A UN envoy arrived in military-ruled Myanmar yesterday to examine its progress on human rights ahead of elections, days after the junta freed a key aide to democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
Tomas Ojea Quintana expects to meet Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win but not reclusive junta head Than Shwe during his five-day trip, the third he has made to the isolated Southeast Asian nation since his appointment in 2008.
Quintana has said he also wants to meet Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi, who has been detained for most of the past 20 years, but the ruling generals have not said if they will allow the Argentine diplomat to do so.
He arrived by commercial flight at Yangon airport and was taken to his hotel before meeting with UN staff, a Myanmar official said on condition of anonymity.
The junta has so far agreed to a meeting between Quintana and four lawyers from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), said an official and NLD party spokesman, also called Nyan Win.
“We four lawyers will meet with Mr Quintana this evening ... We do not know the reason. It’s their proposal. I still do not know yet whether the envoy will meet with the NLD party,” Nyan Win said.
Suu Kyi remains under house arrest in Yangon, but the junta on Saturday freed Tin Oo, the elderly vice chairman of NLD who had been detained for the past seven years.
In a statement issued last week ahead of his five-day visit, Quintana said this year was “a critical time for the people of Myanmar.”
“It would be important for me to meet with political party leaders in the context of this year’s landmark elections,” he said. “I hope that my request to the government to meet with ... Aung San Suu Kyi will be granted this time.”
Myanmar officials said Quintana would go outside the former capital Yangon yesterday and fly to Sittwe, in Western Rakhine state, near the country’s border with Bangladesh.
Quintana had meant to visit Myanmar back in November, but his visit was repeatedly pushed back. He was appointed to his human rights role in May 2008 in the wake of a cyclone that left around 138,000 people dead.
On Thursday the envoy is due to return to Yangon to visit the country’s notorious Insein prison where dozens of political dissidents are held, and later meet with representatives of ethnic groups.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese