YANGON — Pope Francis called on the people of Myanmar on Wednesday to embrace peace and reconciliation as their country emerges from nearly five decades of military rule still riven by ethnic conflicts and communal strife.

The pope made his appeal at an open-air mass in Yangon on the third day of a visit fraught with diplomatic risk over a military crackdown that has triggered the flight of about 625,000 Muslim Rohingya from the predominantly Buddhist country.

In a speech on Tuesday, he did not use the highly charged term ‘Rohingya,’ following the advice of Vatican insiders who feared it could set off a diplomatic incident and turn Myanmar’s military and government against minority Christians.

However, his call for justice, human rights and respect for all were widely seen as applicable to the Rohingya, who are not recognized as citizens or as members of a distinct ethnic group.

The mass exodus from Rakhine state to the southern tip of Bangladesh began at the end of August when the military launched a counter-offensive in response to Rohingya militant attacks on an army base and police security posts.

Scores of Rohingya villages were burnt to the ground, and refugees told of killings and rapes. The United States said last week that the military’s campaign included “horrendous atrocities” aimed at “ethnic cleansing.”

Myanmar’s military has denied all accusations of murder, rape and forced displacement.

Only about 700,000 of Myanmar’s 51 million people are Roman Catholic.

Thousands of them traveled from far and wide to Yangon to see the pope, and many attended Wednesday’s mass on the grounds of what had been racecourse during British colonial times.

Among the tens of thousands there were priests, nuns, diplomats, leaders of Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling National League for Democracy, as well as members of ethnic groups in traditional garb who sang songs and waved Myanmar and Vatican flags as they waited for the pope.

“We may never get such a chance again. The pope lives in Rome and we can’t afford to go there,” said Bo Khin, 45, a teacher who traveled on a truck to Yangon with a group of 15 relatives from the city of Mandalay.

“We feel very happy, joyful that he visited us in Myanmar,” he added.

Bells chimed as Francis arrived.

Standing in the back of a white truck, he smiled, waved at the crowd and looked relaxed as he headed to a pagoda-style canopy to celebrate mass.

In his homily, he called on the country’s people to “anoint every hurt and every painful memory” and promote “the reconciliation and peace that God wants to reign in every human heart and in every community.”

“I know that many in Myanmar bear the wounds of violence, wounds both visible and invisible,” he said, urging them to shun temptation to seek healing from anger and revenge.

Prayers were then read by members of the congregation in the Shan, Chin, Karen, Kachin and Kayan languages.

The prayer in Karen read: “For the leaders of Myanmar, that they may always foster peace and reconciliation through dialogue and understanding, thus promoting an end to conflict in the states of Kachin, Rakhine, and Shan, we pray to the Lord.”

When she came to power in 2016, Nobel peace laureate and longtime champion of democracy Ms. Suu Kyi said her number one priority was ending multiple ethnic conflicts that have kept Myanmar in a state of near-perpetual civil war since independence in 1948.

That goal remains elusive and, although Ms. Suu Kyi remains popular at home, she has faced a barrage of international criticism in recent weeks for expressing doubts about the reports of rights abuses against the Rohingya and failing to condemn the military.

Although Ms. Suu Kyi formed Myanmar’s first civilian government in half a century, her defenders say she is hamstrung by a constitution written by the military that left the army in control of security and much of the apparatus of the state.

Vatican sources say some in the Holy See believe the pope’s trip to Myanmar was decided too hastily after full diplomatic ties were established in May during a visit by Ms. Suu Kyi.

Pope Francis leaves on Thursday for Bangladesh, where he will meet a group of Rohingya refugees in the capital, Dhaka. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — US Senate Republicans rammed forward President Donald Trump’s tax-cut bill on Tuesday in an abrupt, partisan committee vote that set up a full vote by the Senate as soon as Thursday, although some details of the measure remained unsettled.

As disabled protesters shouted: “Kill the bill, don’t kill us,” in a Capitol Hill hearing room, the Senate Budget Committee, with no discussion, quickly approved the legislation on a 12-11 party-line vote that left Democrats fuming.

Republican committee members quickly left the room after the vote as Democrats complained about a lack of discussion on a bill that would overhaul the US tax code and add an estimated $1.4 trillion to the $20 trillion national debt over 10 years.

After the vote, Trump told reporters: “I think we’re going to get it passed,” adding that it would have some adjustments.

Republicans are hurrying to move their complex tax legislation forward, hoping to avoid the protracted infighting that doomed their effort to repeal Obamacare four months ago.

Since Trump took office in January, he and fellow Republicans in command of both chambers of Congress have approved no major legislation, a fact they want to change before facing voters in the 2018 congressional elections.

If the Senate approves its tax measure later this week, it would need to be reconciled with a version already approved by the House of Representatives before anything could be sent to the White House for Trump to sign into law.

Republican leaders conceded that they had yet to round up the votes needed for passage in the Senate, where they hold a narrow 52-48 majority. “It’s a challenging exercise,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said at a news conference.

Democrats have called the Republican tax plan a giveaway to corporations and the rich.

The Senate bill would slash the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35% after a one-year delay. It would impose a onetime, cut-rate tax on corporations’ foreign profits, while exempting future foreign profits from US taxation.

Tax rates for many individuals and families would also be cut temporarily before rising back to their previous levels in 2025. Key tax breaks would also be curbed or eliminated, making the bill a mixed bag for some middle-class families. Some taxes paid by wealthy Americans would be repealed.

Wall Street moved higher on the news that the bill would move to a full Senate vote, with the benchmark S&P 500 index closing up a little over 1 percent.

THE CORKER CONCESSION
As written, the bill would widen the US budget deficit by an estimated $1.4 trillion over 10 years. Republicans maintain that gap would be narrowed by additional economic growth.

Senator Bob Corker, one of few remaining Republican fiscal hawks in Congress, said he worked out a deal satisfying his concerns that the tax cuts add too much to the national debt.

He said the bill would be modified to automatically raise tax revenues if growth targets were not reached. “We got a commitment that puts us in a pretty good place,” he said.

Although details were not immediately available, Corker said he expected more information to come out on Thursday as part of the bill.

The concession immediately drew a detractor as Republican Senator John Kennedy told reporters he “would rather drink weed killer than vote for the thing,” adding: “I donít like voting for automatic tax increases.”

The Corker concession was one of several lingering uncertainties in the bill that Senate aides said would be nailed down as the measure neared a floor vote.

Republican Senator Susan Collins, who remains undecided on how she will vote on the bill, said “productive discussions” continued and that she would offer an amendment preserving the $10,000 deduction for property tax payments. The deduction is in the House bill, but not the Senate version.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson voted for the bill in the Budget Committee, even though he had said it did not cut taxes deeply enough for some non-corporate businesses.

The final version could address his concerns. Aides said tax writers were working to change the tax rate for non-corporate businesses, preserve an individual deduction for property tax payments, and incorporate Corker’s tax revenue idea.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley told MSNBC that the Corker concession was “an absolute gimmick” that could be undermined later. “It’s just a justification to let those who have argued that they don’t believe in increasing the deficit actually vote for a bill which does exactly that,” Merkley said.

As the tax fight played out, a new battle opened on another front as Democratic congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi skipped a White House meeting with Trump to discuss spending, immigration and other issues after Trump criticized them on Twitter.

Lawmakers must renew government funding before it expires on Dec. 8 or risk a shutdown. Democrats hope to use their leverage on the budget issue to renew protections for young immigrants who entered the country illegally as children. — Reuters