Myanmar Activists Continue Defiance against Junta: Daily Brief

 

Myanmar pro-democracy activists have called on people to continue to show defiance of the military during the country's new year holidays, which start today. More than 700 people have been killed by security forces since the military grabbed power in a coup on 1 February.

 

Instead of allowing refugees to integrate the Kenyan government has again issued an ultimatum to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide a plan and timeline for closing its Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.

When Sudan’s long-standing president, Omar al-Bashir, was ousted on April 11, 2019, protesters who had placed their lives on the line hoped this would mark the beginning of a freer and more just Sudan. Two years on, families of those killed during the protests still await justice.

Regional authorities in northeast Syria are unlawfully detaining about 40 Ukrainian women and children linked to the extremist armed group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in dire conditions in camps, while the Ukrainian government chooses to look the other way. The majority of the 40 are children, some as young as two.

Tensions between Munduruku Indigenous people and illegal miners in the Amazon rainforest have escalated in recent weeks. But the government has yet to act. Encroachments upon the Munduruku’s land by armed “wildcat” miners and deforestation in Indigenous lands has significantly worsened under the Bolsonaro administration.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s surprisingly candid warning about the country’s dire economic situation, may be yet another attempt to take advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to further tighten his grip on power.

 

Russian prison officials are threatening to force-feed jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Navalny, who is on day 13 of a hunger strike in protest of being denied access to a doctor, has lost considerable weight since he was sentenced and interned at a penal colony at the beginning of February.