[File: AP]

Sri Lanka imposed a curfew in a central town popular with tourists after days of unrest between religious communities with a Buddhist man killed and Muslim businesses set ablaze.

Police said on Monday there had been riots and arson attacks since the weekend in Kandy district, while sources told Al Jazeera the violence was spreading throughout the South Asian island nation.

“The curfew was imposed to control the situation in the area,” said police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera.

Police officers were placed on heightened alert in Kandy to ensure the “situation does not spiral into inter-communal conflagration”, the government said in a statement.

Mobs set fire to Muslim-owned businesses and attacked a mosque in the east of the country.

Local officials said more than two dozen suspects had been detained by police in connection with the spate of arson attacks, while senior officers also launched an investigation into the conduct of the police.

Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon, executive director of the Centre for Human Rights Sri Lanka, condemned the “unfathomable police inefficiency” that he said led to the violence.

“Social media pages rallied Sinhalese mobs to assemble in Teldeniya town at 10am. At 11am, there was a proclivity for violent confrontations to take place as mobs gathered. The destruction of Muslim properties started taking place from around 1pm,” Tennakoon told Al Jazeera.

Kandy is the latest region to be plagued by religious and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, a nation of 21 million people.

Najah Mohamed, secretary of the National Front for Good Governance party in Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera attacks are spreading all over the country, not just in Kandy.

“We are facing the same situation that we had experienced with the previous government with tension, hate, and violence against Muslims are rampant especially where they are a dispersed community,” said Mohamed.

Religious and ethnic violence can turn deadly in Sri Lanka, where Muslims account for 10 percent of the population and Buddhists Sinhalese make up nearly 75 percent.

Some observers blame the hardline Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) group for the ongoing violence.

“The violent BBS mobs manipulated the situation to fuel attacks against Muslims in an unprecedented way and started attacking people. In the afternoon the police and curfew were here, but there are still rising underreported incidents taking place,” Mohamed said.

Religious violence is not new to the island. An anti-Muslim campaign was launched following the deadly Aluthgama riots in June 2014.

President Maithripala Siresena had vowed to investigate anti-Muslim crimes after assuming power in 2015, but no significant progress has been reported.

Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe are yet to make an official statement on the recent unrest.

The Makki Masjid in Manchester is among several mosques which have welcomed the homeless in [Courtesy: Rabnawaz Akbar]

by Anealla Safdar, Al Jazeera

Several mosques in the United Kingdom and Ireland are opening their doors to the homeless as icy weather continues to bite, with temperatures hovering below zero degrees.

Concerns for vulnerable people grew on Friday as the Met Office issued a red alert for snow – the highest level of warning – for parts of southwest England and south Wales.

Yellow and amber warnings were in place across the UK on Friday and into the weekend, with Storm Emma bringing heavy snow and strong winds.

“The temperature is pretty severe, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we do something to help?'” Rabnawaz Akbar, a trustee of Makki Masjid in the northern city of Manchester, told Al Jazeera.

Over the past couple of days, a handful of volunteers have camped out at the place of worship, providing food and shelter to Manchester’s homeless.

The mosque is also offering its shower facilities to those seeking a place to stay.

Because the mosque is situated in a predominately South Asian area, the meals on offer include traditional Bangladeshi and Pakistani meals such as rice and curried chicken.

Akbar said homelessness in Manchester is growing.

“Austerity measures over last eight years mean the support services that people need are not there any more,” he said. “This results in people sleeping rough. The solution is not just about people having a roof over their heads. Some of these people have mental health issues, they are domestic violence victims, drug addicts or undocumented immigrants – they have no recourse to public funds.

“To make sure they are off the street, you need support services around them, not just give them somewhere to stay for a night. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts at local authorities, [councils] do not have the resources.”

Jamie was among four people who slept in the mosque on Thursday evening.

“I’m an addict. I’ve never been in a mosque in all my life,” he said. “I was in two minds over whether to get myself some heroin or crack, so that I could be okay for the night. As I was thinking about this, a guy came from the side and said, ‘You’re homeless, would you like to spend the night in a mosque?’

“They made me feel very welcome, gave me something to eat, to drink. Something that the basic council can’t even provide for us.”

Jamie said that the media often portrays mosques in a negative manner.

“You always get the stereotypical [portrayal] of mosques … Not everybody is like that. I’ve not been encouraged to be radicalised. It’s ‘Are you hungry? Are you okay?’.”

‘15,000 homeless by 2026’
Leeds Grand Mosque, Oldham Mosque, Finsbury Park Mosque, Canterbury Mosque and Dublin’s Clonskeagh Mosque, which is part of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland, have also opened their doors to the homeless.

“We will have a security team on duty at night, and maintenance teams have been alerted to make sure there is sufficient heating in the building, especially late at night,” Summayah Kenna, head of community welfare at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland, told Dublin’s 98FM radio.

In a report at the end of January, Crisis, a charity working to end homelessness, described the rising number of people living without shelter as a “catastrophe”.

According to the government, around 5,000 people could be found sleeping rough on any given night in autumn last year, more than double the 2010 number.

Crisis said the number of people sleeping rough is currently around 8,000 and will rise to 15,000 by 2026 “if nothing changes”.

Two Indian-Americans, Samir Lakhani from Pittsburg and Mona Patel from Texas, are among the 10 finalists for the prestigious CNN Heroes of the Year award.
Samir Lakhani from Pittsburg and Mona Patel from Texas are among the finalists for the annual award to be given on December 17.
Lakhani’s non-profit recycles discarded bars of soap from hotels across Cambodia and distributes it to villages in need, CNN reported.
It all started in 2014 when as a college student, Lakhani traveled to Cambodia where he experienced first-hand that for many in Cambodia a bar of soap is a luxury they cannot afford.
While still attending the University of Pittsburgh, Lakhani started the Eco-Soap Bank, the report said.
The organization now has four recycling centers across the country, providing jobs to 35 local women. The used bars are sanitized and remolded into new bars or melted down into liquid soap.
According to Lakhani so far, more than 650,000 people have benefited from the group’s soap and hygiene education.

Mona Patel’s non-profit aims to help amputees rebuild their lives by offering peer support, resources, and recreational activities.
The San Antonio Amputee Foundation aims to help amputees rebuild their lives. The group offers peer support, education and recreation opportunities, as well as financial assistance for basic home and car modifications and prosthetic limbs, it said.

Philippine Department of Health says 11,103 new HIV cases were reported in 2017, up 19.9 percent from 2016 [AP]

by Ted Regencia, Al Jazeera

New HIV cases continued to increase in the Philippines in 2017, with a 3,147 percent surge since 2007, according to an Al Jazeera analysis of the latest data published by the country’s health agency, bucking a downward trend worldwide.

In a February 2018 report, the Philippine Department of Health said 11,103 new cases were reported in 2017, up 19.85 percent from the 9,264 cases in 2016.

Compared with the 342 HIV infections reported in 2007, the 2017 figure is 3,147 percent higher.

READ MORE
Filipinos challenge stigma amid rising HIV cases
In contrast, new HIV cases reported worldwide had gone down, from 2.1 million in 2015 to 1.8 million in 2016, according to the latest figures provided by the World Health Organization and the UN AIDS Programme.

The latest report from the Philippines comes after President Rodrigo Duterte was recently quoted as saying that Filipinos should follow the government’s reproductive health programme, but avoid using condoms because “it is not satisfying.”

The health department said of the new cases in 2017, more than 95 percent involved male transmission. A total of 38 cases involved minors under 15 years old.

With a population of more than 100 million, the number of HIV cases in the Philippines remains low. But in terms of percentage increase, the UN said in August 2017 the country has the fastest growing HIV epidemic in the Asia-Pacific region in recent years.

Candy wrapper?

The UN report also said the Philippines has become one of eight countries that account “for more than 90 percent of new HIV infections” in the region.

For years, the use of condoms and other artificial birth control methods had been frowned upon in the majority Catholic country.

But that changed after the Philippines passed a reproductive health reform law in 2012.

Aside from abstinence and natural methods, the government then started to promote the use of condoms to encourage family planning and safe sex, and to reduce teenage pregnancy, which is also prevalent in the Philippines.

Commenting on the country’s swelling population, Duterte said last week that Filipinos are too carefree when it comes to reproduction, adding the country would be more manageable with a smaller population.

“I am not joking. Just follow the government programme [on reproductive health]. We have free pills but just avoid condoms, because it is not satisfying,” he said.

Duterte then compared using condoms to eating candies without removing plastic wrappers.

He also advised women “to get an injection good for six months, so there will be no limit in your libido”.

‘Thoughtless and irresponsible’
Ana Santos, a journalist and reproductive health advocate, said what Duterte said about condom use was “thoughtless and irresponsible.

“His comment on condoms tells us how little he knows about the HIV epidemic in the Philippines, and how condoms are a scientifically proven method to prevent its spread,” Santos told Al Jazeera.

She said the HIV epidemic “has been festering” because of “historically low condom use due to shame and stigma and a misconception that condoms are not pleasurable.

“This is a misconception Duterte just reinforced.”

Carlos Conde, a Human Rights Watch representative, said instead of criticising condoms, the president “should take meaningful action” such as expanding accessibility and their use nationwide.

“Policies restricting access to condoms are a threat to public health,” Conde said in a statement to Al Jazeera, citing the spread of HIV and the continued high maternal mortality rate.

In a statement posted on social media, Risa Hontiveros, an opposition senator, wrote: “It’s not satisfying if you use condoms? Try HIV-AIDS and teenage pregnancy.”

Meanwhile, Ronnievinn Pagtakhan, a top Filipino advocate of HIV-AIDS prevention, told Al Jazeera the increase of HIV cases continues to be “alarming.

“There is an epidemic,” he said, noting of the 100-120 people getting tested daily at a health centre he runs in Manila, between 8-10 percent test positive.

Pagtakhan also pointed out the increase in the number of new cases could be attributed to more awareness about HIV among the population.

While sex is “a very personal matter”, it is necessary that Filipinos must be well-informed about their options and consequences of their behaviour, he said.

“In view of the explosive growth in the number of HIV infections in the Philippines, we need more conversations rather than quick judgement and hate.”

Johannesburg: South African President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday resigned from his office with immediate effect making the announcement in a televised address to the nation.

The 75-year-old has been under increasing pressure to give way to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC’s new leader.

Zuma, who has been in power since 2009, faces numerous allegations of corruption.

His resignation came at the end of a long speech in which he said he disagreed with the way the ANC had acted towards him.

According to BBC, he said he did not fear a motion of no-confidence, adding: “I have served the people of South Africa to the best of my ability.”

Zuma also said that violence and division within the ANC had influenced his decision to step down.

“No life should be lost in my name and also the ANC should never be divided in my name. I have therefore come to the decision to resign as president of the republic with immediate effect,” he was quoted as saying.

“Even though I disagree with the decision of the leadership of my organisation, I have always been a disciplined member of the ANC.

“As I leave I will continue to serve the people of South Africa as well as the ANC, the organisation I have served… all of my life.”

Meanwhile, the ANC said Zuma’s resignation provided “certainty to the people of South Africa”.

Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte told reporters: “President Zuma remains a principled member of the ANC. The ANC wants to salute the outstanding contribution he has made.”

(IANS)

The organisers have confirmed that there won’t be prayer rooms at the 2018 Olympics [KTO]

by Haeyoon Kim & Faras Ghani, Al Jazeera

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has cancelled plans for a mobile prayer room in Gangneung for tourists at the 2018 Winter Olympics after strong opposition by anti-Muslim campaigners, the city tourism department’s chief told Al Jazeera.

While just 0.2 percent of South Korea’s population of 51 million is Muslim, the KTO decided to build a prayer room to promote a “Muslim-friendly Korea” during the Winter Olympics, which start on Friday and increase the number of Muslim tourists.

But after “strong opposition” from some groups, city officials in Gangneung cancelled the plans.

“We had strong opposition from some religious groups who opposed the installation and threatened protests during the Winter Olympics,” Gangneung city government tourism division chief Kang Suk-ho told Al Jazeera.

“We sat down with them for talks, but in the end, we had to cancel the plans,” he added.

Kang also said he did not expect “such an extreme backlash from the group”.

“We thought it’d be nice to offer a prayer room facility at the Gangneung station,” he explained, adding that he thought the opposition to the plan was “very regrettable”.

Gangneung is set to host all indoor events.

Increase in Muslim tourists
South Korea has witnessed an increase in the number of Muslim tourists over the last few years. According to the KTO, a 33 percent increase was registered in 2016 compared with the year before, and the numbers reached 1.2 million by the end of 2017.

Tapping into this economic potential, the country has increased the number of Halal certificates for its restaurants and prayer rooms, and the Seoul Tourism Organization is promoting a series of videos showcasing Muslim-friendly restaurants around the capital.

A KTO press release last year confirmed one of its aims was that “the provision of travel convenience should be strengthened in order to increase their satisfaction and to encourage repeat visits”.

The Korean Muslim Federation (KMF) expressed its disappointment with the decision, adding that the “Olympic Games should go beyond a single nation, race, culture and religion to achieve harmonisation”.

“This decision demonstrates that we, as a host country, lack thoughtful understanding,” Lee Ju-hwa, a KMF representative, told Al Jazeera in a statement.

“Instead of claiming that the installation of a prayer room is preferential treatment given to a certain religion, we need to raise awareness that it was to consider others with different faith and beliefs,” he added.

KTO’s Director of PR Kim Yeong-ju said it was supposed to be a multi-faith prayer room.

However, the opposition group, the Pyeongchang Olympics Gangwon Citizens’ Islam Countermeasure Association, launched its protests specifically against Muslims who were coming for the Winter Olympics.

“If the room was for people of all religions, why would they have an ablution area,” the organisation’s secretary Seo said.

“From what I heard from Egyptians, there are exceptional cases when Muslims don’t pray, for example when they are on a plane or driving. So the same should be applied during the Games.

“The government has already spent too much of the taxpayers’ money on the Games, and we shouldn’t spend more building a prayer room.”

The organisation collected more than 56,000 signatures for an online petition that opposed the installation of the prayer room.

But for some Muslims families who are visiting South Korea for the Olympics, the decision to forgo the prayer room may set a dangerous precedent.

“While it would have been great to have a praying facility at the Games, the bigger worry for us is how this can set a precedent going forward,” one Muslim spectator, who asked not to be named, told Al Jazeera.

“We can offer our prayers in some corner or back at our hotel; I just hope the opposition realises what little it will achieve by not having a prayer room put up,” the visitor said.

Ten Rohingya Muslim men with their hands bound kneel as members of the Myanmar security forces stand guard in Inn Din village [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Two Reuters news agency journalists held for two months by Myanmar authorities were arrested over their investigation of a massacre of 10 Rohingya men, the news agency said in a report that detailed the killings.

It is the first time Reuters has publicly confirmed what Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were working on when they were arrested on December 12 on the outskirts of Yangon.

The pair are now facing up to 14 years in prison on charges of possessing classified documents in violation of the colonial-era Official Secrets Act.

Their plight has sparked global alarm over withering press freedoms in Myanmar and government efforts to curb reporting in northern Rakhine state – a crisis-hit region where troops are accused of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against Muslim-majority Rohingya.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled the area since last August, carrying stories of atrocities at the hands of troops and vigilante groups in the Buddhist-majority country.

Myanmar authorities deny the allegations but have virtually cut off northern Rakhine, barring independent media from accessing the conflict-hit areas.

On Thursday Reuters published a report describing how Myanmar troops and Buddhist villagers executed 10 Rohingya men in Rakhine’s Inn Dinn village on September 2, 2017 before dumping their bodies into a mass grave.

“The Reuters investigation of the Inn Din massacre was what prompted Myanmar police authorities to arrest two of the news agency’s reporters,” the report said.

The account was based on testimony from Buddhist villagers, security officers and relatives of the slain men.

It included graphic photographs of the victims, hands bound kneeling on the floor before the killing – and of their bodies in a pit after they were shot.

Their ages ranged from 17 to 45. Among them were students, fishermen, farmers and shop owners. They were all part of the same Rohingya community in Inn Din.

“When they were taking them away, they said ‘don’t worry. We will send your sons back soon. We are taking them for a meeting’,” the father of one victims, Abdu Shakur, said.

A month after the journalists’ arrests, Myanmar’s army issued a rare statement admitting that security forces took part in extrajudicial killings of 10 Rohingya “terrorists” in Inn Din village.

The Reuters report said witnesses denied there had been any major attack from Rohingya rebels before the alleged massacre.

A Myanmar government spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

But Myanmar vehemently denies systematic abuses by its security officers, despite a mounting volume of evidence pointing to atrocities.

Judges have denied bail to the two reporters during a pre-trial hearing period, despite calls for their release from human rights groups and diplomats around the globe.