Myanmar elections: Aung San Suu Kyi's party wins all 12 of the first seats declared - live
- Opposition NLD wins all 12 of the first seats announced
- Ruling party acting chairman says: ‘We have more losses than wins’
- ‘I think you know the outcome,’ Suu Kyi leader tells jubilant party
- Her party spokesman expects to win 80% of the vote
- Poll ‘far from perfect,’ says John Kerry
Many were expecting Yangon districts to have strong NLD support, Oliver Holmes points out in the context of the first results.
Votes from the capital it won’t tell us too much about the rest of the country. But it is certainly a boon for the NLD to have won the first results announced.
(From Reuters)
Myanmar’s ruling party conceded defeat in the country’s general election on Monday as the opposition led by democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi appeared on course for a landslide victory.
“We lost,” Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) acting chairman Htay Oo said in an interview a day after the Southeast Asian country’s first free nationwide election in quarter of a century.
The election commission has not yet announced any results from Sunday’s poll, but Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy (NLD) said that partial counts showed it had won more than 80% of votes cast in the densely populated central regions.
You cannot honour the dead without honouring the bodies themselves
While we come together to remember fallen soldiers, the remains of orphaned survivors of the Armenian genocide are about to make way for a luxury hotel
Do we honour the dead or the corpses? I’m not talking about those poppy fashion accessories worn by the BBC’s clones, or PR Dave’s obscene bit of crimson Photoshopping, but the real, actual remains of the human beings slaughtered in the Great War of 1914-18. And, in this particular case, I’m talking not of the soldiers but of the civilians buried in 33 graves which I looked down upon last week from a windy hilltop beside the old Roman city of Byblos in Lebanon. Beneath those tombstones lie the bones of some survivors of the greatest war crime of that titanic conflict, the genocide of a million and a half Armenian Christians by the Turks in 1915. They died in one of the huge orphanages opened for thousands of children amid cholera and disease by European doctors and NGOs after the Great War ended, and were buried in the orphanage grounds.
Many of them saw their parents slaughtered in front of them, but escaped the massacre only to die in Lebanon. Some lived on to work among the orphans and died of old age. But they are the “honoured” dead, as surely as the soldiers who lie today in the cemeteries of the Somme and Verdun and the graves of those who endured the conflict. Or are they? For these individual Armenian graves, most of them bearing the names of the survivors, are soon to be disinterred and buried – mixed together – in a “common grave” beside the nearest Armenian church. Their names already appear on a marble stone near the hole where their bones will be placed – but their individuality will disappear, skulls and backbones and femurs jumbled together. What is left of their bodies will have lost their uniqueness.
Is the anti-immigration right on the rise in Sweden?
As arson attacks at the Scandinavian nation's refugee centers continue, historically tolerant Swedes worry that anti-immigrant views are winning acceptance.
In October alone, ten homes for asylum seekers in Sweden have burnt in suspected arson attacks.
On Saturday, yet another proposed refugee center was burned in the southwest town of Floda, raising Swedes' anxiety that pushback against immigration has made country of 10 million, long welcoming to immigrants, an inviting home for xenophobia as well.
The attacks have led authorities to keep center locations secret, but a shortage of security guards has left some immigrants to nervously patrol grounds on their own.
"This is not the Sweden we know, not the Sweden that I am proud of," Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told reporters in late October, after yet another attack. State funeral list in N. Korea triggers purge speculation
A state funeral in North Korea has sparked another fresh round of purge rumours after one of Kim Jong-Un's most powerful aides was omitted from the official funeral committee list.
Marshal Ri Ul-Sol, who died of lung cancer at the weekend, is to be given a state funeral on November 11, and the list of 170 names published on Sunday -- headed by leader Kim Jong-Un -- is an official Who's Who of the top political and military hierarchy.
A notable absentee, however, is Choe Ryong-Hae, a member of the ruling party's politburo standing committee and seen as one of Kim's closest confidantes.
Even if unwell, Choe would normally be on the list and experts said the omission of someone of his stature could not be put down to oversight.
Riot at Australian detention camp after refugee's death
Controversial facility on Christmas Island rocked by standoff between detained asylum seekers and immigration officers.
Diana Al Rifai | | Refugees, Australia, Asylum Seekers
Doha, Qatar - A riot has erupted at a controversial offshore refugee-detention facility in Australia following the death of an asylum seeker.
Immigration officers and refugees confirmed on Monday a standoff between detainees and officers at the detention camp on Christmas Island, located more than 2,000km northwest of Perth in the Indian Ocean, after a Kurdish Iranian refugee died there.
Fazel Chegeni, in his 30s, was reportedly found at the bottom of a cliff.
"On Saturday morning [November 7] the department was advised of the escape of an illegal maritime arrival from Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre [CI IDC] by service provider staff.
"The matter was referred to the Australian Federal Police who commenced a search and discovered a deceased person today [November 8]," the Australian government said in a news release.
The Department of Immigration said staff and security have been withdrawn for security purposes and denied a large scale riot was taking place.
"The protest action began when a small group of Iranian detainees took part in a peaceful protest following the escape from, and death outside the centre, of a detainee on Sunday," its news release said.
Iran's Jewish Community Sees Signs of Hope as Country Opens to West
by
TEHRAN — Iran may be known for its controversial nuclear program anddemonstrations featuring chants of "Death to Israel," but the country also is home to the largest Jewish community in the Middle East.
For the first time in years, that ancient group now has reason to hope for a brighter future after many years of pressure under the Islamic Republic.
The Jewish community has protected legal status — guaranteed a seat in Parliament — but Jews are barred from holding high office. During the Iranian Revolution, Jewish leaders were executed. More recently, anti-Semitism has colored Iranian politics: Ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously questioned whether the Holocaust happened and Iran has challenged Israel's right to exist.
No comments:
Post a Comment