MYANMAR FORCES ACCUSED OF ATTACKS ON MUSLIMS
BANGKOK: Myanmar local security forces killed Muslim villagers and assaulted people trying to flee a fresh outbreak of sectarian violence in western Rakhine state last month, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Sunday.

Local forces killed ethnic minority Kaman Muslims in the town of Kyauk Pyu while government troops “stood by and watched”, HRW said. Soldiers from the local border guard force meanwhile “severely beat” dozens of displaced Rohingya Muslims arriving by boat near the Rakhine state capital Sittwe from violence-hit local villages, it added. Myanmar’s 800,000 Rohingya are seen as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh by the government and many Burmese. They have long been considered by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities on the planet.

THAI INSURGENTS LAUNCH DEADLY TRAIN ATTACK
BANGKOK: Suspected militants detonated a bomb under a train in Thailand’s insurgency-riven deep south on Sunday, leaving one person dead and 15 wounded, police said. The device was buried under the railway in the flashpoint district of Rueso in Narathiwat, one of several Muslim-majority border provinces plagued by an eight-year conflict. An insurgency calling for greater autonomy has racked Thailand’s far south near the border with Malaysia since 2004. It has claimed more than 5,300 lives, both Buddhist and Muslim, with near-daily bomb or gun attacks. The militants are rebelling against a history of perceived discrimination against ethnic Malay Muslims by successive Thai governments, as well as alleged rights abuses by the army.

US MARINE ARRESTED FOR TRESPASSING IN OKINAWA
TOKYO: A 24-year-old US Marine was arrested Sunday for trespassing into an islander’s apartment in Okinawa, police said, as anti-American sentiment runs high following the rape of a local woman. Lieutenant Tomas Chanquet was detained after entering the unlocked apartment belonging to a restaurant worker “without any legitimate reason,” a spokesman for Okinawa police said. Media reports said Chanquet told police he had been out drinking and entered the apartment believing it belonged to a Japanese woman he met at a club who had given her approval. He is believed to have violated a night-time curfew imposed by the US military on all its servicemen in Japan after two US navy sailors were arrested on charges of raping a woman in Okinawa in October. That case prompted an outcry in Okinawa, the reluctant host to more than half of the 47,000 military personnel the US has in Japan.             

ISRAEL BOMBS GAZA MEDIA BUILDINGS
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israeli war planes targeted two media buildings in Gaza City on Sunday morning, injuring at least eight journalists, including one who lost his leg, medical officials said. Separately, Israeli air strikes continued in other parts of Gaza, including the north, where two children were killed in raids on homes.

JAPAN NEEDS STRONG GOV’T TO HANDLE ROW WITH CHINA, SOUTH KOREA
TOKYO: Japan needs a strong government to handle rows with China and South Korea as the world is losing patience with the county’s revolving door politics, a major daily said on Sunday ahead of next month’s polls. After six premiers in as many years, local media are hoping for the emergence of a stable government after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda called snap elections for December 16 which are widely expected to end his center-left party’s three years in power. AFP