Britain yesterday advised its citizens to flee Myanmar, as a UN expert said that the military junta is likely committing “crimes against humanity” in its attempt to stay in power.
The military are cracking down with increasing severity on daily protests against the Feb. 1 coup, with at least 70 people killed, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Thomas Andrews said.
The turmoil prompted Britain, Myanmar’s former colonial ruler, to urge its citizens to get out if they could, warning that “political tension and unrest are widespread since the military takeover and levels of violence are rising.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office advises British nationals to leave the country by commercial means, unless there is an urgent need to stay,” the British Foreign Office said.
The move came after Andrews gave a stark assessment of the crisis.
Myanmar is “controlled by a murderous, illegal regime” that is likely committing “crimes against humanity,” Andrews told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.
The crimes likely include “acts of murder, enforced disappearance, persecution, torture” carried out with “the knowledge of senior leadership,” including Burmese Army Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, he said.
While saying that such offenses could only be determined in a court of law, he said there was clear evidence that the junta’s crimes were “widespread” and part of a “coordinated campaign.”
At least nine protesters were killed on Thursday, including six in Myaing Township — five of them shot in the head, a witness said.
Rights group Amnesty International on Thursday released a major report on the crisis, accusing the junta of using battlefield weapons on unarmed protesters and carrying out premeditated killings.
The military — which defends its takeover by citing alleged voting irregularities in elections won by Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s party in November last year — held a news conference on Thursday accusing her of corruption.
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said that the detained chief minister of Yangon admitted giving Aung San Suu Kyi US$600,000 in cash, along with more than 11kg of gold.
Meanwhile, state-run media said that the Arakan Army — which is fighting for autonomy for the Rakhine — is no longer considered a terrorist organization.
Observers said that the move indicates the military is trying to avoid spreading itself too thinly, aiming to concentrate its forces on quelling the protests.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
RSS