Tens of thousands of protesters yesterday poured on to the streets of Yangon in the biggest rally yet against the Myanmar coup, as an Internet blackout failed to stifle growing outrage at the military’s ouster of Burmese state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.
Some estimates put the number of protesters in Yangon at 100,000, and there were reports of large demonstrations in other cities, with rallies condemning the coup that brought Myanmar’s 10-year experiment with democracy to a crashing halt.
Backed by a din of vehicle horns, chanting protesters in Yangon held up banners reading: “Justice for Myanmar,” while others waved the signature red flags of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party as they marched to the city hall.
Photo: AFP
“I completely despise the military coup, and I am not afraid of a crackdown,” said Kyi Phyu Kyaw, a 20-year-old university student. “I will join every day until Amay Suu [Mother Suu] is freed.”
Protesters announced that they would return to the streets at 10am today, defying the state of emergency imposed by the military and indicating no let-up in their resistance to the coup.
They also called on civil servants and people employed in other industries to not go to work and join the protests.
“We will fight until the end,” said Ye Kyaw, an 18-year-old economics student. “The next generation can have democracy if we end this military dictatorship.”
There was also a large demonstration in the capital, Naypyidaw, despite the heavy military presence there, while tens of thousands rallied against the coup in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city.
Both of those protests included people on armadas of motorcycles, waving flags and banners as they rode through the cities.
There were also demonstrations in Mawlamyine city and the Magway region.
The surge in popular dissent over the weekend overcame a nationwide Internet blockade.
Monitoring service NetBlocks said that Internet access was partially restored on some mobile networks in Myanmar yesterday afternoon, but social media platforms remained blocked, and it was unclear how long the connectivity would last.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
RSS