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Friday News Roundup - International

Journalists Kyaw Soe Oo (L) and Wa Lone (R)  were jailed on September 3 for seven years for breaching Myanmar's official secrets act during their reporting of the Rohingya crisis, a judge said, a case that has drawn outrage as an attack on media freedom. )
YE AUNG THU/AFP/Getty Images
Journalists Kyaw Soe Oo (L) and Wa Lone (R) were jailed on September 3 for seven years for breaching Myanmar's official secrets act during their reporting of the Rohingya crisis, a judge said, a case that has drawn outrage as an attack on media freedom. )

In Myanmar this week, two reporters were sentenced to seven years in jail after they reported on the brutal murder of 10 Rohynga Muslims in the village of Inn Din. The reporting drew “for the first time on interviews with Buddhist villagers who confessed to torching Rohingya homes, burying bodies and killing Muslims.”

Reuters reported on their sentencing:

A court found the two journalists guilty on Monday in a landmark case seen as a test of progress towards democracy in Myanmar, which was ruled by a military junta until 2011.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were investigating the killing of villagers from the Rohingya Muslim minority by security forces and civilians in Rakhine State when they were arrested in December. They had pleaded not guilty.

— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) September 4, 2018

The United Kingdom leveled charges against two Russians. They are alleged to have used a weapons-grade nerve agent for “the attempted murder of the Russian former intelligence officer, Sergei V. Skripal; of Yulia S. Skripal, his daughter; and of a police officer, Det. Sgt. Nick Bailey, who was sickened while investigating the case.” The British government identified them as active members of Russian intelligence.

It’s unlikely that these alleged G.R.U agents will be repatriated to Britain to stand trial and the Russian government denied the charges. A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said the names and photos that were released “meant nothing to them.”

Is there a reset on the horizon for the U.S. and Pakistan? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the new Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday. Tensions have long been high between the two countries due to the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Pompeo will visit India next, where this week activists cheered as the Supreme Court decriminalized gay intercourse. Violating that law was punishable by a life sentence.

A devastating museum fire in Brazil meant the loss of countless cultural artifacts. The museum held the largest anthropological history collection in the Americas. But some museum officials say that the fire could have been prevented, according to The New York Times.

“We knew that the fire one day was bound to happen,” said Marcelo Weksler, a curator of the mammals exhibit. “Everybody here knew that. It was our worst nightmare.”

A citizen’s complaint, filed with the federal prosecutor’s office in Rio de Janeiro by an architect on July 27, included photos and pointed to specific hazards like the use of flammable plastic on the roof, uncovered wires and other evidence of jury-rigged wiring.

GUESTS

Elise Labott, Global affairs correspondent, CNN; @eliselabottcnn

Paul Danahar, Washington bureau chief of the BBC; author of “The New Middle East: The World After the Arab Spring”; @pdanahar

Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor, The Washington Post; @KarenAttiah

For more, visit https://the1a.org.

© 2018 WAMU 88.5 – American University Radio.

Copyright 2018 WAMU 88.5

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