Burmese security forces yesterday opened fire on a pro-democracy protest by medical workers in the city of Mandalay, and during more shooting in a nearby area one man was killed and several were wounded, media reported.
Opponents of a Feb. 1 coup that ousted an elected government led by Nobel peace laureate and Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi have kept up their campaign against the military this traditional New Year week with marches and other displays of resistance.
Medical workers, some of whom have been at the forefront of the campaign against the coup, gathered in the second city of Mandalay early, but troops soon arrived to disperse them, opening fire and detaining some people, the BBC’s Burmese-language service said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The BBC and other news outlets did not have details of casualties or arrests at the protest, but Khit Thit media said that a man was shot and killed in the compound of a nearby mosque as security forces broke up the medics’ protest.
A spokesman for the junta could not be reached for comment.
A resident of the neighborhood where the mosque is located said that soldiers had arrived there and started shooting, wounding one person who was later taken to hospital.
“There was no protest here. The soldiers just came and seemed to be searching for someone,” the resident, who declined to be identified, said by telephone.
The BBC Burmese service reported that four people were wounded in that neighborhood.
The five-day New Year holiday, known as Thingyan, began on Tuesday, but democracy advocates canceled the usual festivities to focus on their opposition to the generals.
Hundreds of people joined protests marches in several other towns, according to pictures posted by media outlets.
The coup has plunged Myanmar into crisis after 10 years of tentative steps toward democracy, with, in addition to the daily protests, strikes by workers in many sectors that have brought the economy to a standstill.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says the security forces have killed 715 protesters since the ousting of Aung SAn Suu Kyi’s government.
The UN human rights office on Tuesday said that it feared the military clampdown on the protests risked escalating into a civil conflict, such as that in Syria.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of