Myanmar generals condemned by UN +++ Iran challenges US sanctions +++ US senator McCain to lie in state

27. September 2018, 02:00

Myanmar generals condemned by UN

The United Nations fact-finding mission on Myanmar has called for the country’s military leaders to be tried by the International Criminal Court and said they should be investigated for genocide. The investigators name six top generals. They say tactics used against ethnic minorities in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states were grossly disproportionate to the actual threat from militant groups, and included rape, torture, murder and extermination. Around 700,000 Muslim Rohingya fled Myanmar to Bangladesh as a result of the military’s actions a year ago. The investigators also criticised Myanmar’s political leader Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to stop the violence. Marzuki Darusman, head of the UN fact finding mission, said Myanmar’s military is a concern for the entire international community: “They are marked by extreme levels of brutality. The military’s contempt for human life should be a cause of concern for the entire population of Myanmar, and to the international community as a whole.”

Iran challenges US sanctions

Iran is applying to the International Court of Justice to challenge sanctions imposed by the United States. Iran says sanctions imposed in May by the Trump administration, after it withdrew from the international agreement on Tehran’s nuclear programme, violate a friendship treaty signed with the US in 1955.

US senator McCain to lie in state

In the US, it’s been announced that the Republican senator John McCain who died on Saturday at the age of 81 will be given the rare honour of lying in state at the Capitol on Friday, before a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama are expected to speak at the service. McCain, who was a Vietnam veteran, has been hailed as a stateman in the US and abroad. He has been a harsh critic of President Trump who in his official response to the death did not acknowledge McCain’s service to the nation.
 

Call for Pope Francis to resign

Pope Francis has refused to respond to a letter published by the Vatican's retired ambassador to the United States accusing him of covering up sexual abuse in 2013. The letter calls for the Pope to resign.
 

Florida shooting at video game tournament

Police in the US say a participant at a video game tournament in Florida has shot dead two people and wounded at least 11 others. Authorities say the 24-year gunman then died from a self-inflicted gunshot.

The weather

Generally sunny. Cloudier in the west. Top temperatures 18 to 26 degrees.

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