The Times - UK (2020-11-14)

50 2GM Saturday November 14 2020 | the times

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Anti-corruption banker

set himself on fire

Egypt An Egyptian banker set

himself on fire in Cairo’s main

Tahrir Square in an apparent

protest against corruption.

Mohammed Hosni, who survived,

filmed himself quoting the

Prophet Muhammed, that the

greatest jihad is “a word of truth

in the face of a tyrant”, in an

apparent reference to President

Sisi, who has been in power since

2013. Egyptian media suggested
      that Mr Hosni, who works for the
      Export Development Bank of
      Egypt, was “mentally unstable”
      and exploited by the Muslim
      Brotherhood, which is banned in
      Egypt. Mr Hosni, who is under
      guard in hospital, said he was not
      affiliated to a political movement.

Suu Kyi’s ruling party

wins re-election

Burma Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling

party said it would seek to form a

government of national unity

after election results showed that

it had comfortably won enough

parliamentary seats to form the

next administration. The latest

results from the election on

Sunday confirmed that the

National League for Democracy

had secured 368 of the 476 seats,

with 42 to be declared. (Reuters)

Civilians flee bombing

by government jets

Ethiopia Civilians fleeing fighting

in Ethiopia’s rebel northern

region of Tigray have described

bombing by government jets,

shooting on the streets and

deadly attacks with machetes.

More than 7,000 refugees have

crossed the border into Sudan.

The US condemned a “massacre

of civilians” in the conflict

between government forces and

Tigrayan rebels. (Reuters)

Caretaker president

pleads with protesters

Peru The interim president issued

a plea for calm as protests against

the removal of his predecessor

grew in several cities. Manuel

Merino, 59, swore-in a cabinet of

technocrats and accused

opponents planning to run for the

presidency next year of stoking

anger. Martín Vizcarra, 57, was

impeached and removed as

president on Tuesday over

bribery allegations.

Migrant shipwrecks off

Libya leave 100 dead

Libya Twenty migrants died in a

shipwreck off the Libyan coast on

Thursday, raising the death toll to

almost 100 from two tragedies in

a single day, Doctors Without

Borders said. The organisation

said it assisted three women who

were the lone survivors off the

northwestern city of Sorman. The

UN said that at least 74 people

had drowned in another wreck

the same day. (AFP)

Merkel minister drops

title in plagiarism row

Germany The minister for women

in Angela Merkel’s cabinet said

she will stop using the title doctor

after a dispute over her PhD.

Franziska Giffey, 42, a Social

Democrat, was reprimanded by

Berlin’s Free University in 2010

over claims of plagiarism. The

university says it will revisit the

decision not to withdraw the title.

Ms Giffey said she had written

her thesis in good faith. (AP)

Corpses of ethnic Armenian soldiers
lined a mountain road in Nagorno-
Karabakh yesterday as Russian officials
moved in after a peace deal was reached
with Azerbaijan.
Russia is sending almost 2,000
troops, along with tanks and other
armour, to secure a truce agreed this

Dead soldiers litter roadside as Armenians pull back

week after a six-week war over the

ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan

and surrounding areas.

The scale of the destruction showed

how desperate the fighting had be-

come. Reuters reported that one Rus-

sian column drove past about 100 dead

Armenian soldiers by the roadside.

Arayik Harutyunyan, the Nagorno-

Karabakh leader, wrote on social media

that the process of exchanging bodies

had begun. President Putin of Russia

said that more than 4,000 people on

both sides had been killed.

Clashes broke out at the end of Sep-

tember over the Nagorno-Karabakh

region that broke away in the 1990s.

The region will now be handed back to

Azerbaijan as part of the peace deal.

Ethnic Armenians are leaving in

trucks piled with household posses-

sions, leaving houses in flames rather

let them be occupied by those they

regard as the enemy.

Thousands of protesters rallied yes-

terday in Yerevan, the Armenian capi-

tal, for a fourth consecutive day to de-

mand that Nikol Pashinyan, the prime

minister, resign over the agreement.

Many held placards that said: “Nikol

traitor.” Artur Beglarian, a wounded

veteran, shouted: “Who are you to give

up our lands? You had no right.”

Armenia
Lianne Kolirin

P

lans by

Bangladesh to

place 100,000

Rohingya

refugees on a

remote and flood-

prone island, where

there have been

reports of beatings

and abuse by the

authorities, have met

fierce resistance

(Richard Lloyd Parry

writes). Some of those

already on the island

have said they will

starve themselves

rather than stay there.

The government of

Bangladesh has spent

£270 million on

building a small city of

mosques and red-

roofed apartment

blocks on Bhasan

Char island, which

emerged 15 years ago

out of silt and

sandbanks in the Bay

of Bengal.

It remains almost

empty because of the

island’s vulnerability

to floods and cyclones,

and there have been

reports of violence

against the few

Rohingya living

there.

“We told [the

authorities] to give

us the date when

we will be sent back

from here, otherwise

we won’t eat... or we

will die jumping into

the sea,” one of the

they started beating

us. [The security

forces] used bad

words, calling us ‘dogs’

and ‘pigs’.”

The 13,000-acre

island is two hours by

speedboat from the

city of Chittagong.

Bangladesh faces a

continuing crisis in

the form of 750,000

Rohingya Muslims

who were driven

out of Burma in

2017, adding to

hundreds of

thousands who had

fled during decades of

persecution. They now

live in the world’s

largest refugee camps

close to the city of

Cox’s Bazar.

Bangladesh has

created an

embankment around

the centre of Bhasan

Char to prevent

flooding and built 120

“cluster villages”

consisting of 12 blocks

of 16 apartment rooms

each intended to

house a family of four.

The UN High

Commissioner for

Refugees insists that it

must be allowed to

assess the island

before refugees are

sent there.

Rohingya

face being

confined to

flood island

Bangladesh has built

120 “cluster villages” on

Bhasan Char island for

Rohingya refugees,

but it is vulnerable to

floods and cyclones

s, spee

city

Ba

con

th

R

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o

2

hu

tho

ffled

pers

live i

300 Rohingya on the

island told the human

rights organisation

Fortify Rights.

Another said: “When

they brought food and

we refused to take it,

The disturbance spread quickly
through the parliamentary chamber.
Aides gave notes to their bosses; MPs
tapped at smartphones. “I was reading
a bill that we were about to vote on,”
said Dennis Kwok, 42, from the Civic
Party. “My staff member said, ‘Boss, you
need to read this.’”
More than a thousand miles away a
resolution had been passed by the
National People’s Assembly in Beijing
to expel Mr Kwok and three pro- demo-
cracy MPs from Hong Kong’s Legis-
lative Council (Legco). Within minutes
on Wednesday, the other 15 pro-
democracy MPs in the 70-seat chamber

Expelled Hong Kong MPs vow to

fight on against Beijing’s iron fist

announced that they would resign in

solidarity.

The new blow further undermines

the One Country, Two Systems rule

that is supposed to guarantee Hong

Kong’s autonomy from Beijing, leaving

the opposition movement, stricken by

prosecutions and a draconian security

law, unsure about how to move on.

Kwok Ka-ki, one of the four expelled,

says: “It’s the saddest day because it

means the end of One Country, Two

Systems. [We’re] close to hopeless, defi-

nitely, but if you lose hope completely,

you die. And one doesn’t want that.”

The “pan-democratic camp”, a coali-

tion of progressives, has always won

most votes cast in Hong Kong, but

because only half of Legco’s seats are

elected, it has never been able to control

the chamber, though it has been able to

challenge and debate, and delay gov-

ernment bills. The government had

already announced that the four MPs

would be barred from next year’s

election to Legco, because of their

alleged support for foreign sanctions.

“It makes no sense,” Mr Kwok said.

“We could never achieve true

opposition. They already had all the

tools they need to control Legco and yet

they had to go one step further.”

The reasoning of the other

opposition MPs who walked out is that

by staying on in an assembly from

which they could be sacked at any time,

they would have been lending

legitimacy to a sham institution.

Having abandoned Legco, it is difficult

to see what opponents of Beijing can do.

Coronavirus restrictions have made

it impossible to convene the kind of

protests that electrified Hong Kong last

year and the intimidating effect of the

National Security Law would diminish

the numbers of those willing to risk

open opposition.

None of the denunciations or eco-

nomic sanctions taken by foreign gov-

ernments have deterred Beijing. “I

don’t think anyone can,” Mr Kwok said.

“They are bent on this course.

“When the news came [of the expul-

sions], I said, ‘Hey, chaps, it’s time to go’.

We don’t to want to be carried out, we

don’t want to be bundled up. So we

walked out ourselves, with dignity.”

Hong Kong
Richard Lloyd Parry Asia Editor

MOMINUL ISLAM MOMIN/SOLENT NEWS; TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL