The Hangover News

World Cup Prep
THE BRAZILIAN AUTHORITIES ARE OCCUPYING A RIO FAVELA
They're trying to drive out gangs before the summer's World Cup

(via)

Brazilian security forces have occupied the huge Mare favela – an area close to Rio airport – as part of the campaign to drive out drug gangs before this summer's World Cup.

Authorities have been carrying about a slum "pacification" project ahead of the tournament, and Mare had reportedly become a hub for drug dealers who've been pushed out of other areas.

More than 1,000 police, backed up by soldiers in armoured vehicles, descended on the neighbourhood before dawn on Sunday.

Authorities said the whole area was occupied within 15 minutes, and police reportedly seized "large quantities of drugs and weapons" hidden near the Olympic Village.

The favela pacification project was launched in 2008, when Rio launched an ultimately successful bid to host the 2016 Olympics.

Government Persecution
BURMA BANNED PEOPLE FROM REGISTERING AS ROHINGYA
It's not great being Muslim in Myanmar

A shelter in a Rohingya IDP camp near Sittwe, Burma. (Photo by Emanuel Stoakes)

(via)

Burma is holding its first national census in three decades, but is refusing to allow people to register themselves as Rohingya.

Despite the UN – which is helping to carry out the status – saying that all Burmese should be allowed to choose their own ethnicity, Muslim Rohingya have been told they must identify themselves as Bengali, or else they won't be registered.

The Burmese government views Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship, and have also been accused of marginalising the ethnic group in a host of other ways, including rounding them up into IDP camps – which has led to the UN describing the Rohingya as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

Many Buddhists are hostile towards Rohingyas, and in 2012 that hostility erupted into violence, with Buddhists attacking Rohingya villages in Rakhine state and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

Rumours that the Rohingya ethnicity would be recognised on the census prompted many Buddhist Rakhines to pledge to boycott the poll.

Angry Relatives
THE FAMILIES OF CHINESE MH370 PASSENGERS PROTESTED IN MALAYSIA
But authorities still aren't much closer to finding the plane

(via)

Relatives of Chinese passengers on the missing MH370 flight flew to Kuala Lumpur to vent their anger at Malaysian government officials.

At a brief press conference, the families chanted, "Tell us the truth," and demanded an apology from the Malaysian prime minister for claiming that the plane had crashed with no survivors.

Jiang Hui, the group's representative, said that Prime Minister Najib Razak had made the announcement "without direct evidence or a sense of responsibility".

International investigators have concluded that the plane crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, with eight ships and nine planes searching around 97,000 square miles of ocean for debris yesterday.

Weird Business Decisions
A LONDON RESTAURANT HAS PUT A SADDAM HUSSEIN POSTER IN ITS WINDOW
And pissed off a load of people in the process

(Photo via)

(via)

The owner of a Lebanese restaurant in Harrow has placed a large poster of a smiling Saddam Hussein in his eatery's window.

In doing so, he's pissed off a lot of people who live in Harrow.

One resident said, "I will never go there again as they now have a huge poster of a smiling Saddam Hussein in their window. Are they completely mad or just total morons? I think this place should be boycotted. How dare they?"

A council official visited the restaurant with a police officer and asked the owner, Ayyad Al-Hamdan, to remove the poster from the window, but he politely refused.

Al-Hamdan said the poster was a piece of protest against the government in his native Kuwait.

"The British and Americans said that Saddam was a dictator, and they removed him to give freedom for the people of Iraq. But now we in Kuwait are dying slowly. No one cares about them because the British government has a good relationship with the Kuwait government," he said.