Day: January 16, 2022

Nearly a year after Myanmar’s military seized power, sources say crime rates are rising throughout the country, largely because authorities are too busy focusing on the political fallout from the coup and countering armed resistance to junta rule.

Residents of both rural and urban areas told RFA’s Myanmar Service that as members of the security forces continue to deal with widespread public unrest from the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, unseating of the democratically elected National League for Democracy government, theft and assault have become rampant, with criminal acts increasingly occurring in broad daylight.

The Economist recently ranked Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon 58th out of 60 cities — following Lagos and Caracas — in terms of personal security and 60th overall in its 2021 Safe City Index, which looks at 76 indicators, including healthcare, infrastructure and environmental security.

The owner of a bicycle delivery service in Yangon region’s Shwepyithar township named Kyaw Kyaw told RFA that he was robbed of his phone and wallet by men on a motorbike in November while making his rounds.

“At first, I thought it was a prank by some of my friends,” he said, explaining that snatch-and-grabs were far less common prior to the coup.

“They ran off on their motorbike and I was on my bicycle. There were over 200,000 kyats (U.S. $115) and bank cards in my wallet. Half the money was mine and the rest belonged to my customers. I had to use my savings to pay them back.”

The same month, three men on a motorcycle snatched a handbag from two siblings riding a bicycle in Yangon’s North Okkalapa township, a member of their family named Ma Ei said.

“The two siblings were on their bicycle and the thugs snatched away the handbag while on the road,” she said.

“Though they grabbed back, the strap of the handbag snapped and the three escaped on their motorcycle. There were 50,000 kyats (U.S. $30) and two cell phones inside. They did not dare chase them as it could have been dangerous. My aunt’s medical records were on the phones and now they are lost.”

Both Kyaw Kyaw and Ma Ei said they did not report the robberies to the police, as it was unlikely the police would be able or willing to track down their personal items.

No access to police

In the 11 months since Myanmar’s coup, the military has killed at least 1,469 civilians and arrested more than 8,600 others, mostly during widespread peaceful demonstrations, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Pho Phyu, a human rights lawyer, said that there have been several attacks on police stations during the unrest. Civilians are now mostly prohibited from entering the stations to report crimes.

“You cannot file a case because the police themselves are so worried about their own safety they won’t allow civilians to enter the premises. They have armed guards at the entrance,” he said.

“If you are lucky to get a chance to file a case, there won’t be any investigations or hearings.”

Victims of crimes reported feeling more insecure because the police can no longer carry out their day-to-day responsibilities in the wake of the political turmoil.

When contacted by RFA, junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said incidents can be reported to local government administrative offices and insisted that crimes are being handled by the police. However, he acknowledged that security has been stepped up at some police stations, making it more difficult for citizens to report crimes.

“You cannot report every single issue to the police station. Only police cases should be reported to the police station, and they will be accepted according to the rule of law,” he said.

“Some police stations have tight security but only in certain places — not throughout the country. In some areas on the outskirts of Yangon … there have been attacks and tight security measures are in place for stations like that.”

Feelings of insecurity

Last month, a group of men robbed a phone shop in the small town of Pyundaza, in southern central Myanmar’s Bago region.

A friend of the shop owner told RFA that residents believe the authorities will not protect them and therefore unlikely to ask them for help.

“Most do not disclose the amount of money they lost, nor do they go to the police station for fear of further retaliation from the robbers,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

On Sept. 9, a train engineer in Myanmar’s second-largest city Mandalay named Win Ko Oo who left his job to join the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, was beaten to death by a group of unidentified men as they attempted to rob him from a motorcycle.

A Mandalay resident who also declined to be named told RFA he is now afraid to leave his home amid.

“We all are struggling to make ends meet and there is no guarantee of our safety,” he said.

“We cannot get help from anyone. Even in broad daylight, we must check in our rear-view mirror all the time or look ahead for half a mile or so to see if there are any dangerous elements around. We feel so insecure.”

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

SYDNEY/WELLINGTON — Australia and New Zealand dispatched surveillance flights on Monday to assess the damage in Tonga, isolated from the rest of the world due to the eruption of an underwater volcano that triggered a tsunami and blanketed the Pacific island with ash.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged to provide support for Tonga as early as possible but said the volcano ash had hampered relief efforts.

“There’s been a lot of challenges there with the ash cloud and the disruption to communications and so we are working together to get as much support to Tonga as we possibly can,” Morrison told radio station 2GB on Monday.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology told Reuters in an emailed statement on Monday there was “no current volcanic activity, and the volcano is not spewing ash.” It said ash that had reached the Australian state of Queensland was from a previous eruption.

Australia’s Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja said initial reports suggested no mass casualties and that Tonga’s airport “appears to be in relatively good condition” but there were “significant damage” to roads and bridges.

Seselja said Australia was liaising with the United States, New Zealand, France and other countries to coordinate responses.

Some power restored

New Zealand’s Defense Minister Peeni Henare said at a news conference in Auckland that power had been restored in large parts of Nuku’alofa and some communications are back up.

A New Zealand Hercules C-130 would perform drops of essentials after the requirements are assessed and the navy will also be deployed.

An underwater volcano off Tonga erupted on Saturday, triggering a tsunami on the shores of Tonga and cutting off phone and internet lines for the entire island.

There are no official reports of injuries or deaths in Tonga as yet but communications are still limited and outlying coastal areas remain cut off.

Satellite images show some of the outlying islands submerged.

A U.K. woman has reportedly gone missing after she was washed away, media reports said.

Angela Glover and her husband James, who own the Happy Sailor Tattoo in Nuku’alofa, had gone to get their dogs when the wave hit. James managed to hold onto a tree but his wife, who also runs a dog rescue on the island, and their dogs were washed away, New Zealand state broadcaster TVNZ reported. Several social media posts from family and friends said she has still not been found.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Sunday that the tsunami had a significant impact on infrastructure.

Red Cross said it was mobilizing its regional network to respond to what it called the worst volcanic eruptions the Pacific has experienced in decades.

“Red Cross has enough relief supplies to support 1,200 households with essential items such as tarpaulins, blankets, kitchen sets, shelter tool kits and hygiene kits,” said Katie Greenwood, IFRC’s Pacific Head of Delegation told Reuters.

Greenwood said the agency is expecting up to 80,000 people to be affected by the tsunami.

“That is what we are planning for as a worst-case scenario until we can get further confirmation from the people on the ground,” she said.

The agency said there were concerns that communities may not have access to safe drinking water as a result of saltwater inundation caused by the tsunami waves and ashfall.

Massive blast

The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano has erupted regularly over the past few decades, but the impact of Saturday’s eruption was felt was far away as Fiji, New Zealand, the United States and Japan. Two people drowned off a beach in Northern Peru due to high waves caused by the tsunami.

About 26 hours since the eruption, nations thousands of kilometers to the west have volcanic ash clouds over them, New Zealand forecaster WeatherWatch said in a statement.

Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia are affected and the ash cloud is expected to fan out towards eastern Australia on Monday, it said.

Early data suggests the volcanic eruption was the biggest blast since Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines 30 years ago, New Zealand-based volcanologist Shane Cronin told Radio New Zealand.

“This is an eruption best witnessed from space,” Cronin said.

“The large and explosive lateral spread of the eruption suggests that it was probably the biggest one since about the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo,” Cronin said.

Source: voice of America

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — A massive volcanic eruption in Tonga that triggered tsunami waves around the Pacific caused “significant damage” to the island nation’s capital and smothered it in dust, but the full extent was unclear with communications still hampered Monday.

The eruption on Saturday was so powerful it was recorded around the world and heard as far away as Alaska, triggering a tsunami that flooded Pacific coastlines from Japan to the United States.

The capital Nuku’alofa suffered “significant” damage, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding there had been no reports of injury or death but a full assessment was not yet possible with communication lines down.

“The tsunami has had a significant impact on the foreshore on the northern side of Nuku’alofa with boats and large boulders washed ashore,” Ardern said after contact with the New Zealand embassy in Tonga.

“Nuku’alofa is covered in a thick film of volcanic dust but otherwise conditions are calm and stable.”

Tonga was in need of water supplies, she said, as “the ash cloud has caused contamination.”

There has been no word on damage in the outer islands and New Zealand will send an air force reconnaissance aircraft “as soon as atmospheric conditions allow”, the country’s Defense Force tweeted.

Tonga has also accepted Canberra’s offer to send a surveillance flight, Australia’s foreign office said, adding it is also immediately prepared to supply “critical humanitarian supplies.”

The United States and the World Health Organization have also pledged support, while the United Nations children’s agency said it was preparing emergency supplies to fly in.

A 1.2-meter wave swept ashore in the Tongan capital with residents reporting they had fled to higher ground, leaving behind flooded houses, some with structural damage, as small stones and ash fell from the sky.

“It was massive, the ground shook, our house was shaking. It came in waves. My younger brother thought bombs were exploding nearby,” resident Mere Taufa told the Stuff news website Saturday.

She said water filled their home minutes later and she watched the wall of a neighboring house collapse.

“We just knew straight away it was a tsunami. Just water gushing into our home,” Taufa said.

“You could just hear screams everywhere, people screaming for safety, for everyone to get to higher ground.”

Tonga’s King Tupou VI was reported to have been evacuated from the Royal Palace in Nuku’alofa and taken by police convoy to a villa well away from the coastline.

Dramatic satellite images showed the long, rumbling eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano spew smoke and ash in the air, with a thunderous roar heard 10,000 kilometers away in Alaska.

The eruption triggered tsunamis across the Pacific with waves of 1.74 meters measured in Chanaral, Chile, more than 10,000 kilometers away, and smaller waves seen along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico.

Two women drowned on a beach in northern Peru due to “anomalous waves” caused by the eruption, authorities said Sunday, and dozens of people required rescue from flooding in the south of the country.

In California, the city of Santa Cruz was hit by flooding due to a tidal surge generated by the tsunami, while waves of around 1.2 meters hit along Japan’s Pacific coast.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded Saturday’s eruption as equivalent to a 5.8-magnitude earthquake at zero depth.

The volcano’s eruption lasted at least eight minutes and sent plumes of gas, ash and smoke several kilometers into the air.

New Zealand scientist Marco Brenna described the impact as “relatively mild” but said another eruption with a much bigger impact could not be ruled out.

The eruption was so powerful it was even heard in Alaska, the UAF Geophysical Institute tweeted, saying the fact it was audible was “fairly unique.”

It cited Alaska Volcano Observatory scientist David Fee as recalling “only a couple other volcanic eruptions doing something like this” — namely, the 19th-century eruption of Indonesia’s Krakatau, and Alaska’s Novarupta, the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

The Fife weather station in Scotland tweeted it was “just incredible to think of the power that can send a shockwave around the world” after the eruptions produced a jump in its air pressure graph.

Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai, which lies about 65 kilometers north of Nuku’alofa, has a history of volatility.

In recent years, it breached sea level during a 2009 eruption while in 2015 it spewed so many large rocks and ash into the air that when they settled, a new island had formed two kilometers long by one kilometer wide and 100 meters high.

 

Source: Voice of America

ROME — A Roman villa housing the only mural by Caravaggio and at the center of a legal battle between a former Playboy model and the sons of her late husband, an Italian prince, will go up for auction Tuesday.

The sprawling property, valued at 471 million euros (almost $540 million), is a Baroque jewel with gorgeous gardens and a valuable art collection that also includes frescoes by Guercino.

Art lovers are demanding the Italian state step in to buy the spectacular property, arguing that artistic treasures should be protected and available for public viewing.

But the government might not have enough to pay for it — the auction is only open to those who can put up 10% of the starting price of 353 million euros — and rumored buyers include Bill Gates and the Sultan of Brunei.

The auction was ordered by a Rome court following a dispute among the heirs of Prince Nicolo Ludovisi Boncompagni, the head of the family who died in 2018.

The dispute is between the prince’s third and final wife, Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi, a 72-year-old American former real estate broker and actor who once posed for Playboy, and the children from his first marriage.

Auction of the century

The residence of the noble Ludovisi Boncompagni family for hundreds of years, the 2,800-square-meter Casino dell’Aurora is located in central Rome between the Via Veneto and the Spanish Steps.

Its sale is being held behind closed doors and has been dubbed by Italian media as the “auction of the century” in its breathless reporting on the legal wrangling around it and who could buy it.

There are those who believe the cultural gem should be preserved for the nation.

Almost 35,000 people have called on the Italian government to exercise “its pre-emptive right” to buy the building and the Caravaggio, which alone is valued at 350 million euros, according to a petition on change.org.

“Sign this petition to prevent another piece of Italy, such a beautiful one, from being sold off,” it said.

However, the estimated price of the villa represents a quarter of the annual budget of the culture ministry.

Culture Minister Dario Franceschini wrote this month to Prime Minister Mario Draghi and the finance minister to raise the issue of the sale, according to reports.

Under Italian law, the government can only exercise its pre-emptive rights after the sale to a private individual, and then within 60 days of the sale’s competition — and for the same price.

‘Beautiful, important building’

The oil mural by Caravaggio — real name Michelangelo Merisi — dates to 1597 and is located on the ceiling in a corridor on the first floor of the palace.

It depicts Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune with the world at the center, marked by signs of the zodiac.

“It’s certainly one of his earliest (works) and is very interesting because the subject is a mythological subject, and Caravaggio painted almost only sacred works,” art historian Claudio Strinati told AFP.

The palace was originally an outbuilding in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi, of which nothing remains today. Its name comes from a Guercino fresco depicting the goddess Aurora, or Dawn, on her chariot.

“It is a very beautiful, very important building, with some very beautiful paintings,” said Strinati, a former museum curator in Rome.

“It would certainly be a positive thing if it became public property, it could become the home of a museum or particularly important cultural activities.”

The auction is due to start Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) and will last 24 hours.

 

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA — The United Nations is allocating $150 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund to support seriously underfunded humanitarian operations in 13 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.

Topping the list of underfunded crises are Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. These countries will receive between $20- and $25 million each to help them implement life-saving humanitarian operations.

International support for Syria has all but dissipated after more than a decade of conflict. Some 13 million refugees and internally displaced Syrians are living in a state of destitution, with little recourse to basic relief.

The DRC is one of the longest and most complex humanitarian crises. Millions of people are suffering from conflict, displacement, epidemics, and acute hunger.

The United Nations warns the humanitarian crisis in Sudan is deepening, as political instability grows and the country contends with flooding, rising food prices and disease outbreaks.

Jens Laerke, the spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says the distribution of funds made by Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths is the largest ever. He says it beats last year’s $135 million by $15 million.

“This announcement of funding will help the prioritization of life-saving projects to respond to for example food security, nutrition, health, and protection needs. More detailed strategies are expected from these countries later this month,” he said.

Other recipient countries include Myanmar, where the U.N. is providing aid to some three million people suffering from conflict, COVID-19, and a failing economy. U.N. aid also will go to Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger, three countries in Africa’s central Sahel that are struggling with mass displacement because of armed attacks.

Laerke says these countries as well as six others in dire straits in Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, including Haiti and Honduras, will receive between $5- and $12 million each from the U.N. fund to help them tackle their emergency needs.

“These allocations happen twice a year to countries selected because of their low level of funding, severity of humanitarian needs, and vulnerability,” he said. “These countries have just entered a new cycle of humanitarian fundraising and program implementation on the back of underfunded appeals from last year, all below 50 percent covered at year’s end.”

Humanitarian needs are growing across the world. The United Nations says it expects at least 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2022 and it will require $41 billion to assist the most vulnerable.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest humanitarian appeal. The U.N. recently launched a record $4.5 billion appeal to assist 22 million Afghans, more than half the country’s population.

 

Source: Voice of America