Myanmar yesterday accused opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi of deliberately covering up the presence of a US man in her home and warned foreign governments against interfering in the case.
“It is no doubt that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has committed a cover-up of the truth by her failure to report an illegal immigrant to the authorities concerned,” Major General Aye Myint, Myanmar’s deputy defense minister, told a security forum in Singapore.
“Thus there was no option but to open legal proceedings in accordance with the law,” he said.
“She permitted him to stay ... She communicated, provided him food and shelter,” he said.
The Nobel laureate is on trial at Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison and faces up to five years in jail on charges of breaching the terms of her house arrest. She has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention.
John Yettaw, a 53-year-old Mormon and US military veteran, was arrested on May 6 after swimming to Aung San Suu Kyi’s house using a pair of homemade flippers and spending two nights there.
He is also on trial.
In his speech yesterday to regional security officials and experts, Aye Myint said the case against Aung San Suu Kyi was an internal matter for Myanmar to resolve.
“Countries should refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Myanmar that will affect peace and security of the region,” he said.
Critics say Myanmar’s military regime trumped up the charges in a bid to keep Aung San Suu Kyi locked up ahead of next year’s elections. The latest six-year period of her house arrest expired on Wednesday.
“It is the universal legal principle that no one is above the law,” Aye Myint said.
“Only when this legal principle is upheld, put into practice and encouraged will there be rule of law in a country,” he said, adding that “anarchy will prevail” if offenders are not punished.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition