All 15 members of the delegation agreed that it is “a severe crisis”, but deputy Russian ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, whose country has supported Myanmar, warned that the council did not have a “magic wand” to resolve what is now one of the world’s worst refugee crises.

“We are not looking away from this crisis, we are not closing our eyes,” the Russian diplomat told reporters at a briefing in Ukhia upazila.

Prior to the briefing, the delegation visited Kutupalong refugee camp and Tombru border in Bandarban’s Naikhyangchhari to assess first-hand the plight of the refugees there.

Hundreds of Rohingya staged a demonstration yesterday as the UN envoys visited the camps. Some of the Muslim refugees broke down in tears as they told the ambassadors harrowing stories of murder and rape in Myanmar. The demonstrators waved placards demanding justice for atrocities against the refugees until they were dispersed by police, according to AFP.

Senior diplomats from the 15-member Security Council – including permanent members the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – arrived in Bangladesh on Saturday for a four-day visit to the camps. They will go on to Myanmar, where they are to meet civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

After the camp visit yesterday, they were taken to a briefing room where the local administration of Cox’s Bazar and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) debriefed them on the crisis that Bangladesh has been handling since August last year.

Rohingya refugees flocked to meet the at Kutupalong camp, wielding posters and demanding safe repatriation back to Myanmar.

So far, at least 700,000 Rohingya people have fled Myanmar since violence escalated following a military crackdown in Rakhine state in August last year.

The exodus prompted atrocities including arson, torture, gang rape, murder and massacre. The heavy-handed nature of the Myanmar military’s “clearance operation”, which followed a series of attack on its security outposts in the areas, claimed thousands of lives. The UN human rights body reported recently that there were elements of ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State, and it has previously called on the Security Council to hold an independent inquiry into possible genocide against the Rohingya.

The UN Security Council visit is being held in high esteem, because Bangladesh hopes it will lend assistance towards repatriating the mass population of Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar.

The Rohingya crisis is Myanmar’s internal problem imposed on Bangladesh, Bangladesh’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam told Security Council members when they met after the camp visit.

Debriefing the 15-member delegation at Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, the junior minister said, “The solution to this problem lies in Myanmar. It is Myanmar’s internal conflict, forced on to the shoulder of Bangladesh. The problem has come from there and the solution lies there as well.”

Bangladesh reached an agreement with Myanmar in November last year to repatriate thousands of nearly one million refugees to Rakhine. However, the plan was delayed as Nay Pyi Taw failed to show readiness to provide a safe and sound return for the refugees. The Rohingya community in the refugee camps and around the world also resisted the plan, asking for safety guarantees before any repatriation.

The Bangladesh government has urged the visiting UN Security Council delegation to keep pressure on the Myanmar government to speed up the repatriation process and to recognise the Rohingya situation as a crisis.

The delegation agreed to continue its pressure on the Myanmar government and help find an amicable solution to the humanitarian crisis, three high officials, who attended a meeting held at a hotel in Cox’s Bazar Saturday evening, told The Daily Star requesting anonymity.

While the UN has been active on the Royingya crisis, Asean – of which Myanmar is also a member – said after a summit in Singapore over the weekend that the regional group would limit its involvement in the matter to humanitarian assistance.

The group urged Myanmar to continue to implement the recommendations of the final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine state. It also welcomed the establishment of the advisory board that has been led in an individual capacity by the former Thai deputy prime minister and foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai.

Rudd stood down amid claims she mislead lawmakers on whether her department held targets for removing illegal immigrants in Britain.

“The prime minister has tonight accepted the resignation of the home secretary,” said a spokesman for May’s office.

Rudd telephoned May to inform her of the decision following days of intensifying pressure over the immigration issue and increasing calls for her to quit.

That had followed weeks of scrutiny of her handling of another Home Office scandal: the targeting of the so-called Windrush generation.

Commonwealth citizens primarily from the Caribbean who came to Britain in the post-World War II decades had been wrongly threatened with deportation, provoking an outcry when it emerged earlier this month.

Their erroneous targeting stemmed from a “hostile environment” immigration policy pioneered by May when she was interior minister between 2010 and 2016, and then continued by Rudd.

The opposition Labour Party had accused Rudd of incompetence and being a “human shield” for May.

“This was inevitable, the only surprise is that it took so long,” said shadow interior minister Diane Abbott following Rudd’s resignation.

“The architect of this crisis, Theresa May, must now step forward to give a full and honest account of how this inexcusable situation happened on her watch.”

Rudd’s decision to step down will come as a severe setback for the Conservative leader, who publicly declared her “full confidence” in Rudd as recently as Friday and faces potentially bruising local council elections across England on Thursday.

May could see the Tories wiped out in London, where several once-safe Conservative councils could flip to Labour.

Untenable position

As the Windrush scandal intensified, Rudd told a parliamentary committee the Home Office did not keep targets for the number of illegal immigrants removed from Britain.

While she maintained she was unaware of such measures, there was mounting evidence that targets did exist and were known about within her department, making her position increasingly untenable.

Rudd had been due to make another appearance before parliament on Monday, but instead opted to resign late Sunday.

The MP for Hastings on England’s south coast, who had led the Home Office since 2016, was seen as a moderate on the European Union and a balancing force in a cabinet made up of several big-name pro-Brexit figures, such as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Environment Secretary Michael Gove.

Both men were quick to praise her on social media following news of the resignation.

“Really sad to lose @AmberRuddHR from Cabinet. A fine colleague who did a great job during last year’s terrorist attacks and cares deeply about the people she serves,” Johnson tweeted.

Gove said he was “so sad” about her departure, adding on Twitter “she was a huge asset… I hope Amber will be back soon — we need her.”

One of the more heartfelt reactions came from George Osborne, long-time finance minister under former Prime Minister David Cameron.

He wrote: “The Government just got a bit less human.”

Duterte in February prohibited workers heading to Kuwait following the murder of a Filipina maid whose body was found stuffed in her employer’s freezer.

The resulting row deepened after Kuwaiti authorities last week ordered Manila’s envoy to leave the country over videos of Philippine embassy staff helping workers in Kuwait flee allegedly abusive employers.

The two nations had been negotiating a labour deal that Philippine officials said could result in the lifting of the temporary ban but the recent escalation in tensions has put an agreement in doubt.

“The ban stays permanently. There will be no more recruitment for especially domestic helpers. No more,” Duterte told reporters in his hometown in the southern city of Davao.

Around 262,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, nearly 60 percent of them domestic workers, according to the Philippines’ foreign ministry.

Last week the Philippines apologised over the rescue videos but Kuwaiti officials announced they were expelling Manila’s ambassador and recalling their own envoy from the Southeast Asian nation.

Kuwait also detained four Filipinos hired by the Philippine embassy and issued arrest warrants against three diplomatic personnel, Manila said.

On Sunday, Kuwait’s deputy foreign minister Khaled al-Jarallah said in a statement his country “is willing to cooperate with friends in the Philippines to look into ways to resolve all outstanding issues” regarding Filipino workers.

“The historic friendship between the two countries can overcome this issue,” he added.

The Philippines’ ambassador Renato Pedro Villa told AFP he will leave Kuwait on Wednesday, adding that he refused to comply with Kuwaiti demands for the names of staffers suspected of being involved in the rescues.

Duterte on Sunday described the treatment of workers in Kuwait as a “calamity”.

He said he would bring home Filipina maids who suffered abuse as he appealed to workers who wanted to stay in the oil-rich state.

“I would like to address to their patriotism: come home. No matter how poor we are, we will survive. The economy is doing good and we are short of our workers,” he said.

‘Anger against Filipinos’

About 10 million Filipinos work abroad, seeking high-paying jobs they are unable to find at home, and their remittances are a major pillar of the Philippine economy.

The Philippine government has for decades hailed overseas workers as modern heroes but advocacy groups have highlighted the social cost of migration, tearing families apart and making Filipinos vulnerable to abuse.

Duterte lashed out at Kuwait in February, alleging Arab employers routinely rape Filipina workers, force them to work 21 hours a day and feed them scraps.

However after the latest row, Duterte used a conciliatory tone as he addressed the “diplomatic ruckus” on Saturday.

“Apparently it seems as if they have anger against Filipinos… I do not want to send (workers) because apparently you do not like Filipinos,” he said in a speech before Filipinos in Singapore.

“Just do not hurt them. I plead that they’d be given a treatment deserving of a human being,” he said in the same event.

Duterte said workers returning from Kuwait could find employment as English teachers in China, citing improved ties with Beijing.

Describing China as a “true friend”, he said he would use Chinese aid to fund the workers’ repatriation.

Duterte added he was not after “vengeance”.

“I’d address myself to the Kuwait government and the people: Thank you for helping my countrymen all these years. It is a debt of gratitude that after all you were able to help. So I have no anger, no hatred,” he said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — who may meet US President Donald Trump as early as next month — also said Pyongyang would have no need for nuclear weapons if it were promised it would not be invaded, according to Seoul.

Friday’s historic meeting saw Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agree to pursue the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula.

Washington’s new chief diplomat said he and Kim held in-depth talks about a denuclearisation “mechanism” when they met over Easter.

“We talked a great deal about what it might look like, what this complete, verifiable, irreversible mechanism might look like,” Pompeo said.

“We have an obligation to engage in diplomatic discourse to try and find a peaceful solution so that Americans aren’t held at risk by Kim Jong Un and his nuclear arsenal,” Pompeo told ABC, saying there is a “real opportunity” for progress.

He was speaking as the Blue House in Seoul reported Kim told Moon during the summit he would close the North’s nuclear test site in May.

Kim also said he “would soon invite experts of South Korea and the US as well as journalists to disclose the process to the international community with transparency”, Seoul’s presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan added.

Tensions spiked last year over the North’s testing of atomic weapons and long-range missiles, including some capable of reaching the US mainland.

“Kim said ‘the US feels repelled by us, but once we talk, they will realise that I am not a person who will fire a nuclear weapon to the South or the US or target the US’,” according to Yoon.

The North Korean leader reported added: “If we meet often (with the US), build trust, end the war and eventually are promised no invasion, why would we live with the nuclear weapons?”

Kim also slammed speculation that the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site was already unusable after an underground tunnel there reportedly collapsed.

“As they will see once they visit, there are two more tunnels (at the test site) that are even bigger… and they are in good condition,” he was quoted as saying.

‘Maximum pressure’

The remarks are likely to be seen as a sweetener ahead of Trump’s eagerly-awaited summit with Kim, which the US president said would take place “in the next three or four weeks”.

Trump touted his ability to achieve a nuclear deal with the regime at a campaign-style rally in Michigan to cheers and chants of “Nobel! Nobel!”

The US leader has been eager to play up his role in achieving a breakthrough with Pyongyang through his “maximum pressure” campaign involving tough rhetoric, stronger sanctions and diplomatic efforts to further isolate the regime.

“Months ago, do you remember what they were saying? ‘He’s going to get us into nuclear war, they said,'” Trump told supporters in Washington Township, north of Detroit.

“No, strength is going to keep us out of nuclear war, not going to get us in!”

But Trump also sounded a note of caution, saying he was prepared to walk away if US demands for North Korea to relinquish its atomic arsenal were not met.

– ‘Things are going well’ –

Trump held phone calls earlier Saturday with both Moon and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, declaring “things are going very well”, as CBS News reported that Mongolia and Singapore are the final two locations under consideration for his meeting with Kim.

Pyongyang has demanded as-yet-unspecified security guarantees to discuss its arsenal, but Kim could use the Trump meeting to agree on “the range of nuclear weapons and facilities to be dismantled and specific timeframe to do so”, said Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification.

But Kim’s remark about his personal good intentions may be aimed at using Trump’s “troubling tendency to take authoritarian rulers at their word,” said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.

Trump’s new National Security Advisor, John Bolton, cited Libya’s decision to give up its nuclear programme as a model for North Korea.

“We have very much in mind the Libya model from 2003, 2004,” Bolton told Fox News Sunday.

New era?

Kim and Moon said at their summit that they had a “common goal of realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”

But the phrase is a diplomatic euphemism open to interpretation on both sides.

Pyongyang has long wanted to see an end to the US military presence and nuclear umbrella over the South, but it invaded its neighbour in 1950 and is the only one of the two Koreas to possess nuclear weapons.

The two leaders also pledged in a joint statement to formally end the Korean War, which ceased in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

And in another conciliatory gesture, Kim said he would move North Korea’s clocks 30 minutes forward to unify with the South’s time zone, Seoul said Sunday. Pyongyang changed its standard time to half an hour behind the South in 2015.

 The inferno raged through the eight-floor building of a circuit board maker, located in an industrial district in Taoyuan City.

Seven firefighters were trapped by large fallen objects as they tried to search for people inside the factory.

They were rescued early Sunday but only two survived. The two others killed were factory workers from Thailand.

Seven other firefighters were injured, five of them suffering burns from an unidentified liquid, according to the fire department.

Traces of diesel and toxic chemicals were also found at the scene, it said.

The disaster follows a string of recent accidents in Taiwanese factories, raising questions about safety standards.

A huge fire broke out at a refinery of the state-run CPC Corporation in January, also in Taoyuan. There were no injuries in that incident.

In December, six Vietnamese workers were killed in another Taoyuan factory blaze that erupted in the middle of the night.

The workers were found to have been staying in an illegal dormitory at the factory, highlighting the often sub-standard living conditions for migrant workers on the island.

The announcement comes more than a week into a regime assault to oust Islamic State group fighters from the capital’s southern suburbs, including the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk.

On Sunday, state news agency SANA said a deal had been reached to evacuate opposition fighters and members of their families from rebel-held areas east of Yarmuk.

SANA reported “an agreement reached between the Syrian government and terrorist groups in southern Damascus, in the areas of Yalda, Babila and Beit Sahem”, using its usual term for all rebels.

The deal gives fighters the choice between leaving the area with their families or handing over their weapons and staying, SANA said.

The reported deal is the latest in a string of such agreements that have seen the regime retake areas near the capital after rebel withdrawals.

Such a deal around Yalda could allow the regime to deploy forces on the eastern edges of Yarmuk after other units advanced towards the camp from the west, a Britain-based war monitor said.

Over the past two days, the army has retaken large parts of the district of Qadam on Yarmuk’s western flank, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.

On Saturday, IS seized a hospital and surrounding buildings on the eastern edges of Yarmuk as it tried to push towards Yalda, the Observatory said.

On Sunday, regime war planes pounded Yarmuk and the neighbouring district of Hajar al-Aswad, it said.

Yarmuk and its surroundings are now the jihadist group’s largest urban redoubt in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, after IS lost most of the swathes of territory it once held in both countries.

The jihadists have held parts of Yarmuk and Hajar al-Aswad since 2015, and overran Qadam in a surprise assault last month.

At least 85 regime fighters and 74 IS jihadists have been killed in ten days of fighting in southern Damascus, the Observatory says.

The announcement of an evacuation deal on Yalda and nearby areas comes after the regime reconquered what was once a key rebel bastion east of Damascus earlier this month.

Eastern Ghouta fell after a brutal military operation and a series of similar evacuation deals brokered by regime ally Russia that saw tens of thousands of residents bussed to northern Syria.

More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011 with a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.

Myanmar has faced intense international pressure since the start of a military campaign in August that has driven some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh, where refugees have provided harrowing testimony of murder and rape by security forces and local mobs.

The UN delegates will interview refugees in the Bangladeshi camps before travelling to Myanmar and meeting civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been denounced in the West for her failure to speak up for the Rohingya.

The council is urging Myanmar to allow the safe return of the Rohingya and take steps to end the decades of discrimination that the stateless Muslim minority has suffered in the Buddhist-majority country.

Bangladesh refugee commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam told AFP that the UN team — with 26 diplomats from 15 countries — first visited Konarpara camp, where some 6,000 Rohingya have been trapped on bleak scrubland since the bloodshed began last year.

The camp’s Rohingya leader Dil Mohammad said the UNSC delegation met and spoke with some women victims of the violence in Rakhine, as well as community elders.

“We told them that we’re staying here to save our lives. We’re very much eager to go back to our land, provided our security is ensured by the UN,” Mohammad told AFP.

Later, the council will also head to the Kutupalong camp where hundreds of Rohingya staged a protest ahead of the visit, holding banners demanding the restoration of their rights in Myanmar. Police dispersed the protesters peacefully, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

“We want restoration of our citizenship under Rohingya ethnicity. We want security and return of our confiscated land and properties,” said Rohingya leader Mohibullah, adding that they would present the delegation with 14 conditions for their repatriation to Rakhine.

Myanmar has said the military operation in Rakhine is aimed at rooting out extremists and has rejected nearly all allegations that its security forces committed atrocities in the state.

Led by Kuwait, Britain and Peru, the four-day Security Council visit is expected to include a meeting with Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as well as a helicopter flight over Rakhine to allow delegates to see the remains of villages torched during the violence.

Kuwait’s Ambassador Mansour al-Otaibi said the visit was not about “naming and shaming” Myanmar, but that “the message will be very clear for them: the international community is following the situation and has great interest in resolving it.”

On Friday, Human Rights Watch called for Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis to be referred to the International Criminal Court.

“The lack of a UN Security Council resolution has left the Myanmar government convinced that it has literally gotten away with mass murder,” HRW executive director Kenneth Roth told reporters in Yangon.

Duterte in February imposed a prohibition on workers heading to Kuwait following the murder of a Filipina maid whose body was found stuffed in a freezer in the Gulf state.

The crisis deepened after Kuwaiti authorities last week ordered Manila’s envoy to leave the country over videos of Philippine embassy staff helping workers in Kuwait flee allegedly abusive employers.

The two nations had been negotiating a labour deal that Philippine officials said could result in the lifting of the ban but the recent escalation in tensions has put an agreement in doubt.

“The ban stays permanently. There will be no more recruitment for especially domestic helpers. No more,” Duterte told reporters in his hometown in the southern city of Davao.

Around 262,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, nearly 60 percent of them domestic workers, according to the Philippines’ foreign department.

Last week the Philippines apologised over the rescue videos but Kuwaiti officials announced they were expelling Manila’s ambassador and recalling their own envoy from the Southeast Asian nation.

Duterte on Sunday described the situation in Kuwait as a “calamity”.

He said he would bring home Filipina maids who suffered abuse as he appealed to workers who wanted to stay in the oil-rich state.

“I would like to address to their patriotism: come home. No matter how poor we are, we will survive. The economy is doing good and we are short of our workers,” he said.

About 10 million Filipinos work abroad to seek high-paying jobs they were unable to find at home, and their remittances are a major pillar of the Philippine economy.

Duterte said workers returning from Kuwait could find employment as English teachers in China, citing improved ties with Beijing.

Describing China as a “true friend”, he said he would use Chinese aid to fund the workers’ repatriation.

Duterte added that he was not after “vengeance” against Kuwait and did not “nurture hate”.

“But if my people are considered a burden to some of them, to some government mandated to protect them and uphold their rights, then we will do our part,” he said.