UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon faced a barrage of criticism on Friday for apparently praising the Burmese junta without winning any concessions over human rights or a move toward democracy.
Ban was under pressure to produce concrete results from his two-day mission to Burma, which was criticized as providing an endorsement to the Burmese leadership just as it is staging a trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The high-stakes visit to Burma comes at a critical time for Ban, whose low-key approach to his job has been criticized as ineffectual.
He came under further fire on arrival in Naypyidaw, the regime’s headquarters, when he told the head of the junta, General Than Shwe: “I appreciate your commitment to moving your country forward.”
“That is absolute nonsense,” said Brad Adams, a Burma specialist at Human Rights Watch. “It’s just what we implored him not to say, to make these diplomatic gaffes. Than Shwe has steadily moved his country backwards.”
British officials were also furious at the remarks. They had urged Ban not to visit Burma and risk handing the junta a propaganda prize without ensuring he would gain concessions in the form of the release of political prisoners and steps toward genuine democracy.
“Only agreement to release all political prisoners [and] start a genuine dialogue with the opposition and ethnic groups will give any credibility to the elections in 2010,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an article in the US online magazine the Huffington Post.
According to his office at No. 10 Dowing Street, London, Brown calls Ban at least twice a week to discuss Burma.
“I hope that Ban Ki-moon can convince the generals to take the first steps,” Brown said. “A serious offer is on the table: The international community will work with Burma if the generals are prepared to embark on a genuine transition to democracy. But if the Burmese regime refuses to engage, the international community must be prepared to respond robustly.”
However, Than Shwe said little at his meeting with Ban and did not grant the secretary-general’s request to meet Aung San Suu Kyi in prison. Ban expressed hope that a meeting could still be permitted.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS