UN Security Council finally losing patience with Myanmar
Updated 0231 GMT (1031 HKT) September 29, 2017
In the past four weeks over half a million Rohingya Muslims have been forced to flee Myanmar to escape an orchestrated campaign of violence described by the UN as "ethnic cleansing."
But it wasn't until Thursday that the UN Security Council held its first public meeting on the situation in more than eight years.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council that the current outbreak of violence has "spiraled into the world's fastest-developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare."
"We've received bone-chilling accounts from those who fled, mainly women, children and the elderly," he said.
Record forest fires in Brazil linked to deforestation and other human activity
September saw more fires than any month on record, as experts say uptick is due to expansion of agriculture and reduction of oversight and surveillance
Brazil has seen more forest fires in September than in any single month since records began, and authorities have warned that 2017 could surpass the worst year on record if action is not taken soon.
Experts say that the blazes are almost exclusively due to human activity, and they attribute the uptick to the expansion of agriculture and a reduction of oversight and surveillance. Lower than average rainfall in this year’s dry season is also an exacerbating factor.
The National Institute of Space Research (INPE) has detected 106,000 fires destroying natural vegetation so far this month – the highest number in a single month since records began in 1998, said Alberto Setzer, coordinator of INPE’s fire monitoring satellite program.
North Korea-US war now 'a real possibility', warns influential Rusi think tank
There is a growing risk action could be taken by Donald Trump to 'resolve' the issue 'sooner rather than later'
A war between North Korea and the US is now a “real possibility”, and would likely result in thousands of people being killed or injured, a respected defence think tank has warned.
War between the two countries would likely involve a full scale invasion of North Korea, and combat would be neither “surgical nor short”, the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) said in a report.
In the event of an attack by either country, the UK would only have a few hours “at most” to decide how to respond, it adds.
IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi 'resurfaces' in audio clip
News of Baghdadi's death would seem to have been greatly exaggerated, if a new recording proves genuine. A purported recording of IS leader issues renewed calls for violence from his followers.
An outlet of the so-called "Islamic State" on Thursday released an audio recording purportedly of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
In June Russia had claimed that Baghdadi was most likely dead following an aistrike outside Raqqa. That was one of several claims that the preacher had died.
In the new 46-minute recording Baghdadi calls on his followers around the world to wage attacks against the West and to keep fighting in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
Students with sugar daddies: ‘It was a money-making scheme’
OBSERVERS
An advertising campaign that targets female students by exhorting them to “Improve your lifestyle – go out with a sugar daddy” has triggered a fierce debate in Belgium this week. A photo of one of the huge adverts for ‘sugar daddy’ website RichMeetBeautiful began to circulate on Facebook on Monday, September 25. Our Observer is a former ‘sugar baby’, who explained why the ‘sugaring’ lifestyle might appeal to students.
"No, this isn't a (bad) joke. This poster is indeed on display outside the university," wrote François Dubuisson as he posted the photo of the controversial advert, which was towed around university campuses in the Belgian capital, Brussels, this week. "Not only does it reach the heights of crass sexism, but it champions student prostitution," he added. The billboard advertises RichMeetBeautiful, a website launched in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland in August 2017 that bills itself as a dating website for ‘sugar daddy dating’.
‘Sugaring’ sites, as they are sometimes known, are dating sites with a difference. Sugar daddies are typically older, wealthy men, possibly married and with children, who pay to go out with a younger woman – a sugar baby. The relationships are often sexual in nature. RichMeetBeautiful says that the perks for a sugar baby include exotic travel, shopping sprees, and finding a mentor, while sugar daddies are told that they will get “respect and admiration” from an “eager protégée” who will make them “feel ten years younger and alive again”.
Japan is having an election next month. Here’s why it matters.
The future of Japanese pacifism is at stake.
Updated by
Japan’s government has just announced plans for a snap election ostensibly about the country’s economic policy. The true stakes, however, are far higher: There is a real possibility that this election will erode Japan’s post-World War II commitment to pacifism — and see a US ally in one of the most unstable parts of the world build up its military.
The country wasn’t supposed to have another parliamentary election until 2018. But on Monday, the center-right Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that elections would be held early, on October 22 — less than a month from now.
This kind of surprise election might seem weird to Americans, who are used to campaign seasons that span the course of years, rather than weeks. But it’s something that happens with some frequency in both Japan and other parliamentary democracies like Great Britain, where prime ministers are empowered to call a new election if they believe it to be in the nation’s interest (or in their own).
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