The UN Security Council is weighing a draft resolution that would pressure Myanmar to address the violence that has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee, according to the text obtained by AFP on Wednesday.The proposed resolution, drafted by Britain and France, would call on Myanmar authorities to "immediately cease military operations" and allow refugees now living in makeshift camps in Bangladesh to return.The six-page text does not threaten sanctions, but lays

Nations have pledged 345 million dollars (294 million euros) to care for Myanmar's Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, an "encouraging" step in the response to the intensifying crisis, the UN said Monday.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has offered to shoot criminals himself, while warning he may bring police back to the frontlines of his deadly war on drugs.Duterte made the comments late Friday following his announcement on October 11 to withdraw the police from his anti-drug war after they were accused of rights abuses in killing thousands of people while following his orders to eradicate illegal drugs in society.He replaced them with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), which

Myanmar's government has failed to meet its international obligations and protect Rohingya Muslims from the atrocities taking place in Rakhine state, two UN special advisers said Wednesday.The statement from the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, and the special adviser on the responsibility to protect, Ivan Simonovic, added the international response to the crisis was a failure."Despite warnings issued by us and by many other officials, the government of

The United States government had intimate knowledge of the Indonesian army's bloody anti-communist purge in the 1960s, describing the mass killings as a "widespread slaughter", newly declassified documents have revealed.The 39 recently declassified US Embassy documents cover the period from 1964-1968, at the peak of the Cold War, and uncover new details about one of the most tumultuous periods in modern Indonesian history.Historians say up to 500,000 alleged Indonesian Communis

A senior UN official on Tuesday returned empty-handed from five days of talks in Myanmar where he appealed for the safe return of Muslim Rohingyas sheltering in Bangladesh and access for aid workers.Jeffrey Feltman, the UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, discussed the plight of the 582,000 Rohingyas who have fled an army campaign in Myanmar's Rakhine state since late August.Feltman met with Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and military commander-in-chief Gen

At least 10 people drowned and dozens more are missing after a boat packed with Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh sank on Monday, as another 12,000 people joined a half-million-strong exodus sparked by an army crackdown in Myanmar.The boat was carrying an estimated 50 people when it went down in the estuary of the Naf river that divides the two countries, Border Guard Bangladesh area commander Lieutenant Colonel S.M.

Myanmar's military has said it is investigating its operations in violence-wrecked Rakhine state, where the United Nations has accused troops of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against Rohingya Muslims.In the last seven weeks, more than half a million Rohingya have fled Rakhine and crossed into neighbouring Bangladesh, shocking the globe with accounts of Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist mobs murdering and raping civilians before torching their villages to the ground.The western region d

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has warned he is prepared to establish a "revolutionary government" to fend off alleged efforts to oust him, fuelling fears of a looming dictatorship.He issued the warning on state television late Friday as he railed against the press, European lawmakers and other critics of his drug war that has left thousands dead and led rights groups to warn of a crime against humanity.Duterte said he would resort to a revolutionary government, as opposed to

The Security Council will on Friday hold an informal meeting on Myanmar to hear former UN chief Kofi Annan provide details of a report on the plight of Rohingya Muslims, diplomats said.The UN's top political affairs official, Jeffrey Feltman, will travel to Myanmar on Friday for four days of talks on the crisis.More than 500,000 people, mostly Rohingyas, have since late August fled an army campaign in Myanmar's Rakhine state that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.