About 400 Now Dead During Muslim Crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State

By Sam Howard

Displaced Rohingya people arrive at a monastery in Rakhine state on Aug. 31. The Myanmar military has said about 400 people have died during a military crackdown in the state over the last week. Photo EPA-EFE/Nyunt Win

UPI -- The death toll of a violent security operation in Myanmar's Rakhine state continues to rise.

Voice of America reported that the Myanmar military says about 400 people have now died within the last week, amid a security crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority population, who have long been denied citizenship in the largely Buddhist nation.

The military's actions have drawn the ire of the United Nations and international advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

Of the 399 deaths over the last week, the Myanmar military said 370 were terrorists. The government has said those terrorists instigated the recent violence, specifically torching nearly 2,500 homes, but refugees claim Myanmar's military started the attack and burned down the homes, CNN reported.

Despite a government attempt to tighten the Myanmar border, the U.N. estimated 50,000 Rohingya people have fled the violence -- most of them into neighboring Bangladesh or a boundary area between the two countries.

Twenty bodies of Rohingya Muslims, including 12 children, were recovered from a river along the border on Thursday, CNN reported.

Wikipedia:

The Rohingya people are a stateless Indo-Aryan people from Rakhine State, Myanmar, which they claim to be their homeland for generations. There are an estimated 1 million Rohingyas living in Myanmar. The majority of them are Muslim and a minority are Hindu. 

Described as "one of the most persecuted minorities in the world", most of the Rohingya population are denied citizenship under the 1982 Burmese citizenship law, which restricts full citizenship to British Indian migrants who settled after 1823. The Rohingyas are also restricted from freedom of movement, state education and civil service jobs in Myanmar. 

Despite promises of equality by Myanmar's independence leader Aung San, the Rohingyas have faced military crackdowns in 1978, 1991–1992, 2012, 2015 and 2016–2017. 

UN officials have described Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing, while there have been warnings of an unfolding genocide. Yanghee Lee, the UN special investigator on Myanmar, believes the country wants to expel its entire Rohingya population.

Rakhine State, Myanmar

US Backed Russian-Language Channel Launched in Prague to Spread ‘Alternative’ Views

Countering RT's propaganda in Eastern Europe, Western Asia

© currenttime.tv

A 24/7 news channel launched by the US-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America has started broadcasting from the Czech Republic to offer “an alternative to disinformation” in Russia and neighboring countries.

Called “Current Time,” it is available via cable, satellite and digital platforms, aiming at Russian speakers in Russia and its neighbor nations such as the Baltic states, Ukraine and a range of countries in central and eastern Europe.

The channel was launched Tuesday and is a joint project of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America (VOA), which are both funded by the US Congress.

“We are trying to be objective and allow all parties to speak out, offering a full spectrum of opinions and comments on debatable issues. We pay special attention to issues that are overlooked by the official media of various countries,” the Current Time website states as its mission.

Current Time executive editor Kenan Aliyev told Reuters that he believes “our objective and balanced channel will serve as an alternative to disinformation and lies that sometimes we see coming from Russian state-sponsored outlets.”

He noted that the new TV channel is not “a counterpropaganda at all” since it delivers “an open platform for anyone who wants to engage in a civilized discussion.”

According to Aliyev, Current Time has about 100 editorial staff at RFE headquarters in the Czech capital and correspondents in the field. The channel’s website says its reporters work in Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and other nations.

In 2016, the digital unit of the Current Time network, which has been up and running for a quite a while, has garnered more than 160 million views on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, as well as Russia’s most popular social network VKontakte, RFE/RL said in a statement.

With over 60 years on air, RFE/RL is among the oldest state-funded media outlets in the world. It broadcasts 26 languages and had an annual budget of over $108 million in 2016. The money comes through the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a media mastodon that funneled another $218 million to VOA, the other partners in the Current Time project, in 2016.

The channel was established as part of the Western effort to counter alleged disinformation by the “Russian state-sponsored outlets.”

Not surprisingly, RT recognized itself in that category.

RT, an autonomous and non-commercial news outlet, has been particularly singled out lately by the US intelligence community for allegedly trying to affect the US presidential election through covering third-party debates, giving voice to opponents of fracking and other journalistic work.