Rohingya Flee Burma With "Absolutely Nothing": Daily Brief

Plus: Saudi Arabia resists Yemen probe; Qatar fails to investigate migrant workers' deaths; Saudi women win right to drive; Iraqi military take law into its own hands; Hong Kong protesters soldiers on; Burundi's dubious offer; Russia silences Crimean leader.

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UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi has called on Burma’s authorities to halt the violence against Rohingya Muslims. Grandi, who has just returned from a trip to Bangladesh, said he had rarely seen people who had left their homes with so little. More than 400,000 Rohingya have now fled a campaign of ethnic cleansing by Burma's military. At least 100,000 Rohingya may still be trapped inside Burma's northern Rakhine state, unable to flee to safety in neighboring Bangladesh.
1.8 million children are malnourished in war-torn Yemen. Yet both sides to the conflict, the Saudi-led coalition as well as Houthi-Saleh forces are blocking life-saving aid and imports. While Yemeni civilians endure horrors, the world has been largely silent. This may end this week, as Canada, the Netherlands and others are pushing for a UN Human Rights Council probe into possible war crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Saudi Arabia is threatening to retaliate by cutting trade ties.
Cameroon's military forcefully returned more than 100,000 Nigerian refugees back to destitution in northeast Nigeria. Many have been tortured, abused and sexually exploited, a new Human Rights Watch report found.
Thousands of migrant workers on construction sites in Qatar, including those building stadiums for the 2022 World Cup, are being subjected to potentially life-threatening heat and humidity. How many have already died from heat-stress remains unknown as Qatar has so far failed to investigate.
Women activists in Saudi Arabia are rejoicing after King Salman lifted the driving ban for women. The move follows years of campaigning by brave activists. However, the country's odious male guardianship system is still firmly in place, putting women in Saudi remain at the mercy of their male relatives if they wish to travel abroad, marry, work or get healthcare.
Iraqi villagers have accused units within the Iraqi government’s armed forces of abuses in the ongoing battle to take the city of Hawija. Iraqi military forces are taking the law into their own hands, it seems, playing judge, jury, and executioner with captive ISIS suspects.
Three years after the Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong’s longest-running pro-democracy protest, began, residents continue to demand their rights, while Beijing becomes increasingly hardline.

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