From April 3 to May 13, junta airstrikes across 11 of Myanmar’s 14 territories have killed a total of 182 people and injured 298, said the National League for Democracy, or NLD, the party that won a landslide in the 2020 election but was ousted in a coup the following year.

The majority of attacks have targeted those affected by the earthquake-affected areas of Sagaing and Mandalay region, it added.

“We’re sending this appeal directly to the United Nations and to ASEAN,” said a member of the NLD central work committee Kyaw Htwe. “We have confirmed this information with media outlets, party members and the public on the ground.”

On March 28, 2025, Myanmar experienced a devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake centered near Mandalay, resulting in over 5,400 deaths, more than 11,000 injuries, and widespread destruction across six regions, including the capital Naypyidaw.

In response to the disaster, Myanmar’s military junta and various rebel groups declared temporary ceasefires in early April to facilitate humanitarian aid and recovery efforts. The junta extended its ceasefire until May 31. However, despite these declarations, hostilities have continued, with reports indicating that the military has persisted with airstrikes and artillery attacks.

On Monday, an airstrike on a school in rebel militia-controlled Tabayin township in Sagaing region killed 22 students and two teachers. On the same day, junta soldiers raiding Lel Ma village in Magway region’s Gangaw township shot 11 people and arrested eight others.

An attack on Arakan Army-controlled Rathedaung township in Rakhine the following day killed 13 civilians, including children and their parents.

Similarly, attacks with heavy artillery between April 3 and May 13 across five territories killed 14 people and injured 43. Another 166, including infants, were killed by junta raids on villages, when soldiers set fire to civilian homes.

Junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun has not responded to Radio Free Asia’s inquiries.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

Samoa’s prime minister and the five other ousted members of the ruling FAST Party are reportedly challenging their removal.

FAST chair La’auli Leuatea Schmidt on Wednesday announced the removal of the prime minister and five Cabinet ministers from the ruling party.

Twenty party members signed for the removal of Fiame Naomi Mata’afa and five others, including Deputy Prime Minister Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio and two original members.

• READ MORE: Explainer: Power struggle: where to from here?
• Samoa Observer: For the people or for themselves? — Editorial
• Samoa’s political future hangs in balance with Fiame leadership challenge
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• Other Samoan politics reports

Samoa media outlets have been reporting that in a letter dated January 17, one of the removed members, Faualo Harry Schuster, wrote: “We all reject the letter of termination as relayed as unlawful and unconstitutional.”

In the letter, which is circulating on social media, he claimed they were still members of the FAST party.

Local media reports had suggested members of the FAST party had called for Fiame’s removal as prime minister.

Meanwhile, the government’s Savali newspaper has confirmed the removal of 13 associate ministers of Fiame’s Cabinet.

“The termination of their appointments stem from the issue of confidence in the Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa to continue work with the associate ministers, as well as the associate ministers’ expression of no confidence in her leadership,” it said.

“The official statement emphasises that the functions and responsibilities of the Executive Arm of Government continues under the leadership of the Prime Minister — Fiame Naomi Mata’afa and Cabinet.”

Fiame had last week removed three members of her Cabinet, after she also stood down La’auli, who is facing criminal charges.

Parliament is scheduled to reconvene on Tuesday, January 21.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

France has been plunged into political chaos after lawmakers from across the political spectrum voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a no-confidence vote Wednesday, a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron, who had hand-picked the conservative lawmaker to lead the National Assembly. Macron called a snap election earlier this year to counter the rise of the racist National Rally party of Marine Le Pen, but he then refused to work with the leftist New Popular Front that won the most seats, opting for an establishment pick instead. With the government’s collapse, Macron has vowed to name a new prime minister and stay on to finish his own term, which ends in 2027, despite his growing unpopularity. “We’re in this unprecedented situation of turmoil,” says journalist Cole Stangler in Marseilles. He says Macron’s decision to call early elections was “a self-inflicted wound” that ended up empowering the far right and making it virtually impossible for any faction to lead. “We have a mathematical problem. France needs to have a government, and you have three pretty evenly split blocs,” says Stangler.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

A former minister in Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted government has died shortly after being released from prison, family friends and party colleagues told Radio Free Asia, the latest jailed member of Myanmar’s last elected government to die.

Win Khaing, 74, was minister of electricity and energy in the government formed by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, or NLD, which was overthrown on Feb. 1, 2021, when the generals ended a decade of tentative reform and reimposed hardline military rule.

“The respected Win Khaing joined hands with the NLD to make it the best. He was involved in both management and policy reforms and was capable of carrying them out,” said NLD colleague Bo Bo Oo, the party’s deputy chairperson for the Sanchaung township in the main city of Yangon.

“The loss of our distinguished Win Khaing is a loss for all Myanmar citizens, the whole country’s loss,” Bo Bo Oo told Radio Free Asia from an undisclosed location.

Family friends said Win Khaing died of heart disease and diabetes in hospital late on Friday. He had been released from the infamous Obo Prison in Mandalay on Oct. 28 due to deteriorating health and taken to Mandalay General Hospital.

Win Khaing was arrested shortly after the 2021 coup and later jailed for 28 years on corruption charges related to a hydro-power project.

Almost all NLD leaders, including Suu Kyi, have been jailed on various charges that they have dismissed as politically motivated.

Calls to Myanmar military spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, went unanswered. Military-run media did not report Win Khaing’s death but the news spread quickly in Myanmar’s second-biggest city.

‘Military is responsible’

Some residents drew parallels with the death last month of Zaw Myint Maung, another top NLD member who died of cancer days after being released on medical grounds from a lengthy sentence in the same prison.

“Of course, they only give amnesty to a person when they know they’re going to die,” said one resident who declined to be identified for security reasons.

“People in Mandalay knew he had been released a week before he passed away.”

The civilian shadow administration in exile, National Unity Government, or NUG, formed by former NLD members, has criticized the junta officials for failing to provide prisoners with adequate medical treatment.

A spokesperson for the NUG, Nay Phone Latt, denounced the “ illegal capture and jailing” of pro-democracy politicians.

“The military is completely responsible for this,” Nay Phone Latt said.

The death of elderly NLD members raises concerns for the fate of Myanmar’s most popular politician, Suu Kyi.

The 79-year-old daughter of the hero of Myanmar’s campaign for independence from colonial rule was also arrested after the 2021 coup. She was sentenced on various charges, that she dismissed as trumped up, and jailed for 33 years though her sentence was reduced to 27 years.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is believed to be in solitary confinement in prison in the capital, Naypyidaw, but her exact whereabouts are unknown.

About 2,000 other NLD members have been jailed by the military regime since the coup along with thousands of other democracy campaigners.

Among those to have died in custody was Nyan Win, a top NLD adviser to Suu Kyi, who died of COVID-19 in 2021. A year later, the junta executed former NLD lawmaker Phyo Zayar Taw, for treason and terrorism charges.

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Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA staff.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

“CPJ is alarmed by the apparently baseless criminal cases lodged against Bangladeshi journalists in retaliation for their work, which is seen as supportive of the recently ousted government,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Bangladesh’s interim government should ensure that authorities respect the procedural rights of those accused, as well as their right to a fair trial, while safeguarding the ability of all journalists to report without fear of reprisal.”

Hasina fled to India on August 5 following mass protests that ended her 15-year rule. Dozens of Bangladeshi journalists whose reporting was considered favorable of Hasina’s government have since been targeted in criminal investigations.

On August 31, a court in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka jailed Farzana Rupa, former principal correspondent at the privately owned, pro-Awami League broadcaster Ekattor TV, and Shakil Ahmed, Rupa’s husband and former head of news at the broadcaster, on judicial remand following nine days in police custody, according to a person familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

Police detained Rupa and Ahmed — who were dismissed from their positions at Ekattor TV on August 8 — at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on August 21. Officers also confiscated the couple’s mobile phones and passports, according to the anonymous source, adding that the journalists were both being held in relation to two cases of instigating murder during the mass protests.

Rupa began receiving an influx of threats in July after questioning Hasina about the protests that ultimately led to her ousting, the anonymous source said.

On September 16, police detained two other Ekattor TV journalists — Mozammel Babu, managing director and editor-in-chief, and Mahbubur Rahman, a senior reporter — along with Shyamal Dutta, editor of the privately owned newspaper Bhorer Kagoj, and their driver, after the group allegedly attempted to illegally enter India from Bangladesh’s northern Mymensingh district.

The following day, a Dhaka court ordered that Babu and Dutta be held in a seven-day police remand in two separate murder cases, while Rahman and the driver were released, according to the anonymous source.

Rupa, Ahmed, Babu, and Dutta were also among the more than two dozen journalists named in an August complaint filed at Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal, a domestic war crimes tribunal, on allegations of involvement in crimes against humanity and genocide during the mass protests.

Twenty-eight other journalists also are facing investigations in connection with the mass protests. On September 4, a court in the southeastern city of Chittagong ordered the Police Bureau of Investigation to probe a criminal complaint filed by a teacher against the journalists and 81 other people.  

The complaint, reviewed by CPJ, cites several sections of the penal code, including promoting enmity between classes, causing grievous hurt, and kidnapping, as well as sections of the Explosive Substances Act of 1908, which can carry a sentence of the death penalty or life imprisonment. It also accuses several privately owned news outlets — including Ekattor TV, Somoy TV, and the Dhaka Tribune newspaper — of failing to publish or broadcast appropriate coverage of the protests.

Enamul Haque Sagor, a Bangladesh police spokesperson, did not respond to CPJ’s calls and WhatsApp messages requesting comment on the latest arrests and investigations.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Suu Kyi, who turned 79, has been in detention since the army ousted her civilian government in a 2021 coup, triggering turmoil as democracy supporters took to the streets in huge numbers, with many, after their rallies were crushed, taking up arms in a bid to end military rule.

“We wish for the freedom of Suu Kyi, all political prisoners and the entire country,” a resident of the Sagaing region’s Wetlet township told RFA.

“We launched this strike to show that we have not forgotten our leader,” he said, adding that the Wetlet protest had drawn about 1,000 people.

Suu Kyi led Myanmar’s campaign to end decades of military rule from 1988, spending decades under house arrest before the military launched tentative reforms that included a 2015 election that her party swept.

Defying bans on gatherings, her supporters throughout the country came out to mark her birthday, marching, cutting birthday cakes and holding up roses as a symbol of defiance.

In the south, in the Tanintharyi region’s capital of Dawei, about 500 people gathered for a march, according to Min Lwin Oo, a member of an activist group called the Democracy Movement Strike Committee

A group in the main city of Yangon, members of a group raised a banner with her name “Suu”, an activist said, adding that junta security forces were out in force in the former capital.

‘Flower in his hair’

There were no reports of arrests in Yangon but in the second city of Mandalay, in the Chanayethazan township, security men in plain clothes arrested two young men at a tea shop, residents said.

“One of the two young men wore a flower in his hair,” said one resident, who declined to be identified. “I think they were arrested because they were wearing flowers.”

A junta spokesman was not immediately available for comment but the military said on its Telegram social media channels that  about 10 people were arrested in Mandalay for participating in a flower strike.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of the leader of the campaign for independence from British colonial rule, General Aung San, was initially sentenced by the junta to 33 years on 19 charges that she denied. The sentence was later reduced to 27 years.

The Nobel laureate was long believed to be in solitary confinement in a prison in the capital, Naypyidaw, but media reported in April she had been moved to house arrest. Her exact whereabouts are unknown.

She has been largely denied contact with the outside world but Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai was allowed to meet July last year and said she was in good health.

Several embassies in Myanmar recognized her birthday in social media posts. The British Embassy called for the release of her and all prisoners arrested arbitrarily.

According to data from the Association for Political Prisoners released on Tuesday, the junta has killed more than 5,000 people and arrested more than 20,000 since the coup. 

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

We look at the resignation of Harvard University President Claudine Gay, the first African American and second woman to lead the Ivy League school, after conservative-led allegations of plagiarism and backlash over her testimony at a congressional hearing on antisemitism that is part of a broader effort to censor pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses. “This is a terrible moment for higher education,” says Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He says plagiarism became a “pretext” to oust Gay, and discusses the larger right-wing war on education aimed at undoing progress on race, gender and addressing inequality.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

We look at the 50th anniversary of what is sometimes called the “other 9/11” — the U.S.-backed coup in Chile, when General Augusto Pinochet ousted President Salvador Allende and inaugurated almost two decades of brutal military rule. Allende died in the presidential palace on September 11, 1973, marking the end of Chile’s first socialist government. During Pinochet’s military dictatorship, more than 3,000 people were disappeared or killed, and some 40,000 more were tortured as political prisoners as Chile remained a close partner to the United States during the Cold War. “We’re still living in some sense under the shadow of Pinochet, and of course we’re living under the gigantic light … of Salvador Allende,” says renowned Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, who served as a cultural adviser to Allende from 1970 to 1973 before going into exile following the coup. His latest novel, The Suicide Museum, explores the mystery around Allende’s death and whether it was a suicide or murder.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Win Myint was arrested shortly after the Feb. 1, 2021 coup and has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in connection with eight cases brought against him by the junta regime.

A source close to the former president said a doctor was called in this month and fitted a urinary catheter.

“We don’t know what the cause of the disease is. We only know that a doctor from an outside hospital came to the cell where he is being held and inserted [a catheter],” said the person, who declined to be named for safety reasons.

Another source, who also requested anonymity, confirmed the doctor’s visit and said that Win Myint was “recovering” although he didn’t specify the illness.

The date of the doctor’s visit is also unclear due to problems receiving information on prisoners, although reports emerged on June 17.

RFA contacted Deputy Director General of the Prisons Department Naing Win but nobody responded to phone calls and emails.

Win Myint, 72, is a lawyer, and a member of the now-dissolved National League for Democracy since the party’s formation in 1988. He won three seats for the party in the 1990, 2012 and 2015 elections and served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2016 to 2018.

On March 28, 2018 he received the most votes in parliament’s presidential election and became the tenth president of Myanmar until his arrest. He still serves as president of the shadow National Unity Government, although the NUG’s acting president is Duwa Lashi La.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Justin Jones, the Democratic Tennessee lawmaker who was expelled from the state Legislature on Thursday, said he was trying to protect all children from the scourge of gun violence—including the children of the Republican colleagues who subsequently voted to oust him—while vowing to keep fighting for gun control.

Addressing the Republican lawmakers just before the 72-25 party-line vote, Jones (D-52) said, "To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I want to say that you have the votes to do what you're gonna do today but I wanna let you know that when I walked up to this well I was fighting for your children and grandchildren too."

Tennessee House Republicans targeted Jones, as well as state Reps. Gloria Johnson (D-90) and Justin Pearson after they used a bullhorn to lead chants supporting gun control legislation on the chamber floor Monday while thousands of Nashville-area students rallied outside following the March 27 mass shooting at Covenant School that left three 9-year-old students, three staff members, and the shooter dead.

After voting to expel Jones, GOP lawmakers called a vote on a resolution to oust Johnson. Although 65 Republicans voted in favor of the measure, that was not enough to reach the two-thirds majority required. A vote on the resolution to remove Pearson is expected later on Thursday evening.

Speaking before the vote to remove him from office, Jones said:

To those here who will cast a vote for expulsion, I was fighting for your children too, to live free from the terror of school shootings and mass shootings. When I walked up to this well last Thursday, I was thinking about the thousands of students who were outside demanding that we do something. In fact, many of their signs said, "Do something, do something, do something." That was their only ask of us, to respond to their grieving, to respond to a traumatized community. But in response to that, the first action of this body is to expel members for calling for commonsense gun legislation.

We were calling for a ban of assault weapons and the response of this body is to assault democracy. This is a historic day for Tennessee but it is also a very dark day for Tennessee because it will signal to the nation that there is no democracy in this state. It will signal to the nation that if it can happen here in Tennessee, it's coming to your state next. And that is why the nation is watching what we do here.

"My prayer to you is even if you expel me that you still act to address the crisis of mass shootings because if I'm expelled from here, I'll be back out there with the people every week demanding that you act," Jones said. "If you expel me I'll continue to show up because this issue is too important."

"And so if you expel me, I recognize that it's not just about expelling me, it's about expelling the people," Jones asserted. "But your action will do the exact opposite. It will galvanize them to see what is happening in this state requires sustained action. And so I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle regardless of what you decide to do to me, because this is not about me, it's about those young people who are asking us to use our position and uphold our oath to protest and dissent from any action or legislation that is injurious to the people."

"I pray that we uphold our oath on this floor because, colleagues, the world is watching," he added.

After the expulsion vote, Jones was greeted by a passionate crowd of supporters in the State Capitol Rotunda, where he raised his fist while people chanted, "We stand with Justin."

"Republicans know they are on the losing side of history. This is proof," tweeted David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 massacre of 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and co-founder of March for Our Lives—which called Jones' expulsion "fascist, undemocratic behavior."

Olivia Juliana, director of politics and government affairs at the social media-based advocacy group Gen-Z for Change, wrote on Twitter that "Tennessee has given way to fascism."

"The Tennessee Three will not be forgotten," Juliana added. "This fight is far from over."

Sherrilyn Ifill, former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said, "What I saw today was a naked display of power, an utter disregard for the basics of due process, and a window into the country waiting for all of us unless we fight."

Numerous observers said that instead of silencing Jones, Republicans ensured he was "elevated from obscurity to rising Democratic star."

"Young people around this country will be galvanized around him now, come out and vote, and they'll vote for Democrats across the board," predicted one Twitter user. "GOP will suffer tremendously from this."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Democracy defenders sounded the alarm Friday after senior Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was ousted from his parliamentary seat a day after being sentenced to two years in prison in a dubious defamation case involving an insult against the surname of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India's lower house of Parliament announced Friday that Gandhi—a former president of the Indian National Congress party (called Congress for short) who until Thursday represented the constituency of Wayanad in the southern state of Kerala—was disqualified to serve in office due to his conviction for defaming the Modi name.

The case involved Gandhi allegedly asking during a 2019 campaign rally in Kolar, Karnataka, "How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?"

The Times of Indiareports Surat Chief Judicial Magistrate H. H. Varma convicted Gandhi for defamation under the Indian Penal Code. Varma granted Gandhi bail on a bond of ₹15,000 (approx. $180) and suspended the sentence for 30 days so he may appeal.

While convicting Gandhi, Varma said that the defendant could have limited his insult to the prime minister, but by disparaging all people with the name, the defendant "intentionally" defamed them.

The Modi surname comes from the Modh Ghanchi or Teli Ghanchi community primarily inhabiting western states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajashtan, and traditionally employed in the oil pressing and trading business. Although officially designated an Other Backward Caste, Gujaratis do not view the widely successful group as such.

Gandhi tweeted Friday that he is "fighting for the voice of India" and is "ready to pay any cost."

Congress called Gandhi's conviction an "infirm, erroneous, and unsustainable" judgment.

Party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the government's "efforts to create a chilling effect, a throttling effect, strangulating effect on open, fearless speech relating to public interest, will not stop either Rahul Gandhi or the Congress party."

"There are some disturbing aspects of this judgment which of course will be subject to challenge immediately, but firstly, the heart of the law of criminal defamation is that persons who are complainants should be those who must be able to demonstrate how they personally have been defamed, or prejudiced," Singhvi continued.

"Now," he added, "the admitted position is that no one who is the subject matter of the statement which is found to be offending has filed a criminal complaint."

M.K. Stalin, the leftist chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, tweeted that "the metamorphosis of BJP's vindictive politics into autocracy is happening at an alarming pace," a reference to Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The prime minister is also a member of the Hindu supremacist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) paramilitary group.

"The disqualification of Rahul Gandhi is an onslaught on all the progressive-democratic forces of our country," Stalin said in a statement Friday. "All the political parties in India shall realize this and we should oppose unitedly."

In the United States, Democratic California Congressman Ro Khanna—whose parents immigrated from Punjab state— called Gandhi's ouster a "deep betrayal of Gandhian philosophy and India's deepest values."

"This is not what my grandfather sacrificed years in jail for," Khanna added, referring to former Congress parliamentarian and independence movement figure Amarnath Vidyalankar. "Narendra Modi, you have the power to reverse this decision for the sake of Indian democracy."

Arundhati Roy, the renowned Indian writer, said during a Wednesday lecture at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm that "India's democracy is being systematically disassembled. Only the rituals remain."

Mentioning the persecution of religious minorities—especially Muslims—the brutal military occupation of Kashmir, and the imprisonment of journalists, Roy added that "India for all practical purposes has become a corporate, theocratic Hindu state, a highly policed state, a fearsome state [seething] with Hindu supremacist fervor."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The two leaders were the most senior members of Myanmar’s democratically elected government when it was overthrown by the country’s military in a coup in February 2021. Suu Kyi has been sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison in 19 corruption cases, whereas Win Myint has been sentenced to a total of 12 years in eight cases.

The legal team requested to meet with their clients in mid-January, but the military junta authorities have not granted them permission, a source close to the legal team, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA’s Burmese Service.

“I am very worried because the legal team’s request to see them was not granted, and we know nothing about whether the detained leaders are in good health,” he said. “I do believe that the team should be allowed to see them. They need instructions for [legal processes.]”

Suu Kyi, 78, is held alone inside a small building inside the Naypyidaw Prison. The legal team has said that they were allowed to send necessities to her in the prison once per week, but they have not been allowed to meet her since December.

Authorities transferred Win Myint, 72, to Taungoo Prison in the southern Bago region on Jan. 14.

RFA attempted to contact Naing Win, the spokesman and the deputy director for the prison department for comment, but phone calls went unanswered.

“According to the law, prisoners and detainees must have the right to meet with their lawyers,” a criminal justice lawyer from Yangon, who declined to be named, told RFA. “It is clearly stipulated in the law. The prison manual specifically provides the right for inmates to meet with their lawyers. There is no restriction on this right.”

The lawyer said the junta was disrespecting the rule of law by not allowing the ousted leaders access to legal representation.

The legal team has filed appeals for multiple cases in the Supreme Court, and the court has rejected some of the appeals and accepted others.

Intentionally isolating the leaders

The junta is isolating the two ousted leaders from the outside world, said Bo Bo Oo, who prior to the coup represented Yangon’s Dala township in the National Assembly as part of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party, or NLD. He said it is to their advantage to not allow the leaders to communicate with anyone outside of their prisons.

“[The junta] knows that they will never hear any words of support for them from the leaders,” he said. “I must say this is a blatant violation of their rights.” 

Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, said that continuing to deny them legal access was not surprising, considering the coup itself is based on “false accusations.”

“It is one of their usual suppression methods. They restricted lawyers and legal experts so that they can only participate to the extent that they are allowed,” he said. “The junta court’s final verdicts … means trying to stop all legal activities.”

He said the junta is discarding the law because it is advantageous in this case.

Maung Maung Swe, another lawmaker from the NLD party who served time at the same prison where Suu Kyi is detained, told RFA that he was worried about her health.

“At her age, and I know that her building is too small… she has been completely cut off.” he said. “Frankly speaking, I am really worried something might have happened to her as we haven’t been able to hear from her for a long time.”

The U.N. Secretary-General, the United States, the European Union and other members of the international community have called for the release of Suu Kyi, Win Myint and every other person unfairly detained by the junta.

Special Envoy to Myanmar for the U.N. Secretary-General Noeleen Heyzer requested that Suu Kyi be allowed to return to her home when she visited with the junta’s leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in August 2022.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Venerable Soy Sat, 72, was expelled from the Phnom Plouch Pagoda in Kampong Speu province on Feb. 9 by pagoda chief Oum Harm, who warned him that he would be defrocked if he refused to leave.

“The chief monk expelled me because he accused me of inciting to destroy peace,” said Soy Sat.

In early February, the monk marched along with Rong Chhun, the new vice president of the opposition Candlelight Party, and other demonstrators from the capital of Phnom Penh to Pursat province in the western part of the county. They had permission for the march from the Interior Ministry. 

The move comes five months ahead of an election showdown between the opposition Candlelight Party and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or the CCP. The prime minister has targeted opposition leaders, arresting and detaining them on what critics say are politically motivated charges in an apparent attempt to remain in power.

Buddhist monks, who occupy their own social class in Cambodia and are given a great deal of respect by the public, frequently participate in demonstrations, but ousting them from a temple is unusual.

Soy Sat denied that he intended to disrupt the public peace and said he would continue to participate in social advocacy.

The monk said he is currently living in an undisclosed location for security reasons, but he is running short on food and needs a permanent place to live. He asked monks at four other temples if they would take him in, but they all refused. 

“I urge other chief monks to allow me to stay because I didn't commit any crime,” he said.

RFA could not reach Oum Harm for comment Wednesday. Cambodia’s Cults and Religion Minister Seng Somony refused to comment on the case but said he would investigate it.  

Support for the ruling party has fallen in the past decade amid chronic corruption within the party and the government, which opponents say has led to human rights violations, deteriorating social ethics and a culture of impunity.

Rong Chhun, a labor leader, said he organized the protest before the party appointed him to his current role, so that the protest had nothing to do with politics. 

Rong Chhun said he was displeased to learn about Soy Sat’s ousting, adding that the head monk should not have taken such a measure and that it now serves as a precedent and a threat for other clergy members who participate in peaceful protests

“Monks are symbols of the nation who preach to the people,” he said, “but now they are facing problems.”

Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

Daniel Suidani faced a motion of no confidence in Malaita’s provincial assembly after being accused of misappropriating funds. Before the vote, supporters of Suidani marched through the provincial capital Auki, video posted online showed.

The Solomon Islands Minister for Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, Rollen Seleso, said nominations for a new Malaita premier will be open for two days from Wednesday and police will maintain a strong presence in Auki.

“I want to assure the Malaita Province public that high visibility of police presence will be in Auki until the election of the new premier,” he said.

The Solomon Islands, a country of some 700,000 people, has become a hot spot in the U.S.-China competition for influence with economically lagging Pacific island nations. 

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s government switched its diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 2019. Last year it signed a security pact with Beijing that has been followed by a Chinese police presence in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara, training for local police and the donation of vehicles and water cannons. Neither country has released the text of the agreement. 

China, along with countries such as Australia and Indonesia, is helping to bankroll the Pacific Games in Honiara in November. 

Under Suidani, Malaita’s provincial assembly opposed the diplomatic switch to Beijing and issued its Auki Communiqué banning China-funded projects in Malaita despite the island’s crumbling roads, rickety bridges and threadbare health system.

Suidani touted benefits from a U.S. development aid project in the province, but it has been slow to produce tangible results.

Malaita’s Deputy Premier Glen Waneta in October criticized Malaita’s refusal to accept Huawei mobile towers that would help improve spotty communications on the island. 

Peter Kenilorea, a member of the Solomon Islands parliament, said on Facebook last month that moves against Suidani’s government appeared to be a scheme involving “players” at the provincial and national levels. 

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gina Maka’a for BenarNews.

FijiFirst Party general secretary and former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is no longer a Member of Fiji’s Parliament, says Speaker Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu.

Ratu Naiqama said formal notices had been served to Sayed-Khaiyum, advising him that he had lost his seat in the House.

“We have served notices to all his addresses,” the Speaker said.

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Under Section 63(1)(b) of the 2013 Constitution, the seat of a Member of Parliament becomes vacant if the member — with the member’s consent — becomes the holder of a public office.

“The leader of the opposition [former PM Voreqe Bainimarama] is advising us to follow the law, so we are following the law.”

Sayed-Khaiyum was nominated to the Constitutional Offices Commission by Bainimarama and appointed by President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere.

Sayed-Khaiyum attended the first commission meeting on Sunday with Bainimarama.

The Constitutional Offices Commission meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

Attorney-General Siromi Turaga was also present at the forum.

The PM’s nominees were prominent lawyer Jon Apted and lawyer Tanya Waqanika.

Felix Chaudhary is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission

Bainimarama threatens Fiji government
Meanwhile, The Pacific Newsroom’s Michael Field writes that Bainimarama has “made it plain he is “out to bring down Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and his coalition government”.

“In a Facebook rant, the defeated former prime minister said Rabuka’s “three uneven legged stool government” must be stopped.

‘“We are here to ensure they do not get away with it,” [Bainimarama] said.

‘“We are here to ensure that your voices are heard, in what is already unfolding as an oppressive and vindictive regime that feeds on suppression of a free flow of ideas, division, racism, religious chauvinism, bigotry, exclusivity and colonialism.”’

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The post When the United Mine Workers Ousted Their Entrenched Leadership: a Lesson for Today’s Labor Movements appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Steve Early.

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo was ousted from power Wednesday and arrested hours after he moved to dissolve the country’s Congress, with Vice President Dina Boluarte sworn in to replace him. Castillo is a left-leaning former teacher and union leader who was in office for less than a year and a half, during which time he faced sustained attacks from his political opponents for corruption. His announcement Wednesday that he would dissolve Congress came as lawmakers were preparing for a third time to impeach him. Peruvian scholar Javier Puente, associate professor and chair of Latin American and Latino studies at Smith College, says this week’s dramatic events are just the latest in an “enduring crisis” in Peru that started with dictator Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. “This is yet another manifestation of the lack of institutional stability that the country has experienced for at least three decades as a result of the legacy of Fujimorismo,” says Puente.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The terse tweet by Bao Pu said the elder Bao died early Wednesday morning, four days after his 90th birthday.

Bao Tong was thought to have been in the hospital in Beijing and did not appear in public for the funeral of his wife, Jiang Zongcao, who died of cancer on Aug. 21 at the age of 90.

Before the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Bao Tong worked as director of the Office of Political Reform of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

A key ally of premier Zhao Ziyang, Bao served a seven-year jail term for "revealing state secrets and counter-revolutionary propagandizing." 

Zhao fell from power after late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping decided his line on the student protests was too conciliatory. He was later removed from office and spent the rest of his life under house arrest at his Beijing home, dying in early 2005 with his legacy largely erased from official history.

While under house arrest and other forms of close scrutiny, Bao Tong remained a trenchant critic of the Chinese Communist Party.

He was a prolific, long-time contributor of commentary on a wide range of Chinese and international issues for Radio Free Asia’s Mandarin service, although his output tapered off with declining eyesight and health in recent years.

In a June commentary on the publication of Premier Li Peng's accounts of the events leading up to the June 4, 1989, bloodshed by the People's Liberation Army, Bao tied the events that led to Zhao’s and his downfall 33 years earlier to the current situation in China under President Xi Jinping.

“The massacre helped to found the current ‘core system,’ in which everyone is expected to be of one mind, in the world's most populous country,” wrote Bao Tong.

“The massacre paved the way for countless layers of CCP [Chinese Communist Party] control, from national government to the urban police, or chengguan, and the auxiliary police, to ordinary people and dissidents governed as ‘special households,’" and for the mantra "Follow the party and prosper: oppose it and die" to be encoded into the minds of all Chinese citizens, he added.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Paul Eckert.

Myanmar's military has further cracked down on National League for Democracy (NLD) members, sentencing former Pehkone township NLD MP Petel Aung and NLD members Lai Kyu and Maung Tat to life in prison at the Loi-Lin District Court in the country's southern Shan state last month.

Taung Lay Lone prison’s court also sentenced Phekone residents Maung Kown, Maung Nyein and Joseph to death, the Progressive Karenni People Force (PKPF) told RFA on Thursday.

Shan state shares a border with Kayah state where the Karenni Army fought for independence until a ceasefire in 2012 and a further ceasefire three years later that only lasted three months.

Fighting between the military and Karenni forces, helped by local People's Defense Forces, has spilled over into Shan state and the PKPF has been monitoring junta activity there, including the arrests of NLD politicians.

PKPF officials said the military council has not issued an official statement regarding the sentences.

“There were two groups arrested. Petel Aung was in one group and Maung Kown was in another. Petel Aung was arrested as a People’s Defense Force leader. Another group member was arrested last year on charges of killing an army officer and two soldiers in Phekone Township. The order was handed down last month, but we just found out,” said a PKPF official.

He added that MP Petel Aung, Lai Kyu and Maung Tat were arrested in Nam San, in Shan state on July 30, 2021. Maung Saung, Maung Nyein and Joseph were arrested in March last year.

The arrested have been charged by the military council with illegal association, murder and possessing illegal firearms.

“Maung Kown, Maung Nyein and Joseph were sentenced to death. They were convicted under Section 302 (1) (b) of the Penal Code for murder,” said a source close to the court who did not want to be named for safety reasons.

As of July 9, 117 people were facing trial and 140 had been sentenced to prison by the military council in Shan state and Kayah State, according to the PKPF.

There are 70 people facing trial at Taung Lay Lone prison, and 20 have been sentenced.

A total of 47 people are being held in Loikaw prison in Kayah state and 115 others are serving their sentences, the statement said. Five of the convicts have been transferred to Mandalay Obo Prison.

Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered on Thursday. Opponents of the military junta who were arrested in prison across the country have been sentenced to long prison terms following the military coup on Feb. 1 last year.

According to military council data 114 people were sentenced to death by various military tribunals in Yangon between February 1, 2021 and May 19, 2022. A total of 78 people were sentenced to between seven years and life in prison.

Legal experts have pointed out that the coup council is threatening the public with death sentences and long prison sentences that are disproportionate to their crimes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was ousted by voters Tuesday in a special recall election, after facing well-funded tough-on-crime attacks by the real estate industry. “He made enemies with very, very deep pockets,” says Lara Bazelon, professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and chair of Boudin’s Innocence Commission, who describes the primary challenge as a “perfect storm” to take down Boudin. Bazelon also discusses the mayoral race in Los Angeles, where billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso and Congressmember Karen Bass will head to a runoff in November after placing first and second in Tuesday’s primary. She says the two candidates will be competing for the Latinx voting bloc, which could ultimately determine the outcome of the election.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“At first I thought it was just a case of someone using old letterhead, but as I was digging deeper I found more and more things that hinted the companies are still connected.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Sam Biddle.

The post Ousted Pakistani Leader, Imran Khan, Was Challenging Investment Treaties That Give Corporations Excessive Power appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Manuel Perez-Rocha.