Recent Appearances...

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Hello !
Recent Appearances...

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Myanmar junta fires warning shots at aid convoy as quake death toll surges past 2,800

2025-04-03

[GEO.TV] Myanmar's junta said on Wednesday its troops fired warning shots at a Chinese Red Thingy aid convoy, underlining the challenge of delivering relief amid a civil war as aid groups called for better access to help survivors of a devastating earthquake.

The military has struggled to run Myanmar following its coup against the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, reducing the economy and basic services including healthcare to tatters after civil war broke out.

Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said the Chinese Red Thingy had not informed authorities it was in a conflict zone on Tuesday night, and a security team fired shots in the air after the convoy, which included local vehicles, failed to stop.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the aid team and supplies were safe, and called on all parties in Myanmar to ensure the safety of rescuers.

"It's necessary to keep transportation routes for relief efforts open and unobstructed," Guo Jiakun told a presser.

Link

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Countries where Elon Musk's X social network is banned

2024-09-01

[GEOTV] With its ban of X, which went into effect on Saturday, Brazil joins a small club of countries to have taken similar measures against the social network, most of them run by authoritarian regimes.

Beyond permanent bans, some nations have temporarily restricted access to X, formerly Twitter, which has often been used by political dissidents to communicate.

These have included Egypt in 2011 during the Arab Spring uprisings, ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
in 2014 and 2023, and Uzbekistan around that country's 2021 presidential election.

Here is a list of some of the others:

China

Beijing banned Twitter in June 2009 — before it secured the prominent place it enjoyed in Western media and politics for much of the 2010s.

The block came two days before the 20-year anniversary of the government's crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital's Tiananmen Square.

Since then, many Chinese people have turned to home-grown alternatives such as "Weibo" and "WeChat".

Iran

Twitter was also blocked by Tehran in 2009, as a wave of demonstrations broke out following a contested June presidential election.

The network has nevertheless been used since then to pass information to the outside world about dissident movements, including the demonstrations against Iran's repression of women's rights since late 2022.

Turkmenistan

Isolated Central Asian country Turkmenistan blocked Twitter in the early 2010s alongside many other foreign online services and websites.

Authorities in Ashgabat surveil closely citizens' usage of the internet, provided through state-run monopoly operator TurkmenTelecom.

North Korea
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
Pyongyang opened its own Twitter account in 2010 in a bid to woo foreigners interested in the country.

But the application has been blocked along with Facebook, Youtube and gambling and pornography websites since April 2016.

Internet access beyond a few government websites is under tight government watch in the regime, with access restricted to a few high-ranking officials.

Myanmar

X has been blocked since February 2021 in Myanmar, when authorities took aim at the app for its use by opponents of the military coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government.

Since then, the junta has kept a tight grip on internet access in the country.

Russia

Access to Twitter was throttled from 2021 by Moscow, which complained the site was allowing users to spread "illegal content".

A formal ban came in March 2022, just after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Many Russian users continue to connect to X via VPN services that allow them to get around the block.

Pakistain

X has been banned since parliamentary polls in February this year. Pakistain's government says the block is for security reasons.

Venezuela

...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...
Nicolás Maduro
...Commie el presidente para la vida of Venezuela, successor to Hugo Chavez. Nick is his country's attempt at producing a Muammar Qadaffy, except that even though his country's sitting on an enormous puddle of oil, he can't manage to get it out of the ground. Unlike Qadaffy and Hugo Chavez, he's not dead yet...
, who was declared winner of July's presidential election despite grave suspicions of fraud, ordered access to X suspended for 10 days on August 9 as security forces were ~~violent~~ mostly peacefully putting down nationwide demonstrations.

The block has remained in place beyond the expiry of the 10-day period.

Brazil

The country's block on X has come from the judiciary, via Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes.

He has highlighted the reactivation of accounts that had been ordered suspended by Brazilian courts.

Users connecting to X via a VPN face a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) per day.

Link

Southeast Asia

Myanmar Getting Spicier - Sideshow Lost in the Shadows of Ongoing Events

2023-11-18

Some of the non-Rohingya Burmese rebels formed the cleverly named Three Brotherhood Alliance back in 2019 or 2021 against the military junta, and have been asserting themselves while we weren’t looking.

[NBC] An ethnic resistance group in northern Myanmar says an entire army battalion surrendered to it. The surrender of 261 people — 127 soldiers and 134 of their family members — appears to be the biggest army surrender since armed conflict in Myanmar broke out in 2021.

An entire Myanmar army battalion based near the Chinese border surrendered to an alliance of ethnic armed groups that launched a surprise offensive last month against the military, a spokesperson for one of the armed groups said Wednesday. The surrender of 261 people — 127 soldiers and 134 of their family members — from the infantry battalion in northeastern Shan state appears to be the biggest by regular army forces since widespread armed conflict in Myanmar broke out in 2021 after the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February that year.

The alliance expects to soon capture Laukkaing, the area’s major city, the spokesperson said.

Link

Southeast Asia

Three Myanmar students killed in military raid

2023-07-29

[Al Ahram] At least three Myanmar students were killed in an early morning military raid in the country's northwest, a student union said Friday.

The Southeast Asian nation's junta has unleashed deadly violence on its opponents since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government in a February 2021 coup.

The junta is facing resistance from anti-coup "People's Defence Force" militias and long-established ethnic rebel armies.

The All-Burma Federation of Student Unions said in a Facebook post that the students had been killed in a Friday raid on an office where activists stayed in the Sagaing region's Budalin township.

The region -- a hotbed of anti-junta resistance -- has seen heavy fighting in recent months.

The student union last week had posted pictures on social media of student activists protesting the junta with banners and flags.

A local villager who declined to be named due to fear of reprisals said the three student activists, aged late teens to early 20s, had died from stab wounds.

"They stabbed knives into their chests. They cut out their tongues," the villager told AFP, adding that at least five houses had been burnt down in the incident and an unknown number of people arrested.

Link

Southeast Asia

Two years after Myanmar coup, UN says situation 'catastrophic'

2023-01-28

[GEO.TV] Nearly two years after Myanmar's military coup, the UN rights chief warned on Friday that the country had plunged into catastrophe, calling for the military to be brought under civilian oversight.

Since the coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government on February 1, 2021, Myanmar has "by nearly every feasible measurement, and in every area of human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
... profoundly regressed," Volker Turk said in a statement.

"Despite clear legal obligations for the military to protect civilians in the conduct of hostilities, there has been a consistent disregard for the related rules of international law," he said.

"Far from being spared, civilians have been the actual targets of attacks — victims of targeted and indiscriminate artillery barrages and air strikes, extrajudicial executions, the use of torture, and the burning of whole villages."

The UN rights office said at least 2,890 people had died at the hands of the military and its allies since the coup, pointing to credible sources.

Of those, "at least 767 were initially taken into custody", it said, adding that "this is almost certainly an underestimation of the number of civilians killed as a result of military action".

The military has also imprisoned the democratically elected leadership of the country, and more than 16,000 others, the rights office said.

Another 1.2 million people have meanwhile become internally displaced since the coup, while more than 70,000 have left the country.

They have joined more than one million others who have fled persecution in Myanmar over the past decades, including most of the country's Rohingya Moslem population.

"There must be a way out of this catastrophic situation, which sees only deepening human suffering and rights violations on a daily basis," Turk said.

He decried that the junta had treated a plan agreed with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), aimed at quelling the bloodshed and allowing humanitarian access, "with disdain".

Instead, "violence has spiralled out of control and humanitarian access has been severely restricted", he said.

Turk insisted that "those responsible for the daily attacks against civilians and the human rights violations must be held accountable".

"How can a military that purports to defend the country have brought their own people — from all parts of Myanmar's rich and diverse society — to such a point of desperation?" he asked.

"The military needs to be brought under real, effective civilian oversight."

Link

Southeast Asia

One prisoner killed, more than 60 wounded in Myanmar prison riot

2023-01-08

A prisoner was killed and more than 60 wounded after a riot broke out at a #Myanmar prison west of #Yangon, the junta says.https://t.co/elcWne8pE3
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) January 7, 2023

A prisoner was killed and more than 60 wounded after a riot broke out at a Myanmar prison west of Yangon, the junta said on Saturday.

Myanmar has been in chaos since Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government was toppled in a military coup in February 2021, ending the southeast Asian nation’s brief period of democracy.

The riot at the prison in Pathein started after guards confiscated a mobile phone from an inmate on Thursday night and took disciplinary action, the junta said in a statement. About 70 prisoners escaped from their cells and damaged property on Friday morning. Prisoners used sticks, bricks and pieces of cement to attack security forces, the junta said.

Authorities tried to bring the situation under control but negotiations failed and they resorted to force.

“The authorities fired guns to break up the crowd and bring the riot under control,” the statement said.

The junta said one prisoner was killed “amid fighting” and 63 inmates were wounded along with two police and nine guards. Local media described the dead inmate as a political prisoner and BBC Burmese said he was on terrorism charges.

The junta flagged the launch of an investigation into the incident.

Last week, the junta announced it would free more than 7,000 prisoners to mark the 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain.

More than 2,700 people have been killed since the military seized power and more than 13,000 people are detained as part of a crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

In July last year the regime executed four prisoners including former lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw and democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu - better known as “Jimmy.” It was the first use of the death penalty by the Myanmar state in around 30 years and sparked worldwide condemnation.

Human Rights Watch says Myanmar prisons are notorious for harsh conditions and their alleged use of torture.

Link

Southeast Asia

Myanmar takes delivery of Russian fighter jets

2022-11-05

[NEWAGEBD] Myanmar’s military has begun taking delivery of a batch of Russian-made combat jets, a monitoring group said on Friday, the latest hardware shipped from Moscow as rights campaigners accuse the junta of hitting civilians with air strikes.

In 2018 under the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s military purchased six Sukhoi Su-30s from Russia, according to Russian state media reports.

Satellite data, reports from flight spotters and a closed source have ’now confidently confirmed’ the presence of at least one of the jets in the military-built capital Naypyidaw
...generally translated as royal capital, seat of the king or abode of kings because the general in charge had a massive ego. It was founded in 2002 because Rangoon was worn out. Traditionally, Naypyidaw was used as a suffix to the names of royal capitals, such as Mandalay, which was called Yadanabon Naypyidaw in Burmese...
, said Myanmar Witness, a monitoring group.

It did not say whether the jet was in training or flown on active missions.

Local media have previously reported between four and six of the multi-role twin-seat fighters had arrived in the country, accompanied by Russian trainers and technicians.

The military has not commented on the sale or how many of the jets are in Myanmar.

Link

Southeast Asia

Myanmar Junta Says To Free 1,600 Prisoners In New Year Amnesty

2022-04-18

[NATION.PK] Myanmar’s junta said it will release more than 1,600 prisoners from jails across the country on Sunday to mark the Buddhist new year, without specifying whether those being pardoned were protesters or common criminals.

The Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government was ousted last year in a military coup, which sparked huge protests and a deadly crackdown.

State television announced that 1,619 prisoners, including 42 foreigners had been “pardoned” and will be released to mark the new year.

It was unclear whether anti-junta protesters or journalists jailed for covering the coup will be among those freed.

On Sunday morning, more than 100 people gathered outside Yangon’s Insein prison hoping to be reunited with loved ones, AFP correspondents said.

Link

Southeast Asia

Myanmar junta says to free over 800 prisoners

2022-02-13

Checking in to see what nasty but unimportant nonsense the Burmese are getting up to while we weren’t looking.

[AlAham] Myanmar's junta on Saturday announced an amnesty for more than 800 prisoners, as it held a parade and show of force in the capital to mark the country's Union Day.

The country has been in turmoil since last year's coup, with mass protests and a subsequent military crackdown that has killed more than 1,500 civilians, according to the UN's human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
office.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued the "pardon order" -- a regular feature of major holidays in the country -- for 814 prisoners, state media said, marking the 75th Union Day.

The annual holiday commemorates an agreement between independence hero Aung San and several ethnic groups to form a Union of Burma independent of British rule.

Those given amnesty will be mostly from prisons in commercial hub Yangon, junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told AFP.

He did not say whether Australian academic Sean Turnell -- who has been detained for more than a year -- would be among those released.

The economics professor was working as an adviser to civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi when he was arrested last February, days after she was ousted by the military.

He has been charged with violating Myanmar's official secrets law and faces a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison if found guilty.

About 100 people gathered outside Yangon's Insein prison on Saturday morning hoping to be reunited with loved ones, AFP correspondents said.

Four minibuses left the prison around noon local time (0530 GMT) and drove away, with those inside waving as people in the crowd shouted the names of relatives.

The junta marked Union Day with a show of force in the military-built capital Naypyidaw
...generally translated as royal capital, seat of the king or abode of kings because the general in charge had a massive ego. It was founded in 2002 because Rangoon was worn out. Traditionally, Naypyidaw was used as a suffix to the names of royal capitals, such as Mandalay, which was called Yadanabon Naypyidaw in Burmese...
Hundreds of troops paraded alongside civil servants waving national flags in unison, and there were choreographed dances.

Helicopters carrying the country's yellow, green and red flag flew overhead, followed by jets trailing the same colours in smoke.

In a speech to troops, Min Aung Hlaing repeated the military's claim of massive fraud in 2020 elections won by Suu Kyi's party.

He also invited the myriad ethnic armed organizations that have been fighting Myanmar's military -- and each other -- for decades to sit for peace talks.

The Karen National Union, whose fighters have clashed repeatedly with junta troops in the east, said it would not attend talks.

Link

Southeast Asia

Tortured to death: Myanmar mass killings revealed

2021-12-20

[BBC] The Myanmar military carried out a series of mass killings of civilians in July that resulted in the deaths of at least 40 men, according to a BBC investigation.

Eyewitnesses and survivors said that soldiers, some as young as 17, rounded up villagers before separating the men and killing them. Video footage and images from the incidents appears to show most of those killed were tortured first and buried in shallow graves.

The killings took place in July, in four separate incidents in Kani Township - an opposition stronghold in Sagaing District in Central Myanmar.

The military has faced resistance from civilians since it seized control of the country in a February coup, deposing a democratically-elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

The BBC spoke to 11 witnesses in Kani and compared their accounts with mobile phone footage and photographs collected by Myanmar Witness, a UK-based NGO that investigates human rights abuses in the country.

The largest killing took place in Yin village, where at least 14 men were tortured or beaten to death and their bodies thrown in a forested gully.

The killings appeared to be a collective punishment for attacks on the military by civilian militia groups in the area, who are demanding that democracy is restored. Fighting between the military and the local branches of the People's Defence Force - a collective name for civilian militia groups - had intensified in the area in the months before the mass killings, including clashes near Zee Bin Dwin.

It is clear from the visual evidence and testimony gathered by the BBC that men were specifically targeted, fitting with a pattern observed across Myanmar in recent months of male villagers facing collective punishment for clashes between the People's Defence Forces and the military.

Foreign journalists have been barred from reporting in Myanmar since the coup, and most non-state media outlets have been shut down, making on-the-ground reporting all but impossible.

The BBC put the allegations raised in this story to Myanmar's Deputy Minister for Information and military spokesperson, General Zaw Min Tun. He did not deny soldiers had carried out the mass killings.

"It can happen," he said. "When they treat us as enemies, we have the right to defend ourselves."

The United Nations is currently investigating alleged human rights abuses carried out by the Myanmar military.

Link

Southeast Asia

Defence Secretary Liz Truss condemns Myanmar's military junta for 'suppressing freedom and democracy' after leader Aung San Suu Kyi is jailed for four years

2021-12-07

[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News]

Aug San Suu Kyi jailed for 'incitement' against military and breaking Covid laws

The 76-year-old was sentenced to two years in jail on each charge, junta said

Nobel prize laureate faces dozens more charges that could see her jailed for life

Liz Truss said the UK condemns the 'appalling attempt to... suppress freedom'

Suu Kyi jail term halved to two years: Junta chief

[AlAhram] Myanmar's junta chief has reduced the jail sentence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to two years from four, state media said on Monday.

Link

Southeast Asia

US journalist jailed in Myanmar for six months is freed

2021-11-16

[IsraelTimes] American journalist Danny Fenster, who was recently sentenced to 11 years of hard labor after spending nearly six months in jail in military-ruled Myanmar, has been sprung and is on his way home, says a former US diplomat who helped negotiate his release.

Fenster, the managing editor of the online magazine Frontier Myanmar, was convicted on Friday of spreading false or inflammatory information, contacting illegal organizations and violating visa regulations. His sentence was the harshest yet among the seven journalists known to have been convicted since the military ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February.

"This is the day that you hope will come when you do this work," Bill Richardson, a former governor of New Mexico and past ambassador to the UN, says in a statement emailed by his office. "We are so grateful that Danny will finally be able to reconnect with his loved ones, who have been advocating for him all this time, against immense odds."

Fenster was handed over to Richardson in Myanmar and will return to the US via Qatar
Qatar

...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
over the next day and a half, according to the statement. He has been in detention since he was taken into custody at Yangon International Airport on May 24 as he was headed to the bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
area in the United States to see his family.

Link

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