Latest Hindi Entertainment News From Bollywood | Jasleen Matharu | 3 October 2018 | 8:00 PM
A movement in Myanmar to build statues of independence hero General Aung San risks renewed
tensions with the country's ethnic minorities.
It could also affect the ruling party's chances in planned elections, observers say.
Aung San is the father of National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
He is popular in large parts of Myanmar, also called Burma.
Aung San's critics are more likely to be found in border areas, where many ethnic minorities
live.
Some there say the statues are a part of what they call continued "Burmanization."
They instead would like to see statues representing heroes that belong to their own ethnic group.
In Kayah State, there have been large protests against a planned Aung San statue.
"If we're going to have statues, it should be of heroes in our state," said Mie Mie,
a civil society leader.
He added that the central government should ask local people what statues they want.
Ethnic minorities have long been distrustful of a central government dominated by the country's
Bamar-majority.
When Burma gained independence from the British in 1948, representatives of ethnic minority
groups signed a deal that would provide them with "full autonomy."
The agreement was never honored.
The distrust grew stronger over many years of military rule.
Armed ethnic groups operating in the border areas fought with troops, and strong hatred
continues to exist.
Many minorities hoped the situation would change when the National League for Democracy
(NLD) won elections in 2015, but distrust has continued to grow.
Aung San Suu Kyi promised to work for peace, but has not had much success.
Members of ethnic minority groups now consider her as being closely allied with the military.
There appears to have been an increase in the number of Aung San statues being built
since the NLD came to power.
In June 2017, the country's largest Aung San statue was unveiled in Mandalay.
Several others have been set up in ethnic minority areas.
It is not clear who is paying for the statues.
A spokesperson for the NLD could not be reached for comment.
In July, thousands of people protested a planned statue in Kayah State.
Weeks later, another Aung San statue in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, was attacked.
The editor of The Chinland Post in Chin State, Salai Holy, told VOA the state government
is planning to build at least two Aung San statues there.
He added that most locals oppose the statues because they believe the money for them is
wasted.
They believe the money should be used to help develop one of the country's poorest areas.
"That money should be used for the town's development," he said.
Salai Holy added that water systems, hospitals and roads are in bad condition and need rebuilding.
Another statue is planned in Hakha, the state capital, and he said a decision to do so had
not included discussion with the local communities.
He said some people wanted to see an Aung San statue in the town, but most were against
it.
"It doesn't mean that we don't respect Aung San, but what we really want that money
to be used for is development…There is so much to be done," he said.
Observers say offending ethnic minorities could affect the results of by-elections in
November and the 2020 general elections.
The NLD could lose votes, they warned.
In 2017, the central government wanted to name a bridge for Aung San in Chaungzon, a
town in Mon State.
Local people wanted the bridge to be given a name more closely related to Mon identity
and held protests.
In a by-election held later that year, the NLD lost to the party of the military.
I'm Susan Shand.
Journalists are being jailed in record numbers around the world.
That information comes from the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, an independent,
non-profit group based in the United States.
It reported last week that 262 reporters, writers and other news media workers were
detained for their work at the end of 2017.
"The jailing of journalists is a…form of censorship" and it is having a strong effect
on the flow of information around the world, says CPJ's Executive Director Joel Simon.
He spoke at a press freedom event at the United Nations.
At the end of last year, Turkey's government had 73 journalists in detention, the largest
of any single country.
China was second, with 41 detentions, followed by Egypt with 20.
CPJ says that more than half of all detained journalists were jailed for reporting on human
rights violations.
Joel Simon said the United Nations has never been a strong enough voice on the issue of
press freedom.
He said that is because the UN has a culture of rarely criticizing its members.
The press freedom event was called, in part, to publicize the cases of five reporters CPJ
says have been unjustly detained.
The five are citizens of Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt and Myanmar.
The two most famous cases are that of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in Myanmar.
They work as reporters for the Reuters news agency.
The two men were detained in December 2017 while they were investigating the killing
of Rohingya men and boys by villagers in Rakhine state.
Most Rohingya are Muslim, but close to 90 percent of Myanmar's population is Buddhist.
The military launched an operation on the minority Rohingya in August 2017 after Rohingya
militants attacked and killed 12 Myanmar police officers.
Within a few months, 700,000 Rohingya fled the country to neighboring Bangladesh.
Survivors reported horrible abuses, including rape, torture and the destruction of homes.
UN officials have said the actions were a perfect example of ethnic cleansing.
British lawyer Amal Clooney is representing the two reporters.
She says Myanmar officials did not want the story about their military operations in the
Rakhine state village, Inn Din, to be published.
Clooney said, "...police planted government documents on the journalists while other officers
lay in wait outside to arrest them...The journalists were arrested and were then prosecuted and
subjected to a show trial."
The guilty finding, she added, was already decided.
Last month, the two men were sentenced to seven years in prison for violating a law
on state secrets.
Clooney said they are asking for a presidential pardon.
This appears to be the only way to win their freedom.
"The attack on them is a…warning to other journalists," said Reuters' President
Stephen Adler.
He added that Myanmar is not the only country that wants to stop reporters and let those
in power act without facing any threat of legal action for wrongdoing.
In Kyrgyzstan, journalist Azimjon Askarov has been serving a life prison sentence since
July 2010.
CPJ's Simon says he was jailed for reporting on deadly ethnic battles in the summer of
2010.
Askarov and his lawyer were both attacked during his trial.
CPJ opened its own investigation into the case in 2012.
The group found that the charges against Askarov were in answer his reporting on corruption
and abuse by police and government lawyers, Simon said.
In Bangladesh, photojournalist and commentator Shahidul Alam was arrested last month while
reporting on student protests.
A Dhaka court ordered that he be held for seven days to decide if he violated an information
law against spreading propaganda and false information.
"When Shahidul was brought into court, he screamed that he had been tortured.
He was unable to walk without assistance," Simon said.
Shahidul Alam remains in detention.
CPJ reported that since 2013 Egypt has been among the world's worst jailers of journalists.
The government often detains reporters on politically fueled anti-state charges.
The Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abdelfattah is one of them.
He has written about politics and human rights.
He is serving a five-year sentence on charges that he organized a protest and attacked a
police officer.
The CPJ believes the charges are false and are meant to answering Alaa's reporting
on suspected human rights abuses by the police and security forces, Simon said.
"We are witnessing a growing hatred of journalists worldwide," said Margaux Ewen, North American
director of Reporters Without Borders.
She said the hatred was not limited to non-democratic governments and that rights groups will continue
to speak out against attacks on the press.
U.S. President Donald Trump often describes news reports critical of him and his administration
as "fake news."
Journalists at Trump events have reported feeling hostility from his supporters.
The CPJ reports that at least three American journalists have been arrested this year and
34 were detained last year.
In June, five people were killed in the newsroom of an Annapolis, Maryland newspaper.
I'm Caty Weaver.
And I'm Pete Musto.
Melania Trump has begun her first solo international trip as the first lady of the United States.
She arrived Tuesday in the West African country of Ghana.
Ghana's first lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, welcomed her at the airport in Accra.
A young girl offered her a gift of flowers wrapped in a traditional cloth.
Dancers and drummers performed and young children waved small American and Ghanaian flags.
The White House says the first lady's five-day visit to Africa will center on "maternaland
newborn care in hospitals" and "education for children."
Shortly after her arrival, Trump visited the Greater Accra Hospital.
There, she toured the neonatal intensive care area, visited with mothers, held babies and
gave patients blankets and playthings donated by the White House.
Trump later had a private meeting with first lady Akufo-Addo.
The two met for about 30 minutes at Ghana's presidential palace.
Many past American first ladies have also made trips to the African continent, including
Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton.
Locals who spoke with reporters in Accra said they did not know much about Trump's visit.
One worker at a popular shop near the airport told Reuters, "I did not know she's in
town until I heard about it on the radio a few minutes ago."
Another shopkeeper said to the Associated Press, "Did you say President Trump's
wife just arrived in Accra?
I don't think I have ever heard her name, Melania."
Others said they knew about Trump's visit but did not know what she would be doing.
The first lady's visit to Africa could be made difficult because of the past actions
and words of her husband.
President Donald Trump reportedly used a vulgar and insulting term to describe African nations.
The president has denied making the comment.
Judd Devermont, the Africa program director at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, said the first lady may have to do "some heavy lifting" on her trip.
In other words, the trip may involve serious or difficult work.
Devermont told VOA, "It's a little bit unfair because that's not what a first lady's
trip should be about."
But Africa policy expert Joshua Meservey said he does not think the president's reported
comments will affect the first lady's visit.
He is with The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Meservey told VOA, "I think the U.S.-Africa relationship is much bigger than the president's
comments."
After Ghana, the first lady will travel to Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.
I'm Ashley Thompson.
Two men and a woman have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for their "inventions in
the field of laser physics."
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says half of the $1 million prize will go to Arthur
Ashkin of the United States.
The other half will be shared by Gerard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada.
The Swedish academy said their discoveries made possible "tools made of light" that
improve scientific research, industry and medicine.
These devices "are opening unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial
and medical applications," it said.
Mourou and Strickland are being recognized for their work on high-intensity lasers.
The Swedish academy praised them for developing a way to increase the power and usefulness
of lasers.
A laser is a device that produces an intense beam of light.
In a report published in 1985, Strickland proposed stretching and then compressing laser
light.
She and Mourou found a way to produce a powerful laser pulse that lasts an almost unimaginably
short period of time.
Their technique puts more light "in the same tiny space," greatly increasing its
intensity.
Their discoveries led to very precise, powerful lasers that can cut holes in different materials,
including living tissue.
Such lasers are now used in corrective eye operations.
Millions of these operations have been performed on people around the world.
Strickland is only the third woman to ever win the Nobel physics prize.
The first was Marie Curie of France in 1903.
Strickland spoke briefly about the lack of women physics winners in a telephone call
with the academy.
"Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists because we're out there.
And hopefully, in time, it'll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe," she said.
Mourou said, "I am very, very happy to share this distinction with my former student Donna
Strickland and also to share it with Art Ashkin, for whom I have a lot of respect."
The American scientist will receive half of the prize money for what the academy called
"optical tweezers."
Ashkin discovered that the "radiation pressure" from a beam of light could be used to move
extremely small objects and hold them in position.
In 1987, he used a laser to seize and hold bacteria without harming them.
His discovery made possible new ways to study microscopic biology and other objects.
At the age of 96, Ashkin is the oldest person to ever receive a Nobel Prize.
The Nobel Prize in Physics will be officially presented at ceremonies in Stockholm, Sweden
on December 10.
The first physics prize was given in 1901 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
I'm Mario Ritter.
One year has passed since Hurricane Maria struck the United States territory of Puerto
Rico.
But even before the storm hit, education officials had begun closing schools on Puerto Rico to
save money.
Last year, the territory's government sought legal protection from creditors because it
owed billions of dollars in debts that could not be paid.
In the weeks and months after Hurricane Maria, the number of students on the island dropped
as conditions worsened.
Thousands of Puerto Rican families fled to the U.S. mainland.
Many students ended up attending schools in Florida or other states along the East Coast.
At the time, education officials reported that about half of Puerto Rico's schools
had lower than normal student attendance rates.
Only about 60 percent of classroom seats were filled.
The government ended up closing nearly 300 schools.
Education officials said the move was necessary to meet budget targets.
But the closures created problems for Puerto Rican students and their parents when the
new school year started a few weeks ago.
With many schools closed, some students had to travel outside their neighborhood to attend
school.
Their parents often were required to find transportation to and from the school.
The children also had new teachers and classmates to get used to.
Ana Maria Garcia Blanco is the director of Instituto Nueva Escuela, a non-profit group
that works with schools all over Puerto Rico.
She says parents have expressed concern that so many changes could harm the overall quality
of students' education.
"Parents are very concerned about overcrowded classrooms, and losing the experience they
had before - where their children had more personal attention, and smaller classrooms
and more attention from the teacher."
Garcia Blanco said another parental concern she heard is that even more schools would
be closed in the future in an effort to cut costs.
"Those that had good schools are concerned about losing them," she said.
Recently, the Youth Development Institute of Puerto Rico reported on how education was
influenced by Hurricane Maria.
The report was based on information collected from more than 500 Puerto Rican students aged
5-17.
Nearly 80 percent of the students reported attending public school.
The study found that on average, students had missed 78 days during the 2017-2018 school
year.
In addition, teachers reported observing different or unusual behaviors in 23 percent of students
after the hurricane hit.
About 12 percent of students had problems concentrating, while about 10 percent had
lower levels of academic performance.
About eight percent showed a lack of interest in studying, while nearly six percent were
observed to have other behavior issues.
Garcia Blanco says even some of the students who fled to the U.S. mainland after Hurricane
Maria experienced problems.
A big issue in some areas was a lack of bilingual education for Puerto Rican students, who are
used to speaking Spanish in class.
"Although many of our children could handle English as a Second Language - or as a subject
matter in the school program - they did not have the language skills to survive an English-only
school in the states."
In many cases, she says, Puerto Rican children were put in classes with students of lower
grade levels because of their English skills alone.
"For example, a child that had finished the fifth grade here in school, they would
put him or her in the fourth or third grade.
So parents were very concerned with the self-esteem and the life of that child in schooling."
At least 150,000 Puerto Ricans have fled the island since Hurricane Maria, the Center for
Puerto Rican Studies reports.
The center is part of Hunter College in New York State.
The center's director said the large number shows the level of frustration people have
with the government's overall response.
Garcia Blanco says many Puerto Ricans have become deeply concerned that government decisions
related to education were made without their input.
"They don't feel they have been part of any of the decisions," she said.
"And they are worried that they won't have anything to say and things will keep
happening."
I'm Bryan Lynn.
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