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Four supporters of a hardline Islamist group were shot dead in Bangladesh on Friday in violent demonstrations over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tour to Dhaka, officials said.

It comes as Bangladesh marks 50 years of independence from Pakistan with celebrations focused on its economic achievements, which activist groups say have been overshadowed by rights abuses. Police said four bodies of members of Hefazat-e-Islam, a hardline Islamist group, were brought to Chittagong Medical College Hospital after violence erupted at Hathazari, a rural town where the group’s main leaders are based.

“We got four bodies here. They are all hit with bullets. Three of them are madrasa students and another a tailor,” Alauddin Talukder, a police inspector at the hospital, said. He said at least four other demonstrators were critically injured.

Ruhul Amin, the government administrator of Hathazari town, said up to 1,500 supporters of Hefazat attacked a police station chanting anti-Modi slogans.

“They attacked us all of a sudden,” he said, without confirming whether any protesters were killed. Hathazari is home to one of Bangladesh’s largest madrasas and is the headquarters of the Hefazat, which was formed in 2010 and is believed to be the country’s largest hardline Islamist outfit.

Hefazat spokesman Mir Idris accused the police of “opening fire” at their “peaceful” supporters.

“There were some 5,000 protesters. They were all Hefazat supporters and they were mostly madrasa students. They were protesting Mr. Modi’s visit and police actions against demonstrators in Dhaka,” he said.

He was referring to other smaller clashes at the compound of the country’s largest mosque in central Dhaka after Friday prayers when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at brick-throwing Islamist supporters.

Hefazat is known for its nationwide network and large-scale protests demanding blasphemy laws in Bangladesh. In 2013, police clashed with tens of thousands of Hefazat supporters in Dhaka, leaving nearly 50 people dead.

Hefazat aside, a diverse range of Bangladeshi groups — including students, leftist and other Islamist outfits — have been staging protests over the last few days against Mr. Modi’s visit.

They accuse Mr. Modi of stoking religious tensions and inciting anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002.

On Thursday, more than 40 people were injured, including four police officers, during a student demonstration. At least 33 people were detained for violence.

Celebrations hit
Clashes also occurred at Dhaka University on Thursday evening, when pro-government student activists allegedly beat dozens of anti-Modi student protesters. The violence has overshadowed Bangladesh’s celebrations for 50 years of independence from Pakistan.

The former East Pakistan emerged as a new nation in 1971 after a brutal war involving India marked by horrific abuses that Bangladesh says killed as many as three million and displaced many more.

Poles staged further protests in cities across the country on Monday (2 November) ahead of the expected entry into force of a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal that bans most abortions and that has prompted nearly two weeks of demonstrations and rallies.

The 22 October ruling bans terminations due to foetal defects, ending one of the few legal grounds left for abortion in staunchly Catholic Poland and setting the country further apart from Europe’s mainstream.

Protesters have flooded into the streets almost every day since the ruling, defying coronavirus restrictions that ban gatherings of more than five people, in an outpouring of anger against the verdict, and more broadly against the nationalist government and its allies in the Roman Catholic Church.

Footage from private broadcaster TVN24 showed protesters blocking traffic in several streets in central Warsaw. Traffic was also blocked in the southern city of Katowice and in Poznan in western Poland.

In Poznan, the protesters stood in a line blocking tram tracks and a road, chanting “I will protect my sisters when the state does not protect them” and holding banners that read “This is war” and ‘Poland is a woman”.

In Katowice cars blocked traffic in the city centre, while in the south-western city of Wroclaw protesters marched with banners that read “I think, I feel, I decide”.

The government is expected to publish the ruling later on Monday in its official gazette, meaning it has entered into legal force.

The protests are the latest and largest manifestation of a conflict between liberals and religious conservatives that has also centred around LGBT rights. The protests have seen huge mobilisation among younger Poles.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, from the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), urged the protesters on Monday to take part in talks and not to try and settle differences on the street because of the risks of spreading COVID-19.

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The rhythm is infectious, the crowd of women exuberant as they pump their fists and move their feet. Their voices rise as they chant the chorus line, translated from the song’s original Spanish: “It wasn’t my fault; not where I was, not how I dressed.” How many women wouldn’t guess, from those words alone, that this is about rape? And it is that visceral, shared understanding that has helped a song and dance, devised by a little-known Chilean feminist collective called Las Tesis, spread across the globe. Since November, Un Violador en Tu Camino (A Rapist in Your Path) has been sung everywhere from France and Mexico to Kenya and India as a protest against the systemic use of sexual violence to repress women. Most recently, it was performed outside the New York courtroom where Harvey Weinstein is on trial for rape.

Like the pink pussy hats or The Handmaid’s Tale-style scarlet cloaks adopted by other feminist protesters, the spectacle is easy to copy and highly shareable on social media. But its real power lies in how it feels, not how it looks.

There were some tears afterwards,” says Zakiyah Ansari, the advocacy director for a US education charity, who performed it outside the Weinstein courtroom and Trump Tower. “It could make you think about a past experience, but in the moment there was such power. It’s exhilarating – it’s like a moment of sadness and relief.” She thinks there is something particularly cathartic about the way the women move through the dance steps as one – hugging each other when it’s over – but also about the accusatory final lines: “The rapist is you!” The women yell it, often while pointing at a government building or courtroom. Or, as at Trump Tower, at the former home of a president himself accused of multiple sexual assaults.

The song’s message is that rape doesn’t happen in a political vacuum; that it is welded to patriarchal power structures as a means of keeping women down. The title mimics an old slogan portraying the police as “the friend in your path” and the lyrics describe systemic use of sexual and other violence by Chilean police. Even the dance steps tell a story: performers squat three times, representing the degrading position arrested women have allegedly been forced to adopt for body cavity searches, often while stripped naked.

It’s more like street theatre than a traditional political protest, and that’s the point, says Paula Soto of the British-based Assemblea Chilena En Londres, a Chilean solidarity group that, along with Venezuelan, Brazilian and Colombian groups in London, staged a performance of the song near Tower Bridge last month. To South American eyes, she explains, British political marches look bafflingly dull – “people just walking, and walking very slowly at that” – while in Chile, protest is more of a performance. “There’s a lot of music, and generally a lot of singing and movement. And the movements are always symbolic – when you’re shouting for something to fall, a woman will go down low.”

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Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng is photographed begging armed police officers not to shoot ‘the children’

Agence France-Presse in Yangon
Tue 9 Mar 2021 12.26 GMT

3,766
Kneeling before them in the dust of a northern Myanmar city, Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng begged a group of heavily armed police officers to spare “the children” and take her life instead.

The image of the Catholic nun in a simple white habit, her hands spread, pleading with the forces of the country’s new junta as they prepared to crack down on a protest, has gone viral and won her praise in the majority-Buddhist country.

“I knelt down … begging them not to shoot and torture the children, but to shoot me and kill me instead,” she said on Tuesday.

Her act of bravery in the city of Myitkyina on Monday came as Myanmar struggles with the chaotic aftermath of the military’s overthrow of the civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on 1 February. As protests demanding the return of democracy have rolled on, the junta has steadily escalated its use of force, using teargas, water cannon, rubber bullets and live rounds.

Protesters took to the streets of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, on Monday wearing hard hats and carrying homemade shields. As police started massing around them, Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng and two other nuns pleaded with them to leave.

“The police were chasing to arrest them and I was worried for the children,” she said.

It was at that point that the 45-year-old nun fell to her knees. Moments later, as she was begging for restraint, the police started firing into the crowd of protesters behind her.

“The children panicked and ran to the front … I couldn’t do anything but I was praying for God to save and help the children,” she said.

Myanmar: stop military killing protesters, envoy tells security council
Read more
First she saw a man shot in the head fall dead in front of her – then she felt the sting of teargas. “I felt like the world was crashing,” she said. “I’m very sad it happened as I was begging them.”

At least 38 people were killed in Myanmar on Wednesday in what the UN described as the "bloodiest day" since the coup took place a month ago.

UN envoy to Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener said there was shocking footage coming out of the country.

Witnesses said security forces opened fire with rubber and live bullets.

Mass protests and acts of civil disobedience have been seen across Myanmar since the military seized power on 1 February.

The general who returned Myanmar to military rule
Aung San Suu Kyi: Democracy icon who fell from grace
Protesters have been calling for an end to military rule and the release of the country's elected government leaders - including Aung San Suu Kyi - who were overthrown and detained in the coup.

The coup and the violent suppression of protests that followed have led to international condemnation, which Myanmar's military has so far ignored.

Reacting to Wednesday's deaths, the UK called for a United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday, while the US said it was considering further action against Myanmar's military.

The latest violence comes a day after Myanmar's neighbours urged the military to exercise restraint.

'They just came out and started to shoot'
Ms Schraner Burgener said at least 50 people had now been killed "and many wounded" since the coup began.

She said one video clip showed police beating an unarmed volunteer medical crew. Another showed a protester being shot and probably killed on the street, she said.

"I asked some weapons experts and they could verify to me, it's not clear but it seems that the police weapons like 9mm submachine guns, so live ammunition," she said.

Reports from inside Myanmar spoke of security forces opening fire on large crowds in a number of cities, including Yangon, with little warning.

Two boys, aged 14 and 17, were among those who were killed, Save the Children said. A 19-year-old woman was also said to be among the dead.

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Saudi Arabia said some of the world’s most protected oil infrastructure came under missile and drone attack in an escalation of regional hostilities that pushed up crude prices.
The attacks on Sunday were intercepted, Saudi Arabia said, and oil output appeared to be unaffected. But the latest in a spate of assaults claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels briefly pushed oil prices above $70 a barrel for the first time since January 2020 and will likely complicate efforts by US President Joe Biden to engage in nuclear diplomacy with Iran.
The attacks are the most serious against Saudi oil installations since a key processing facility and two fields came under fire in September 2019, cutting production for about a month and exposing the vulnerability of the kingdom’s petroleum industry. Yemen’s Houthi fighters claimed responsibility for that attack although Riyadh and Washington pointed the finger at arch-rival Iran. The US held back from military confrontation and said at the time it would boost air and missile defenses in the kingdom.
On Monday, the US said its commitment to defend Saudi Arabia is “unwavering.” In a Twitter post, the U. S. mission in Riyadh condemned the attacks, which it said demonstrated a “lack of respect for human life” and a “lack of interest in the pursuit of peace.”
An oil storage tank farm at the Ras Tanura export terminal on the Persian Gulf coast was attacked by a drone from the sea, according to the Energy Ministry. Shrapnel from a missile also landed close to a residential compound for employees of national oil company Saudi Aramco in Dhahran, where windows shook and witnesses said they took shelter.

The compound is home to families of Saudi and expat employees, and there’s a U. S. consulate nearby. Ras Tanura is about an hour by car up the coast.
“Both attacks did not result in any injury or loss of life or property,” a spokesman for the Saudi Energy Ministry said. Two people familiar with the situation also said oil output was unaffected, and on Monday loading in the Ras Tanura area was continuing, with tankers docking on the north pier and sea islands.
Defences
Ras Tanura’s airspace is heavily defended: it is close to a large Saudi air base and its offshore loading terminals are equipped with protection against undersea attack. The Houthis launched eight ballistic missiles and 14 bomb-laden drones at Saudi Arabia, a spokesman for the group, Yahya Saree, said in a statement to rebel-run Al Masirah television.
Saudis raise oil prices for Asia
Saudi raised pricing for its crude for Asia and the US next month after Opec+ extended oil supply constraints. The exporter is boosting pricing for barrels sold eastwards to the highest levels since just before the Saudis unleashed a brief price and supply war a year ago.

In November 2020, thousands of farmers marched from the northern states of India to Delhi to protest farming reforms passed by Prime Minister Modi’s government. Those protests have continued throughout the month of December and show little sign of letting up. The farmers have set up camp in and around the capital city to pressure the government to repeal the laws, but the government won’t budge.

The government says these new laws will modernize farming by liberalizing the industry, but India’s farmers say it will be their downfall. Under these new policies, farmers will have fewer government protections and will likely lose the government-regulated markets and prices they have relied on for years.

To make matters even more difficult, all this is happening as India’s farmers grapple with a shrinking share of the economy that has contributed to a suicide crisis around the country.

Farmers, climate protesters and animal rights activists have gathered together with around 30 tractors in Berlin for an annual demonstration.

The "We've had enough" march denounces the government's agricultural policy and demands an end to industrial agriculture and animal husbandry.

A further 10,000 people sent their footprints on paper as they couldn't travel to Berlin because of the coronavirus pandemic. The footprints and messages of protest were hung in front of the chancellery on clotheslines.

Organisers of the march are calling for a total review of legislation. Saskia Richartz, a spokesperson from the We've had enough movement said: "The government's agricultural policy is based on cheap, mass production, with far too many animals locked up in small stables."

"We call for an overhaul of agricultural policy in favour of rural agriculture," she added.

The rally has become an annual fixture in the Berlin calendar, coinciding with International Green Week. Police said the protest was peaceful, with no major incidents or disruptions.

Afghanistan War, international conflict in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 that was triggered by the September 11 attacks and consisted of three phases. The first phase—toppling the Taliban (the ultraconservative political and religious faction that ruled Afghanistan and provided sanctuary for al-Qaeda, perpetrators of the September 11 attacks)—was brief, lasting just two months. The second phase, from 2002 until 2008, was marked by a U.S. strategy of defeating the Taliban militarily and rebuilding core institutions of the Afghan state. The third phase, a turn to classic counterinsurgency doctrine, began in 2008 and accelerated with U.S. Pres. Barack Obama’s 2009 decision to temporarily increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. The larger force was used to implement a strategy of protecting the population from Taliban attacks and supporting efforts to reintegrate insurgents into Afghan society. The strategy came coupled with a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan; beginning in 2011, security responsibilities would be gradually handed over to the Afghan military and police. The new approach largely failed to achieve its aims. Insurgent attacks and civilian casualties remained stubbornly high, while many of the Afghan military and police units taking over security duties appeared to be ill-prepared to hold off the Taliban. By the time the U.S. and NATO combat mission formally ended in December 2014, the 13-year Afghanistan War had become the longest war ever fought by the United States.

Prelude To The September 11 Attacks
The joint U.S. and British invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 was preceded by over two decades of war in Afghanistan (see Afghan War). On December 24, 1979, Soviet tanks rumbled across the Amu Darya River and into Afghanistan, ostensibly to restore stability following a coup that brought to power a pair of Marxist-Leninist political groups—the People’s (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party. But the Soviet presence touched off a nationwide rebellion by fighters—known as the mujahideen—who drew upon Islam as a uniting source of inspiration. These fighters won extensive covert backing from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States and were joined in their fight by foreign volunteers (who soon formed a network, known as al-Qaeda, to coordinate their efforts). The guerrilla war against the Soviet forces led to their departure in 1989. In the Soviets’ absence, the mujahideen ousted Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed government and established a transitional government.
The mujahideen were politically fragmented, however, and in 1994 armed conflict escalated. The Taliban emerged and in 1996 seized Kabul. It instituted a severe interpretation of Islamic law that, for example, forbade female education and prescribed the severing of hands, or even execution, as punishment for petty crimes. That same year, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was welcomed to Afghanistan (having been expelled from Sudan) and established his organization’s headquarters there. With al-Qaeda’s help, the Taliban won control of over 90 percent of Afghan territory by the summer of 2001. On September 9 of that year, al-Qaeda hit men carried out the assassination of famed mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Masoud, who at the time was leading the Northern Alliance (a loose coalition of mujahideen militias that maintained control of a small section of northern Afghanistan) as it battled the Taliban and who had unsuccessfully sought greater U.S. backing for his efforts.

The September 11 Attacks And The U.S.-British Invasion
The hijacking and crashing of four U.S. jetliners on September 11, 2001, brought instant attention to Afghanistan. The plot had been hatched by al-Qaeda, and some of the 19 hijackers had trained in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the attacks, the administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush coalesced around a strategy of first ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al-Qaeda, though others contemplated actions in Iraq, including long-standing plans for toppling Pres. Saddam Hussein. Bush demanded that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar “deliver to [the] United States authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who hide in your land,” and when Omar refused, U.S. officials began implementing a plan for war.

The campaign in Afghanistan started covertly on September 26, with a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) team known as Jawbreaker arriving in the country and, working with anti-Taliban allies, initiating a strategy for overthrowing the regime. U.S. officials hoped that by partnering with the Afghans they could avoid deploying a large force to Afghanistan. Pentagon officials were especially concerned that the United States not be drawn into a protracted occupation of Afghanistan, as had occurred with the Soviets more than two decades prior. 0

Louisville, Kentucky – When mass protests erupted in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 28, one of Chanelle Helm’s biggest worries was for the young people who took to the streets.

Anger had been building over the March 13 police killing of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in Louisville’s West End. Not long after Taylor’s story gained national attention, the world watched footage on May 25 of George Floyd screaming, “I can’t breathe” and crying out for his mother under the knee of a white police officer before going motionless in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

It was not only important for the new people, especially Louisville’s youth, who joined the protest to stay as safe as possible, but also for demonstrators to stay in the streets, Helm, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Louisville, said.

“I had to do direct action training with them on the fly,” the 40-year-old recalled.

Hundreds of protesters rallied in the city’s downtown, demanding justice for Taylor, who was killed when plain-clothes Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers barged into her home in the early morning hours while serving a “no-knock” warrant.

As the sun went down, tensions rose. Police, dressed in riot gear, fired tear gas and other projectiles. Some protesters destroyed property and set fires. Many people suffered injuries, including seven who were wounded when someone opened fire into the crowd. It was a night that shook Louisville, and for protesters, it was only day one.

Protesters, organisers and activists have gathered in some form on most, if not all, of the more than 200 days since then. The groups sometimes number in the hundreds; other times, only a few gather in a downtown park, renamed by protesters as “Injustice Square”. The protests often bring people from Black Lives Matter, Louisville Urban League, Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and other groups.
Seeing protesters gather day-after-day “makes me know that what happens in this part of resistance work and fighting for our freedom, and this continual process of seeing people develop these spaces, that we’re doing exactly what we need to do,” Helm said.

It is a sentiment echoed by Black Lives Matter organisers across the country as they reflect on a year that has brought much pain, but also numerous achievements, and as they chart their priorities moving into 2021.

Multiple groups held protests, marches and rallies in Louisville Saturday around the 146th running of the Kentucky Derby, including groups calling for justice in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor.

Groups including the Justice and Freedom Coalition and Until Freedom, which had called for boycotts of the Derby, gathered at South Central Park, less than a mile from Churchill Downs, late Saturday afternoon before marching to the track for demonstrations.

“We cannot simply throw a party in a gentrified neighborhood and move on,” Pastor Tim Findley told the crowd as they prepared to march to the track. “Today is the day we say we will not move on.”

Once they arrived at the track, protesters chanted Taylor’s name and marched around the fence on the perimeter, which was heavily guarded by law enforcement in riot gear and National Guard members inside.

Just before post time, a plane flew over the racetrack pulling a banner that read, “Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor,” the Courier-Journal reported.

HONG KONG — A Hong Kong police officer on Tuesday shot a teenage demonstrator, the first time in months of protests that a live round was fired at a protester. The shooting capped an evening of violent protests, escalating the territory’s political crisis on the same day that the central government staged a huge military parade in Beijing to celebrate 70 years of Communist control.

The protesters in Hong Kong hoped to upstage Beijing’s celebrations by holding their own unauthorized marches. Violence quickly broke out, as demonstrators in districts across the city engaged in some of the bloodiest and most sustained clashes since protesters began taking to the streets in early June.

The split screen — pageantry in Beijing versus violence, tear gas and street fires in a restive Chinese territory — was hardly the image that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, had hoped to show the world.

The protester was shot in the Tsuen Wan district of northern Hong Kong. Tsuen Wan is a working-class area near Hong Kong’s border with the Chinese mainland, miles from the city’s gleaming financial district.

Local news media reported that the young man was a high school student.

Ms. Yu said the officer who shot the protester had been under attack by violent “rioters” who were threatening officers’ lives. “In order to save himself and his colleagues, he fired one shot at the attacker,” she said.

The Hong Kong police commissioner, Stephen Lo, told reporters at a late-night news conference that doctors were treating the young man who had been shot. He said the protester had been arrested and that the authorities would decide later whether to press charges of assaulting a police officer.

Mr. Lo said the officer who shot the protester on Tuesday acted in a “legal and reasonable” manner by giving a verbal warning before he opened fire. The officer had been assaulted at close quarters, Mr. Lo said, and had no other choice but to fire a live bullet.

Wednesday 3 March, just before midday, and on the streets of Myanmar another protester is about to die.

Zin Ko Ko Zaw was 22 years old. One of at least 38 people killed that day - the deadliest yet since the army overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup.

We know a little of Zin Ko. He had an interest in fashion. In one photo he shared on Facebook, he wears a loud, colourful print shirt. In another he shows off a gold ring on his finger, the studs in his ears and a black watch on his wrist.

He liked tattoos, playing online shooting games and football with friends.

And now he is dead, killed after security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Myingyan, a city southwest of Mandalay. Amnesty International says what is going on in Myanmar now is "simply sickening".

Wednesday 3 March, just before midday, and on the streets of Myanmar another protester is about to die.

Zin Ko Ko Zaw was 22 years old. One of at least 38 people killed that day - the deadliest yet since the army overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup.

We know a little of Zin Ko. He had an interest in fashion. In one photo he shared on Facebook, he wears a loud, colourful print shirt. In another he shows off a gold ring on his finger, the studs in his ears and a black watch on his wrist.

He liked tattoos, playing online shooting games and football with friends.

And now he is dead, killed after security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Myingyan, a city southwest of Mandalay. Amnesty International says what is going on in Myanmar now is "simply sickening".

Sky News has analysed videos and pictures of the day leading up to Zin Ko's death.

This is what happened.

Police and demonstrators have clashed in Paris as tens of thousands took the streets to protest against new security legislation, a controversy intensified by the beating and racial abuse of a Black man by officers that shocked France.

The demonstrations against the security law – which would restrict the police officers’ faces – took place nationwide on Saturday with 46,000 marching in Paris according to the government and several fires erupting after clashes.

The case of abuse shocked France with celebrities and politicians alike condemning the officers’ actions, and has brought the debate over President Emmanuel Macron’s law to boiling point.

Macron on Friday called the incident an “unacceptable attack” and asked the government to come up with proposals to “fight against discrimination”.

He said the images of the beating of Black music producer Michel Zecler by police officers in Paris last weekend “shame us”.

The incident has magnified concerns about alleged systemic racism in the police force.

Nearly 33,000 people demonstrated on Saturday against a global security law passed by France's National Assembly late last year, according to the interior ministry.

There have been several massive protests against the law that would ban filming police for malicious reasons, but the demonstrations on Saturday were smaller than the rallies in November and December.

Organisers said 500,000 people gathered at the November 28 mobilisation while the government estimated there had been 133,000 people then.

The protest is "complicated with COVID", according to Dominique Besson-Milord, a departmental secretary of the CGT union in Rennes where 800 people gathered.

France currently has a 6pm curfew nationwide in order to stop the spread of the virus, as infections and hospitalisations rise in the country.

Right wing demonstrators fought with counter protestors in Georgia, Michigan and Oregon drawing in riot police and SWAT teams.

UN envoy to Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener said there was shocking footage coming out of the country.

Witnesses said security forces opened fire with rubber and live bullets.

Mass protests and acts of civil disobedience have been seen across Myanmar since the military seized power on 1 February.

The general who returned Myanmar to military rule
Aung San Suu Kyi: Democracy icon who fell from grace
Protesters have been calling for an end to military rule and the release of the country's elected government leaders - including Aung San Suu Kyi - who were overthrown and detained in the coup.

The coup and the violent suppression of protests that followed have led to international condemnation, which Myanmar's military has so far ignored.

Reacting to Wednesday's deaths, the UK called for a United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday, while the US said it was considering further action against Myanmar's military.

The latest violence comes a day after Myanmar's neighbours urged the military to exercise restraint.

Brian Kemsley, 33, was in the right place at the right time to interfere in the crime around 3 p.m. Nov. 9.

"I saw this man playing tug of war with a baby stroller, telling everyone it was his baby," Kemsley said.

He was in the park with his girlfriend and stood back as others tried to pry the man from the stroller.

"Once they peeled his hands off the stroller, the mom could make a break for it with the stroller... it was then that I thought 'oh this is not going to go well right now,'" Kemsley said.

What happened in Beirut?
A giant explosion at a warehouse in the port sent a shock wave through east and downtown Beirut at about 6 p.m. local time on Aug. 4. Videos of the blast posted on social media showed smoke billowing from the warehouse on the waterfront before a massive explosion produced a dome-shaped cloud that engulfed large parts of central Beirut. The force of the blast did tremendous damage to the surrounding neighborhoods and nearby buildings. The homes of tens of thousands of people were damaged by the blast.

What caused the explosion in Beirut?
Authorities say the blast occurred when a fire at a warehouse—Hangar 12—on the city’s waterfront ignited a cache of ammonium nitrate, an explosive material that had been stored at the site for more than six years.

What is ammonium nitrate?
Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound most commonly used in fertilizers. It is also used to make explosives and was used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995

Who is responsible?
The Lebanese government is facing questions about why the explosive chemicals were stored at the port. A judge leading an investigation into the blast has charged caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers with negligence in relation to the blast. Mr. Diab has denied any wrongdoing. The former ministers couldn’t be reached for comment. Many Lebanese blame years of poor governance and corruption by the entire ruling elite for the explosion.

Security forces in Myanmar used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters in the commercial hub of Yangon on Saturday, just hours after a United Nations envoy called for the Security Council to hear the nation’s “desperate pleas” and take immediate action to restore democracy.

The Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since a February 1 coup removed the democratically-elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering mass protests in cities across the country calling for the civilian administration’s restoration.
Demonstrators have been met with an increasingly brutal crackdown with the death toll standing at more than 50 since the coup, according to the UN.

Protesters have called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and respect for November’s election, which her party won in a landslide, but which the army rejected.

“Our revolution must win,” chanted protesters in Loikaw on Saturday, who included civil servants such as teachers in their green and white uniforms.

The country’s vital sectors have been crippled by a continuing “civil disobedience movement” – a campaign urging civil servants to boycott working under a military government.

The impact has been felt at every level of the national infrastructure, with shuttered hospitals, empty ministry offices and banks unable to operate.

On Saturday, state-run media announced that if civil servants continued to boycott work, “they will be fired” with immediate effect from March 8.

At least two anti-coup protesters in Myanmar have been shot dead by riot police, emergency workers have said, amid continuing demonstrations demanding an end to military rule and the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and others.

The deaths, in the country’s second-largest city Mandalay, mark the bloodiest day in more than two weeks of increasingly fraught protests as a civil disobedience movement grows.

One of the victims was shot in the head and died at the scene, according to Frontier Myanmar. The other, identified by relatives as Thet Naing Win, a 36-year-old carpenter, was shot in the chest and died en route to the hospital.

“I cannot bring him back home. Although my husband died, I still have my son,” his wife, Thidar Hnin, said. “I haven’t been involved in this movement yet but now I am going to ... I am not scared now.”

Several other serious injuries were also reported. The shootings occurred near the Yadanabon dock, where teargas and rubber bullets were used on protesters earlier in the day.

Police used water cannon and arrested at least eight people on Saturday after hundreds took part in a protest in the Nicosia town centre against corruption, and the way the government is managing the pandemic.

The demonstration started at around 4pm at the Kolokasis park, in the old part of Nicosia, but tensions rose when police called on the protesters to disperse citing the ban on gatherings due to the pandemic. It ended around an hour and a half later after police used a water cannon and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Around 300 to 400 people participated, but large groups of other people were prevented from reaching the main protest.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has come under criticism for joining protesters demanding that restrictions on movement introduced to stop the spread of coronavirus be lifted.

Mr Bolsonaro has clashed in recent weeks with state governors who have imposed lockdowns, denouncing the measures as "dictatorial".

As of Sunday, Brazil had more than 38,000 confirmed cases, the highest number in Latin America.

More than 2,400 people there have died.