News Round-Up 16/09/16

News from HART:

• We’ve had a busy week in our new offices and an exciting visit from our Burmese local partner Dr Sasa! Sasa gave a wonderful talk in the House of Lords that you can read about by clicking here.

Burma 

• The international community has been surprised this week as the US has ended its economic sanctions against Burma. President Obama stated it was the right thing to do in the wake of the NLD’s democratic rise to power, however many have criticised the move as it shall lift pressure of the Burmese military.
• Additionally, the Burmese army have been accused of stopping WFO rice from reaching a Kachin IDP camp. There are rumours that the military believed the rice was going to ethnic armed organisations.

India

• A PMK man has been held for posting a picture of a Dalit school girl with an abusive comment on Facebook. The man held is a school teacher near Panruti. The school contacted the media after protests regarding his behaviour from the school’s students.
• A campus Dalit row has been rekindled in Lucknow after the University suspended eight Dalit students over claims of an assault on a professor. The students in question deny the claims. This is the latest in fresh agitations against caste discrimination in campuses all over the country.

Nigeria

• The IRC has warned that the after affects of Boko Haram’s reign of terror in recently cleared areas in northeast Nigeria could result in the deaths 184 children each day in 2016 because of acute malnutrition.
• The IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre have stated the number of cross border Boko Haram attacks have raised since they pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group.

South Sudan

• The number of South Sudanese refugees has reached the 1 million mark according to UNHCR. Most of the recent arrivals have fled to Uganda, but many have also fled to Ethiopia’s Gambella region in the past week amongst other countries.
• Food inflation hit a record 850 per cent last month, with prices 1,000 per cent above the five year average in Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal. This comes with continued accusations of industrial-scale embezzlement of public funds. 

Sudan

• A Student has reportedly been killed by government militia in Abassiya Tagali, South Kordofan.
• Sudanese national security have detained and released youth leaders in Abu Jubeiha, South Kordofan in response to calls for improvement of services including electricity, which had been cut off in the area for two months.

Uganda

• It has been reported that the Ugandan experience shows TB detection can be successfully incorporated into community HIV testing campaigns. Research conducted in rural Uganda has demonstrated that incorporating TB screenings into community health campaigns offering universal HIV testing has led to the diagnosis of numerous undetected TB cases.