France’s Macron starts trip to Australia focusing on defense
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Australia May 1 for a three-day visit to seek closer cooperation between the two countries on security issues.
Macron’s trip will have a strong focus on defense, since Naval Group (former DCNS), a French state majority-owned company, won a 2016 bid to build submarines for the Australian navy in a deal worth 50 billion Australian dollars ($37 billion).
“Everywhere, I continue to develop strategic partnerships for France … Our wish is to be an even stronger partner for Australia,” Macron said upon arrival.
The project binds the two countries in a joint commitment for more than 50 years through submarine construction and maintenance. The submarines are to be built in Australia, with the first one due to be launched in 2027.
The president’s office said France considers Australia a key partner in ensuring maritime security in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and counter China’s expanding power.
France has several overseas territories and a total of 8,000 military based in the region.
Macron, who is just back from a state visit to Washington, was welcomed by Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife with a dinner at Sydney Opera House.
Turnbull was in France last week for World War I commemorations.
The two leaders are expected to sign agreements, hold a joint press conference and visit Garden Island military base on Wednesday.
Macron’s visit will also focus on climate-related issues. The French leader, at the forefront of efforts to fight climate change, wants to boost efforts to respond to extreme climatic events in island states and protect coral reefs.
“I wish to salute Sydney’s commitment in the fight against climate change,” he said.
Macron will then head to New Caledonia, a French territory east of Australia, in the South Pacific. AP
UN Security Council delegation visiting northern Rakhine
A UN Security Council delegation on May 1 was visiting volatile areas of Myanmar’s Rakhine state, from where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled military-led violence, to see firsthand the aftermath of the army’s crackdown as well as Myanmar’s preparations for taking back the refugees.
The 15-member delegation co-led by Security Council President Gustavo Meza-Cuadra was joined by Rakhine state and central government officials and ministers heading to Maungdaw in northern Rakhine where the Myanmar government has built reception camps for the Rohingya refugees now living in camps and other temporary shelters in Bangladesh.
“The delegation will be visiting Taungpyo and Hla Phoe Khaung reception camps in Maungdaw region,” said Myint Khine, a township administrator of Maungdaw.
Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed in December to begin repatriating the refugees in January, but there were concerns among rights groups and Rohingya that they would be forced to return and face unsafe conditions in Myanmar.
The Security Council delegates met Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military commander-in-chief Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on April 30.
The army launched counterinsurgency sweeps in Rakhine state after deadly attacks last August on security personnel. The military has been accused of massive human rights violations — including rape, killing, torture, and the burning of Rohingya homes — that the U.N. and U.S. officials have called ethnic cleansing.
The U.N. last month put the Myanmar military on its blacklist for sexual violence but at Monday’s meeting, the army chief insisted, “No sexual violence happened in the history of the country’s military,” according to the statement released by his office.
Myanmar’s government agreed to allow the delegates’ visit after previously rejecting U.N. requests for a visit by a specially appointed independent fact-finding committee. The team said in March that it found evidence of human rights violations against the Kachin, Shan and Rohingya minorities “in all likelihood amounting to crimes under international law.” AP
VA hospital investigating after tweets of ‘unsanitary’ room
A Veterans Affairs clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah, is investigating why an Army veteran was put in a room with an overflowing trash can and medical supplies strewn about after the man’s father tweeted images of the unclean space.
Stephen Wilson, the father of Christopher Wilson who spent six years in the Army and was deployed to Iraq twice, posted the photos to Twitter April 27, calling the sight “very unprofessional, unsanitary and disrespectful,” the Deseret News reported.
The post had been retweeted nearly 17,000 times as of Monday afternoon with about 2,400 comments about the photos and post.
“The condition of the room was the way it was when he went in, no other room was offered and no attempt to clean it up was made for the duration of his appointment,” Stephen Wilson also tweeted.
Dr. Karen Gribbin, chief of staff at the George E. Wahlen Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Utah, apologized April 30 and said at a news conference that the staff was focused on ending Christopher Wilson’s wait on April 5 and didn’t notice the state of the room.
She said discipline is possible for staff members, but said they are still trying to understand what happened.
“Mr. Wilson should not have been placed in the room in that condition,” Gribbin said. “The room should be cleaned, supplies and trash removed, before the next patient is placed in there.”
Gribbin said she apologized to Christopher Wilson April 28 and again April 30 “for his experience.”
Christopher Wilson, 33, said he was at the facility to get 18 injections in his ankle and surrounding area. AP