This week on #VOAOurVoices, as 2019 draws to a close Ayen Bior, Auriane Itangishaka, Hayde Adams FitzPatrick and guest co-host Tatenda Gumbo reflect on a pivotal year for African women. From South African runner Caster Semenya to Somali-American U.S. Congresswoman Illhan Omar, Nigeria’s Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi and Uganda’s Jessica Nabongo, the year came with personal, professional and historical changes and challenges for many African women across the world. In this year’s final #WomentoWatch segment we feature the trailblazing Nigerian director Tope Oshin, who is changing the norms for women in film.

Indian authorities stepped up security in major cities on Friday and suspended mobile data services in some places in an effort to maintain order ahead of protests planned against a new citizenship law.

At least 25 people have been killed in protests across the country since the law, seen as discriminatory toward Muslims, was adopted Dec. 11.

The backlash against the law, pushed through parliament by the Hindu-nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is the biggest challenge he has faced since he was first elected in 2014.

Violence peaked last Friday when police clashed with protesters in several cities after weekly Muslim congregational prayers, especially in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.

Internet cut, police deployed

With more protests expected this week, the Uttar Pradesh administration banned mobile internet services in many parts of the state, including in the provincial capital Lucknow, the state government said.

In the Uttar Pradesh city of Meerut, about 90 km (55 miles) from New Delhi, nearly 3,000 police were deployed, four times more than last Friday, the city’s police chief told Reuters.

At least five people were killed in the city last Friday.

A Reuters witness saw a riot control vehicle with a tear gas cannon mounted on its roof. A vehicle carrying a water cannon was stationed nearby as several policemen in riot gear kept watch.

“We’re working with local politicians, religious leaders and community members to appeal for calm,” Ajay Kumar Sahni, Senior Superintendent of Police in Meerut said. “We expect the situation to remain normal.”

Emergency law in Delhi

In the capital of New Delhi, police imposed an emergency law in some parts of the city, forbidding large gatherings, news channels reported. Such prohibitions have been in place in Uttar Pradesh for more than a week.

Despite the restrictions, thousands are expected to gather for protests after Friday prayers in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Chennai, protest organizers said.

The citizenship legislation makes it easier for minorities from India’s Muslim majority neighbors — Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan — who settled before 2015 to get citizenship.

Critics say the exclusion of Muslims is discriminatory and that the award of citizenship based on religion violates India’s secular constitution.

Muslims, India’s second biggest community by religion, account for about 14% of its 1.3 billion people.

The protests have come as India’s economic growth has slumped to its lowest in more than six years and unemployment remains high.

Australian authorities said Friday they are focused on protecting water plants, pumping stations, pipes and other infrastructure from intense bushfires surrounding Sydney, the country’s largest city.

Firefighters battling the blazes for weeks received a reprieve of slightly cooler, damper conditions over Christmas, but the respite is not expected to last long.

Temperatures in New South Wales (NSW) state are forecast to head back toward 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) early next week, fueling fires near Warragamba Dam, which provides water to about 80% of Sydney’s 5 million residents.

“In recent days up to the cool change, the fires had been a potential threat to supply and assets, particularly in Warragamba and in the Blue Mountains,” a spokesman for the state’s water authority, WaterNSW, told Reuters. “With the coming very hot conditions the fire situation may escalate in both those fronts and possibly elsewhere.”

Warragamba Dam is 65km (40 miles) west of Sydney, catching water flowing from the mountains.

It is at 44.8% capacity, down from almost being full less than three years ago, as a prolonged drought ravages the continent’s east.

40 New South Wales dams

Despite the widespread destruction, the state’s water infrastructure network has not been damaged, the spokesman said.

With more than 40 dams across the state, WaterNSW supplies two-thirds of untreated water to the state’s water utilities, which then treat and clean the resource to provide drinking water to cities and regional towns.

Large quantities of ash and burned material could pose a threat to the quality of water in the dams if the fires are followed by heavy rain.

However, there is no significant rain forecast for NSW in the short-term and WaterNSW has put containment barriers to catch potential debris run-off, the water authority said.

Volunteer firefighters

Australia’s reliance on a large volunteer firefighting force has been tested during this fire season that potentially has months to run through the southern hemisphere summer.

While conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously said compensation for volunteers was not a priority, he said Tuesday that government workers could receive additional paid leave for volunteering.

A senior government minister said Friday the government was now looking into providing wider relief.

“The prime minister is looking at this issue further on how we can provide targeted support in these extreme circumstances so that our volunteers get the support they need to keep volunteering,” Defense Minister Linda Reynolds told media in Perth.

While there are different rules across Australia’s states, volunteers tend to negotiate time off directly with their employer.

Morrison has been under intense political pressure after it was revealed he was holidaying in Hawaii shortly before Christmas while the country grappled with an emergency and two volunteers near the fire frontlines had been killed. Eight deaths, including the two volunteer firefighters, have been linked to the blazes since they flared in spring.

Fires destroy millions of hectares

Fires are traveling immense distances through bushland before hitting towns and containment lines where volunteer firefighters concentrate their resources.

The bushfires have destroyed more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) across the country, dwarfing the terrain burnt by fierce fires in California during 2019.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK Friday sent a news bulletin that incorrectly reported North Korea had launched a missile that fell into waters east of the Japanese archipelago, issuing an apology hours later explaining it was a media training alert.

The news alert came as the United States and its East Asian allies have been on tenterhooks after Pyongyang’s warning this month of a possible “Christmas gift” for Washington in what experts took to mean a possible long-range missile test.

The NHK bulletin, sent out 22 minutes after midnight on its website, read: “North Korean missile seen as having fallen into seas about 2,000 km east of Hokkaido’s Cape Erimo,” suggesting a flight path over Japanese territory.

At 2:28 a.m., NHK issued an apology on its website, explaining that the text was meant for training purposes and was “not true.”

“We apologize to our viewers and the public,” NHK said.

Warning citizens about disasters and security threats is one of the mandates for the publicly funded broadcaster, whose newscasters regularly and frequently hold drills for earthquakes and other disaster coverage.

When North Korea did launch missiles that flew over Cape Erimo in Japan’s far north in 2017, warnings spread through sirens and government-issued “J-alerts” on millions of cell phones throughout Japan, jolting some out of sleep.

NHK had also sent an erroneous news alert about a North Korean missile in January of last year. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had given the United States until the end of the year to propose new concessions in talks over his country’s nuclear arsenal and reducing tensions between the adversaries.

Its last test of an intercontinental ballistic missile was in November 2017 when it fired a Hwasong-15, the largest missile it has ever tested. Pyongyang said the missile was capable of reaching all of the United States.

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake was moderate, which can cause considerable damage, and was centered 33 miles (53 km) east of Bushehr, a nuclear plant on Iran’s southern coast.

This is a breaking story; check back for more details.
 

To tourists they are a time-honored, charming way of seeing the sights, but animal rights activists say Montreal’s horse-drawn carriages are a cruel and unnecessary relic of yesteryear.

A longstanding feud between the coachmen and their critics looks set to end however with the unique mode of transport set to disappear from the streets of Canada’s second city by year-end.

“You can pet him if you want,” Nathalie Matte tells onlookers attracted to her hoofed beast with its flowing mane and tail.

In the heart of Montreal’s Old Port neighborhood, a half-dozen horses and carriages are lined up outside the Notre Dame basilica, waiting for riders.

A group of tourists, tempted by offers of a languid and comfortable ride along cobblestone streets and a complimentary blanket across their lap on a cold winter’s day, snap pictures.

The carriages this time of year are decorated with red ribbons and fir branches to mark the Christmas holidays.

“It’s a unique way to see the city rather than just taking the bus or the subway,” said Mujtaba Ali, 29, who is visiting with family from neighboring Ontario, as he steps off a carriage.

Cultural heritage

Horses and landaus — four-wheel, convertible carriages named after the German city of their origin — are a part of Montreal’s cultural heritage, owner Luc Desparois said.

“They’ve been around as long as Montreal has existed,” he told AFP.

The Quebec city was founded by European settlers in the 1600s at the site of an indigenous village inhabited as far back as 4,000 years ago, although the landau itself was invented in the 18th century.

City Hall has ordered an end to the tourist rides out of concern for the horses. In 2018, the council passed a bylaw banishing horse-drawn carriages, starting in 2020.

The death of a horse in 2018 while pulling a carriage was the last straw for animal rights groups and prompted mayor Valerie Plante to speak out against the carriage industry, saying it was no longer welcome in Montreal.

The decision will put some 50 coachmen and their horses out of work.

Animal welfare

“It is a tradition that has long been appreciated but today I think it is time to move on,” said Jean-François Parenteau, the city’s pointman in the case.

The city, he said, must “show concern for the animals.”

His comments drew praise from Galahad, a Quebec association for the protection of horses that lobbied for the ban. Its founder, Chamie Angie Cadorette, said the horses faced tough working conditions.

“It is not just an hour a day. It is eight hours a day, going up and down roads in traffic,” she said, accusing horse owners of neglect.

“They say they are mistreated. Prove it,” said Desparois, who recently lost a legal challenge to the ban.

City Hall, under pressure from activists, had long sought to ban the carriages, but until now had managed only incremental steps, such as requiring horses be taken off the road when summer temperatures soared.

That did not satisfy animal rights groups.

Loss of income, career

In April, to prevent out-of-work horses from ending up at slaughterhouses, the city said it would pay the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Can$1,000 (US$760) for each horse offered a refuge or adoptive family.

As of Dec. 16, only one application to join the program had been made.

The offer is a “total insult” for Desparois, owner of the Lucky Luc stable, which has 15 horses and employs 15 coachmen.

“You could offer me $10,000 tomorrow morning and I would not sell them to you,” he said, adding that after 34 years in the business his animals mean more to him than money could.

After the ban takes effect, the “king of horse-drawn carriages,” as local media has dubbed him, plans to take his horses to other nearby communities or maybe even to Ottawa.

Neither option, he says, will be as profitable as rides in the Old Port, where he charges Can$53 per half-hour ride or Can$85 for an hour with an average of two to seven rides per day.

Older coachmen will simply take early retirement. Others will likely leave the profession.

“I won’t have a choice but to quit. I won’t have the means to move to Ottawa,” said Nathalie Matte, 52, a coachwoman who plans to return to a previous job as a groom.

City Hall, meanwhile, is working on a retraining program to help coachmen transition to other tourist jobs.

Fourteen troops were killed when “heavily-armed terrorists” ambushed a convoy in the western Niger region of Tillaberi, the interior ministry said Thursday.

“After a fierce battle … seven police and seven national guards were killed” Wednesday, it said in a statement.

“A guard has been listed as missing,” the ministry said, adding, “the enemy suffered many losses.” It did not give details.

The security forces had been escorting a team to carry out voter registration in the district of Sanam ahead of presidential and legislative elections due in late 2020, it added.

The team was “secured and returned to Sanam safe and sound,” the statement said.

Niger, a poor, landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel, is on the front line of a jihadist insurgency.

Its troops are fighting Boko Haram militants on the southeast border with Nigeria and jihadists allied with the Islamic State group in the west near Mali.

On Dec. 10, 71 soldiers were killed in Tillaberi when hundreds of jihadists attacked a military camp with shelling and mortars.

It was the worst single toll since jihadist violence spread from Mali in 2015.

Niger is part of a five-nation anti-jihadist task force known as the G5, set up in 2014 with Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Chad.

Burkina Faso on Thursday was observing its second day of mourning after a wave of jihadist attacks in the north of the country left 42 dead, also its worst one-day casualties since 2015.

A recent trade fair in Tokyo showcased the robots of 2019.  Engineers created some that play games and others that could save lives.  As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, these robots exist to make the world a little better.

Dozens of protesters staged a sit-in outside the central bank and the Lebanese Banks’ Association building Thursday to protest the banks’ policies amid unprecedented capital controls.

The protesters called on citizens to stop paying their loans and taxes and demanded that loan payments be rescheduled after amending interest rates.

Banks have imposed weekly limits on withdrawals of U.S. dollars amid a shortage in liquidity and as the country grapples with its worst economic and financial crisis since the end of the 1975-90 civil war. The country has been without a prime minister since ongoing mass protests forced the resignation of Premier Saad Hariri on Oct. 29.

Meanwhile, layoffs are increasing, salary cuts have become the norm and prices are quickly rising.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh told reporters Thursday the bank would investigate all bank transfers that took place in 2019, referring to recent reports that senior politicians were allowed to transfer money abroad even as they imposed unprecedented restrictions on transfers and withdrawals by rank-and-file  depositors.

“We hope the country improves so the economy can improve,” Salameh said, without commenting directly on the controls imposed by the banks, which many experts say are illegal.

China, Iran, and Russia will hold joint naval drills, amid tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The military exercises will take place in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman from December 27 to 30, officials in Beijing and Tehran announced.

China will send the Xining, a guided-missile destroyer, to the drills, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian told reporters on December 26. He did not give details on how many personnel or ships would take part overall.

In Tehran, senior armed-forces spokesman Aboldazl Shekarchi said the drills would “stabilize security” in the region. He said the drill’s purpose was to bolster “international commerce security in the region” and “fighting terrorism and piracy.”

The drills are coming at a time of tensions between the United States and Iran.

Washington has proposed a U.S.-led naval mission in the Persian Gulf, following a string of attacks in gulf waters that the United States and its allies blamed on Iran. Tehran denies the accusations.

Friction has increased since President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran in May 2018 and reimposed crippling economic sanctions on the Islamic republic.

 

People along a swath of southern Asia gazed at the sky in marvel on Thursday at a “ring of fire” solar eclipse.
                   
The so-called annular eclipse, in which a thin outer ring of the sun is still visible, could be seen along a path stretching from India and Pakistan to Thailand and Indonesia.
                   
Authorities in Indonesia provided telescopes and hundreds of special glasses to protect viewers’ eyes. Thousands of people gazed at the sky and cheered and clapped as the sun transformed into a dark orb for more than two minutes, briefly plunging the sky into darkness. Hundreds of others prayed at nearby mosques.
                   
“How amazing to see the ring of fire when the sun disappeared slowly,” said Firman Syahrizal, a resident of Sinabang in Indonesia’s Banda Aceh province who witnessed the eclipse with his family.
                   
The previous annular solar eclipse in February 2017 was also visible over a slice of Indonesia.

Global carbon dioxide emissions rose by point-six percent this year, according to a new estimate. That’s at a time when scientists say the world needs to sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to stave off the worst of climate change. There was a glimpse of good news in the data, though. Burning coal for energy is the single largest source of CO2, and coal use declined a bit this year. Some experts say a global shift away from the dirty fuel is underway. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more

 

North Korea may not have delivered a so-called “Christmas gift” to the United States, at least not on Christmas Day, but U.S.-North Korea tensions appear far from resolved as Pyongyang’s end-of-year deadline for nuclear talks approaches.

There was widespread speculation that North Korea might conduct an intercontinental ballistic missile test around the holiday season, after a North Korean foreign ministry official earlier this month cryptically promised a “Christmas gift” to the United States.

But there were no reported weapons tests Wednesday (Christmas Day), and North Korean state media refrained from any major criticism of the United States as of midday Thursday.

End-of-year deadline

The quiet may not last long. North Korea has imposed an end-of-year deadline for the United States to soften its stance on stalled nuclear talks. Two upcoming events on North Korea’s domestic political calendar may also help determine North Korea’s intentions.

Before the end of the year, North Korea’s ruling party is set to hold a meeting of senior politicians, who could announce far-reaching foreign policy decisions.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s annual New Year’s Day speech will also be closely watched. In his speech last year, Kim threatened to take his country a “new way” if nuclear talks remain stalled.

Among the more provocative options that Kim could announce, according to analysts: a suspension or termination of negotiations with the United States or the resumption of long-range missile or nuclear tests.

North Korea has for weeks signaled preparations for a major missile launch.

In late November, North Korea warned of a “real ballistic missile” test under the “nose” of Japan. In December, it conducted two engine tests, apparently for long-range rockets.

North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations earlier this month declared that denuclearization is off the negotiating table and that talks with the United States are no longer needed.

A vague … but viral threat

At one point earlier this month, North Korean state media released almost daily warnings about its end-of-year deadline, including the vague threat about the so-called “Christmas gift.”

“What is left to be done now is the U.S. option and it is entirely up to the U.S. what Christmas gift it will select to get,” said Ri Thae Song, vice minister of foreign affairs, in a statement via the Korean Central News Agency on December 3.

The statement never specified what the “gift” would be, when it would be delivered, or what the U.S. must do to avoid receiving it. Nonetheless, the “Christmas gift” became a dominant North Korea media narrative in December, drawing major headlines in international media outlets.

In the leadup to Christmas, the topic was trending on Twitter, both internationally and in the United States, with many users joking about what they would like to accomplish before North Korea delivers its gift.

“Nothing is a better demonstration of how effective North Korea’s public comms tactics are than the fact that we’re all taking the notion of a ‘Christmas present’ so literally/seriously,” Mintaro Oba, a former State Department official who focused on the Koreas, said via Twitter.

“I’m not sure North Korea initially intended for the ‘Christmas present’ language to signify ‘expect something right on Christmas.’ Rather, they wanted to heighten the pressure of the end of year deadline in a language they knew we’d understand. But honestly, who knows,” Oba said.

Many analysts criticized the constant speculation, suggesting it was increasing U.S.-North Korea tensions.

“In this regard, it seems that many media and experts are encouraging North Korean provocations, and would in fact like to see them happen,” said Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.

Kim also points out that North Korea never said the “Christmas gift” would be an ICBM test.

“If North Korea really wants to launch an ICBM, then they won’t announce it ahead of time,” he said.

According to a report by the U.S.-based Cable News Network (CNN), which cited “a source familiar with the North Korean leadership’s current mindset,” Pyongyang’s “Christmas gift” will likely be a new “hard-line policy toward the United States that involves taking denuclearization off the table.”

Talks stalled

Nuclear talks have been stalled since February, when a Hanoi meeting between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump broke down without a deal. The two sides held working-level talks in October, but North Korea walked away and has since boycotted the talks.

Trump has said his personal relationship with Kim remains strong, but has recently offered a less optimistic view of the nuclear talks.

“Everybody’s got surprises for me. But let’s see what happens. I handle it as they come along,” Trump said Tuesday from Florida, where he is spending the holidays.

“Maybe (the Christmas gift) is a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test,” Trump added.

A long-range missile test risks embarrassing Trump, who once declared “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”

North Korea this year has conducted 13 rounds of short-range ballistic missile and rocket artillery tests. Trump has downplayed those tests as unimportant.

But Trump has hinted that he would view bigger North Korean provocations as an attempt to interfere in his re-election campaign.

Lee Juhyun contributed to this re port.

U.S. President Trump pledged during his 2016 presidential campaign that he would end the U.S. war in Afghanistan. This year saw peace talks between U.S. officials and the Afghan Taliban stop and start, as violence continued to take the lives of Afghan civilians and U.S. service members. VOA’s Lina Rozbih has more on efforts to end the decades-long conflict.
 

 

 

AP Photo transref:BKWS301, transref:BKWS302

 China’s imports of soybeans surged in November following the announcement of an interim trade deal with the United States. 

Imports rose 53.7% over a year earlier to 5.4 million tons, according to customs data.

Imports of U.S. soybeans more than doubled from the previous month to 2.6 million tons, according to AWeb.com, a news website that serves the Chinese farming industry. 

China cut off purchases of American soybeans, the country’s biggest import from the United States, after President Donald Trump raised import duties on Chinese goods in a dispute over Beijing’s technology ambitions and trade surplus. 

The two governments announced an interim “Phase 1” agreement in October but have yet to release details. U.S. officials say it might be signed as early as January.

U.S. officials said as part of that deal, Beijing will buy more American farm exports. Chinese officials have yet to confirm the possible scale of purchases.

Chinese government spokespeople said in September importers were placing orders for American soybeans but no details of purchases have been announced.

Chinese buyers use soybeans as animal feed and to crush for cooking oil.

Beijing bought more Brazilian soybeans, but no other supplier could fully replace the large scale of American supplies. That added to the strain on Chinese pig farmers who are struggling with an outbreak of African swine fever that has devastated herds.

Italian Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti told Reuters on  Wednesday that he had resigned after failing to obtain from the government billions of euros he said were needed to improve the country’s schools and universities. 

The resignation was a blow to the embattled government, whose ruling parties are at odds on issues ranging from eurozone reform to migrant rights. 

It also underscores the problems of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, Fioramonti’s party, which is trying to reorganize amid widespread internal dissatisfaction with its leader, Luigi Di Maio. This month three 5-Star senators jumped ship to join the right-wing League in opposition. 

Fioramonti told Reuters he had tendered his “irrevocable resignation” to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in a letter on Monday. 

Pledge to quit

Fioramonti said shortly after the government of 5-Star and the center-left Democratic Party was formed in September that he would quit unless education spending was raised by 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in the 2020 budget. 

Few believed him, even as the budget continued its passage through parliament and it became clear the government had little intention of hiking taxes or cutting spending to find the funds he demanded. The budget was approved on Monday ahead of a December 31 deadline. 

“It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that a minister keeps his word,” Fioramonti told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. 

Fioramonti said he would still support the government in parliament, where he is a lower-house deputy. 

Italy spends 3.6% of gross domestic product on primary to university education, compared with an average of 5% among 32 countries in a report by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.

Fioramonti, a former economics professor at South Africa’s Pretoria University, has been one of Italy’s most outspoken ministers during his three months in office. His proposals for new taxes on airline tickets, plastic and sugary foods to raise funds for education were attacked by critics who said Italians were already overtaxed. 

Green policies

A vocal supporter of green policies, Fioramonti made headlines when he announced Italy would next year become the first country to make it compulsory for schoolchildren to study climate change and sustainable development. 

Earlier this month, he said Italian energy giant ENI should halt oil exploration and focus on renewable energy. 

“I have sometimes felt I could have had more support from my own party over my proposals on the environment,” Fioramonti said. “5-Star was born 10 years ago with a strongly green platform, but it seems to have got lost along the way.” 

Singapore police are investigating an Indian national for allegedly being involved in a public protest against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s controversial citizenship law. 

Unauthorized public assemblies and protests over political situations in other countries are banned in Singapore.  

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to Indian streets to protest the citizenship law enacted by Modi’s Hindu nationalist government that provides non-Muslim minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who moved there before 2015 a pathway to Indian citizenship. 

Singapore police said following a report on December 24 they were investigating a 32-year-old male Indian national for participating in “a public assembly without a police permit” at the Marina Bay waterfront financial and tourist district.  

“He allegedly carried out the activity in Marina Bay, to show his opposition to India’s Citizenship Amendment Bill,” police said in a statement late Wednesday. 

The statement did not give any more details of the assembly. Local media reported the man posted a picture of himself on social media with a placard “to express his unhappiness.” 

The police said organizing or participating in a public assembly without a police permit in Singapore is illegal and that they would not grant any permit for assemblies that advocate political causes of other countries. 

Rebels in Myanmar’s Rakhine region said a captured official from Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling party has died, two weeks after being taken for organizing protests against genocide accusations faced by Myanmar at the World Court. 

The Arakan Army rebels said Buthidaung National League for Democracy (NLD) Chairman Ye Thein, the most senior civilian official to die in the growing insurgency, was killed Monday in an attack on the rebels by Myanmar’s army. 

There was no independent confirmation. 

The incident underscored the increasing loss of government control in a region that came to world attention when 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh to escape an army crackdown on a different rebel group in 2017. 

The Arakan Army said its positions had come under attack from Myanmar’s army. 

“Due to big explosions, some detainees died and some were wounded. The NLD chairman from Buthidaung, Ye Thein, died on scene,” the Arakan Army said in the statement. It said he had been taken prisoner on December 11. 

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in Rakhine since clashes between the Arakan Army and the army began around a year ago. 

The insurgents, whose forces are from the largely Buddhist Rakhine people, are fighting for greater autonomy. The say they have no links to the Rohingya rebel group whose attacks sparked the 2017 army crackdown that led to the accusations of genocide brought against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice by The Gambia. 

The Arakan Army is among several ethnic armed factions that have said they support the case against Myanmar. 

Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto ruler, personally led Myanmar’s defense against the accusations at hearings in The Hague earlier this month. 

The army made no comment on the report of the NLD official’s death. NLD party spokesman Myo Nyunt said it was the responsibility of the Arakan Army. 

Syrian government troops, supported by Russian warplanes, have advanced on a rebel-held town in the northwestern province of Idlib, local sources said Wednesday. 

The offensive against the town of Maaret al-Numan in the southern prot of Idlib has caused a major influx of civilians to safer areas along the Syrian-Turkish border, a war monitoring group reported. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has researchers across the war-torn country, said that following intense fighting in the area, Syrian government forces took control of dozens of villages around the strategic town, killing dozens of people and forcing thousands of local residents to flee from their homes. 

“The town will most likely be handed over to Turkish military and Russian military police in the next few days, if not hours,” Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, told VOA, adding that rebels could not carry on the fight. 

There is an agreement between Turkey and Russia to remove all Islamist rebels from Maaret al-Numan and nearby towns in Idlib, he said.  

Center of contention

For years, Idlib has been a center of contention between Russia and Turkey, two powers that support opposite sides of Syria’s eight-year civil war. 

In September 2018, Moscow and Ankara reached an agreement that postponed a planned Syrian government offensive on Idlib and other areas near the Turkish border. 

As part of that agreement, Turkey was required to remove all extremist groups from the province, some of which are tied to the al-Qaida terrorist group. But Turkey allegedly has failed to implement its part of the deal. 

Turkey also has 12 military observation posts in the area as part of a de-escalation agreement between Turkey and Russia. 

On Tuesday, a Turkish military post reportedly was besieged by advancing Syrian troops. 

A Syrian opposition news channel, Orient News, reported that Islamist militants have been fighting government troops on several fronts, killing at least 10 soldiers on Wednesday. 

Key highway

Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been pushing toward the town of Maaret al-Numan, which is located on a highway connecting the capital, Damascus, in the south, to the city of Aleppo in the north. The objective of Assad’s forces is to take full control of the strategic M5 highway. 

Idlib province, home to nearly 3 million people, is the last major stronghold of rebel forces fighting Syrian troops. The province is largely controlled by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaida affiliate in Syria. 

Syrian forces and their Russian allies launched a major offensive last week into the southern part of Idlib. The offensive came after weeks of aerial bombardment that displaced tens of thousands of people. 

The military escalation has caused dozens of civilian casualties and displaced 80,000 Syrians, the U.N. said this week. 

But local groups, including the Syrian Observatory, estimated that more than 100,000 civilians in Idlib already had been displaced.