While clouds parted in America’s fourth-largest city, bringing a welcome respite after the storm turned roads into rivers, rural areas of Texas were drenched as Harvey headed eastwards with the city of Port Arthur especially hard hit.

Authorities in neighboring Louisiana had scrambled to safeguard their state from the impact of Harvey, whose onslaught evoked painful memories of Hurricane Katrina’s deadly strike 12 years ago — but New Orleans escaped with minimal rain.

Taking advantage of a lull in the rainfall in Houston, rescuers recovered the bodies of six family members from a van which was swept away by the floods over the weekend.

Manuel and Belia Saldivar and four of their great-grandchildren ranging from six to 16 years in age went missing on Sunday.

“Our worst fears have been realized,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told a press conference, confirming all six bodies had been found inside the van.

So far officials believe at least 33 people to have been killed in the storm, and there is little doubt the toll will rise further — although many of those unaccounted for may simply have no access to phones or power.

“To those Americans who have lost loved ones, all of America is grieving with you, and our hearts are joined with yours forever,” President Donald Trump said in a speech, a day after viewing some of the damage for himself on a trip to Texas.

More than 30,000 people have found refuge in shelters across the Lone Star State, from the giant Houston convention center to small churches, according to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Brock Long.

In Houston, where Mayor Sylvester Turner issued an nighttime curfew to aid search efforts and thwart potential looting, the two major airports reopened on a limited basis, signalling a slow return to normality.

But at least a quarter of Harris County, which includes Houston, is still under water — and the operators of an organic peroxides plant outside the city warned they were bracing for the risk of an explosion after flooding caused them to lose all power.

“Right now, we have an unprecedented six feet of water at the plant,” Rich Rowe, president and chief executive of plant operator Arkema Inc, said in a statement.

“We have lost critical refrigeration of the materials on site that could now explode and cause a subsequent intense fire,” he said. “The high water and lack of power leave us with no way to prevent it.”

As a precaution, officials had already ordered the evacuation of an area within 1.5 miles (three km) of the plant in Crosby, northeast of Houston, and Rowe said the facility itself had been evacuated for employees’ safety.

‘City underwater’

Even as Houston got a first glimpse of life-after-Harvey, the city of Port Arthur was pummeled by torrential rains — making it almost impossible to reach despite the best efforts of volunteer rescuers.

“Our whole city is underwater right now,” Port Arthur’s mayor, Derrick Freeman, posted on Facebook early Wednesday — assuring stranded residents that help was on the way.

Justin Coleman was part of a crew of three jeeps and three boats that drove overnight from Fort Worth trying to reach Port Arthur, but were forced to turn around on their first attempt.

“We’re on the radio with them right now and every 30 seconds there’s another person rescued,” the 33-year-old told AFP during a pit stop at a gas station in the nearby town of Winnie.

“There’s a lot of babies and elderly that are stuck in their homes right now. They said it’s getting up to their chests,” said Coleman, who runs a construction company.

So far, parts of Texas have seen more than 50 inches (1.27 meters) of rain, while in Louisiana, the top total 18 inches so far was increasing.

Dodged a bullet

Harvey first slammed onshore as a Category Four hurricane on Friday night before unloading on Texas.

Although now downgraded to a tropical storm, Harvey made its second landfall just west of the Louisiana town of Cameron early Wednesday, packing maximum sustained winds nearing 45 miles per hour.

Forecasters are predicting another five to 10 inches of rain in the region, with the downpour finally expected to stop on Thursday.

For now, southwestern Louisiana is taking the hardest hit, with a levee being breached in the town of Gueydan.

While New Orleans appeared to have dodged a bullet, the arrival of Harvey nevertheless served as a somber reminder, coming just one day after the 12-year anniversary of Katrina, which ravaged the vulnerable city famous for its jazz music and cuisine.

“I began to pray for the people in Texas after having gone through that same experience myself as a Katrina survivor,” said Crystal Harris, who works for a bank which was taking donations for storm victims.

‘Lessons learned’

In Texas, the damage wrought is staggering — Enki Research put its “best estimate” at between $48 billion and $75 billion.

At least one bridge had crumbled, one levee had breached and dams were at risk, while Harvey sparked the closure of several major refineries across what is a major hub of America’s oil industry.

More than 4,500 people and 1,000 pets have been rescued from the storm zone by the Coast Guard, which expected to rescue an additional 1,000 people Wednesday in the Port Arthur area alone.

The Coast Guard has deployed about 50 aircraft and two dozen boats, but the overall rescue effort, involving other military branches and state police, easily tops more than 100 aircraft.

“We are certainly bringing lessons learned from Katrina,” Admiral Paul Thomas, who oversees Coast Guard operations in 26 states, told reporters in New Orleans — noting that several members of his team are Louisiana natives who are veterans of the 2005 disaster.

The Myanmar top commander met with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan separately to brief the Thai leaders on the situation and other issues concerning bilateral ties.

The situation of the Rohingya – who, using the term preferred by his Myanmar counterpart, Prawit referred to as “Bengalis” – was now under control and would have no implications for Thailand. “They might not be able to take boat trips to land in Thailand,” Prawit said.

Prime Minister Prayut said Thailand needed to provide assistant on a humanitarian basis if any refugees arrived in the Kingdom. “But when the situation returns to normal, we have to send them back home,” he said.

At least 18,500 Muslim Rohingya have fled to the border with Bangladesh since militants of the Araka Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) equipped with home explosive devices, machetes and few small arms attacked 30 security outposts in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung township in Rakhine since last Friday.

A heavy handed operation by the Tatmadaw – the Myanmar military – left more than 100 people, including a dozen security officials, dead. “General Min Aung Hliang told me that the Myanmar army also lost in the battle,” Prawit told reporters.

There has been communal conflict in Rakhine state since 2012 when anti-Muslim sentiment fanned out in the country. Violence has killed hundreds of people and displaced more than 100,000 Rohingya since then. Many of them have taken the dangerous journey from the state and border areas with Bangladesh across the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

Muslim Rohingya receive poor treatment from the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar authorities, who call them Bengalis and deny them citizenship. Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan led an Advisory Commission that released its final report last Wednesday, recommending measures to address Rohingya grievances, including giving them citizenship rights.

Prayut said Myanmar needed some more time to fix up the complex problem in Rakhine. “We don’t intervene in their domestic affairs. [I understand that] Myanmar authorities do support and develop Rakhine state,” he said.

During the meeting, Min Aung Hlaing told Prayut that it would take time solve the problem in Rakhine state, as the solution must be based on trust and a confidence- building process, according to a Thai government assistant spokesperson, Athisit Chaiyanuwat.

The Myanmar commander in chief also thanked the Thai authorities for providing good care to migrants workers from Myanmar, and said that authorities in Myanmar were ready to cooperate with Thailand for mutual benefit, Athisit said.

Min Aung Hlaing was in Thailand for the fifth meeting of the Thailand-Myanmar High Level Committee, which was held in Northeastern Khon Kaen province on Tuesday. Myanmar and Thai armed forces are cementing trust and friendly relations between the two countries and the two armed forces, he said during the opening of the meeting.

As the meeting is of importance for property and security issues of the people of two countries, he said “it would bring peace and stability to the border region between the two countries and good benefit to the residents from the border region”.

This year sees pilgrims from Shiite Iran return to Mecca in Saudi Arabia after a hiatus following a diplomatic spat between the regional rivals and a deadly stampede in 2015.

It also comes with the Gulf mired in a major political crisis that has seen thousands of faithful who would usually make the journey from neighbouring Qatar stay away.

On the esplanade of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, the excitement was palpable as crowds from all four corners of the world gathered for a pilgrimage that all able Muslims are required to perform at least once in their lives.

Tidjani Traore, a public service consultant from Benin, said he was on his 22nd pilgrimage at the age of 53.

“Every time, there are new emotions,” he said. “There are new innovations for organising and hosting the pilgrims. Now, for example, the tents are air-conditioned.”

Wearing the simple garb of the pilgrim, the faithful waited at dawn with their suitcases for buses to take them to Mina five kilometres (three miles) to the east.

Muslim pilgrims take a selfie at the Grand Mosque in the holy Saudi city of Mecca, early on August 30, 2017, on the eve of the start of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. // AFP PHOTO

There, hundreds of thousands will gather before setting off on Thursday at dawn to climb Mount Arafat, the pinnacle of the hajj.

First, however, they must perform a ritual walk known as the tawaf seven times around the Kaaba, a black masonry cube wrapped in a heavy silk cloth embroidered in gold with Koranic verses at the centre of Mecca’s Grand Mosque.

The shrine is the point towards which Muslims around the world pray.

“I still have to finish the tawaf!” said a breathless Nour, 30, from Saudi Arabia as she rushed past without stopping.

Sitting on a folding chair in the middle of the esplanade, Risvana cradled her six-month-old baby who is accompanying her on the pilgrimage.

“I’ve planned everything for him,” said the young mother, pointing to a bottle of water in her bag.

 – Tight security –

Saudi authorities have mobilised vast resources including more than 100,000 security personnel to avoid a repeat of the stampede in 2015 in which nearly 2,300 people were killed.

Iran alone reported 464 deaths — the highest toll among foreigners.

Riyadh and Tehran cut ties months later, after the execution of a Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia sparked attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

Iranian pilgrims were absent from last year’s hajj for the first time in decades after the regional rivals failed to agree on security and logistics.

This year’s pilgrimage comes amid a diplomatic crisis between a Saudi-led bloc of Arab countries and Qatar, accused of supporting extremist groups and being too close to Riyadh’s arch-rival Tehran.

A blockade imposed on Qatar since June 5 has seen sea and air links shut down, preventing many Qataris from making the hajj.

Although Saudi Arabia relaxed entry restrictions across its land border with the emirate two weeks before the hajj, Qatar said only a few dozen of its nationals were able to join the pilgrimage.

This year the colossal religious gathering comes with the Islamic State group under growing pressure having lost swathes of territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria

But the jihadist group continues to claim attacks in the Middle East and Europe.

– Years of anticipation –

On the esplanade of the Grand Mosque, Saudi authorities had placed misting fans to take the edge off the intense heat.

On the eve of the first rites of the pilgrimage, the walkways thronged with people and the smell of musk wafted through the air.

Sitting in the shade of trees or reinforced concrete bridges, the faithful waited patiently for the next call to prayer.

Others continued their march, protected by a prayer mat or a small umbrella fixed on the head with an elastic band.

Several times throughout the day, well-run teams of employees, mostly Asian, cleaned the esplanade with jets of water.

As the hour for prayer arrived, a young woman sat at a table in an ice cream shop and prayed, her hands crossed on her knees.

A few paces from the Kaaba, Egyptian pilgrim Fatiya Taha could not hide her joy.

At 67 the oldest in her group, she sat in her wheelchair in Islam’s most holy spot.

“I’ve been looking forward to this pilgrimage for four years,” she said.

Four days after Harvey slammed onshore as a Category Four hurricane, turning roads into rivers and neighborhoods into lakes in America’s fourth-largest city, emergency crews still struggled to reach hundreds of stranded people in a massive round-the-clock rescue operation.

Rain and more rain kept falling, with no sign of the nightmare easing. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner declared a nighttime curfew as the city tries to head off looting in the wake of epic flooding from Harvey.

The White House announced that Trump already plans to go back to Texas on Saturday — a surprisingly quick return to a disaster zone for a US president.

Trump, sporting a “USA” baseball cap and clutching a Texas flag with its trademark lone star, tried Tuesday to strike a unifying tone as he visited the coastal city of Corpus Christi, praising the work of state and federal officials in responding to the disaster.

“We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, this is the way to do it,” he said.

Emerging from a briefing held inside a fire station, Trump climbed up a ladder for an impromptu address to the mix of supporters and banner-waving protesters gathered outside.

“We love you, you are special, we are here to take care of you,” the president called out. “It’s historic, its epic, but I tell you, it happened in Texas — and Texas can handle anything.”

“What a crowd, what a turnout,” Trump added, as if addressing a political rally.

The US leader and First Lady Melania avoided visiting Houston — swathes of which remain under water — to avoid disrupting recovery efforts.

But the president was nevertheless seeking to make a political statement, learning from the mistakes of former Republican leader George W. Bush, whose response to Hurricane Katrina — which walloped New Orleans exactly 12 years ago — was widely seen as botched.

Harvey, now a tropical storm, has so far driven more than 8,000 people into emergency shelters across the Lone Star State, and hundreds more still await rescue.

“We’re Trumponites. I trust he’s going to take care of us,” said Darla Fitzgerald, a 58-year-old nurse based in a Red Cross shelter in Winnie, a small town east of Houston, where the rain fell heavily Tuesday.

– One more victim –

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

A Houston police officer was confirmed as the latest victim of the storm after the body of Steve Perez, who went missing after reporting for duty in the early hours of Sunday, was recovered by divers two days later.

Harvey was previously known to have left at least three people dead, with six more fatalities potentially tied to the storm, and officials warned the danger has far from passed.

On Air Force One bringing Trump back to Washington, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president will return to Texas Saturday and perhaps go to Louisiana, too, depending on the weather there.

“We’ll go back into a different part of the state, to have a chance to see some of the areas we were not able to today,” she said.

She said Trump and the first lady were very moved by what they saw at the disaster zone.

“I think he’s made very clear the priority is taking care of the people,” she said.

Everywhere, the figures from the storm are staggering. The National Weather Service said over six million Texans have been impacted by 30 inches (76 inches) or more of rain since Friday.

Residents living around a chemical plant in the county that includes Houston were evacuated as a precaution, over fears that some of the chemicals at the facility — which produces organic peroxides — might react or cause an explosion.

The NASA space flight centre in Houston said it was closing until Monday because of the storm.

With neighboring Louisiana squarely in the path of a storm now hovering off the Gulf Coast, Harvey is pressing northeastward and expected to make landfall again late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Residents of low-lying New Orleans — which bore the brunt of Katrina’s wrath in 2005 — are bracing for up to 10 inches of rain over the next 36 hours, with a risk of flash floods.

“It is really sort of a wild card right now,” meteorologist Eric Holthaus told AFP of the outlook for New Orleans.

The farthest reaching rain bands from that storm have already dumped as much as six inches of water in parts of the city famous for its jazz music and Cajun cuisine.

– ‘Not over’ –

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

The National Weather Service tweeted that Harvey appears to have broken a US record for most rain from a single tropical cyclone, with nearly 52 inches (132 centimetres) recorded in the town of Cedar Bayou.

“The single greatest threat continues to be the rainfall,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.

“This is not over.”

The Texas bayou and coastal prairie rapidly flooded after Harvey struck the coast on Friday, but the region’s sprawling cities where drainage is slower were worst hit.

Highways were swamped and homes were rendered uninhabitable, with power lines cut and dams overflowing, sparking massive floods across Houston — a city of 2.3 million people — and its wider metropolitan area of six million.

Sixteen-year-old Andrea Aviles was holed up at a hotel with about 30 members of her extended family, having evacuated her home in Winnie, driving past cars abandoned in flooded ditches on the way.

“All our yard is full of water,” said Aviles. “I’ve never seen it like this.”

The National Hurricane Center said Harvey is expected to produce additional rainfall accumulations of six to 12 inches to the north and east of Houston from far east Texas into southwestern Louisiana.

Federal officials estimate that up to half a million people in Texas will ultimately require some form of assistance — but for now the focus remains immediate disaster relief, with many lives still at stake.

“Recovery is a slow process,” Brock Long, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said as he welcomed Trump in Corpus Christi along with Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

“We’ve got a long way to go.”//AFP

Australian Teacher Magazine yesterday withdrew an article which was labelled as “fake news” by Singapore’s Education Ministry (MOE), and apologised “without reservation”.

The article, which was published in its August issue and was widely shared, had quoted MOE director-general of education Wong Siew Hoong as telling an international conference here in May that Singapore is “building compliant students just as the jobs that value compliance are beginning to disappear”.

But MOE on Monday described the statements in the article, written by Mr Walter Barbieri, as “completely false” and “ fake news”. According to his Linkedin profile, Mr Barbieri is the director of eLearning at St Peter’s College in Adelaide.

In the interest of “full transparency”, MOE yesterday released an unedited video and the transcript of Mr Wong’s 35-minute speech he delivered on the first day of the National Institute of Education’s (NIE) Redesigning Pedagogy international conference.

Grant Quarry, Australian Teacher Magazine’s managing editor, told The Straits Timesyesterday that it is investigating the matter and has been trying to contact the author for clarification.

In the interim, the report’s webpage on EducationHQ, which publishes the magazine, was updated with an editor’s note explaining why the article had been withdrawn.

“In the light of the evidence presented, and in the absence of alternative evidence to support the author at this stage, EducationHQ has withdrawn the story and apologises without reservation for any offence caused,” said the note.

Mr Barbieri did not respond to queries from The Straits Times.

In his article, he had claimed that Wong compared Singapore’s stellar academic results in 2015’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) with the data on student well-being and innovation in the economy, which placed Singapore in the lowest quartile.

According to the article, Wong attributed Singapore’s Pisa success to standardised test drilling and a culture of compliance, and said at the conference: “We’ve been winning the wrong race.”

The online article chalked up about 3,500 shares earlier this week. The earlier print version of the article had also mistakenly attributed the quotes to Minister for Education (Schools) Ng Chee Meng before it was edited and attributed to Mr Wong instead in the online article.

According to the transcript and video recording provided by MOE, Mr Wong did not refer to the Pisa rankings – which Singapore students topped for reading, mathematics and science – in his speech. Instead, Wong said that the literacy levels of Singapore students have “improved tremendously”.

“They are now reading, writing, speaking in a very high level. They are learning their mathematics well, they’re able to solve a lot of mathematical problems very competently,” he added.

NIE said that this was the only speech that Wong gave at the conference and that no other speakers had made comments similar to what was purported in the article, to the best of its knowledge.

The 9th BRICS annual summit to be held in September in Xiamen, China is thus attracting worldwide attention to how Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will shape the bloc’s future course amid challenges and uncertainties stemming from global economic sluggishness, increased anti-globalization sentiments in Western countries, regional security and geopolitical blackswans, among others.

The bloc representing some 44 percent of the world population and 23 percent of the world economic volume is striving towards a stronger identity, a leading platform for South-South cooperation and a larger role in global governance.

GROWING ROLE IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill, who coined the acronym BRIC (made BRICS by South Africa’s participation later), said the bloc’s economic performance has exceeded his expectations.

“Sixteen years later the BRICS share of the global GDP (gross domestic product) is bigger than every scenario I projected,” he noted.

Currently, the bloc’s five economies together contribute more than half to global growth, serving as a major economic powerhouse.

“BRICS is at the center of solutions needed for international financial system reform,” said Sergey Karatayev, deputy head of the Center for Economic Research at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, citing the increased voting rights of China and India in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“With the BRICS demands, many global governance structures are undergoing a gradual reform,” commented Srikanth Kondapalli, professor at the Center of East Asia Studies under the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“In the last eight summits, BRICS has acquired certain momentum in international relations,” he added, highlighting the bloc’s increasingly  more unified voice in international affairs. “It has advocated dialogue and peaceful resolution of disputes, in addition to lifting any curbs on trade and investments,” he said.

“It tries to protect the interests of developing countries,” he added.

A BRICS credit rating agency to end the Western monopoly, with its establishment still under discussion, is expected to enable the bloc to contribute more to global economic governance.

LEADING PLATFORM FOR SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION

The two-year operation of the Shanghai-based BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), which focuses on infrastructure and sustainable development projects, is hailed as a success story, handing out 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in loans last year alone.

The Aug. 17 launch of its first regional office, in Johannesburg, signals a greater role it will assume in boosting growth in developing countries and promoting South-South cooperation.

The regional office will act as a “face to Africa,” and the bank intends to open others, said NDB President K.V. Kamath.

Experts also highlight the “BRICS Plus” model as important in the bloc’s efforts to expand partnerships, particularly with developing countries.

Chief economist of the Eurasian Development Bank Yaroslav Lissovolik calls “BRICS Plus” an important initiative aimed “at increasing its openness and accessibility to integration for the states of the developing world.”

Karatayev said, “The ‘BRICS Plus’ model will help make the intra-BRICS cooperation as well as the bilateral and multilateral cooperation between bloc members and their partners more effective.”

“Comprehensive and complementary development strategies will enable BRICS members and participants of ‘BRICS Plus’ to conduct fruitful cooperation,” he further explained.

A STRONGER SELF

Karatayev thinks “it is necessary for the BRICS bloc to strengthen internal cooperation in order to tackle challenges from a rise in protectionism in rich countries and uncertainties from their economic policies.”

Moreover, the Russian expert said, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative complements efforts by the bloc to facilitate trade and capital flows.

At the same time, he said, the Initiative, which aims to build infrastructure and trade networks along ancient Silk Road trade routes, is “a showcase for economic collaboration.”

Professor Kondapalli from Jawaharlal Nehru University believes there is plenty of potential to tap in intra-BRICS cooperation. “The total trade between the five BRICS countries accounted for only 4.9 percent of the total foreign trade of these countries,” and “much of the trade is of low-end products,” he said.

In addition to deepening economic and trade cooperation, increased  cultural cooperation and people-to-people exchanges are deemed necessary for building a more stable and solid BRICS bloc.

“People-to-people exchanges are the pillar of all the bilateral and multilateral exchanges. It is the cultural capital of a country that has attraction and lays foundations of understanding between the peoples,” said B.R. Deepak, sinologist and professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Deepak added that it is needed to institutionalize such mechanisms as cultural festivals, media and film exchanges, and BRICS scholarship programs.

There are also calls for the bloc’s foreign ministers to meet regularly as part of its mechanism building efforts, as well as for the bloc to speak with one, loud and strong voice on global political, security and economic issues.  Enditem

Let alone that Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha will attend the dialogues on political and security issues on the sideline of the summit attended by leaders of the bloc’s five emerging economies and other countries.

Such opportunities for non-BRICS leaders like Prayut are attributed to the “BRICS Plus”, a model progressively developed by the bloc grouping Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to seek a wider partnership, particularly with developing countries.

The model is expected of a key role in making the bloc, that now contributes more than half to the global growth, a leading platform for South-South cooperation.

The BRICS summit to be held on Sept. 3-5 in Xiamen, China, will thus experience an important moment in Thailand-China cooperation.

The Thailand-China railway project has been a focus of widespread attention in Thailand. It will produce the country’s first standard gauge high speed railway.

A RAILWAY TO DEPICT SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION

“It will be the first standard gauge high speed railway of the Thailand and will greatly shorten the traveling time from Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima,” said Huang Bin, head of the Chinese department at the Kasikorn Research Center, a Thai think tank.

The future railway will “contribute to economic and social development in the less-developed northeast of Thailand,” Huang added.

During the BRICS Xiamen summit, Thailand and China are expected to sign the design and supervision draft contracts for the first phase of the railway project, according to Thai officials.

The first phase project divided into four sections is about building a 253-km railway with a maximum speed of 250 km per hour to link the capital Bangkok and the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima.

In the second phase, the railway will extend from Nakhon Ratchasima to Nong Khai on the border with Laos, where it will be further connected to the China-Laos railway that is under construction.

When the whole project is completed, Bangkok and Kunming, provincial capital for Yunnan in China’s southwest, will be connected by the modern railway.

“The railway will be an artery railway linking Thailand and the Laos, China and other countries through China. It will upgrade Thailand’s role as the regional transport hub and contribute to economic growth in the region,” Huang commented.

Thai cabinet approved the design contract and the supervision contract respectively on Aug.22 and Aug.29, which, according to Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, is to make it ready for Prayut to bring these contracts to China.

Huang said he is excited that the railway project has come to the last step before construction would begin in October. A Thailand-China Joint Committee on Railway Cooperation met 20 times over the past two years in the preparations.

INVITATION TO HIGHLIGHT THAILAND’S ROLE

Huang said inviting the Thai leader to attend dialogues during the BRICS summit shows the great importance China attaches to Thailand’s role as a key developing country.

Thailand also takes part in the Belt and Road Initiative China proposed in 2013 to build infrastructure and trade networks along ancient Silk Road trade routes in order to seek common development and prosperity.

The Initiative, in the opinion of chief economist of the Eurasian Development Bank Yaroslav Lissovolik, complements efforts by the BRICS bloc to facilitate trade and capital flows.

At the same time, he said, the Initiative is “a showcase for economic collaboration.”

Experts hail China’s efforts to promote and highlight South-South cooperation during the Xiamen summit as the BRICS enters its second decade with calls for a larger role of the bloc in the world amid new challenges and uncertainties stemming from the global economic sluggishness, a rise in the protectionism in some Western countries and geopolitical black swans, among others.

Building on the success of the past decade, the BRICS now eyes starting a more expansive partnership to seek inclusive growth. Thanks to the “BRICS Plus” model, dialogues will be held between BRICS members and other emerging markets and major developing countries during the bloc’s annual summit.

Such dialogues, which mean “a wider cooperation”, will help the BRICS to achieve its goals as almost all the BRICS members are major players in South-South cooperation, said Xiaojun Grace Wang, deputy director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation.

She added that the BRICS is not set up only for the development of its five members, but also for contributing to the development around the world.

Li Renliang, professor at Thailand’s National Institute of Development Administration, said the dialogues, by bringing many developing countries and emerging markets together, will help turn the BRICS into a major platform for South-South cooperation in the world.

“I think it is great to have the dialogues as many developing countries are seeking cooperation,” Li said. “The BRICS is becoming more inclusive by adding these countries as their friends to pursue prosperity together.”

The violence, which erupted six days ago after Rohingya militants staged surprise raids on police posts, has shown little sign of abating, leaving at least 110 confirmed dead and sending thousands fleeing.

The displaced include ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the persecuted  Rohingya Muslim minority, thousands of whom have massed at the “zero line” border with Bangladesh which they are barred from crossing.

The bodies of two Rohingya women and two children washed up on Bangladeshi soil on Wednesday, an official there told AFP, as villagers took to rickety boats or tried to swim across a frontier river.

On Wednesday villagers in Rakhine continued to flee their homes.

A Rohingya villager near the town of Maungdaw, speaking on condition of anonymity, said residents fled his hamlet as security forces approached and torched their homes.

“Villagers are running away… where do we have to live now?” he told AFP by telephone.

It was not immediately possible to verify his account but Rohingya who have made it into Bangladesh have brought similar testimony with them.

Large fires were visible early Wednesday from the May Yu river that cuts through the area worst hit by unrest, according to an AFP reporter travelling by boat on a Myanmar government-led trip to Maungdaw.

  Maximum restraint? 

Outlying villages have witnessed some of the worst violence, raising fears security operations are shielded from scrutiny by the danger and inaccessibility of the area.

Rohingya villagers are stuck between police and troops hunting down the insurgents and militants offering sporadic resistance.

But testimony gathered by AFP from the displaced reaching Bangladesh suggests some Rohinyga men are heeding a call to arms by the militants and are staying behind to fight in their villages.

The Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army claims its men launched Friday’s surprise attacks on police posts, killing 11 state officials, with knives, homemade explosives and a few guns.

After years in which the Rohingya largely avoided violence, the group last October carried out deadly attacks on police posts.

That prompted a months-long security crackdown by Myanmar’s army which left scores dead and forced 87,000 people to flee to Bangladesh.

The UN believes that military crackdown may have amounted to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya allegations denied by the army.

On Sunday Pope Francis led mounting international calls for the protection of “our Rohingya brothers”.

The UN has also urged Myanmar to protect civilians during its operations and called on Bangladesh to allow the displaced into their territory something Dhaka is loath to do given it already hosts 400,000 displaced Rohingya.

A Myanmar government official on Tuesday said security forces would use “maximum restraint” in coming days but insisted on the country’s right to defend itself from “terrorists”.

Myanmar’s Rohingya are the world’s largest stateless minority and endure severe restrictions on their movements.//AFP

Bangladesh has barred thousands of members of the stateless Muslim minority from entering the country since Friday, when fresh fighting broke out between Myanmar’s security forces and Rohingya militants in neighbouring Rakhine state leaving at least 110 people dead.

The UN refugee agency has said some 5,200 people have managed to cross into Bangladesh in the past three days.

But the majority have been stopped at the border despite heavy fighting in nearby villages, even coming under fire on Saturday as they huddled along the “zero line” which marks the northernmost part of the border.

“Around 6,000 Myanmar nationals have gathered on the border and are trying to enter Bangladesh,” a senior Border Guard Bangladesh official told AFP, referring to the Rohingya.

The official said the situation across the border, which is demarcated in parts by narrow stretches of the Naf River, was “still volatile”.

“Last night we heard heavy gunfire by automatic weapons in phases and saw smoke billowing from burnt villages across the border,” he said.

Another border guard official estimated the number of Rohingya in limbo could exceed 10,000, as many were believed to be hiding in hills and forests to escape nearby violence.

But border guards have been ordered not to let them cross.

“How can I deny shelter to (a) newborn who is dying from cold?” said the border guard, who asked to remain anonymous.

With around 400,000 Rohingya already living in squalid camps in Bangladesh, the government has instructed its border guards to prevent another influx at all costs.

– ‘Very grave risk’ –

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

The UN rights chief said decades of “systematic” abuses against the Rohingya, who are reviled in Myanmar with most refused citizenship, were largely to blame for the spiralling violence and insisted authorities could have prevented the bloodshed.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in a statement the “deplorable” violence “was predicted and could have been prevented”.

“Decades of persistent and systematic human rights violations… have almost certainly contributed to the nurturing of violent extremism, with everyone ultimately losing,” Zeid said.

In a separate statement the UN’s refugee agency said barring entry to the fleeing Rohingya posed a “very grave risk” to their lives, reinforcing a message from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who called on Bangladesh to step up assistance to escaping civilians, in particular the wounded.

Instead nearly 500 Rohingya have been detained and returned trying to cross the border since Monday, according to Shariful Islam Jamaddar, a deputy border guard commander.

Border guards have been driving Rohingya who have managed to cross into Bangladesh back across the border several times a day, an AFP correspondent said.

Some Rohingya have made it just inside Bangladeshi territory, momentarily safe from violence but unable to move onwards to shelter.

Mohammad Ismail had taken shelter from the rain under a plastic sheet erected by border guards, but the shelter has since been torn down.

“The border guards let us take shelter here but I don’t know now what I will do with my son,” he told AFP, gesturing to the shivering boy.

Amid the turbulence and monsoon downpours, an 11-year-old Rohingya girl named Marium was separated from her parents.

“I went to the toilet when the (border) guards drove away my parents. Where shall I find them now?” the young girl told AFP in tears.

On Monday Bangladeshi authorities proposed joint military operations with Myanmar against Rohingya militants fighting in Rakhine, hoping to stem the flow of  displaced.

The militants say they are fighting to protect the persecuted roughly one million-strong Rohingya and accuse the state and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists of trying to force them from Myanmar.

The Rohingya are not recognised as an ethnic group, which would be protected by law, but are instead branded ‘Bengalis’ — code for illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

Their ability to move, work and receive basic services is tightly controlled.

Speaking to ambassadors in Yangon, Myanmar’s Home Affairs Minister Kyaw Swe, repeated the official line: “There are no Rohingya.”

The recent attacks by militants are because “Bengali people… tried to occupy lands” in Rakhine.

Last week a commission headed by former UN chief Kofi Annan called for Myanmar to find a pathway to citizenship for the Rohingya and ease suffocating controls, or risk inflaming religious hatreds.//AFP

“She was this ray of light in a fairly grey world,” Prince William said of his mother Diana, princess of Wales, whose death two decades ago on Thursday shocked the world.

“I still feel that love, I still feel that warmth 20 years on,” her eldest son said in a new documentary marking the anniversary.

“If I can be even a fraction of what she was, I’ll be proud.”

 Tributes are left on the gates of Kensington Palace for Princess Diana in London, Britain, 29 August 2017. // EPA PHOTO

The life of Diana — a shy, teenage aristocrat who suddenly became the world’s most famous woman — and her tragic death at 36 still captivates millions across the globe.

Two decades on, her sons William and Prince Harry only now feel able to talk publicly about her death, a seismic event which continues to resonate in the monarchy and British society.

Diana died in a car crash in Paris in the early hours of August 31, 1997, along with Dodi Fayed, her wealthy Egyptian film producer boyfriend of two months, and a drink-impaired, speeding driver Henri Paul, who was trying to evade paparazzi.

The 10th anniversary of her death was marked with a memorial service and a charity concert at Wembley Stadium in London.

The passing of another decade has allowed for greater perspective, and this anniversary has been more reflective, marked by William, 35, and Harry, 32, opening up about their mother’s life, and death.

No public events are planned for Thursday, but on Wednesday, the brothers will walk around the garden which has been especially created in her memory at Kensington Palace, her London home.

They will meet with representatives from charities she supported.

 – Flowers at the gates –

Candles, bouquets of flowers and pictures from well-wishers are already building up at the palace gates, while hardcore Diana fans have turned up with a cake bearing her picture.

Royal fans John Loughrey (R) and Maria Scott (L) arrive with a cake adorned with a picture of Diana, Princess of Wales outside one of the entrances at Kensington Palace. // AFP PHOTO

But the scene is nothing like the sea of flowers laid in the week between her death and her funeral: an outpouring of national grief that commentators are still grappling with.

 Tributes are left on the gates of Kensington Palace for Princess Diana in London, Britain, 29 August 2017. // EPA PHOTO

William and Harry have spoken of struggling to comprehend the “alien” tide of public mourning from people who did not know their mother, at a time when they, aged 15 and 12, could not process their loss.

Britain, the nation of the stiff upper lip, was now wailing and hurling flowers at a hearse.

A public that had lapped up every twist and turn in the life of their fairytale princess was crying for their lost icon, killed in the chase for the next day’s pictures.

Diana married Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, in 1981, but their marriage collapsed under the strains of public duty and their incompatibility.

The monarchy’s shining star, now a fashion icon, humanitarian and self-styled “queen of hearts”, found herself cast out of the royal family in the 1996 divorce she did not want but had made inevitable with an unprecedented and explosive television interview.

With all her mistakes and frailties played out in public, Britons felt wrapped up in Diana’s life.

A testament to her enduring impact, British newspapers have been filled this month with special pull-outs and magazine articles covering all facets of Diana’s life.

The complexity in Diana’s character still fascinates.

Her strange combination of fragility and steel, her need for loving attention and an ability to make those she met feel loved.

She also had a caring nature mixed with a brutal vengeful streak and the air of being an ordinary girl but was actually a blue-blood aristocrat.

   – Granny Diana –

William has said he tells his children, Prince George, four, and Princess Charlotte, two, about the Granny Diana they will never meet.

Perhaps her greatest legacy is her two sons.

Tributes are left on the gates of Kensington Palace for Princess Diana in London, Britain, 29 August 2017. // EPA PHOTO

“When you have something so traumatic as the death of your mother when you’re 15, it will either make or break you,” William said in the “Diana, 7 Days” BBC documentary.

“And I wouldn’t let it break me. I wanted it to make me. I wanted her to be proud of the person I would become.”

Harry added: “We will miss our mother and I wonder every single day what it would be like having her around.”