New US Sanctions on Burma's Military: Daily Brief

The US has announced it is withdrawing its assistance to Burma's military units & officers involved in mass violence against the Rohingya minority. Donor countries have just pledged roughly US$340 million to help more than 600,000 ethnic Rohingya who have fled Burma (Myanmar) into Bangladesh since August, although the UN agency coordinating aid is seeking US$434 million. Poland has suffered "two years of authoritarian slide." A new report details how the Polish government has used its majority in parliament to pass laws that weaken checks and balances on the executive, undermine the rule of law and threaten a broad range of human rights. Some good news for a change: Two leaders of Hong Kong's "Occupy" protests, Joshua Wong Chi-fung and Nathan Law Kwun-chung, have been released on bail. Yesterday’s attack on Tatyana Felgengauer, deputy editor of the Russian radio station Echo of Moscow, is a bone-chilling reminder that Russia is far from a safe place for independent journalists to work. The relentless violence in Afghanistan is hard for outsiders to comprehend... Christians and other religious minorities need not apply. That’s the message conveyed to policewoman Ida Maharani Hutagaol in Binjal, in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, when she applied to adopt an abandoned infant she had helped take to the hospital in mid-year. Vietnam should drop all charges and immediately release student blogger Phan Kim Khanh, Human Rights Watch said today. Vietnam’s donors and regional leaders should make it clear that they will demand that all political prisoners be released before the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit taking place in Da Nang the week of November 6-11. Victims have launched a new campaign seeking justice for the crimes of Yahya Jammeh, who ruled Gambia for 22 years and has been implicated in the arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances. He went into exile in Equatorial Guinea in January after being defeated in elections in December 2016. Finally, why does the US have so many child brides? The BBC investigates...