GENEVA (AFP) -- Myanmar's "systematic" crackdown on the Rohingya is aimed at permanently expelling the minority Muslim community from their home in Rakhine state, the United Nations said Wednesday.
The UN report, which is based on interviews with refugees who have fled to Bangladesh, details a campaign by Myanmar's military to terrorize the Rohingya through atrocities that range from indiscriminate killings to rape.
"Brutal attacks against Rohingya in northern Rakhine State have been well-organized, coordinated and systematic, with the intent of not only driving the population out of Myanmar but preventing them from returning to their homes," the UN said.
More than half a million people have fled, UN figures show.

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TOKYO (AFP) -- Mount Shinmoedake in southern Japan erupted for the first time in six years Wednesday, shooting a plume of ash several hundred meters into the air and sparking warnings to local residents.
People were ordered to stay away from the volcano after it rumbled to life at 5:34 a.m. (20:34 GMT Tuesday) as Japan's Meteorological Agency said air blasts caused by the eruption could shatter windows.
"The ash plume reached a height of 300 meters (1,000 feet) when the volcano erupted," an agency official told AFP, adding that the eruption would continue and "become more active."
Ash deposits would spread as far as two kilometers from the crater, the agency warned.
Authorities raised its alert to level three, meaning that locals should avoid approaching the volcano. They detected 90 small tremors on Oct. 5 near the mountain, which featured in the 1967 James Bond film "You Only Live Twice".
Japan, with scores of active volcanoes, sits on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire" where a large proportion of the world's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are recorded.

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NAIROBI (Reuters) – The Kenyan parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday to the country’s election laws, saying that if one candidate withdraws from a repeat presidential election, the other one would automatically win.
The amendment was heavily criticized by the opposition, whose legislators boycotted the vote.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga withdrew from a repeat presidential vote scheduled for 26 October on Tuesday, citing concerns over fairness and transparency. The law must now be signed by the president.

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PARIS (Reuters) -- French public sector workers went on strike against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to cull jobs and toughen pay conditions, forcing airlines to cancel hundreds of flights and disrupting school activities.
Civil servants, teachers and nurses marched through cities across France, from Toulouse in the south to Strasbourg in the east, before the day’s biggest rally in Paris. It is the first time in a decade that all unions representing more than 5 million public workers have rallied behind a protest call.
As in other recent demonstrations, the number of protesters appeared low. While unions said some 400,000 people turned out across the country, the Interior Ministry put the figure at 209,000.
The Economy Ministry said just 14% of state civil servants had been on strike and just 9.5% in local administration.

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LONDON (Reuters) -- At least 20,000 girls around the world are married off illegally each day, with child marriage often deeply rooted in tradition despite being outlawed in a growing number of countries, according to new analysis released Wednesday.
About 7.5 million girls become child brides every year in countries where early marriage is banned, the World Bank and global charity Save the Children said in a report.
More than a fifth are in West and Central Africa, where 1.7 million illegal child marriages occur each year, the highest rates in the world, the report said.
The figures show the challenges in enforcing anti-child marriage laws, since the practice can often be entrenched in community traditions and religious customs, the report said.

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BERLIN (Reuters) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel appointed Jan Hecker, her refugee policy coordinator, as her new foreign policy adviser, as she braced for tricky talks on a new coalition government next week, where immigration is likely to be a key issue, a government spokeswoman said.
Merkel, humbled in last month's national election by a surge of the anti-immigrant far right, is seeking to put together a three-way coalition of her conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats and the environmentalist Greens - a combination previously untested at the federal level.
Members of her conservative bloc resolved their own differences and agreed to limiting migration on Monday, paving the way for talks to begin with the other parties.