ISIS Bombs Mosque in Saudi, 20 Killed

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20 people killed after suicide bomber strikes Shia mosque

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, US-based monitoring group SITE tweeted. The militant group identified the suicide bomber as Abu ’Ammar al-Najdi, SITE said. The claim could not be independently verified. The bombing in al-Qadeeh in Qatif province was the first to target Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia since November, when gunmen killed at least eight people in an attack during a Shia religious anniversary celebration, also in the east. Activist Naseema al-Sada told the Associated Press the suicide bomber attacked worshippers as they were commemorating the birth of Imam Husayn ibn Ali, a revered figure among Shias. Lebanon’s Al-Manar television channel, run by the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, carried still, blurry pictures of pools of blood inside what appeared to be the mosque where the attack took place. It also showed still images of bodies stretched out on red carpets, covered with sheets.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia on Friday. Local media reports said the bombing had killed at least 21 people during midday prayers.

It appeared to be the first official claim of an attack inside the kingdom by the Islamic State, which has seized control of much of Syria and Iraq.

The group attributed the attack to a new unit, the Najd Province, named for the central region of Saudi Arabia around Riyadh. But it was unclear whether the attack was planned by Islamic State leaders, initiated independently by a Saudi sympathizer, or merely claimed opportunistically after the fact.

The attack was a sign that Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the sectarian conflict in Yemen may be escalating tensions at home.

Members of the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia, who make up about 15 percent of the population and live mainly in the Eastern Province, have long complained of insults and discrimination by Saudi Arabia’s Sunni majority and its clerical establishment.

Annotated maps showing the Houthi rebels’ drive south, U.S. airstrikes and historical divisions.

  

During Saudi Arabia’s two-month air campaign against the Houthi movement in Yemen, which practices a form of Shiite Islam and receives backing from Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Iran, imams at Sunni mosques and commentators in Saudi news media have frequently rallied the public around the war, in part by repeatedly denouncing Shiites as dangerous infidels.

The Saudi Arabian news media has portrayed the Houthis as proxies of Shiite-led Iran and characterized the Yemen campaign as a vital defense against an Iranian incursion.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia’s participation in the American-led military campaign in Iraq and Syria against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State has raised fears of a backlash from its sympathizers at home. Thousands of Saudis have traveled to join the Islamic State, which follows a puritanical school of Islam that scholars say is similar to that of Saudi Arabia.

Leaders of the Islamic State have called with increasing vehemence for their supporters to carry out attacks in the kingdom, accusing its rulers of hypocrisy. Saudi Arabia’s rulers and clerics deny any similarity between their understanding of Islam and that of the Islamic State.

Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, said in an interview Friday night that investigators were examining DNA samples and other evidence to establish the identity of the bomber.

General Turki said the kingdom was already on guard for attempts by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, to establish itself in Saudi Arabia. He noted that Saudi officials had blamed the Islamic State for an attack on Shiites in the same area last fall, although the group did not claim responsibility.

Saudi Arabia also announced last month that it had arrested 65 people accused of “forming a terrorist organization related to ISIS, and their goal was to carry out terrorist attacks and enflame sectarian conflict,” the general said. He insisted that such attempts would fail “because Saudi citizens are unified.”

A group of Islamic State supporters released a video late last year that they said showed the group’s fighters killing a Danish man, Thomas Hoepner, who was shot while driving in Riyadh. The claim did not appear to come from the Islamic State’s leaders, and could not be confirmed.

Saudi Interior Ministry officials said in interviews this week that they had seen an increase in violence by Sunni extremists, including three separate attacks near the capital, Riyadh, that killed a total of three police officers and injured two others.

But sectarian conflict and violence have been a longstanding issue in the Eastern Province, which contains much of the country’s oil but lags far behind other regions in economic development. The last major outburst came six months ago, when gunmen killed eight people in the Shiite village of Dalwa, in the Al Ahsa region of the Eastern Province, at the end of the Shiite holiday of Ashura. That was the sectarian attack that Saudi officials attributed to the Islamic State.

The bombing on Friday took place in the town of Al Qudaih, near Qatif, the regional center. The area has been the site of sectarian tensions and of calls for democratic reform in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolts four years ago, including sporadic, Shiite-dominated street protests.

Saudi Arabia, in response, has jailed at least two prominent Shiite clerics who have called for political overhauls such as adopting a constitutional monarchy. Last year, one firebrand cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was sentenced to death for his role in leading street protests in Qatif, and his sentence set off new protests around the region.

In what appeared to be an attempt to tamp down tensions after the attack on Friday, state television broadcast a telephone call from Saudi Arabia’s senior religious authority, the grand mufti, Abdulaziz al-Asheikh, who called the attack a “painful” and “criminal” act against the “sons of the homeland.”

But on social media, some Saudis rushed to blame Iran for the bombing, asserting that it might have been carried out to provoke Shiites in Saudi Arabia to turn against the kingdom.

“Iran won’t hesitate in scarifying Shia, to create a war between Sunni and Shia,” Luftallah Khoja, a prominent Saudi religious scholar, said in a Twitter message. He blamed Iran for creating the Islamic State, as well.

A number of Saudis said they were refusing to donate blood for Shiites who were injured in the bombing. “I wish to donate, but I am afraid I would donate and a Shia would take it, and he does not deserve even my spit,” one Saudi posted online. “You donate to infidels?” another wrote.

Jafar al-Shayeb, head of the Qatif Municipal Council and a Shiite community leader, blamed the “sectarian discourse” that has spread through Saudi Arabia since the start of the air campaign in Yemen. “People feel like this is a direct result of the atmosphere that is turning everybody against each other through speeches and media and social media,” he said. “It will lead young people to sacrifice themselves and kill others in this region, and people are very angry about it.”

Frederic Wehrey, an analyst who follows Saudi Arabia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued that the tension might persist even after the Yemen campaign. “Sectarianism, once you have unleashed it, you can’t bottle back it up,” he said. “It afflicts people every day.”

Clinton’s History, Sex, Jewels, Money and Bribes

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A pattern has been proven, a daily headline fit for the National Enquirer where the entire Clinton dark circle surfaces. Personally, I have read the FBI Epstein investigation file and that was bad enough so the additional Clinton soirees are filling in even more daily activities.

The Clintons and the Sultan of Brunei Have a History

Bill Clinton hinted at post-presidency money obsession from Brunei palace

In words spoken from the Sultan of Brunei’s lavish Empire Hotel in 2000, President Bill Clinton told reporters that his post-presidency would be about making money: “Now I have a United States senator to support, I understand that’s an expensive proposition.”

Clinton traveled to Brunei with his daughter, Chelsea, for an economic summit that was also attended by leaders such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Jiang Zemin, then China’s president.

The sultan, known in Brunei as His Majesty Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, put on an exhibition of luxury for his summit guests. Four hundred ninety three new cars were purchased to transport the various dignitaries around town.

Perhaps the abundance of wealth had an effect on Clinton, who according to New York Times reporters also in Brunei, “made a strong case for his need to start producing some serious revenue flow.”

Forging a relationship with the Sultan of Brunei would aid him in that goal.

The government of Brunei contributed between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation in 2002, which said that the donation went toward the construction of the Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas.

Clinton would return to Brunei that same year—this time without his daughter.

Clinton was picked up at a Japanese naval base by Jeffrey Epstein and his private Boeing 727—known to many as either “the orgy jet” or “Lolita Express”—and flown to Brunei to visit with Sultan Bolkiah, according to flight records.

Epstein is a registered sex offender who would regularly host Clinton and many others at his private Caribbean island before being put in prison for sexually abusing underage girls around the globe.

He spent five years in prison for the charges, though evidence is reported to have existed that could have led to more serious federal charges such as using his private jet for sex trafficking.

Two of the alleged “madames” linked to Epstein’s case—one of whom reached an immunity deal with prosecutors—were also aboard the flight to Brunei, according to the flight records.

Clinton stayed in the Emperor Suite of the sultan’s Empire Hotel, a $16,600 per night “football-field sized suite that features its own swimming pool and carpets flecked with real gold”

Clinton returned to Brunei in 2005, to thank Sultan Bolkiah for the donation he made to the Clinton library.

“I’m now going to Brunei for a private visit,” wrote Clinton on his personal blog. “I want to thank His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah for his generous donation to the Clinton library.”

He owns a Boeing 747, which he purchased for $400 million and pilots himself. He is also the owner of an Airbus 340, 16 other planes, two helicopters, 9,000 luxury cars, and a palace with 1,788 rooms in it.

Also like Epstein, he has been accused of sexual wrongdoing. In 1997, he was sued by a former Miss USA who said she was held as a sex slave, drugged, and molested by Brunei’s royal family. The lawsuit was dropped after the Sultan and his brother claimed diplomatic immunity.

The sultan and his brother Prince Jefri have become “infamous for their sex parties and their harems composed mainly of underage girls.”

Jillian Lauren, who at 18 years of age was recruited for Jefri’s harem, wrote a book about her experience in which she claimed that “there’s no such thing as underage” in Brunei. Lauren also had sexual relations with the sultan.

The sultan, however, has also pushed the small country toward radical Sharia law over his decades-long reign.

The shift was accelerated on May 1, 2014, when he announced in a royal decree that “the enforcement of Sharia law phase one” has begun and would be “followed by the other phases.”

Crimes such as homosexuality, sodomy, adultery, and the discussion of faith by non-Muslims are now punishable by amputation of limbs, public flogging, or death by stoning.

This shift has made association with the sultan and the nation of Brunei a red flag in the progressive community.

Hollywood stars boycotted the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel, owned by the sultan, after Brunei formally adopted strict Islamic law. The City of Beverly Hills government even adopted a formal resolution urging him to divest from the hotel.

The hotel turned into a “ghost town,” as events hosted by the likes of Jeffrey Katzenberg were moved to other venues.

The Beverly Hills Hotel then hired Mark Fabiani, a former Clinton White House aide who handled crisis communications for the administration, to help it deal with the backlash.

The Clinton Foundation has previously stated that the contribution from Brunei was a “one-time donation” and that it does not expect any further donations. A request for comment about whether it has considered returning the money given Brunei’s turn towards repressive Sharia law went unreturned.

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton traveled to Brunei in 2012 to “meet with senior officials to emphasize the importance of the increasingly vibrant U.S.-Brunei relationship.” She joined the sultan for dinner at one of his palaces.

Clinton also accepted $58,000 worth of jewelry from Brunei while she was with the State Department.

*** Then that Arkansas Clinton Library has its own Hillary history.

Documents show Hillary Clinton pushed tax breaks for nonprofits while husband solicited library donations

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. –  As first lady in the final year of the Clinton administration, Hillary Clinton endorsed a White House plan to give tax breaks to private foundations and wealthy charity donors at the same time the William J. Clinton Foundation was soliciting donations for her husband’s presidential library, recently released Clinton-era documents show.

The blurred lines between the tax reductions proposed by the Clinton administration in 2000 and the Clinton Library’s fundraising were an early foreshadowing of the potential ethics concerns that have flared around the Clintons’ courting of corporate and foreign donors for their family charity before she launched her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

White House documents in the Clinton Library reviewed by The Associated Press show Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were kept apprised about a tax reduction package that would have benefited donors, including those to his presidential library, by reducing their tax burden. An interagency task force set up by Bill Clinton’s executive order proposed those breaks along with deductions to middle-class taxpayers who did not itemize their returns. Federal officials estimated the plan would cost the U.S. government $14 billion in lost tax payments over a decade.

In a January 2000 memo to Hillary Clinton from senior aides, plans for a “philanthropy tax initiative roll-out” showed her scrawled approval, “HRC” and “OK.” The document, marked with the archive stamp “HRC handwriting,” indicated her endorsement of the tax package, which included provisions to reduce and simplify an excise tax on private foundations’ investments and allow more deductions for charitable donations of appreciated property. The Clinton White House pushed the tax plan in its final budget in February 2000, but it did not survive the Republican-led Congress.

“Without your leadership, none of these proposals would have been included in the tax package,” three aides wrote to Hillary Clinton in the memo, days before she led a private conference call outlining the plan to private foundation and nonprofit leaders.

Federal law does not prevent fundraising by a presidential library during a president’s term. But in directly pushing the legislation while the Clinton Library was aggressively seeking donations, Hillary and Bill Clinton’s altruistic support for philanthropy overlapped with their interests promoting their White House years and knitting ties with philanthropic leaders. Hundreds of pages of documents contain no evidence that anyone in the Clinton administration warned anyone about potential ethics concerns or sought to minimize the White House’s active role in the legislation.

“The theme here for the Clintons is a characteristic ambiguity of doing good and at the same time doing well by themselves,” said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Hubert H. Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota. Jacobs said the Clinton administration could have relied on a federal commission to decide tax plans or publicly supported changes but not specific legislation.

Spokesmen for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Clinton Foundation declined to comment, deferring to the former president’s office.

A spokesman for Bill Clinton’s office said his administration was not trying to incentivize giving to the foundation, but instead was spurred by a 1997 presidential humanities committee that urged tax breaks for charities to aid American cultural institutions. Bruce Reed, Bill Clinton’s chief domestic policy adviser at the time, also responded Thursday that the former president “wanted to give a break to working people for putting a few more dollars in the plate at the church. Not for any other far-fetched reason.” Gene Sperling, former economic adviser to both Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama, added that the tax reduction package was “developed at the Treasury Department, endorsed by experts and designed to encourage all forms of charitable giving.”

The tax changes would have indirectly helped the Clinton Foundation — as well as many other U.S. charities — by freeing nonprofits’ investments and donations that otherwise would have gone into tax payments. A reduction of the excise tax would have boosted the assets of private foundations. Higher deductions for appreciated investments and property would have also aided the Clinton Foundation, which accepts non-cash gifts. In 2010, for example, the charity declared more than $5 million in donated securities on its federal tax returns.

By the time the Clinton administration introduced its tax package in February 2000, the foundation had already raised $6 million in donations, according to tax disclosures.

Months before proposing the tax breaks, Clinton White House officials began courting leaders from some of the nation’s most influential charities in advance of a planned White House conference to celebrate American philanthropy at the turn of the millennium. A September 1999 White House list proposing possible “philanthropy heroes” to highlight at the conference included wealthy donors of “large recent gifts,” among them Microsoft’s Bill Gates and his wife, Dell computer founder Michael Dell and investors George Soros and Eli Broad.

They all later donated to the Clinton Foundation through their companies or private foundations. There are no indications that White House officials discussed future Clinton Foundation gifts with any nonprofit.

Aides told Hillary Clinton in a September 1999 memo that funding for the event would be absorbed by the Treasury Department and several foundations and donors, among them the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Getty Foundation, AOL and Jill Iscol, a close Hillary Clinton friend and donor later named finance co-chair of the first lady’s New York Senate campaign.

Iscol’s IF Hummingbird Foundation later donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The Ford Foundation has donated more than $1 million and the MacArthur Foundation and the Mott Foundation have each donated more than $250,000.

One voice for tax breaks was the actor Paul Newman, who routed the after-tax profits and royalties from his Newman’s Own food products to charity. An October 1999 Treasury memo to Clinton aides recounts a 1998 meeting between Newman and then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in which the actor lobbied for “increasing the limits on charitable deductions for corporations and individuals.”

 

A Soldier and His Dog, Honor Them

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There are a lot of stories about airline baggage handlers mishandling bags and belongings. Fortunately, that’s not the case for the Delta Honor Guard.

The Delta Honor Guard is a group of employees and baggage handlers at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. What they do for Fallen Soldiers is extremely touching.

In the video, they gather on the tarmac and hold a ceremony for a Fallen Soldier and his dog. Check out the people watching from inside the airport terminal. Very, very touching.

Big shout of to Delta for the respect they give to our Fallen Heroes, more airlines should do this.

Lessons Taught on College Campuses

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The anti-Semites across the United States and hundreds in our own federal government refuse to recognize Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel. That leaves Israel as the only country in the world without a capitol. Even the U.S. State Department historically has never had an embassy in Jerusalem, but rather in Tel Aviv. In fact, Jerusalem is the most disputed city across the globe. Yet real history versus revisionist history proves there should be no dispute.

Yet, in American there is an educational system being challenged in all 50 states called CommonCore and with good reason. So, what do you know about the lessons your child is being taught?

Here is a hint, Hamas is a terror organization.

PROF’S ‘WHOSE JERUSALEM?’ COMMON CORE LESSON TEACHES STUDENTS TO SUPPORT HAMAS

A “Whose Jerusalem?” workshop created by a Boston University professor that’s been taught in many high schools in recent years and was added to the Common Core-approved national curriculum has come under fire by critics who contend it whitewashes terrorism, promotes an anti-Israel and anti-American political agenda, and encourages young people to sympathize with Hamas.

Americans for Peace and Tolerance released an expose video April 23 that aims to prove “Whose Jerusalem?” fails “to meet the basic rules of evidence and logic and attempt[s] to indoctrinate students, especially Jewish students, against the state of Israel.”

The workshop teaches that Hamas – a U.S.-designated terrorist group – and Fatah are political parties that support “more peaceful means than intifada,” among other lessons. The group argues the lesson abandons “academic integrity” and enlists students as political activists for an ideological cause.

“Despite its bias and serious flaws, the … workshop is Common Core compliant,” APT president Charles Jacobs said.

The workshop’s curriculum, designed for students in middle and high schools, requires students play the parts of Arab, Israeli, or American leaders to negotiate a “BATNA” (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) for the division of Jerusalem using the materials provided by the workshop.

According to Americans for Peace and Tolerance’s video, the workshop also includes exercises that asks instructors to have Jewish students empathize with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that calls for the death of all Jews in its founding charter.

Boston University Profesor Carl Hobert, who developed the workshop, has defined “Whose Jerusalem?” as “educational civil disobedience” guided by a hands-on approach. Included in APT’s video is a clip of Hobert speaking to an audience about the simulations done in his workshop on the Arab-Israeli conflict. When describing the roles students play in the simulation he says:

“When a student goes, I am devoutly Jewish and I’ve got family members in Israel. I would like to be a member of Likud Party. Guess what we make that student? A member of Hamas.”

In APT’s video, Hobert is also quoted saying that students learn through the workshop that Hamas and Fatah are political parties that support “more peaceful means than intifada.” APT uses the lesson plan’s paperwork to show students are taught to equate these “political parties” with Israel’s democratically elected parties, such as Likud and Labor.
The workshop also suggests an equivalence between the use of military drones by the United States and terrorist suicide bombing. APT’s video shows Hobert telling students that drones “kill people who  are supposedly terrorists.” He asks, “Isn’t that a form of terrorism?”
Hobert did openly admit in an interview with Al-Jazeera that through these exercises students will learn to “put pressure on our government to create a Palestinian state.”


Noam Chomsky of MIT and Denis Sullivan of Northeastern, both outspoken critics of Israel and America, assisted Hobert in the creation of the course, according to APT. Hobert even brought Chomsky, who is described in BU Today as his “friend and longtime inspiration,” to speak about the Middle East at Boston University in 2009.
Hobert did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The College Fix.
Stand With Us released a statement May 7 thanking APT for exposing the bias in the workshop.
“Under the guise of ‘global education’ and ‘conflict resolution,’ it distorts facts about the Arab-Israeli conflict, promotes an anti-Israel political agenda, and encourages sympathy for terrorist groups,” the nonprofit stated. “It is shameful that Boston University would sponsor a program that degrades academic standards, misinforms students, and gives its imprimatur to indoctrination masquerading as scholarship.”
Zionist Organization of America’s Northeast Campus Coordinator Zach Stern said he is also worried about the impact this course will have on students’ understanding of the Middle East.
“This workshop is very troubling,” Stern told The College Fix. “Why pretend that Hamas and the PA are reasonable actors when both openly call for the genocide of the Jewish people and the destruction of the Jewish state? This workshop seems to ignore the actual facts; and its impossible to solve anything without recognizing the facts.”

But Hobert described the workshop as simply “a conflict resolution case study used in middle and high schools around the U.S.” It was created with state and federal education dollars, and is an approved Common Core State Standards-based curriculum workshop, his professor profile notes.
Already the controversial “Whose Jerusalem?”  is conducted in many high schools. It is offered through the nonprofit “Axis of Hope,” which operates out of the Boston University Global Literary Institute and works with at least 25 high schools in various states and three foreign schools, according to the nonprofit’s website.


APT’s Jacobs noted “at a time of growing anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses, it is very disturbing [Boston University] would permit or promote such biased educational materials in the classroom.”
Axis of Hope describes itself as a nonprofit “dedicated to developing in young adults an understanding of alternative, non-violent approaches to resolving complex conflicts locally, nationally and internationally.”

 

 

Hillary Fails with Myanmar, 1000’s Coming Here

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Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have visited Burma (Myanmar), Hillary in 2011 and Barack in 2014. Clearly, this country is not a diplomatic achievement for either of them.

The U.S. has not had any contact or relations with Myanmar in 50 years.

The promise of a free and democratic Myanmar is rapidly receding as sectarian violence escalates and the government backslides on a number of past reforms. That’s causing genuine alarm on Capitol Hill among lawmakers from both parties. The House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed a resolution this week calling on Myanmar’s government to respect the human rights of all minority groups in the country and end the persecution of the Rohingya people, an essentially stateless and largely Muslim ethnic group that has been singled out by both Rakhine Buddhists and the government of Myanmar.

“As the government of Burma transitions from decades-long military rule to a civilian government, it is important to hold them accountable for persistent human rights abuses,” New York Congressman Eliot Engel, the most senior Democrat on the House panel, said Tuesday.
What happens in Myanmar has implications for Clinton as she prepares for a potential presidential bid for the White House in 2016. Until now, the Myanmar portfolio has been widely viewed as the “one clear-cut triumph” of her tenure as secretary of state — a tenure in danger of being viewed as underwhelming and overly cautious when compared to that of her successor, John Kerry, who has taken on the Gordian knot of the Mideast peace process.

Now, as the civilian regime that replaced Myanmar’s military junta embraces increasingly brutal tactics against Muslim minority populations, the jewel in the crown of Clinton’s tenure risks vanishing into thin air. “Things have gone from bad to worse,” said Tom Andrews, president of United to End Genocide, a group that monitors violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the country.

Since Oct. 1, the U.S. has resettled more than 1,000 Rohingya

(WASHINGTON) — The United States is willing to take in Rohingya refugees as part of international efforts to cope with Southeast Asia’s stranded boat people, the State Department said Wednesday.

Spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the U.S. is prepared to take a leading role in any multicountry effort, organized by the United Nations refugee agency, to resettle the most vulnerable refugees.

BANGKOK (AP) — The decision by Indonesia and Malaysia to give temporary shelter to thousands of migrants stranded at sea appears to have defused a potential Southeast Asian humanitarian catastrophe, but the root causes of the crisis remain. Here’s a look at still-unanswered questions surrounding the Rohingya Muslim migrants who are persecuted at home in Myanmar and have found scant welcome anywhere else.
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A FIRST STEP, BUT WHAT’S NEXT?
The Indonesian-Malaysian offer to shelter migrants for up to a year was hailed as a breakthrough, and marks a major reversal after navies from the two countries and Thailand pushed boatloads of desperate migrants away. But it is just the first of many steps needed to solve the crisis. Groups such as the International Organization of Migration say time is running out for vessels still at sea and call for countries to urgently launch operations to find and rescue drifting boats believed to be crammed with people in need of food, water and medical treatment.
HOW MANY MIGRANTS ARE THERE?
Nobody knows, but the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR estimated as of Thursday that more than 3,000 could still be at sea.
“Having said that, there could be more that we don’t know about,” Bangkok-based UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan said.
When the crisis first came to international attention early this month, aid agencies estimated 6,000 or more migrants were abandoned on boats after a regional crackdown on human trafficking prompted smugglers to flee. Since then more than 3,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshis have landed in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
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HOW MANY BOATS ARE AT SEA?
This is another mystery. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak tweeted Thursday that he had ordered the navy and coast guard to comb the sea to look for stranded migrants, becoming the first country to announce it will actively search for refugees instead of waiting for them to wash up on the region’s shores. Navy chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar said it has deployed four vessels, and three helicopters and three other vessels are on standby. Thailand and Indonesia have not announced any similar operations to search their sections of the Andaman Sea. The countries have also expressed concerns that offering temporary shelter could encourage an exodus of even more refugees.
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WHAT HAPPENS IN A YEAR?
Malaysia and Indonesia have made clear that their offer to house migrants is temporary. Both said their hospitality expires in one year. It is unclear what happens after that. Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said his government is ready to shelter Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar, while Bangladeshis would be sent back home. “A year is (the) maximum,” he said. “There should be international cooperation.” Malaysia has set the same time limit, saying in a joint statement that the international community must take responsibility for repatriating or resettling the migrants in third countries within that period.
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“THE ROOT CAUSE” AND THE R-WORD
Southeast Asian governments say the key to solving the migrant crisis is addressing the “the root cause” — which is code for Myanmar. The Rohingya Muslim minority has been boarding rickety boats to escape Myanmar for years due to state-sanctioned discrimination in the predominantly Buddhist country where they are openly despised. They are denied citizenship, have limited access to education and medical care and cannot practice their religion freely. The Rohingya have faced repeated outbreaks of violence, the latest of which have been occurring since 2012, with hundreds killed and 140,000 displaced. So they try to flee abroad, most hoping to reach Muslim-majority Malaysia in search of jobs and security. Myanmar has said it does not want to be blamed for the problem but agreed Thursday to join regional talks on the crisis to be held in Bangkok next week. Observers are eager to see how the countries will discuss the issue, given the Myanmar government’s distaste for the word “Rohingya,” which is taboo in Myanmar, where they are referred to as Bengalis — migrants from neighboring Bangladesh — even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.