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HART News Round-up 29/01/16

29 January 2016

News from HART

  • HART intern, Satya Tan, has written an excellent blog on the ways in which Dalits are treated when seeking medical care, titled India’s inequality in healthcare: the caste divide.
  • On Wednesday Baroness Cox contributed to a panel discussion at Conway Hall for World Holocaust Day. She highlighted the situation of de facto genocide of civilians in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State, the Armenian genocide of 1915 and continued aggression in Nagorno-Karabakh.
  • And in a busy week Baroness Cox was interview on Woman to Woman for Premier Radio on Thursday.

Burma

Preparations are underway for Burma’s Second Parliament to convene on 1st February:

  • Outgoing Union Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann gave his final press conference today.
  • Out of 491 elected MPs in the Upper and Lower houses,390 are from the National League for Democracy (NLD). The remaining 101 members represent various political entities including ethnic nationality parties and the USDP. 166 seats across both houses are reserved for military members.
  • The military is reportedly making preparations ‘to engage in policy and legislative debates with the NLD.’
  • Myanmar Now interviewed some of the ethnic minority MPs preparing to take their seats on Monday. Read their thoughts here.
  • Malnutrition has spiked in Arakan State following the flooding of last summer, especially amongst the Rohingya communities. Yet it is an issue of a grave concern across the country and the World Food Programme is facing a funding shortfall saying that they have enough food to support IDPs fully until April.

    A displaced Rohingya woman at an IDP camp outside Sittwe. Credit: DVB
    A displaced Rohingya woman at an IDP camp outside Sittwe. Credit: DVB
  • 5 student activists arrested during the police crackdown at Letpadan, Pegu Division on March 10 have been released for having ‘already served more time behind bars than their sentences required while awaiting a verdict’. 2 other students still await trial behind bars.
  • BBC’s Jonah Fisher has visited Shan State and shares footage including interviews with IDPs displaced following the fighting in November.

Sudan

South Sudan

  • South Sudan has missed a key deadline to create a transitional government, as arguing over the expansion of the number of provinces continued.
  • The Jieng Dinka Council of Elders has said that revoking Salva Kiir’s orders to create 28 states in South Sudan as opposition groups have demanded would cause another war.
  • At least 2,000 children in South Sudan’s Unity state have started their primary leaving exams, 2 years after war broke out.
  • The UK Minister for Africa, James Duddridge has said there should be no further delay to form South Sudan’s Transitional Government in accordance with the August 2015 peace accord. However, the government of South Sudan has said it may take three more months before a transitional government can be formed.
  • The founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and five other entrepreneurs and human rights campaigners have written to the African Union to use the upcoming summit to sort of conflicts in South Sudan and Burundi as a matter of urgency.

    Source: The Daily Nation
    Source: The Daily Nation

India

Nagorno-Karabakh

Nigeria

Uganda

  • Human Rights Watch has said that the overall political situation in East Africa, including Uganda, has sharply deteriorated, suggesting that patterns of repression, particularly intimidation and threats against journalists and activists have increased as the forthcoming election approaches.
  • The Ugandan army has warned that it will not tolerate disturbances by any election loser, whether instigated by the ruling National Resistance Movement party or the Opposition.
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