DHAKA: Japan’s Nippon Foundation will spend $2 million to help move tens of thousands more Rohingya refugees to a remote island in Bangladesh and provide them with skills training, the charity’s chairman said.
Speaking to The Associated Press on Sunday after a visit to Bhashan Char, Yohei Sasakawa praised the support the government has provided to refugees on the island and said it’s a step toward returning them to Myanmar.
Some 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar for Bangladesh after August 2017, when the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar began a harsh crackdown following an attack by insurgents. The crackdown included rapes, killings and the torching of thousands of homes, and was termed ethnic cleansing by global rights groups and the UN, while the United States called it genocide.
Efforts to repatriate refugees to Myanmar under a 2017 agreement meditated by China have failed at least twice, and seem only more distant as the security situation worsens. Fighting has spread across much of Myanmar as the ruling junta loses ground to rebel and separatist groups in the country’s long-running civil war.
Sasakawa, who also serves as Japan’s Special Envoy for National Reconciliation in Myanmar, said that they’ll need jobs training to return: “After their return to Myanmar, if they have no skill whatsoever, then they would end up living poorly in the country. So having the skill training in Bhasan Char is going to help them greatly.”
The Nippon Foundation will fund moving some 40,000 Rohingya to the island, Sasakawa said.
While Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says the refugees will not be forced to return to Myanmar, she’s urged the international community to put pressure on the Buddhist-majority country to make safe return possible. More than a million Rohingya refugees live in crowded camps near the coastal city of Cox’s Bazaar along the border with Myanmar.
Bangladesh’s effort to relocate refugees to Bhasan Char — a low-lying island that was sometimes wholly submerged during monsoons — was initially opposed by the UN and many refugees, but it’s won acceptance as the first groups have settled in. An increasing number of Rohingya have agreed to make the move, and the UN and US have committed funds to support the program.
“I was … quite impressed about how much support was given … in Bhasan Char island,” Sasakawa said. “And that support was being provided from the Bangladesh government, although the government itself is experiencing a very difficult fiscal state.”
The government has built a 10-kilometer-long embankment to protect the island from flooding, he says, as well as schools, hospitals and mosques, powered by solar energy.
Sasakawa, who visited Myanmar more than 150 times in recent years, said that the ultimate solution to the Rohingya crisis is their repatriation, but Myanmar’s return to democracy is also important.
In Rakhine state, from where more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh in 2017 amid chaos, rebel group Arakan Army has been attacking the government forces seeking autonomy.
Sasakawa said that the ethnic conflicts that have divided Myanmar for decades could be resolved under a return to democracy. “They wish down the road in the future to build a united Myanmar, meaning that the ethnic armed groups have no intention of becoming independent from Myanmar.”
Sasakawa said the regional bloc ASEAN — of which Myanmar is a member — should take the central role in engaging Myanmar.
Rohingya who moved to island in Bangladesh are learning job skills, says Japanese charity chief
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Rohingya who moved to island in Bangladesh are learning job skills, says Japanese charity chief
- The chairman of Japan’s Nippon Foundation says the charity will spend $2 million to help move tens of thousands more Rohingya refugees to a remote island in Bangladesh
- Some 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar for Bangladesh after August 2017, when the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar began a harsh crackdown following an attack by insurgents
Florida braces for frost and possible snow flurries as winter storms hit other parts of the US
- The worst seems to be heading toward the Carolinas, but the Sunshine State’s humans, animals and even plants are preparing for winter weather
MIAMI: Florida won’t be getting hit with massive blankets of snow and ice like the rest of the US, but even frosty windshields and a few flurries can feel like Antarctica to people with permanent sandal tans.
The Midwest and South have been getting major winter storms for several days, and a giant cyclone forecast in the Atlantic Ocean is expected to pull that cold weather east as a powerful blizzard this weekend. The worst seems to be heading toward the Carolinas, but the Sunshine State’s humans, animals and even plants are preparing for winter weather.
Florida could experience record cold
Ana Torres-Vazquez, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Miami, said a cold front earlier this week has already caused temperatures to dip some, but the region could experience record-setting cold this weekend.
“It looks like temperatures across South Florida are dipping into the 30s (Fahrenheit) for most of the metro area and maybe into the 20s for areas near Lake Okeechobee,” Torres-Vazquez said. “And then the windchill could make those temperatures feel even cooler.”
Residents of South Florida are less likely to have heavy coats and other winter clothes, so Torres-Vazquez said it’s important to layer up lighter clothing and limit time spent outside.
Moving north, Tony Hurt, a National Weather Service forecaster for the Tampa Bay area, said there’s a 10 to 20 percent chance of snowfall in that region this weekend.
“Most likely if there’s any snow that does actually materialize, it’ll be primarily in the form of flurries, no accumulations,” Hurt said.
The last two times the area got snow was flurries in January 2010 and December 1989. The record for snowfall was in January 1977, with 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Tampa.
Despite the possibility of snow, Tampa will host the annual Gasparilla Pirate Fest on Saturday. And on Sunday, the Tampa Bay Lightning are set to host the Boston Bruins for an outdoor NHL game at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ home NFL stadium.
Few tourists visiting Florida will be swimming in the ocean or laying out on sunny beaches this weekend, but many attractions will remain open. Most of Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando will operate normally, though their water parks will be closed. Most of the state’s zoos and animal parks will also remain open while keepers take steps to protect the inhabitants.
Zoo keepers working to keep animals safe and warm
Zoo Miami spokesman Ron Magill said keepers have been setting up heaters and moving reptiles and smaller mammals to indoor enclosures, while primates like chimpanzees and orangutans are given blankets to keep themselves warm. Big cats and large hoofed animals generally do well in colder temperatures and don’t require much assistance from keepers.
“It can be invigorating for animals like the tiger, so they’ll actually become more active,” Magill said.
Outside the safety of the zoo, Florida’s native wildlife has evolved and learned to survive occasional cold snaps, though casualties will still occur, Magill said. Manatees, for example, have spent decades congregating at the warm-water outflows of about a dozen power plants around Florida.
But invasive, nonnative animals like iguanas and other exotic reptiles will suffer the most, Magill said. Iguanas in South Florida famously enter a torpid state during cold periods and even fall out of trees. They usually wake up when the temperature increases, but many will die after more than a day of extreme cold.
“At the end of the day, they don’t belong here, and that might be nature’s way of trying to clean that up a little bit,” Magill said. “That is a part of natural selection.”
Protecting crops is a priority for farmers
Florida’s agriculture industry is also bracing for the cold. Farmers are working to safeguard their crops as winter harvest continues and spring planting begins in some areas, Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association spokeswoman Christina Morton said.
“Preparations vary by crop and include harvesting and planting ahead of the freeze, increasing water levels in ditches, using overhead irrigation, and, in some cases, deploying helicopters to protect sensitive fields,” Morton said.
The Florida deep freeze comes as the arctic blast from Canada also spreads into southern states where thousands of people remain without power to heat their homes, and people in mid-Atlantic states prepare for possible blizzard conditions as a new storm is expected to churn along the East Coast.
Temperatures in hard-hit northern Mississippi will feel as cold as minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 21 degrees Celsius) when the expected strong winds are factored in, National Weather Service forecasters say. People in a large part of the southeastern US were under a variety of alerts warning of extremely cold weather on the way.
The storm expected to hit the Eastern Seaboard has prompted more warnings in the Carolinas and nearby states. That storm is expected to bring heavy snow and strong winds, which could create “dangerous, near-blizzard conditions,” the weather service warned.
