Twitter storm over Kenyan policewoman's 'tight' skirt

A policewoman's uniform in Kenya has caused a social media storm. Kenyans on Twitter are outraged after Corporal Linda Okello was reprimanded for wearing a tight skirt. Thousands tweeted their messages of support using the hashtag #KenyansForLindaOkello.It's not the first time police uniforms have hit the headlines in Kenya. Last year police were barred from wearing lipstick and big earrings while on duty as it was considered "unprofessional". The move angered MPs who said it was "archaic and extreme".

Sam Rainsy Calls for Renewed Efforts at Cambodian Political Resolution

 

Cambodia’s opposition leader Sam Rainsy, fresh from a trip to the European Union, called Wednesday on the country’s ruling party to return to the negotiating table in a bid to end a nine-month political standoff since disputed elections last year.Sam Rainsy said that EU leaders had asked that his Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) “resolve the deadlock peacefully,” speaking to reporters at the Phnom Penh International Airport.

But he said that the CPP needed to do more in its overtures to the opposition in order to find a resolution to the ongoing dispute.“Our stance is that we have constantly prepared for talks to seek an appropriate solution,” Sam Rainsy said.“It is not up to the CNRP alone, it is also up to the other party [CPP] as well, to see if they want to seek a solution.”

Ahead of Sam Rainsy’s two-week visit to the EU, the opposition chief had refused an invitation by Hun Sen to sign a deal to end the standoff on terms which the two had hashed out during talks via telephone, saying they were not in full agreement.The two leaders agreed to revamp the government-appointed National Election Committee (NEC), which had declared the CPP the victor in the July 28 elections, despite CNRP claims of widespread election irregularities.

The NEC membership is currently handpicked by the ruling CPP. The CNRP wants the membership to be more representative of the electorate and to be approved by two-thirds of the National Assembly, the country’s parliament.Based on the official results of the July elections, the CPP won 68 seats in parliament to the CNRP’s 55, but the CNRP has claimed it won at least 63 and boycotted the National Assembly since it started its sessions in September.

But Hun Sen and Sam Rainsy remained far apart on a date for new elections, with the prime minister offering to hold polls in February 2018, five months before his term is set to end. Previously, the CNRP wanted a mid-term election in early 2016.Both Sam Rainsy and his deputy Kem Sokha were out of the country during much of April, with the latter traveling to the United States to drum up support for the opposition and to meet with U.S. officials, and little progress has been made since the proposed deal fell apart.

Sam Rainsy said Wednesday that the CNRP was “continuing talks” with the CPP to seek solutions and urged “all parties to work together to resolve issues of national crisis,” including land disputes, deforestation, poverty, unemployment and immigration.

Freedom park visit

After speaking with reporters, Sam Rainsy visited Freedom Park—the capital’s designated protest space which has been kept off limits to gatherings with political undertones most of this year, and where workers' unions and nongovernmental organizations are planning to hold a May 1 Labor Day rally even though permission has been refused by the authorities.Sam Rainsy asked the government to “give protestors back the park,” adding that “the country’s constitution guarantees the people their full rights to freedom of expression.”

The planned rally comes despite warnings from Cambodian authorities, who on Wednesday had deployed barbed wire barricades to prevent people from entering the site.

Authorities have indicated that force may be used to disperse any gathering at Freedom Park on May 1 and referred to a Jan. 3 government crackdown on garment workers’ strikes in the capital that left five people dead and nearly 40 wounded.A day after the crackdown, when security forces opened fire on protesters, police violently dispersed CNRP-led mass demonstrations calling for Hun Sen’s resignation in Freedom Park and no major gathering has been allowed there since.

Sam Rainsy said he would regularly meet with CNRP parliamentarian Mu Sochua and others who gather daily at the park to demand its return.Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, said Wednesday that the 18 opposition-aligned trade unions and associations still planned to rally at the park on May 1, according to a report by China’s official Xinhua news agency.

“We expect that a large number of workers will join us. If the authorities do not allow us to enter the park, we will meet and march outside the park,” he said.

‘Rights violations’

Later on Wednesday, Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha also met with the U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri to discuss what the two called “rights violations” by the CPP, including restrictions on the freedom of expression and assembly, as well as the ongoing political standoff.“We told her that the deadlock was a result of the CPP refusing to resolve the dispute and trying to split the opposition party,” Kem Sokha told RFA’s Khmer Service.

“If the CPP wants to talk, we must have the freedom to speak on equal terms … We won’t hold discussions under repression, threat or violence.”“The U.N. still believes that the two political parties should continue to hold talks, but we said [that due to] political pressure and [threats of] violence … we can’t trust the CPP,” he said.“[Pansieri] said any political solution must be a win-win [for both sides].”Pansieri, who is on a five-day visit to Cambodia looking into post-election violence in the country, had met with Foreign Minister Hor Namhong Tuesday and called for a transparent investigation into the January crackdown on striking workers.

Capital bans marches for Labour Day and beyond

 

The stage is set for a potentially violent confrontation today as opposition leaders and union representatives are vowing to carry out planned marches, while government officials and authorities loyal to the ruling party are making it very clear they intend to use force if necessary to contain the groups.A ban on assembly has been in place at Freedom Park since December. Authorities yesterday, however, upped the ante, blocking all entrances to the park with razor-wire fences and barricades and reinstituting a citywide ban on assembly that authorities say will take effect today, on International Labour Day, and last the entirety of the council election campaign period, which begins on Friday.

An announcement released on the Phnom Penh Municipality website on Tuesday evening says Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong informed officials from all nine districts of the capital in a meeting that public assembly will be completely banned in the city from today until the end of the campaign on May 16.

“From May 1, all gatherings on the street or at public places will be prohibited, except at [party] headquarters and private locations,” Socheatvong is quoted as saying in the statement.

The Cambodia National Rescue Party began daily rallies at Freedom Park in December. Those rallies came to an abrupt end on January 4 when authorities, turning their attention from violently quelled union protests the two proceeding days, drove opposition supporters out and banned all public assembly.

While the general ban was lifted in February, it remained in place in the park, the capital’s designated protest area. But the latest decision marks a return to the blanket ban on gatherings across the capital.

Last Labour Day, as in numerous years before, thousands of workers marched in routes throughout the capital, rallying for better pay and work conditions. But in a letter sent yesterday to union leaders, Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Khoung Sreng said City Hall would not grant a request for gatherings in the park because the area is “still under investigation” over deadly violence in early January.

“The confederations, unions and associations can organise Labour Day at [their own] offices or a private place without marching,” he said.

He added that “cooperation with authorities” was vital to ensure the day ran “smoothly”.

City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche told the Post yesterday that the “authorities will strongly take action against those [union leaders] who still abuse the ban”.But representatives of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (C.CAWDU), Cambodia’s largest independent garment worker union, said its members would be out in force today.“They’re going to come even if the government and police aren’t going to allow them,” said Sun Lyhov, assistant to C.CAWDU leader Ath Thorn.Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW), last night said he and other union leaders had agreed to meet in front of the National Assembly to hold the May Day demonstration.

Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua places a flower on a riot barricade yesterday at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park. Pha Lina

As of Friday, City Hall said, it will take further measures to enforce the ban.

In order to “strengthen security and public order”, 500 police and military police will be deployed in every district from Friday – the start of the election campaign – onwards, including the election date of May 18, Socheatvong told officials.In a letter to the Phnom Penh Provincial Election Commission yesterday, the governor also warned that authorities would arrest anyone who defied or insulted authorities during the campaign.Aside from not being allowed to rally or march along public roads in Phnom Penh, Socheatvong also told political parties to seek permission from authorities before putting up election propaganda in public places.

“A big election campaign is not appropriate to the current situation,” he said.

He also warned that election rallies had been used in the past as a cover for “demonstrations”.

But despite the announcements, Cambodia National Rescue Party spokesman Yim Sovann said his party would hold rallies during the campaign, including a march in the city on Friday, which he expects will draw at least 10,000 supporters.“What we have planned to do is legal. The ban made by the municipality authority violates the law of the election. So we do not respect this decision made by the municipality,” he said. “According to the law of election made by the NEC, we have the right to conduct the peaceful campaign through the country … We must proceed with what we have planned … We will gather and march throughout the city.”

Sovann added that the march would be led by CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, who arrived back in Cambodia from Europe yesterday, and his deputy, Kem Sokha.

Speaking to supporters near Freedom Park yesterday morning, Rainsy said: “On International Labour Day … and on the first day of the council election campaign, we will come back again in order to take back Freedom Park in the public interest.”His announcement came shortly after CNRP lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua, who has been on a campaign to bring “freedom back to Freedom Park” since the beginning of April, failed to break through the wall of razor wire and shields that surrounded the area.Speaking to a crowd of about 40 supporters, NGO workers and journalists, Sochua said the anti-riot police guarding the area were breaking the law.

“[The law states] that each city must create [a] Freedom Park where people can come and demonstrate peacefully and express their freedom of expression peacefully, receive information peacefully and assemble peacefully,” she said. “We are using the law to protect our human rights, our freedom of expression. This is the truth.”The ban was condemned in a statement released last night by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR).CCHR “strongly condemns the reiteration of the ban on assemblies in Phnom Penh and urges security forces to refrain from using excessive violence against protesters,” it read.Ou Virak, CCHR chairman, said the government’s “blanket ban on [gatherings] should only be in place in a state of emergency”. 

“I think the government will do the best they can to prevent or threaten. But I think, yes, a violent crackdown is [more likely] now.”Following yesterday’s blockade, senior Licadho official Am Sam Ath said “right now, Freedom Park is becoming Prison Park”, adding that the action taken by authorities is a violation of people’s legal right to freedom of assembly. 

But Sochua said that she and the “nearly 200” youths who supported her at the park yesterday “will not be deterred”.With plans to address issues in the garment sector, including calls for a monthly minimum wage of $160, Sochua said she expected a larger turnout for International Labour Day.

Sochua and CNRP leaders Rainsy and Sokha, along with more than 100 workers, were due to offer prayers for the people killed in the January 3 clash on Veng Sreng Boulevard in a ceremony early this morning.

Unique cafe with reptiles in Saigon

The shop’s menu is impressive, with pictures of reptiles. The shop just opened but it has attracted many visitors, especially the young and, of course, those who love reptiles.




Customers are guided how to play with reptiles.




A boy says: "It is interesting to look at and play with the reptiles that I could only see on TV or the internet right here".




Customers enjoy coffee next to a gentle python.




A python wraps its body around glasses.




A young customer plays with a python.




The shop is open from 8 to 23h every day, with prices from VND15,000 to VND28,000/glass, which is reasonable for students and young people.




This South African dragon is a Savannah Monitor. This is the most expensive species in this shop, from VND3 to VND10 million ($150-500)/head. Other species are priced from VND500,000 to several million dong.





Green Iguana sourced from South America. Their major food is vegetables and fruits. They are considered mini dinosaurs at home.





Milk snakes are gentle.




A colorful frog.




A customer takes pictures with a South African dragon.








Customers can feed them.




Mr. Tuan, the owner of this café – a reptile lover – says that the pets at the café come from members of the reptile club in HCM City, with the hope to transmit a love of reptiles to others.

Fast-moving wildfire in Southern California grows, driven by wind

 

Mandatory evacuations were lifted Wednesday for nearly 1,700 homes in the path of a wildfire near Rancho Cucamonga, California, but fire officials urged some residents to keep on an eye on the wind-whipped blaze, authorities said.The fire, fanned by strong wind gusts and high temperatures, began in the Etiwanda Preserve in San Bernardino National Forest at about 8 a.m. local time, according to Cal Fire. By late afternoon, it had grown to more than 1,000 acres, the agency said.

Four schools -- a high school, intermediate school and two elementary schools -- were evacuated, and a temporary evacuation center has been established in Rancho Cucamonga, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said.

While mandatory evacuations were lifted, a voluntary evacuation remained in effect for neighborhoods within possible range of the fire, authorities said.At least one building has been damaged and a number of others are being threatened by the fire, Cal Fire said.More than 700 firefighters and 55 fire engines, were battling the blaze dubbed the Etiwanda Fire, according to InciWeb, a U.S. multiagency fire response website. With wind gusts clocked at 60 mph, fire officials say they have been unable to launch firefighting aircraft. 

"The big challenge on these fires is the wind and the unpredictability, and with winds like this we can't put up aircraft. It's just too dangerous. So we try and figure out where it's going to end up and put our resources there," Bob Poole of the U.S. Forestry Service told CNN affiliate KCBS.

The fire came the same day the National Weather Service issued a "red flag warning" for the area, citing the fire danger posed by high temperatures, strong winds and dry conditions.

Rancho Cucamonga is a suburb of San Bernardino.