News in Brief
Arrest warrant issued for ‘Buddhist Bin Laden’
Myanmar police issued an arrest warrant Tuesday evening for an ultra-nationalist monk known as the “Buddhist Bin Laden” for his vitriol against Islam and particularly the Rohingya Muslim community. Wirathu has long been the face of the country’s Buddhist nationalist movement, notorious for espousing hate against the Rohingya minority. Police didn’t provide specific details about the reasons behind the warrant. Wirathu’s monastery is in Mandalay but his whereabouts Tuesday or when he might be detained were unknown. In 2013 the hardliner appeared on the cover of “Time” magazine as “The Face of Buddhist Terror”. He has called for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and restrictions of marriages between Buddhists and Muslims.
Pakistan extends airspace closure on Indian border
Pakistani airspace on its eastern border with India will remain closed until June 14, a civil aviation official said yesterday, the latest extension months after a standoff between the arch rivals. Pakistan closed its airspace in February after a suicide attack by a Pakistan-based militant group in Indian-controlled Kashmir led to aerial bombing missions on each other’s soil and a fighter dogfight over Kashmir. Foreign carriers using Indian airspace have been forced to take costly detours because they cannot fly over Pakistan. The closure mainly affects flights from Europe to Southeast Asia. Pakistan lies in the middle of a vital aviation corridor and the airspace restrictions impact hundreds of commercial and cargo flights each day, adding flight time for passengers and fuel costs for airlines.
80 countries ready to step climate fight: UN
About 80 countries have signaled that they are willing to scale up their commitment to cut carbon emissions under the Paris agreement to combat climate change, the UN climate envoy said Tuesday. UN climate envoy Luis Alfonso de Alba told journalists that “80 is the number of countries (from) which we have already received a signal that they are willing” to enhance their plans. “But it doesn’t mean that they are willing to do that to the scale we need,” he added. A total of 197 parties have signed the Paris agreement, of which 186 have ratified it. The United States under Donald Trump decided to pull out of the deal, but the withdrawal will only become effective in 2020. De Alba was in Washington last week to meet with US officials ahead of a major UN climate summit in New York in September that some hope will be a turning point.
Comments