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Four million US government workers hit by cyber breach

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FBI investigating cyberattack that is believed to have compromised data of current and former federal employees.

Since the intrusion, OPM said it had implemented additional security precautions for its networks [Reuters]

Since the intrusion, OPM said it had implemented additional security precautions for its networks [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The US government agency that collects personnel information for federal employees has said that a cybersecurity breach had compromised the data of up to four million people.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday that it has launched a probe and would hold the culprits accountable, Reuters reported.

“The FBI is working with our interagency partners to investigate this matter,” the bureau said in a statement.

“We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems seriously, and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) detected new malicious activity affecting its information systems in April and the Department of Homeland Security said it concluded at the beginning of May that the agency’s data had been compromised. The office handles employee records and security clearances.

“This would likely be the largest theft of US government data in the history of the United States,” Patty Culhane, Al Jazeera’s White House correspondent reporting from Washington, said.

“Basically, OPM is like the human resources department of the entire federal government. They also get security background checks for people who want to get security clearances,” she said.

“The big question remains exactly what information was stolen? Was it social security number, your federal ID or was it salary information. Right now OPM is not saying.”

A US law enforcement source told Reuters a “foreign entity or government” was believed to be behind the cyberattack. Authorities were looking into a possible Chinese connection, a source close to the matter said.

A Chinese embassy spokesman in Washington said hypothetical accusations were irresponsible and counterproductive.

“Jumping to conclusions and making [a] hypothetical accusation is not responsible,” and is “counterproductive”, Chinese embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said in emailed comments.

Security precautions

The OPM had previously been the victim of a cyberattack, as have various federal government computer systems at the state department, the US Postal Service and the White House.

Since the intrusion, OPM said it had implemented additional security precautions for its networks. It said it would notify the 4 million people affected and offer credit monitoring and identity theft services to the people affected.

“The last few months have seen a series of massive data breaches that have affected millions of Americans,” US Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement.

But he called the latest intrusion “among the most shocking because Americans may expect that federal computer networks are maintained with state of the art defences”.

It is thought that the ramifications of the data breach could potentially affect every federal agency.

WikiLeaks strikes again: Leaked TISA docs expose corporate plan for reshaping global economy

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Leaked Docs reveal that little-known corporate treaty poised to privatize and deregulate public services across globe

"It’s a dark day for democracy when we are dependent on leaks like this for the general public to be informed of the radical restructuring of regulatory frameworks that our governments are proposing," said Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now. (Image created by Common Dreams)

“It’s a dark day for democracy when we are dependent on leaks like this for the general public to be informed of the radical restructuring of regulatory frameworks that our governments are proposing,” said Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now. (Image created by Common Dreams)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

An enormous corporate-friendly treaty that many people haven’t heard of was thrust into the public limelight Wednesday when famed publisher of government and corporate secrets, WikiLeaks, released 17 documents from closed-door negotiations between countries that together comprise two-thirds of the word’s economy.

Analysts warn that preliminary review shows that the pact, known as the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), is aimed at further privatizing and deregulating vital services, from transportation to healthcare, with a potentially devastating impact for people of the countries involved in the deal, and the world more broadly.

“This TISA text again favors privatization over public services, limits governmental action on issues ranging from safety to the environment using trade as a smokescreen to limit citizen rights,” said Larry Cohen, president of Communications Workers of America, in a statement released Wednesday.

Under secret negotiation by 50 countries for roughly two years, the pact includes the United States, European Union, and 23 other countries—including Israel, Turkey, and Colombia. Notably, the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—are excluded from the talks.

Along with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations, which are also currently being negotiated, TISA is part of  what WikiLeaks calls the “T-treaty trinity.” Like the TTP and TTIP, it would fall “under consideration for collective ‘Fast-Track’ authority in Congress this month,” WikiLeaks noted in a statement issued Wednesday.

However, TISA stands out from this trio as being the most secretive and least understood of all, with its negotiating sessions not even announced to the public.

Wednesday’s leak provides the largest window yet into TISA and comes on the heels of two other leaks about the accord last year, the first from WikiLeaks and the other from the Associated Whistleblowing Press, a non-profit organization with local platforms in Iceland and Spain.

While analysts are still poring over the contents of the new revelations, civil society organizations released some preliminary analysis of the accord’s potential implications for transportation, communication, democratic controls, and non-participating nations:

  • Telecommunications: “The leaked telecommunications annex, among others, demonstrate potentially grave impacts for deregulation of state owned enterprises like their national telephone company,” wrote the global network Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS) in a statement issued Wednesday.
  • Transportation: The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), comprised of roughly 700 unions from more than 150 countries, warned on Wednesday that the just-published documents “foresee consolidated power for big transport industry players and threaten the public interest, jobs and a voice for workers.” ITF president Paddy Crumlin said: “This text would supercharge the most powerful companies in the transport industry, giving them preferential treatment. What’s missing from this equation is any value at all for workers and citizens.”
  • Bypassing democratic regulations: “Preliminary analysis notes that the goal of domestic regulation texts is to remove domestic policies, laws and regulations that make it harder for transnational corporations to sell their services in other countries (actually or virtually), to dominate their local suppliers, and to maximize their profits and withdraw their investment, services and profits at will,” writes OWINFS. “Since this requires restricting the right of governments to regulate in the public interest, the corporate lobby is using TISA to bypass elected officials in order to apply a set of across-the-board rules that would never be approved on their own by democratic governments.”
  • Broad impact: “The documents show that the TISA will impact even non-participating countries,” wrote OWINFS. “The TISA is exposed as a developed countries’ corporate wish lists for services which seeks to bypass resistance from the global South to this agenda inside the WTO, and to secure and agreement on servcies without confronting the continued inequities on agriculture, intellectual property, cotton subsidies, and many other issues.”

The warnings follow concerns, based on previous leaks, that TISA poses a threat to net neutrality, internet freedoms, and privacy.

Moreover, global social movements charge that the deal poses a threat to democracy itself.

In a letter released in September 2013, 241 civil society groups from around the world aired concerns about the TISA deal: “Democracy is eroded when decision-making about important sectors– such as financial services (including banking, securities trading, accounting, insurance, etc.), energy, education, healthcare, retail, shipping, telecommunications, legal services, transportation, and tourism– is transferred from citizens, local oversight boards, and local or provincial/state jurisdiction to unaccountable trade’ negotiators who have shown a clear proclivity for curtailing regulation and prioritizing corporate profits.”

Analysts note that the leak underscores the intense secretiveness of the talks, whose texts are supposed to be kept completely secret for five years following the reaching of a deal or abandonment of the process.

“That the negotiating texts say they are supposed to stay secret for five years is quite shocking, and therefore it is really important that the text is made public,” Melinda St. Louis, international campaigns director for Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, toldCommon Dreams.

“It’s a dark day for democracy when we are dependent on leaks like this for the general public to be informed of the radical restructuring of regulatory frameworks that our governments are proposing,” said Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, in a statement released Wednesday.


Canadian government charged with 'cultural genocide' over indigenous schools

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Truth and Reconciliation Commission report says historic government program was central in plan to ‘eliminate aboriginal people as distinct peoples’

Residential school children students in a typical classroom. An estimated 6,0000 of Canada’s indigenous children died in residential schools that failed to keep them safe from fires, protected from abusers, and healthy from deadly disease, a Commission report found. (Photo: Anglican Church Archives)

Residential school children students in a typical classroom. An estimated 6,0000 of Canada’s indigenous children died in residential schools that failed to keep them safe from fires, protected from abusers, and healthy from deadly disease, a Commission report found. (Photo: Anglican Church Archives)

by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams

The Canadian government’s historic practice of forcibly removing Indigenous youth from their homes and sending them to “residential schools”—where tens of thousands were subjected to abuse, malnutrition, substandard education, illness, and often death—amounts to nothing short of “cultural genocide,” charged the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which on Tuesday released its years-long investigation into the program.

The culmination of six years of research and 6,750 survivor and witness statements, the report argues that the Canadian government operated the school program with the explicit purpose of breaking children’s link “to their culture and identity,” and describes a “lonely and alien” existence, where students’ native languages and practices were suppressed and neglect and abuse were common.According to the report:

Buildings were poorly located, poorly built, and poorly maintained. The staff was limited in numbers, often poorly trained, and not adequately supervised. Many schools were poorly heated and poorly ventilated, and the diet was meager and of poor quality. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. The educational goals of the schools were limited and confused, and usually reflected a low regard for the intellectual capabilities of Aboriginal people. For the students, education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers.

“These measures were part of a coherent policy to eliminate Aboriginal people as distinct peoples and to assimilate them into the Canadian mainstream against their will,” the report states. Further, the Commission argues that the government “pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources.”

Over the course of 150 years, an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children spent time in roughly 80 residential schools throughout the country. Approximately 80,000 survivors are still alive today.

The Commission lays out 94 calls for action, which it says are the “first steps” toward addressing the legacy of injustice and advancing the process of reconciliation.

Among the recommendations are efforts to protect child welfare, preserve language and culture, promote legal equity, and strengthen information on missing children. The report also emphasizes the important role that education can have in the healing process and calls for Canadian governments to work towards eliminating the education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children, as well as develop curriculum on residential schools.

“The children who attended these schools were severely punished for practicing their cultural ceremonies, for speaking their family’s language,” said TRC Commissioner Dr. Marie Wilson. “Reconciliation rests on building aboriginal culture back up, and preserving the languages and ceremonies that the schools tried to eliminate.”

The report also calls on governments across Canada to adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (pdf), which the Commission says will also help achieve successful reconciliation.

“One hundred years from now, our children’s children and their children must know and still remember this history, because they will inherit from us the responsibility of ensuring that it never happens again,” the report says.

The TRC was established in 2007 as a result of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

'He should get the Nobel Peace Prize': Ellsberg champions Snowden's profound impact

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“[T]he first time…this mass surveillance that’s been going on is subjected to a genuine debate, it didn’t stand up.”

Renowned whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg spoke with The Guardian about the changing landscape of U.S. surveillance. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr/cc)

Renowned whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg spoke with The Guardian about the changing landscape of U.S. surveillance. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr/cc)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should be credited with helping change U.S. surveillance law, Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, said Monday in an interview with The Guardian.

“It’s interesting to see that the first time… this mass surveillance that’s been going on is subjected to a genuine debate, it didn’t stand up,” he said.

Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act for disclosing secret U.S. military documents related to the Vietnam War in 1971. Snowden, who leaked a trove of classified NSA documents in 2013 and has been living in political asylum in Russia for the past three years, also faces prosecution under the Espionage Act.

Asked what should happen to Snowden, Ellsberg replied, “He should get the Nobel peace prize and he should get asylum in a west European country.”

Although “there is much more support for him month by month as people come to realise how little substance in the charges that he caused harm to us…that does not mean the intelligence community will ever forgive him for having exposed what they were doing,” Ellsberg continued.

Ellsberg is currently on a week-long European speaking tour with several other renowned U.S. whistleblowers, including Thomas Drake, who helped expose fraud and abuse in the NSA’s Trailblazer program; Coleen Rowley, who testified about the FBI’s mishandling of information related to the September 11 attacks; and Jesselyn Radack, who disclosed ethics violations committed by the FBI and currently serves as the director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project.

Although the sunset of the Patriot Act on Sunday has forced the NSA to end its domestic phone records collection program, the agency will likely retain much of its surveillance power with the expected passage of the USA Freedom Act, a “compromise” bill which would renew modified versions of Section 215 and other provisions.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the NSA’s bulk phone records collection program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized” under the Patriot Act. Referring to that decision, Ellsberg said Monday that “even the USA Freedom Act, which is better than the Patriot Act, still doesn’t really reflect the full weight of the circuit court opinion that these provisions have been unconstitutional from their beginning and what the government has been doing is illegal.”

Drake also spoke to The Guardian on Monday, stating, “This is the first time in almost 14 years that we stopped certain provisions… The national security mindset was unable to prevail.”

The USA Freedom Act, meanwhile, “effectively codifies all the secret interpretations, a lot of the other authorities they claimed were enabled by the previous legislation, including the Patriot Act,” Drake continued.

In a press briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that despite the sunset of the Patriot Act, the Obama administration would not change its view that Snowden “committed very serious crimes.”

But the importance of the Senate’s rejection of the legislation cannot be discounted, said Ellsberg, and Snowden’s influence on the changing political landscape in the U.S. deserves credit.

“This is the first time, thanks to Snowden, that the Senate really stood up and realized they have been complicit in the violation of our rights all along—unconstitutional action,” Ellsberg said. “The Senate and the House have been passive up until now and derelict in their responsibilities. At last there was opposition.”

Obama administration still after Edward Snowden

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A man holds a placard with a portrait of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. | Photo: Reuters

A man holds a placard with a portrait of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. | Photo: Reuters

by teleSUR

The White House said Snowden must still face prosecution, despite the expiration of the surveillance program under the Patriot Act.

Former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, who exposed a mass spy program ruled illegal by U.S. federal courts, must still face prosecution despite the expiration of the Patriot Act, the White House said Monday.

“The fact is that Mr. Snowden committed very serious crimes, and the U.S. government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them,” White House Josh Earnest said during a press briefing Monday.

The surveillance program terminated after the Senate failed to reauthorize parts of the Patriot Act which expired Sunday, although the lawmakers did vote to advance the White House-backed Freedom Act so a new form of data collection is likely to be approved in the coming days, according to BBC.

The Freedom Act will curtail the phone records program by forcing the NSA to get a narrower set of records from private phone companies. The bill also requires the agency to get warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and phone call records will be maintained by the telephone companies, rather than being stored by NSA. In May, a federal appeals court rejected the government’s long-standing claim that such bulk collection was permissible under the Patriot Act, ruling instead that the NSA acted without congressional approval. However, NSA critics have expressed concern that that the bill does not go far enough to protect civil liberties of U.S. citizens, as it would still allow the intelligence agency to track calls made by people. The Freedom Act is the only legislative reform that has resulted from the Snowden’s leaks which caused public concern and debate over privacy violation by government agencies. In a series of leaked documents, Snowden revealed in 2013 that the NSA collects data from almost all U.S. phone calls, along with harvesting millions of emails and other forms of electronic communication.

U.S. federal prosecutors have accused Snowden of espionage and for exposing the NSA program, but escaped prosecution when granted political asylum in Russia where he currently resides.

US Muslim wins hijab case against Abercrombie & Fitch

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Supreme Court rules in favour of Muslim woman who said clothing label denied her a job because of her headscarf.

The company denied Elauf the job on the grounds that wearing the scarf violated its "look policy" [Reuters]

The company denied Elauf the job on the grounds that wearing the scarf violated its “look policy” [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The US Supreme Court has ruled in favour of a Muslim woman who filed a lawsuit after she was denied a job at the Abercrombie & Fitch clothing chain because she wore a headscarf for religious reasons.

On an eight to one vote, the court handed a win on Monday to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that sued the company on behalf of Samantha Elauf, who was denied a sales job in 2008 at a store in the state of Oklahoma when she was 17.

The company denied Elauf the job on the grounds that wearing the scarf violated its “look policy” for members of the sales staff, a policy intended to promote the brand’s East Coast collegiate image.

The ruling was welcomed by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which campaigns for the civil liberties of Muslim communities in the US.

“We welcome this historic ruling in defence of religious freedom at a time when the American Muslim community is facing increased levels of Islamophobia,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.

“We applaud Samantha’s courage in standing up for her rights by contacting CAIR, which led to the EEOC lawsuit and to our amicus brief filed with the court.”

The legal question before the court was whether Elauf was required to ask for a religious accommodation in order for the company to be sued under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which, among other things, bans employment discrimination based on religious beliefs and practices.

Elauf was wearing a headscarf, or hijab, at the job interview but did not specifically say that, as a Muslim, she wanted the company to give her a religious accommodation.

The EEOC has reported that Muslims file more employment claims about discrimination and the failure to provide religious accommodations than any other religious group.

Hundreds missing in Chinese tourist ship disaster

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Only a small number of survivors pulled from water after ship with more than 450 people on board sinks on Yangtze River.

china-ship-accident

by Al Jazeera

Hundreds of people remain missing after a tourist ship carrying more than 450 people sank on the Yangtze River in central China.

Five bodies have been retrieved and at least 15 people rescued, including the captain and the ship’s chief engineer – who have both been detained – according to state media reports.

Hours after the incident, which occurred on Monday night local time, the People’s Daily reported that more passengers were still alive and inside the Eastern Star.

Images shown on state broadcaster CCTV showed rescuers lying on the upturned ship attempting to communicate with potential survivors inside.

The China Daily newspaper reported that a woman in her 60s was pulled alive out of the water at 12.56pm local time (04:56 GMT) on Tuesday following reports on CCTV that three people had been confirmed alive inside the upturned ship.

Another man was later pulled alive from the water, the newspaper reported.

The Yangtze River navigation administration said the ship capsized during a “cyclone” at Jianli in Hubei province. Chinese meteorological officials have been tasked to study the weather conditions at the time of the accident.

Seven people swam to the shore and alerted police after the shipwreck, CCTV reported.

Search and rescue operation

State media also reported that more than 2,100 soldiers and policemen were taking part in search and rescue operations, which were complicated by strong winds and heavy rain. More than 150 ships were also involved.

Most of the passengers were said to be tourists aged between 50 and 80 years old, who were about to go to sleep as the vessel sank.

Xinhua said there were 405 Chinese passengers, five travel agency workers and 47 crew members on board the ship that was en route from Nanjing to Chongqing.

President Xi Jinping asked that no efforts be spared in search and rescue operations, and Premier Li Keqiang travelled to the area.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Hong Kong, said the accident comes as more and more Chinese people are travelling within their own country.

“People take vacations more and trips along the Yangtze River are one of the more popular trips that people make,” our correspondent said.

Muslim woman claims United Airlines attendant refused her an unopened can of Diet Coke saying it could be used as weapon

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Tahera Ahmad, 31, director of interfaith engagement and associate chaplain at Northwestern University was travelling Friday from Chicago to Washington when the incident occurred. (Photo courtesy: Facebook)

Tahera Ahmad, 31, director of interfaith engagement and associate chaplain at Northwestern University was travelling Friday from Chicago to Washington when the incident occurred. (Photo courtesy: Facebook)

by David Harding & Joel Landau, New York Daily News

United Airlines has been accused of discrimination after refusing to give an unopened can of Diet Coke to a female Muslim passenger.

Tahera Ahmad, 31, said in a post on her Facebook page that the flight attendant was “clearly discriminating against me” after giving the male passenger seated next to her an unopened can of beer.

She did not respond to the Daily News’ request for comment.

Ahmad, who is the Muslim chaplain at Northwestern University, said that in the ensuing argument, one of her fellow passengers told her: “You (are) Moslem, you need to shut the f–k up.”

The alleged incident happened as she asked for the can of pop on a flight from Chicago to Washington on Friday. Ahmad was traveling to attend an interfaith event for KIDS4PEACE to promote peaceful conversations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Ahmad was given one can that had already been opened, but said she wanted an unopened can for hygienic reasons.

But she said she was told by the flight attendant: “Well, I’m sorry. I just can’t give you an unopened can, so no Diet Coke for you.”

Ahmad said she then pointed out that the man next to her had just been handed an unopened beer and told the attendant she was being discriminated against. The employee then quickly opened her neighbor’s beer can.

The flight attendant then told the passenger: “We are unauthorized to give unopened cans to people, because they may use it as a weapon on the plane.”

Asking other passengers for help, she was then told to “shut the f–k up,” Ahmad claimed.

“I can’t help but cry on this plane because I thought people would defend me and say something,” she wrote in the post. “Some people just shook their heads in dismay. “#IslamophobiaISREAL”

But people on the Internet have supported her and the post had received nearly 7,000 shares as of Sunday morning. Some Twitter users pledged to boycott the airline and are sharing a picture of a can of Diet Coke with the hashtag #unitedfortahera.

United said in a statement issued Saturday night that the flight attendant on Shuttle America flight 3504 attempted “several times” to accommodate Ahmad’s request and there was an initial misunderstanding.

They also said the flight’s crew talked to her when they arrived and the company further reached out Saturday afternoon to apologize to her.

“We look forward to having the opportunity to welcome Ms. Ahmad back,” United said.

A United spokesman declined additional comment to the Daily News.

But Ahmad said in another post early Sunday morning that she was “truly disappointed” by the company’s response, which she said labeled the incident as a can of soda-specific issue and did not addressed the bias she said she encountered.

“It is ridiculing to my integrity to dismiss the discriminatory behavior towards me,” she said. “It is truly disheartening when the discrimination of Americans as myself who are working hard every day to promote dialogue and understanding is disregarded and trivialized.”

 

Ahmad said she was still waiting for a “written sincere apology for the pain and hurt I experienced as a result of the discrimination and hateful words towards me.

“This is not about a can of soda,” she said. “I was really hoping that after speaking with me they would have publicly acknowledged their lack of consistency in following procedure, the flight attendant’s rude and discriminatory behavior and accusations which led to hateful words, and the unfortunate lack of bystander intervention nor the flight attendants attempt to intervene and prevent further disrespect which created an unsafe space for me.”

Myanmar denies Rohingya Muslims citizenship under UN pressure

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Seventeen countries Asian countries met in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday to discuss the migrant crisis that has seen thousands lost at sea.

Rohingya migrants who arrived in Indonesia by boat are seen at a temporary shelter. Photo: Reuters

Rohingya migrants who arrived in Indonesia by boat are seen at a temporary shelter. Photo: Reuters

by teleSUR

U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Myanmar to address the status of Rohingya Muslims in the country.

“The communal situation in Rakhine and elsewhere remains fragile,” Ban said. “There are already troubling signs of ethnic and religious differences being exploited in the run-up to the elections. The reform process could be jeopardized if the underlying causes of these tensions are left unaddressed.”

Myanmar was criticized for failing to include in its census – the first in three decades – Rohingya Muslims in the list of the country’s 135 official ethnic groups, which was taken as a sign that the country still has no intention of recognizing its 1.3 million Rohingya as citizens.

Myanmar President Thein Sein launched the census and said it had been done in line with international standards.

“From the political dialogues that we will be conducting in the very near future to establish a union based on federal principles, we will certainly encounter issues of categorizing and recognizing the ethnic national races based on political agreements reached,” he said.

The Dalai Lama joined in the debate and asked Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do more to help the persecuted minority in her country. It is not the first time the Tibetan spiritual leader has pleaded to Suu Kyi, who has always refused to publicly speak out for the Rohingya.

Myanmar refuses to recognize the term Rohingya and calls the people Bengali, suggesting they come from neighboring Bangladesh. Officials in Myanmar said they would not attend the Bangkok meeting if the term Rohingya was used on the statement; which Thailand accepted by titling the conference “Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean.”

Many nongovernmental organizations have been trying to help the Rohingyas, which the U.N. describes as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities. On Thursday, the Rakhine state legislature voted to shut down unregistered NGOs, arguing they had been “causing bigger problems” between Muslims and Buddhists. Doctors Without Borders was one of the nongovernmental organizations asked to stop working in the Rakhine state, where it was providing health care to displaced people in camps.

7.8 magnitude earthquake strikes off Japan’s Bonin Islands

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Japan Bonin Islands

by RT

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck in the ocean off Japan’s remote Bonin Islands at 11:23 GMT on Saturday, USGS reports. There have been no immediate reports of casualties or damage, nor any tsunami alert.

The populated area closest to the quake’s epicenter is the Japanese island of Chichi-Shima with a population of about 2,000 people. It is 189 kilometers from the impact point.

The quake hit at a profound depth of almost 677 kilometers below the ocean bed. The Japan Meteorological Agency said there was no danger of a tsunami. The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a statement saying “a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected and there is no threat to Hawaii.”

Tremors are being felt as far as Tokyo, 870 kilometers from the epicenter, witnesses report. No casualties or damage were reported, but subway trains in the Japanese capitalwere briefly halted, Japan Today reports.

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