Bangladesh PM’s appeal to Myanmar
After visiting a refugee camp along the southern border of the country, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina has appealed to Myanmar to take back the over 3 lakh Ronhingya refugees who have fled the country.
Appealing to Myanmar to consider the situation “with the eyes of humanity”, Hasina told the BBC that innocent people were suffering.
“So these people, they belong to Myanmar. Hundreds of years they are staying there. How they can deny that they are not their citizens?” the Bangladesh PM said.
However, Hasina has affirmed that the country will provide shelter to the Rohingyas till Myanmar took them back.
Time to take nuclear trigger away from Trump?
Technically Donald Trump can, if he so desires, trigger a nuclear strike against North Korea. While the U.S. President has promised to rain fire on the North Korean dictator, his administration has constantly maintained that there is no risk of a nuclear strike.
But an op-ed in the New York Times argues that assurances aren’t enough and the nuclear trigger needs to be taken away from a president as impulsive as Trump. The authors argue that while the U.S. should be able to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike, the power to do so shouldn’t rest exclusively with the President.
The authors argue that there needs to be a “careful, deliberative process” involving military and other officials before such a decision is taken and legislation needs to be amended to ensure this safeguard is put in place.
Philippines cuts national human rights body’s budget to just Rs 1000
The Speaker of the Philippines House of Representatives called it ‘useless’. And now thanks to one house of Parliament slashing its budget to just $20 for a year, the human rights commission of the nation may have actually been rendered useless.
The Commission on Human Rights, which has been investigating the numerous killings in the nation’s war on drugs, had requested a budget of $34 million. The government said it would cut it to half of that. But when the legislation was finally passed, the budget had been cut to just $20 (Rs 1280).
The head of the Commission has said that the decision seems to be an attempt to get him to resign. But he has said he can’t resign because it would weaken the institution at a crucial time.
The law has to be ratified by one more house of Parliament. But given that it is also under the control of President Rodrigo Duterte, it’s not likely that the outcome will be much different.
South Korea threatens North Korea with decapitation squad
South Korea has no nuclear weapons to threaten the North’s Kim Jong Un with, even as the dictator keeps testing missiles. So they’re hoping the creation of a ‘decapitation squad’ will do the trick.
South Korea’s defence minister Song Young-moo has reportedly told lawmakers that a special forces brigade called a “decapitation unit” would be in place by the end of the year, reports the New York Times. While the unit may not have an official mandate to collect scalps, they are expected to carry out night raids to strike deep into North Korea and kill senior North Korean leadership including Kim Jong Un.
While sanctions and a missile system to strike deep into North Korea haven’t done much to deter the dictator’s constant missile tests, South Korea is hoping fear for his life will hopefully make him pause before any rash decisions.
Conservative Texas senator sparks meme deluge after ‘liking’ explicit tweet
Considered a strong Presidential candidate till he came up against Donald Trump, Texas Senator Ted Cruz is back in the headlines but not for the reason he’d like. His official ‘liked’ an extremely explicit tweet from an account called ‘sexuall posts’, much to the consternation of his supporters and amusement of detractors.
While the account didn’t tweet out the offensive image to his 3 million followers, liking it did result in it featuring on the timelines of many of them. His communication team said that the post has since been unliked and reported to Twitter. And Cruz said that many people had access to his account.
The conservative Texas senator blamed the incident on a “staffing issue” and said it “was not a deliberate action”. But for the Twitterati who have been churning out memes since the incident, the ‘mistake’ was pure gold.