Myanmar
The government of Myanmar, including President Thein Sein, has agreed to a draft ceasefire after 60 years of fighting with rebel groups, according to Al-Jazeera. Sixteen ethnic groups signed. At least one group, the ethnically Chinese Kokang, was not included in the ceasefire. Some still remain dubious of the agreement’s effectiveness, though. “I’m not that confident that the agreement will have any major impact on the ground any time soon,” said David Mathieson, a senior research for the Human Rights Watch in Myanmar.
Israel
Human Rights Watch is criticizing Israel’s plans to deport 7,000 Eritreans and Sudanese. Israel claims that the people they are coercing into leaving are economic migrants, not refugees seeking asylum and are thus not entitled to stay, according to the BBC. HRW claims that over the last eight years, Israel has used “indefinite detention, obstacles to accessing Israel’s asylum system, the rejection of 99.9 percent of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum claims, ambiguous policies on being allowed to work and severely restricted access to healthcare,” in an attempt to make them leave.
France
Are you a model? Is your body mass index under 18? Then you could be fined up to $79,000 under a new French bill that has been introduced, according to Reuters. The penalty for staff involved in an event with underweight models could be as much as six months in jail and any material promoting extreme thinness or anorexia would be made illegal. “It’s important for fashion models to say that they need to eat well and take care of their health, especially for young women who look to the models as an aesthetic ideal,” Health Minister Marisol Touraine told BFM TV on Monday, March 30.
Peru
The prime minister of Peru Ana Jara was censured and removed from office after revelations that she used the National Intelligence Directorate to spy on Peruvians, according to the BBC. Congress voted 72 to 42 to censure her, which marks the first time in 50 years that the congress has removed a prime minister. Peruvian president Ollanta Humala must select a new prime minister who will then be approved by congress. The list of people that Jara was spying on included journalists, military figures and members of the opposition.
