allocated 2,000 acres when the number of refugees was nearly 400,000,” Mohammad Shah Kamal, Bangladesh’s secretary of disaster management and relief, told Reuters on Thursday.
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More than 500,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh: UN

The number of Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh since violence broke out in Myanmar's Rakhine state on August 25 has exceeded half a million, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The new figure of 501,800 -- up from around 480,000 -- was due mainly to the counting of refugees not previously included in the tally rather than a dramatic increase in arrivals.
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Rohingya militant group ARSA declares one-month ceasefire on Twitter handle

Rohingya militants, whose August 25 raids in Myanmar's Rakhine State sparked an army crackdown that has seen nearly 300,000 of the Muslim minority flee to Bangladesh, on Sunday declared an immediate unilateral one-month ceasefire.

"The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) hereby declares a temporary cessation of offensive military operations," it said in a statement on its Twitter handle @ARSA_Official, adding it was to allow for humanitarian aid to reach the battered region.

IMPORTANT: PRESS RELEASE
(10th Sept, 2017)#ARSA hereby declares a ceasefire from offensive military operations for one month from today. pic.twitter.com/DHBjQqnyIo
— ARSA_The Army (@ARSA_Official) September 9, 2017

The group urged "all humanitarian actors" to resume aid delivery to "all victims of humanitarian crisis irrespective of ethnic or religious background" during the ceasefire period which runs until October 9.

It urged Myanmar to "reciprocate this humanitarian pause" in fighting, with huge numbers of displaced moving across Rakhine many believed to be in desperate need of help after over two weeks of violence.
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Pak summons Myanmar envoy to protest violence against the Rohingyas

Pakistan today summoned the Myanmar envoy and lodged a strong protest over the ongoing violence against the Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine state, leading to the exodus of about 270,000 refugees to Bangladesh.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua summoned Myanmar's Ambassador to Pakistan U Win Myint and sought effective measures to prevent the recurrence of such violence, providing security to Rohingya Muslims, the Foreign Office said.

She conveyed "a strong protest of the government and people of Pakistan at the ongoing violence against the Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine state in Myanmar", it said.

Janjua asked for upholding their rights to live and move without fear and discriminations, urgent investigations into recent violence against the Rohingya Muslims and holding accountable those involved in these serious crimes, it said.

She said that as part of a durable settlement of the problem, the swift implementation of the recommendations of the Kofi Annan Commission was emphasised, which include urgent and sustained action to prevent violence, maintain peace, foster reconciliation, assure unhindered humanitarian access and address the issue of citizenship.
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These cities from our neighbourhood are the world's worst for living

Pakistan's Karachi city and Bangladesh's capital city Dhaka have been named among the least liveable cities of the world, says a survey.

According to Global Liveability Report compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Karachi maintains its 134th rank in the listing of 140 cities, only managing to fare better than Port Moresby, Dhaka, Tripoli, Lagos and Damascus.

The survey says that Melbourne is the most liveable city in the world, followed by Austrian capital Vienna and Canada's Vancouver in the second and third place respectively.

However, no Indian city was ranked in the top ten or bottom ten in the most liveable city ranking.

The ranking is based on the qualitative and quantitative factors falling broadly in the categories of stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

The survey only includes cities which people might want to live in or visit. Therefore, it excludes cities like Kabul or Baghdad, where conflict is ongoing.

However, cities like Damascus, which were in the near past relatively unstable, have been included.

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Bangladesh garment factory blast: 10 killed, rescue operations underway

At least 10 people were killed and 50 others injured in a boiler room explosion at a garment factory in central Bangladesh. The search for more bodies in the debris continues, officials said on Tuesday.

The accident took place around 7 PM on Monday at the export-oriented textile factory Multifabs Limited, which employs nearly 6,000 people.

Most employees were on leave to celebrate the Eid-ul Fitr when the explosion occurred. "We found eight bodies on Monday and one in the morning (Tuesday) when we started removing the debris again," Gazipur Fire Service Assistant Deputy Director Akteruzzaman said.

"We are not sure if there are more bodies inside because no one could give a detailed account of any missing person," he was quoted as saying by Efe news.

Of the 50 injured, one person later died in the hospital, taking the deaths to 10, Akteruzzaman added.

"The factory was closed until Monday and we started the boiler only in the evening. One of the two boilers exploded within an hour of starting the operation in the evening," Multifabs Chairman and Managing Director Mohiuddin Faruqui said.

According to Faruqui, between 25 and 30 people were inside the factory at the time of the explosion, while many bystanders were also injured.

Gazipur district factory inspector Farid Ahmed said that the factory's licenses were all in order and that the reason for the explosion was yet unclear.

Last week, labour union organisations IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union announced the signing of a new agreement with more than 20 international textile companies to ensure safety in Bangladeshi factories, among other issues.

The sector has been under the spotlight over its working conditions since the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in 2013, which left more than 1,100 dead and 2,500 others injured.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Facebook post casts shadow on crackdown of alleged Islamists in Bangladesh

Five young Bangladeshis accused of being Islamist militants surrendered to authorities on Sunday, an official said, after a lengthy siege that prompted questions about heavy-handed police tactics.

Elite counter-terror troops surrounded a one-storey house in the central district of Narsingdi on Saturday afternoon after a tip-off that Islamist extremists were holed up there.

The information came from militants arrested in April after a raid on an extremist hideout that left 10 people including a senior police officer dead, said Rapid Action Battalion spokesman Mufti Mahmud Khan.

The five young men in Narsingdi had "surrendered peacefully, which was our main goal", after a siege that lasted more than 20 hours, he told AFP.

But the incident raised questions about police tactics after one of the five alleged Islamists took to Facebook to profess his innocence, urging authorities not to storm the building.

"Attention journalists and law enforcers, we are innocent. Please search us if you can find anything. We are locked from outside. Please rescue us," Abuzafar Mia wrote on the social media website.

A second post, addressing Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina, was shared at the same time saying: " Honourable Prime Minister, please rescue us. We are innocent. We are with the Awami League. We are victims of a conspiracy.Please rescue us. We are ordinary students. Please help us."

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