Satellite images show that dozens of Rohingya villages were burned the week Myanmar signed an agreement with Bangladesh to repatriate hundreds of thousands of refugees, Human Rights Watch has claimed. The evidence that villages were still being damaged as late as 2 December contradicted assurances by the Burmese government that violence had ceased and that the Rohingya could safely return to Myanmar, the watchdog said. Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement on 23 November to begin the process of repatriating some of the estimated 655,000 refugees who fled Myanmar in the past four months.

Burmese soldiers, police and militias have been accused of razing hundreds of villages, gang-raping women and children and killing indiscriminately, in what the US has labelled a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Burmese officials claim the reports of violence are exaggerated and it was largely perpetrated by Rohingya insurgents. The first repatriations under the agreement are due in January, a timetable that human rights groups say is unrealistic and could expose the Muslim minority group to continued persecution, internment or possible forced resettlement. HRW said satellite images showing signs of fires and building destruction in 40 villages in October and November were proof that the Rohingya could not yet safely return.(theguardian)…[+]

The Trump administration will drop climate change from a list of global threats in a new National Security Strategy the president is due to unveil on Monday. Instead, Trump’s NSS paper will emphasis the need for the US to regain its economic competitiveness in the world. That stance represents a sharp change from the Obama administration’s NSS, which placed climate change as one of the main dangers facing the nation and made building international consensus on containing global warming a national security priority.

White House officials said on Sunday the Trump NSS was the culmination of 11 months of collaboration between all the leading security, foreign policy and economic agencies of government. The exclusion of climate change as a national security threat appears however to conflict with views previously expressed by the defense secretary, James Mattis. “Climate change is not identified as a national security threat but climate and the importance of the environment and environmental stewardship are discussed,” a senior administration official said.(theguardian)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN – The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has announced a USD18 million (mn) project to improve the quality of, and access to, basic education in Haiti for 68,000 students, particularly those who live in poor and vulnerable communities. It is part of a wider programme of support for the enhancement of basic education in Haiti. The components of the CDB project are aligned with those of the World Bank, which is the primary financer of the programme.

Limited access to education in Haiti has slowed development. Decades of underinvestment in the human resource capacity of the country has led to a significant skills deficit and high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality.  Inadequate capacity to manage the education system has emerged as a significant issue. In addition, there is need for greater quality assurance and accountability mechanisms in both public and non-public schools, and the monitoring and evaluation of these mechanisms.

The project will address these needs through five components.

Improving institutional capacity and governance by strengthening the technical capacity of relevant units within the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MENFP) to improve service delivery and overall educational governance.

Supporting access to quality public primary education in poor and vulnerable communities through the implementation of a community education grants programme; a construction initiative that will create additional primary school places; and a public school improvement model, which will improve access to quality education in selected Departments.

Supporting access to quality non-public primary education in poor and vulnerable communities by developing and implementing quality education access and tuition waiver programmes.(CDB)…[+]