It’s Not Over Until The Pink Lady Screams

Kenyan Supreme Court Nullifies Presidential Election Results: Last Friday, the Kenyan Supreme Court invalidated the results of the August 8 presidential election, citing irregularities in voting procedures. Kenya will hold another presidential election on October 17, the country’s election commission said, and it will revise “the operational and procedural requirements for the conduct of the fresh election and will share details with stakeholders.” Incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta won the August 8 election with 54 percent of the vote over veteran opposition candidate Raila Odinga. The court’s decision was met with surprise in Kenya, as the judiciary has rarely shown such independence from the executive branch. It should also be noted that this is the first time an African country has nullified the re-election of a sitting president. “The presidential election was not conducted in accordance with the constitution, rendering the declared results invalid, null, and void,” Chief Justice David Maraga said.

Read More: “The decision to call new elections is a win for democracy in a country dominated by flawed processes–and shows politics can be conducted in a better way” (The Guardian)

Dear Aung San Suu Kyi, You Are A Nobel Peace Laureate. So Start Acting Like One: Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and thousands in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Chechnya, are protesting Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority. At least 87,000 Rohingya from Myanmar’s Rakhine state fled to neighboring Bangladesh as violence escalated in late August,overwhelming existing camps that had already been set up for refugees. “Over the last several years I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment,” Yousafzai said in a statement posted on Twitter. “I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same.” The plight of the Rohingya has badly tarnished the reputation of Myanmar’s de facto leader Suu Kyi, who had been lionized for her decades-long resistance to Myanmar’s former military rulers and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

More than 400 people have been killed in the latest outbreak of violence, which began after militants attacked Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country. In response, Myanmar’s military began what it called “clearance operations”–and what the UN believes may amount to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. Human Rights Watch has evidence that 700 buildings were burned in the Rohingya village of Chein Khar Li, just one of 17 locations in Rakhine state where the human rights group has documented the destruction of homes and property.

North Korea’s Pink Lady Prognosticates Perfect Nuclear Success: Move over, Mayan apocalypse predictions, there’s a new end times purveyor in town. She’s Ri Chun-hee, the “people’s broadcaster,” and she’ll scream it at you on North Korean Central Television. The 74-year-old, who’d been the voice and face of the state-run news desk for decades, retired in 2012. But as the country moves closer to fulfilling its nuclear ambitions, Ri is back, wearing her customary bright pink hanbok(traditional Korean attire), proclaiming victories in her trademark booming voice that brims with gusto. “The test of a hydrogen bomb designed to be mounted on our intercontinental ballistic missile was a perfect success,” Ri said this past weekend as she reported on North Korea’s most powerful nuclear detonation yet. Supreme leader Kim Jong-un rarely addresses his people directly, but is said to admire Ri’s melodramatic delivery of all the great moments in the country’s history. So when the end is nigh, you can bet the lady in pink will be the one yelling it.

Hurricane Irma Heads For The US As Harvey’s Victims Begin Recovery: No sooner than people in Texas and Louisiana were starting to return home after Harvey’s historic flooding, it was announced that Hurricane Irma would likely hit the eastern US coast perhaps as early as Friday. The National Hurricane Center said in an update Monday that Irma strengthened to a Category 4 as it was moving west toward the Caribbean. Meteorologists don’t know yet exactly where landfall might be (Florida and the Gulf Coast are at risk), but residents from the Gulf all the way to Maine should pay attention to forecast updates throughout the week as, at the very least, heavy rain, strong winds, and coastal flooding are likely.

Congress to Appropriate Funds for Harvey Relief and Recovery: Irma’s threat comes precisely as Congress prepares for astronomical appropriation requests for Harvey recovery relief. The White House asked Congress on Friday to initially appropriate $7.85 billion for recovery efforts, with $7.4 billion dollars set aside for the Federal Emergency Management Agency Disaster Relief Fund. On Sunday, House Speaker Paul Ryan promised the House Appropriations Committee would fully fund the administration’s initial request. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he thinks the state will need “far in excess” of $125 billion in federal relief dollars, while Houston Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee called for a record-breaking $150 billion aid package.

Ironically, Trump’s budget presented last March would slash funding from the very agencies he’s praising for responding to Harvey’s devastation, along with those critical agencies that forecast and track life-threatening storms. Proposed cuts would hit the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which helps rebuild homes, parks, hospitals and community centers; the National Weather Service, which forecasts extreme storms; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose research and community engagement help coastal residents prepare for disaster.

• The Guardian’s editorial on the slaughter in Myanmar: a crime against humanity. The brutal, bloody, and ultimately pointless mistreatment of a Muslim minority shames Aung San Suu Kyi. Will her Nobel Peace Prize be revoked? (NYT)
• Guatemala court clears way for president’s immunity to be lifted. The Supreme Court in Guatemala has ruled that President Jimmy Morales may be investigated for alleged illegal campaign financing. The country’s Congress will now have the final say on whether his immunity is removed (DW)
• After border standoff, India, China find common ground at BRICS (Times of India)
• Rebel faction in Colombia reaches peace deal ahead of Pope Francis’s visit(Washington Post)
• Rwanda police arrest presidential critic Diane Shima Rwigara for forgery, tax evasion. Rwanda police justified the arrest of the former presidential hopeful, saying Diane Shima Rwigara had failed to respond to previous summonses. She had been barred from standing in the August elections (DW)
• President Trump is expected to announce Tuesday that he will end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but will offer a six-month delay to give Congress time to come up with a fix (CNN)
• Angela Merkel Declared Winner of German Election Debate (NYT)
• Turkey hits back after Merkel says EU should scrap accession talks Ankara accuses Germany of populism after the chancellor and her rival Martin Schulz say Turkey should not become member (The Guardian) 
• Fourth aid group stops migrant rescue missions in Mediterranean. The charity MOAS, which has rescued some 40,000 migrants over the past three years, will end its current operations off the Libyan coast. Instead it will take aid to the Rohingya who have fled violence in Myanmar (DW) 
• West failing to tackle Russian hacking and fake news, says Latvia. Latvian foreign minister says there is increasing evidence that Russia is automating disinformation on social media (The Guardian)
• Activist Lilian Tintori barred from leaving Venezuela for European trip. Tintori said her passport was seized ahead of a trip to Europe to discuss her country’s political crisis. She has been asked to appear in court over a large sum of cash, which she said was for medical emergencies (DW)

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Your Daily Pnut Team: CEO–Tim Hsia. Editor in Chief–Vanessa Wu. Political Junkie at Large–Penelope Lary. Ninth Inning Reliever-Writer: Mike Briggs. Occasional Contributors: April O’Neil, Tintin, Clark Kent & Peter Parker.