“The state counsellor won’t attend the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly,” said government spokesman Zaw Htay, using Suu Kyi’s formal title.

The spokesman did not explain the decision but said the country’s Vice President Henry Van Thio would attend the summit, which runs through next week.

The announcement comes after the UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, accused Myanmar of waging a “systematic attack” on Rohingya civilians and warned that “ethnic cleansing” seemed to be under way.

The UN’s National Security Council also plans to meet Wednesday to discuss the crisis, which continues to deepen as the number of Rohingya refugees making it to Bangladesh soars to 370,000.

They have fled violence that has torn through Rakhine state since August 25, when militants from the Muslim minority attacked police border posts triggering a major military crackdown.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner for her defiant democracy activism under Myanmar’s former junta, was once the darling of the international community.

She made her debut before the UN assembly last September, after becoming former junta-run Myanmar’s first civilian leader in decades, winning warm applause for her speech.

She vowed to find a solution to ethnic and religious hatreds in Rakhine “that will lead to peace, stability and development for all communities within the state.”

In a sign of how far her star has fallen since, she has been pilloried by the same rights groups that campaigned for her release from house arrest for failing to speak up in defence of the Rohingya.

Several fellow Nobel laureates have also condemned her silence.

Denied citizenship by Myanmar, the stateless Rohingya are loathed in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Refugees streaming into Bangladesh have arrived with horrifying stories of indiscriminate killings and arson attacks at the hands of soldiers.

While the US and other Western powers have rebuked the military campaign, Beijing offered words of support ahead of the UN Security Council meeting.

A religious ceremony will be held on Saturday.

She died at the age of 58 at her home in Thingankyun Township, Yangon. ET was very famous both at home and abroad, thanks to her predictions over the past decades.

She was born Swe Swe Win and given the nickname ET because of her resemblance to the character in the American film “ET the Extra-Terrestrial”.

Because she was physically disabled, blind and had a speech impediment, her sister, Thi Thi Win, translated her predictions. Her famous clients included former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and General Than Shwe, the former Myanmar strongman politician who was the head of state of Burma (now Myanmar) from 1992 to 2011 as chairman of the State Peace and Development Council.

She reportedly earned about Bt30,000 per session, which lasted about 15 minutes.

Beijing’s intervention appears aimed at heading off any attempt to censure Myanmar at the council when it convenes on Wednesday.

China was one of the few foreign friends of Myanmar’s former junta.

Beijing has tightened its embrace under Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government as part of its giant trade, energy and infrastructure strategy for Southeast Asia.

The exodus from Myanmar’s western Rakine state began after Rohingya militants attacked police posts on August 25, prompting a military backlash that has sent a third of the Muslim minority population fleeing for their lives.

Exhausted Rohingya refugees have given accounts of atrocities at the hands of soldiers and Buddhist mobs who burned their villages to the ground.

They can not be independently verified as access to Rakhine state is heavily controlled.

Myanmar’s government denies any abuses and instead blames militants for burning down thousands of villages, including many belonging to Rohingya.

But international pressure on Myanmar heightened this week after United Nations rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said the violence seemed to be a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

The US also raised alarm over the violence while the Security Council announced it would meet Wednesday to discuss the crisis.

Opprobrium has been heaped Suu Kyi, who was once a darling of the rights community but now faces accusations of turning a blind eye to — and even abetting — a humanitarian catastrophe by Western powers who once feted her as well as a slew of fellow Nobel Laureates.

But Beijing offered more encouraging words to her on Tuesday, with foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang voicing support for her government’s efforts to “uphold peace and stability” in Rakhine.

“We hope order and the normal life there will be recovered as soon as possible,” he told a press briefing.

The Rohingya minority are denied citizenship and have suffered years of persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

“An estimated 370,000 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh,” since August 25 Joseph Tripura, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, told AFP.

The real figure may be higher as many new arrivals are still on the move making it difficult to include them in the count, the UN said, adding 60 per cent of refugees are children.

Most are in dire need of food, medical care and shelter after trekking for days through hills and jungles or braving dangerous boat journeys.

In a statement late Monday Suu Kyi’s foreign ministry defended the military for doing their “legitimate duty to restore stability”, saying troops were under orders “to exercise all due restraint, and to take full measures to avoid collateral damage.”

Britain and Sweden requested the urgent Security Council meeting amid growing international concern over the ongoing violence.

The council met behind closed doors in late August to discuss the violence, but could not agree a formal statement.

‘Stop the torture’

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has said the latest violence may have left more than 1,000 dead, most of them Rohingya.

Myanmar says the number of dead is around 430, the majority of them “extremist terrorists” from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).

It says a further 30,000 ethnic Rakhine and Hindus have been displaced inside northern Rakhine, where aid programmes have been severely curtailed due to the violence.

The exodus of Rohingya has saddled Bangladesh with its own humanitarian crisis, as aid workers scramble to provide food and shelter to a daily stream of bedraggled refugees.

The UN-run refugee camps in its Cox’s Bazar district were already packed with Rohingya who had fled from previous waves of persecution.

Dhaka is providing them temporary shelter.

But Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who visited a Rohingya camp on Tuesday, stressed it was up to Myanmar to “resolve” the issue.

“We will request the Myanmar government to stop oppressing innocent people,” she said during a tour of a camp in Cox’s Bazar, according to local outlet bdnews24.com.

Dhaka, which has refused to permanently absorb the Rohingya, said it plans to build a huge new camp that will house a quarter of a million refugees.

But it remains unclear if or when they will be able to return.

Plumes of smoke continued to rise on the Myanmar side of the border this week despite the militants’ announcement on Sunday of a unilateral ceasefire.

There was no direct response from Myanmar’s military, though government spokesman Zaw Htay tweeted: “We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.”//AFP

The remote border region was plunged into crisis after Rohingya militants attacked police posts in late August, prompting a military backlash that has sent nearly a third of the Muslim minority population fleeing to Bangladesh.

Rohingya refugees fleeing the unrest have told stories of soldiers and Buddhist mobs burning entire villages to the ground, while the government blames militants for the arson.

On Monday the United Nations rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said the violence seemed to be a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Hours after the warning, the Security Council announced it would meet Wednesday to discuss the crisis, which has heaped global opprobrium on Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

A Nobel peace laureate, Suu Kyi has been pilloried by rights groups for failing to speak up for the maligned Rohingya minority, who are denied citizenship by the state and have suffered years of persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Late Monday her office said Myanmar “welcomes the statements issued by the United Nations and a number of countries firmly condemning the terrorist attacks,” without mentioning the UN’s charge of ethnic cleansing.

The statement also defended the military’s operations as part of their “legitimate duty to restore stability”, saying troops were under orders “to exercise all due restraint, and to take full measures to avoid collateral damage and the harming of innocent civilians”.

Britain and Sweden requested the urgent UNSC meeting amid growing international concern over the ongoing violence, with fellow Nobel peace laureates urging Suu Kyi to intervene.

The council met behind closed doors in late August to discuss the violence, but there was no formal statement.

UN diplomats have said China, one of Myanmar’s top trade partners, has been resisting involvement by the top UN council in addressing the crisis.

“It’s a sign of the significant worry that Security Council members have about the situation that is continuing to deteriorate for the many Rohingyas who are seeking to flee Rakhine state,” British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters.

– Humanitarian crisis –

========================

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has said the latest violence may have left more than 1,000 dead, most of them Rohingya.

The exodus, topping 313,000 escapees, has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh, where refugee camps were already overcrowded and food and other aid is in short supply.

Most refugees have walked for days in harrowing journeys across rivers and through jungle, arriving sick, exhausted and in desperate need of shelter, food and water.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists as well as Hindus have also fled their homes inside Rakhine, where aid programs have been severely curtailed due to the violence.

Dhaka, which initially tried to block the Rohingya from entering, said Monday that it would start registering all new arrivals.

The Bangladesh government plans to build a huge new camp that will house a quarter of a million refugees.

But it remains unclear when or whether they will be able to return.

On Sunday, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, the militant group whose attacks sparked the latest crackdown, declared a unilateral ceasefire to allow aid to reach the increasingly desperate refugees.

There was no direct response from Myanmar’s military, though government spokesman Zaw Htay tweeted: “We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.”//AFP

“The United States is deeply troubled by the ongoing crisis in Burma,” said Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, condemning attacks on Burmese military positions and subsequent convulsion of deadly ethnic tinged violence.

“At least 300,000 people have fled their homes in the wake of attacks on (a) Burmese security post on August 25,” Sanders said.

We “reiterate our condemnation of those attacks and ensuing violence,” she added, without pointing the finger of blame at any specific groups.

The initial attacks have been blamed on the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, a militant group, while Burmese security forces are being held responsible for a backlash that may have killed more than 1,000, mostly Rohingya.

The Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority, have faced decades of persecution in Myanmar, where they are regarded as illegal immigrants.

The Trump White House had been facing questions about its silence in the face of a crisis that a UN envoy has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”