Myanmar bans UN investigator

Country refuses to cooperate with me, says rights envoy Report raises spectre of another Japan quake

GENEVA:

The United Nations independent investigator into human rights in Myanmar has been barred from visiting the country for the rest of her tenure, she said.

Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur, yesterday said she had been due to visit in January to assess human rights across Myanmar, including alleged abuses against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine, but Myanmar had now told her it would not cooperate with her anymore.

“This declaration of non-cooperation with my mandate can only be viewed as a strong indication that there must be something terribly awful happening in Rakhine, as well as in the rest of the country,” she said in a statement.

“It is a shame that Myanmar has decided to take this route,” she said.

“The government has repeatedly denied violations of human rights are occurring throughout Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine State. They have said that they have nothing to hide, but their lack of cooperation with my mandate and the fact-finding mission suggests otherwise.”

She hoped Myanmar’s government would change its mind, adding that she was “puzzled and disappointed”, since its Ambassador in Geneva Htin Lynn had told the UN Human Rights Council only two weeks ago that it would continue to cooperate.

“Now I am being told that this decision to no longer cooperate with me is based on the statement I made after I visited the country in July,” she said.

Neither Lynn, nor Zaw Htay, spokesman for Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, nor Kyaw Moe Tun, a spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs, were immediately available for comment.

Lee’s mandate requires two visits to Myanmar each year and she has visited six times since taking up the mandate in June 2014, although the government has consistently refused access to some areas, citing security concerns, the statement said. — AFP

They have said that they have nothing to hide, but their lack of cooperation with my mandate and the fact-finding mission suggests otherwise. Yanghee Lee

TOKYO: There is high possibility of a giant earthquake striking in the Kuril Trench off Japans north coast, a government panel warned.

The likelihood of a quake with a magnitude of at least 8.8 occurring within the next 30 years stands at 7-40% , the governments Earthquake Research Committee said in a report on Tuesday.

The projections are based on the data of the 9.0-magnitude Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred along the Japan Trench, located off the coast of eastern Japan, in March 2011, and caused a massive tsunami that left more than 18,000 people dead or missing and caused US$360bil (RM1.4 trillion) in damage.

The report noted that a giant earthquake is imminent, as some 400 years have passed since the previous quake took place along the Kuril Trench, called Chishima Kaiko in Japan, in the 17th century.

The warning came after the committee revised its report on the prospects of trench-type earthquakes for the first time in 13 years.

The previous report was released in 2004, after an 8.0-magnitude earthquake in 2003 off Tokachi in Hokkaido. Along the Kuril Trench, an oceanic plate is being subducted beneath a continental plate, just like along the Japan Trench.

By analysing tsunami deposits, the committee estimated that giant earthquakes along the Kuril Trench had occurred up to 18 times over the past 6,500 years, at an average interval of 340-380 years. — The Japan News/Asia News Network