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Myanmar’s military has taken power in a coup and declared a state of emergency, hours after detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior figures from the ruling party.

Phone and mobile internet services in the city of Yangon were down on Monday morning and military trucks, one carrying barbed-wire barriers, were parked outside City Hall. The state-run MRTV network said it had been unable to broadcast. Banks were closed across the nation.

Ten years of freedom ends: Myanmar’s tarnished heroine sees dark days return

Military television said the army had taken control of the country for one year, with power handed to the commander-in-chief, Gen Min Aung Hlaing. It said the army had detained senior government leaders in response to “fraud” during last year’s general election.

The military’s actions brought swift condemnation from leaders and human rights experts around the world.

President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said the US opposed “any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede Myanmar’s democratic transition, and will take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed”.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other detainees. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said the developments represented “a serious blow to democratic reforms in Myanmar”.

Over the past week, there has been mounting concern that the army, which ran Myanmar alone for half a century until 2011, was preparing for a return to full military rule. It has alleged widespread irregularities in November’s election, which Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won in a landslide victory and said last week that a coup could not be ruled out, prompting the UN and several foreign missions in the country to express alarm.

The military later backtracked, claiming comments by its commander-in-chief had been misunderstood. Over the weekend, however, armed police patrolled the housing where lawmakers were quarantining ahead of the opening of parliament this week.

On Monday morning, the spokesperson Myo Nyunt told Reuters that Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other leaders had been “taken” by the military. “I want to tell our people not to respond rashly and I want them to act according to the law,” he said, adding he also expected to be detained.

A National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said also detained was Han Thar Myint, a member of the party’s central executive committee. A student union leader was also reportedly held.

The author and historian Thant Myint-U wrote on on Twitter: “The doors just opened to a very different future. I have a sinking feeling that no one will really be able to control what comes next. And remember Myanmar’s a country awash in weapons, with deep divisions across ethnic & religious lines, where millions can barely feed themselves.”

Aung San Suu Kyi’s party returns to power in Myanmar

On the streets of Yangon, long queues formed outside supermarkets as people rushed to stock up on supplies. Crowds huddled at an ATM to try to withdraw cash, only to find the machines were down. Two Muslim men said it was safer to stay home and take shelter.

A 25-year-old woman, who works in public relations, said she feared her country was once again “back in the dark age”. She said: “My mum shook me awake with the news that Aung San Suu Kyi had been detained. I was shocked and didn’t know how to respond. I rushed to my brother’s house to pick him up and buy groceries. On the way back I was in tears. I feel so angry and so anxious.”

Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said the situation was “very disturbing”. “What many have feared is indeed unfolding in Myanmar,” he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD won a landslide victory in November’s elections, securing 396 out of 476 seats, which granted it a further five years in government. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party won just 33 seats.

The military-aligned opposition has challenged the results, while the army has claimed to have found 8.6m cases of fraud. The election commission has denied fraud, though it has conceded there were “flaws” in voter lists.

Last week, a military spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a coup, while, a day later, Gen Min Aung Hlaing said revoking the constitution could be “necessary” under certain circumstances.

Aung San Suu Kyi spent nearly 15 years in detention as part of a decades-long struggle against military rule, before leading the NLD to a sweeping victory in Myanmar’s first openly contested election in 2015. Through her international reputation has been severely undermined by her treatment of the Rohingya people, and her decision to defend Myanmar against allegations of genocide, she is revered by many in the Bamar majority as the mother of the nation.

The army, however, remains hugely powerful due to a junta-backed constitution that gives it control over key ministries and guarantees it a quarter of parliamentary seats.

“The military junta that ruled Myanmar for decades never really stepped away from power in the first place,” said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “They never really submitted to civilian authority in the first place, so today’s events in some sense are merely revealing a political reality that already existed.”

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AP finds racial disparity in US vaccination drive; Using influence for favoritism? US hospital boards, donors get shots; Israel to give some vaccines to Palestinians

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported this morning: 441,324.

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States have surpassed 26 million.

A clear racial gap has opened up in America’s COVID-19 vaccination drive, with Black Americans in many places lagging behind whites in receiving shots, according to an AP analysis

An early look at the 17 states and two cities that have released racial breakdowns finds that Black people are getting inoculated at levels below their share of the general population, Carla K. Johnson, Angeliki Kastanis and Kat Stafford report.

Among the reasons given: deep mistrust of the medical establishment among Black Americans because of a history of discriminatory treatment.

The disparity is deeply troubling to some, given that the coronavirus has taken a disproportionate toll in severe sickness and death on Black people in the U.S.

Immunizing Tuskegee: The immunization campaign is off to a shaky start in Tuskegee, Alabama. Area leaders point to a lingering distrust of medicine that is linked to a 40-year government study here that used unknowing Black men as guinea pigs to study syphilis. Several people in the mostly Black city are trying to set an example by getting vaccinated, including Black Tuskegee attorney Fred Gray, who once filed a lawsuit on behalf of the men affected by the syphilis study that resulted in a $9 million settlement. The now-90-year-old Gray stresses that the syphilis study and the COVID-19 vaccine are completely different, Jay Reeves reports.

Preferential Treatment: Some hospitals around the U.S. are facing complaints about favoritism and line-jumping after their board members and donors received COVID-19 vaccinations or offers for the prized inoculations. In Rhode Island, an inquiry was opened after reports that two hospital systems offered their board members vaccinations. A Seattle-area hospital system was rebuked by the governor after it offered vaccination appointments to major donors.

Hospitals in Kansas, Florida and New Jersey also are facing questions. The disclosures could threaten public confidence in a national rollout already marked by vaccine shortages, appointment logjams and inconsistent standards from state to state, Russ Bynum, Michelle R. Smith and Rachel la Corte report.

• President Joe Biden says he wants most U.S. schools serving kindergarten through eighth grade to reopen by late April. But even if that happens, it is likely to leave out millions of students, many of them minorities in urban areas.
• The pandemic has been hard on both kids and adults, but it’s also been challenging for those who are in between. Demographic shifts during the last century have given rise to a distinct developmental stage called “emerging adulthood” that spans the late teens and early twenties. With major disruptions in education, employment, housing and more, young people who are no longer adolescents but not quite adults are struggling to find their footing.

Israel-Palestinians Vaccine: Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s office says Israel has agreed to transfer 5,000 vaccine doses to the Palestinians to immunize front-line medical workers. It’s the first time that Israel has confirmed the transfer of vaccines to the Palestinians. Israel is one of the world’s leaders in vaccinating its population after striking procurement deals with international drug giants Pfizer and Moderna, Josef Federman reports from Jerusalem.

The Palestinians have not begun to vaccinate their people. The World Health Organization has raised concerns about the disparity between Israel and Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and international human rights groups and U.N. experts have said Israel is responsible for the wellbeing of Palestinians in these areas.

In the meantime, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Israelis thronged a pair of funerals for two prominent rabbis in Jerusalem, flouting the country’s ban on large public gatherings during the pandemic. The phenomenon has undermined the country’s aggressive vaccination campaign to bring a raging outbreak under control and threatens to damage Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the March election.

• A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the pandemic has visited the disease control center in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak began.
• The European Union says vaccine maker AstraZeneca has agreed to supply 9 million additional doses to the 27-nation bloc during the first quarter. The new target of 40 million doses by the end of March is still only half what the company had originally aimed for, triggering a public spat between AstraZeneca and the EU last week.

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The Cuban Government is ready to have dialogue and discussion with the new United States Administration led by President Joe Biden, if such a situation arises, the Spanish-speaking island’s senior envoy in Jamaica has said.

“We are talking about our sovereignty and our independence, but if the new US Administration is ready to talk, we are ready,” stated Cuba’s Ambassador to Jamaica Ines Fors Fernandez, in an interview with the Jamaica Observer last week.

“A fluent relationship between Cuba and the United States favours not only Cuba, but also the US. During the Obama Administration we signed more than 20 agreements or memorandum of understanding in several areas including health, agriculture, environment, so it gives you an idea of cooperation. A dialogue with Cuba and the United States is possible, but there should be no interference with Cuban principles,” the ambassador suggested.

Cuba and the US have been at odds for 60 years, since the Cuban Revolution of January 1959 which saw Fidel Castro Ruz leading an overthrow of fascist dictator Fulgencio Batista, the then president of Cuba.

The United States imposed an embargo in 1961 which squeezed aspects of the Caribbean island’s initiatives, but despite that, Cubans have managed to stay afloat in the game of survival.

The Barack Obama Administration, which left office in 2016, moved to mend the fences of discord between the two countries, and re-established diplomatic ties, with the US opening an embassy in the Cuban capital of Havana in July 2015, at which Secretary of State John Kerry was present and addressed a news conference attended by scores of journalists from North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Europe.

Obama had even visited Cuba after that in March 2016, at the request of then Cuban President Raul Castro, Fidel’s younger brother, who has since retired.

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New York, United States — It has been a widely held view that United States Vice-President (VP) Kamala Harris, who was sworn into office on January 20, is the first person with direct Jamaican connection — her father Donald T Harris was born in St Ann, Jamaica — to hold the office.

However, that distinction likely belongs to George Mifflin Dallas, the 11th vice-president of the United States, according to well-documented and reliable sources here, including Wikipedia the online encyclopedia.

Wikipedia notes that Dallas’s father, Alexander J Dallas, was born in Kingston on June 21, 1759 to Dr Robert Charles Dallas and Sarah Elizabeth Hewitt. George Dallas served as US vice-president to President James K Polk from 1845 to 1849. Before that, he was mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1828 to 1829, according to Wikipedia and other records.

His father, Alexander, who is said to have left Jamaica in 1764, also served in government at a high level as well. He was secretary of the treasury under President James Madison. Like Kamala Harris, George Dallas also served in the United States Senate, doing so from 1831 t0 1833.

Dallas was also appointed minister to Russia, serving in that capacity from 1835 to 1839. He worked in a similar position in Great Britain between 1856 and 1861. The city of Dallas and the state of Oregon are believed to have been named after him

In Jamaica, Dallas and Dallas Castle in St Andrew, which were owned by Dr Robert Dallas, are similarly named after the family.

While Harris may not be the first US vice-president with a distinct Jamaican connection, her elevation to the position continues to receive positive reactions from Jamaicans who celebrate her status as the first woman and the first person of African descent to become VP of the United States.

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When the remains of two undocumented migrants were found in the desert of south-western Arizona last July, one body lay next to an arrow drawn in the sand, pointing north, with the word “HELP” written beneath.

The men had perished while attempting to cross into the US from Mexico, according to border patrol. Out of a group of three, one survived and told the federal agents their human smuggler had left the other two behind in the remote wilderness area.

Biden spoke to Mexican president about reversing Trump’s immigration policies

“These people are not just numbers,” said Tony Banegas, executive director of the Colibri Center for Human Rights, an organization in Tucson working to identify migrant remains and helps families find missing loved ones.

“These are human beings with families and aspirations. They went to great lengths to make the journey, [only] to become just a grave in the desert.”

Last year was the deadliest on record for migrants crossing unlawfully into the US via Arizona, with the remains of 227 migrants found on the border according to Humane Borders.

“This was the hottest summer ever, and we saw the most recorded deaths ever. It’s a reminder of how dangerous the border can be,” said Douglas Ruopp, chair of the non-profit, which maps migrant deaths and stashes emergency water supplies in the desert.

Since 1998, at least 7,000 migrants are believed to have died along the US-Mexico border, maybe many more, as record-keeping is patchy.

As the US walled more of the border off, a policy priority under Donald Trump, the risks to those still determined to make the journey only increased.

“That’s a longstanding tradition, these barriers and walls have pushed people into more remote and treacherous terrain,” said Jeremy Slack, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Texas-El Paso and the author of Deported to Death: How Drug Violence Is Changing Migration on the US–Mexico Border.

Crossing into any of the four US states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California along the 1,954-mile US-Mexico border can be dangerous – high barriers, isolated wilderness with extreme temperatures, swirling waters of the Rio Grande.

Norma Herrera is community organizer at the Rio Grande Valley Equal Voice Network advocacy group in Texas, another deadly migrant corridor where at least an estimated 3,000 people have lost their lives since 1998.

“We need to be especially mindful of how various policies serve the same purpose … to deter migration by making it more deadly,” she said.

Further west, the Arizona desert can be especially deadly.

Trump’s aspiration to build a wall coast-to-coast at Mexico’s expense actually resulted in just 225 miles of fresh barrier, overwhelmingly at US taxpayers’ expense and mostly replacing dilapidated or minimal fencing.

But the surge in border deaths in Arizona last year – up from 144 in 2019 and 128 in 2018 – coincided with a flurry of construction there.

And the impact of the border wall on migrant deaths was compounded by Trump’s near-total block, only tightened in the pandemic, on those entering the US to seek asylum.

“In just about every way the Trump administration fundamentally ended access to asylum at the border,” said ACLU attorney Shaw Drake, thus exposing those who tried to cross anyway “to a litany of additional dangers”.

Benegas described visits to Mexico where asylum seekers languished in dangerous cities awaiting the interminable asylum process, under Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, denying “a universal right”.

“People are living under bridges, waiting for months. Some decide to take the risk and cross the desert,” he said.

In March 2020, Trump signed an emergency order last March allowing the summary expulsion of migrants at the border based on Covid-19 concerns, removing more than 380,000 people this way to date, according to federal data.

“They co-opted the pandemic to achieve their long-held goal of ending asylum at the border,” said Drake.

The Arizona border region features spiked cacti, thorny bushes and clinging grasses, often holding ripped fragments of migrants’ clothing.

“The flora along the border is known as thorn scrub, and for good reason,” said Emily Burns, program director of the Arizona-based Sky Island Alliance conservation group. “We can’t wear soft clothes in the field, they’d get shredded,” she said.

Many migrants are unprepared for the alien landscape and find themselves on a scorching trek.

“Often, people don’t have real shoes. Some are wearing sandals, they’re told it’s just going to be a short trip. Most people that I encounter in the desert have these terrible blisters on their feet. I don’t know how they’re walking,’ said Ruopp.

Many don’t, or cannot, carry enough water for a journey that can last days.

“Most leave with two-gallon bottles strapped around their neck,” said Ruopp. ‘That’s good for maybe a day. We find people that have been out for five or more.”

Last year was not only the hottest on record, the summer monsoon rains didn’t materialize.

Ruopp has encountered many lost and “delirious”, even “walking in a circle” or unknowingly “heading south back toward Mexico”.

Dehydration “really affects your decision making” and is a terrible way to die, he said.

Many hope things will change comprehensively under Joe Biden.

Since being sworn in, Biden suspended deportations, although a judge last week overturned that moratorium. And the government officially rescinded Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy that led to families being separated and detained at the border, with more rollbacks to follow.

But while the president issued a stop-work order for border wall construction, it’s not certain whether barriers will be removed.

The Arizona Democratic congressman Raúl Grijalva wants the Biden-Harris administration to put humanity at the center of immigration policy.

“I urge them to reverse all of Trump’s xenophobic policies that created chaos,” he told the Guardian.

Grijalva concluded: “It’s no secret that the Trump administration’s draconian policies at the border created a humanitarian crisis that pushed vulnerable asylum seekers to increasingly desperate and dangerous routes to seek safety … and cost countless lives.”

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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — Overcast skies shortly before the first light of the day did not deter health-conscious walk enthusiasts from assembling at the bus stop in Bellevue Village, St. Kitts, on Saturday, January 30, in readiness for the first Prime Minister’s Monthly Health Walk for Year 2021.

Regular walk participants welcomed members of the successful Molineux/Cayon Cricket Club (MCCC), who in the spirit of community-bonding joined Prime Minister and the Area Parliamentary Representative Dr the Hon Timothy Harris on the highly-anticipated monthly health walk, which he has been sponsoring since 2007.

Star of the walk was Ms. Lucina Chapman of Clay Ghaut in Gingerland, Nevis, whose birthday was on the previous day, (Friday, January 29), but came dressed as a ‘Birthday Queen.’ At the end of the walk Hon. Harris introduced her to walk participants. He asked them to sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ but to omit the ‘how old are you’ part of the song, which they did lustily.

The walkers were called to order at 5:45 a.m. by Chairman of the Peoples Labour Party (PLP) Warren Thompson. He acknowledged Molineux/Cayon Cricket Club members and hoped that they will take part in the walks on a regular basis. Thompson requested Pastor Glenville Mills to offer a word of prayer after which everyone set off at 5:50 a.m., walking along the Island Main Road towards Ottley’s Village.

Resident Ambassador of the Republic of China on Taiwan, His Excellency Tom Lee, a regular participant, was among those who assembled at the Bellevue bus stop for the walk. He was accompanied by members of the Taiwan Technical Mission in St. Kitts and Nevis.

Regular Health Walk participants included Permanent Secretaries, Dr. Deloris Stapleton-Harris of Health and Mr William Vincent Hodge of Education, Deputy Speaker Senator, the Hon. Dr. Bernicia Nisbett; Deputy Clerk of the National Assembly, Ms. Trevlyn Stapleton, and medical practitioner, Dr. Dail Crawford.

Minister of Health, the Hon. Akilah Byron-Nisbett, joined the participants at the end of the walk. She congratulated them for taking their health seriously and taking part in the walk. The Prime Minister’s Monthly Health Walks are held under the auspices of SKN Moves, which is supported by the Federal Ministry of Health.

At the end of the walk, Prime Minister Harris thanked members of the Molineux/Cayon Cricket Club, were led by their Manager Steve Saunders, and coach, the legendary cricket player, Noel Guishard. The team also included media practitioner Loshaun Dixon, who was last year awarded for being the most consistent player to practice.

Students from various schools in and outside the constituency participated and many walked the entire route. Among them was nine-year old, Ms. Sherika Mchayle, a pupil at the Joshua Obadiah Williams Primary School in Molineux, the first of the junior walkers to arrive at the Ottley’s hardcourts – the finishing point.

“My birthday was January 29. I am here on my walk as usual with the Prime Minister,” said Ms. Chapman, a farmer in Nevis. “I am still celebrating. I have had a good time walking with the Prime Minister and all the participants.

“Next year (2022) my birthday will be on a Saturday, yesterday it was on a Friday,” she said. “Next year it will be bigger and greater on a Saturday, the day of Prime Minister’s Monthly Health Walk.”

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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — Homebuilders in St. Kitts and Nevis are strongly encouraged by Director of the Public Works Department Cromwell Williams to include a cistern or water storage tanks in their building designs to promote sustainability and address water shortages.

A cistern is a large tank or a container that is used for water storage.

The twin-island Federation and other Caribbean countries have experienced reduced rainfall over the past five years, which experts suggest is a consequence of climate change.

“You should consider it when you are building,” said Williams. “There can be no argument against that. I strongly recommend persons to give that some serious consideration – including a cistern when you are building your house.”

Williams extended the recommendation to persons that already own a house of their own. Having a backup water supply “is definitely the way to go.”

To reinforce the usefulness of a cistern, Williams referred to the implementation of a climate change adaptation project in September 2020. The project involved the installation of water storage tanks and retrofitting others in 17 educational institutions across the Federation.

Several health institutions, including the Mary Charles Hospital in Molineux, also have water storage tanks.

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