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Indonesian band loses more members to tsunami that hit Java

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Trump’s frivolous decision can put America in danger, says NYT opinion piece as China expands its surveillance of its Muslims.

An Indonesian band has lost at least four of its members, with one still missing in the tsunami that struck the region Saturday.

The band Seventeen was performing at the Tanjung Lesung resort on the Western edge of Java when the tsunami hit the island, which is 50 km from the island of Anak Krakatau where a volcano had erupted.

Seventeen has lost its bassist M. Awal Purbani, guitarist Herman Sikumbang, crew member Rukmana “Ujang” Rustam and road manager Oki Wijaya, according to The Jakarta Post. The band’s drummer, Andi Windu Darmawan, and Dylan Sahara, the wife of lead singer Riefian “Ifan” Fajarsyah, are still missing.

Quartz reported that the tsunami was caused because of underwater landslides, triggered by an increasingly active Krakatao volcano. The tsunami affected the Sumatra and Java islands of Indonesia.

The tsunami, which has claimed 281 lives so far, is being deemed the second-most deadly tsunami to strike the country in 2018.

Trump forces Mattis to leave before designated month, appoints acting defence secretary

US President Donald Trump has appointed an acting defence secretary following the resignation of incumbent Jim Mattis. The acting secretary of defence, Patrick Shanahan, will take over the office from 1 January 2019.

Trump’s removal of Mattis, however, comes two months prior to his actual date of demitting office.

Mattis wrote his resignation letter Thursday to Trump citing difference of opinions on foreign policies, especially Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria. In his letter, Mattis had said that he would leave office by the end of February.

Trump, however, tweeted early Sunday morning that deputy secretary of defence Patrick Shanahan will replace Mattis starting from 1 January 2019.

According to The New York Times, Mattis wanted to stay till the NATO defence meeting that is scheduled for February.

‘Trump’s decision to withdraw troops could be dangerous for US’

In an opinion published on The New York Times, former security adviser Susan E. Rice writes that Donald Trump has made a major mistake by withdrawing 2,000 military troops from Syria and 7,000 from Afghanistan.

Rice calls it a reckless decision that she adds, will have severe consequences. She points out that the Islamic State is not defeated in Syria — according to the Pentagon, there are still 2,000 to 5,000 ISIS fighters in south-eastern Syria.

“Although many militants have melted back into the population, they can re-emerge, as we saw after the American withdrawal from Iraq in 2011,” Rice writes. “Stabilising the areas liberated from the Islamic State to prevent its revival remains as important as ever.”

She is also of the view that the move is only beneficial for the militants, Turkey, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Russia and Iran. “We are abandoning our Kurdish partners, leaving them vulnerable to Turkey’s offensive, after they did the hard work of undermining the Islamic State,” she writes.

She also points out that the US is moving from its British and French allies that also deployed forces in the war zones, as the decision was taken without consulting them. Trump did not even bother to inform his top advisers, allies, and Congress.

China stepping up efforts to police Muslims

China is using similar policies as Xinjiang to control Muslim activities across the country.

A report in The Wall Street Journal said that the Communist Party of China is adopting the same methods of policing Muslims in other parts of the country, which they have used for regulating Muslims minority communities in the Western region of Xinjiang.

Law enforcement officials have travelled across the region to study the techniques of controlling Muslims population in their home regions.

Now, there are large numbers of small multi-purpose police stations which take care of the small disputes and keep a tap on the surveillance cameras on streets to enforce any order.

In order to curb Islamic practices, Muslim-run restaurants and butcher shops are forced to replace their halal signage as well as the Arabic text. According to the locals, these are a part of new rules.

Police departments use devices which to extract data from mobile phones. There are cameras installed on the mosques to monitor the activities.

In some regions, like Gansu officials have ordered to shut an Arabic -language school. In the Ningxia region, Chinese style designs are replacing the Islamic iconography of Arabic origin.

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