Myanmar’s democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday said she was “encouraged” by her first meeting with the country’s new nominally civilian president.
In her first comments on Friday’s discussions with Myanmar President Thein Sein, a former general, the Nobel laureate said that the one-hour meeting in the capital Naypyidaw had gone well.
“I am glad to see him and I am encouraged,” she told reporters.
The talks, a rare encounter between Aung San Suu Kyi and one of the members of the junta who kept her locked up for much of the past two decades, are the latest example of contacts between the government and its most renowned critic.
It was the democracy icon’s first visit to Naypyidaw, at the invitation of the regime, which came to power in March after a widely condemned election marred by the absence of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party.
A government official, who asked not to be named, said the meeting was “quite good and quite open,” without giving details of the nature of discussions, which were held behind closed doors.
Government mouthpiece the New Light of Myanmar said both sides sought “potential common grounds to cooperate in the interests of the nation and the people putting aside different views” in a short item on the talks.
The newspaper published a picture of Aung San Suu Kyi with Thein Sein at the presidential residence.
Aung San Suu Kyi remained in Naypyidaw overnight and attended a forum on the nation’s economy yesterday morning. A reporter at the event said the 66-year-old appeared relaxed and cheerful and spoke with senior government officials and ministers.
Aung San Suu Kyi was told in June to stay out of politics and warned that a political tour could spark chaos and riots.
However, Myanmar’s government, led by Thein Sein, a former general and junta prime minister, has since appeared to want to soften its image.
In recent weeks, Aung San Suu Kyi has held two rounds of talks with Myanmar Minister of Labour Aung Kyi in Yangon and has written an open letter offering to aid ceasefire talks between the military and ethnic rebels.
Last Sunday, the daughter of Myanmar’s liberation hero General Aung San traveled unhindered on her first overtly political trip outside her home city since being released from detention, addressing thousands of supporters.
Myanmar’s elections in November last year followed nearly half a century of military rule.
Aung Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) boycotted the poll because of rules seemingly designed to exclude the democracy icon and was stripped of its status as a political party as a result.
The NLD won a 1990 vote by a landslide, but was never allowed by the junta to take power.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other