LONDON: Britain on Thursday condemned “bullying” by the Myanmar junta after the country’s ambassador to London was ousted in an extraordinary diplomatic coup after calling for the release of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Diplomats loyal to the Myanmar military authorities seized control of the embassy on Wednesday, leaving ambassador Kyaw Zwar Minn locked out in the street.
The ambassador said the defense attache had taken over the mission in “a kind of coup,” two months after the military seized power in Myanmar.
Daily protests demanding a return of democracy have rocked the country and brought a brutal response from the armed forces, with almost 600 civilians killed according to a local monitoring group.
The coup prompted several high-profile diplomatic defections, including the country’s ambassador to the United Nations.
The junta recalled Kyaw Zwar Minn last month after he issued a statement urging them to release Suu Kyi and deposed civilian President Win Myint.
British foreign minister Dominic Raab tweeted his support for the ambassador.
“We condemn the bullying actions of the Myanmar military regime in London yesterday, and I pay tribute to Kyaw Zwar Minn for his courage,” Raab wrote.
“The UK continues to call for an end to the coup and the appalling violence, and a swift restoration of democracy.”
Protesters gathered outside the mission on Wednesday evening with the ousted ambassador, who told the Daily Telegraph that “when I left the embassy, they stormed inside the embassy and took it.”
“They said they received instruction from the capital, so they are not going to let me in,” he added, calling on the British government to intervene.
Asked who had taken over, he replied: “Defense attache, they occupy my embassy.”
According to The Times newspaper, the ambassador said the defense attache had sought to install his former deputy, as charge d’affaires.
AFP has tried to contact Myanmar’s military authorities for comment on the incident, but has not yet received a response.
Myanmar’s security forces have struggled to quell protests and a civil disobedience movement aimed at stopping the military from running the country.
They have used rubber bullets and live rounds to break up rallies and used night raids to arrest suspected dissidents.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) says at least 598 civilians have been killed and nearly 2,900 detained.
AAPP said that 12 people were killed on Wednesday alone.
As part of its efforts to suppress the movement, the junta has issued a wanted notice for some 120 celebrities accused of fanning the protests by lending their support.
On Thursday, the military arrested leading actor, model and heartthrob Paing Takhon in a dawn raid at his mother’s home in Yangon.
The 24-year-old – a star in both Myanmar and neighboring Thailand – has been active in the protest movement both in person at rallies and through his massive social media following.
In February, he posted pictures of himself in a white tracksuit with a megaphone, hard hat and a white fluffy dog strapped to his chest at a protest.
International powers have voiced anger and dismay at the junta’s brutal approach, but the UN Security Council has stopped short of considering sanctions, with both China and Russia against the move.
A group representing the ousted civilian government on Wednesday began talks with UN investigators, saying it had gathered more than 270,000 pieces of evidence showing rights abuses by the junta.
A lawyer for the Committee for Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) – a group of MPs from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party – met the investigators to discuss alleged atrocities.
The CRPH says it has evidence of more than 540 extrajudicial executions and 10 deaths of prisoners in custody as well as torture and illegal detentions.
The military has defended seizing power, pointing to allegations of voting fraud in the November election which Suu Kyi’s party won comfortably, and says it is responding proportionately to the demonstrations.
Junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing accused the protesters of wanting to “destroy the country” and said only 248 protesters had been killed, along with 16 police officers.
Britain slams ‘bullying’ as Myanmar envoy locked out of London embassy
Britain slams ‘bullying’ as Myanmar envoy locked out of London embassy
- Diplomats loyal to the Myanmar military authorities seized control of the embassy on Wednesday
- Ambassador Kyaw Zwar Minn says defense attache had taken over the mission in ‘a kind of coup’
Pakistan ex-PM Khan, wife appeal graft convictions: lawyer
- Imran Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month
- A special graft court found the pair guilty of ‘corruption and corrupt practices’
Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month in the latest case to be brought against them.
“We have filed appeals today and in the next few days it will go through clerical processes and then it will be fixed for a hearing,” Khan’s lawyer Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry said.
The papers were filed at the Islamabad High Court.
A special graft court found the pair guilty of “corruption and corrupt practices” over a welfare foundation they established together called the Al-Qadir Trust.
Khan, 72, has been held in custody since August 2023 charged in around 200 cases which he claims are politically motivated.
Kremlin says it has yet to hear from US about a possible Putin-Trump meeting
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it appeared a “certain amount of time” was needed before a meeting between the two leaders could take place. He said Russia understood that Washington was still interested in organizing such a meeting.
Putin said on Friday that he and Trump should meet to talk about the Ukraine war and energy prices, issues that the US president has highlighted in the first days of his new administration.
India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political ally has pledged to rid the capital of “illegal’ immigrants if his party wins looming elections, in a forceful appeal to his party’s Hindu constituency.
Interior minister Amit Shah said every unlawful migrant from neighboring Bangladesh would be expelled from New Delhi “within two years” if his party succeeded in next month’s provincial polls.
“The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas,” Shah told an audience of several thousand at Sunday’s rally.
“Change the government and we will rid Delhi of all illegals.”
India shares a porous border stretching thousands of kilometers with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and illegal migration from its eastern neighbor has been a hot-button political issue for decades.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Delhi, a city to which millions have flocked in search of employment from elsewhere in India over recent decades.
Critics of Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuse the party of using the issue as a dog whistle against Muslims to galvanize its Hindu-nationalist support base during elections.
Delhi, a sprawling megacity home to more than 30 million people, has been governed for most of the past decade by charismatic chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Kejriwal rode to power as an anti-corruption crusader a decade ago and his profile has bestowed upon him the mantle of one of the chief rivals to Modi and Shah’s party.
His popularity has been burnished by extensive water and electricity subsidies for the capital’s millions of poorer residents.
But he spent several months behind bars last year on accusations his party took kickbacks in exchange for liquor licenses, along with several fellow party leaders.
Kejriwal denies wrongdoing and characterised the charges as a political witch-hunt by Modi’s government, and despite resigning as chief minister last year vowed to return to the office if his party won re-election.
The BJP has led a spirited campaign in its efforts to dislodge Kejriwal’s party ahead of the February 5 vote.
Modi is expected to make a pilgrimage to the ongoing Kumbh Mela, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar, to bathe in the sacred Ganges river on the day of the Delhi assembly vote.
Results of the election will be published on February 8.
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges action against ‘evil’ on Auschwitz anniversary
- The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
- Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker
KYIV : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said the world must unite against evil, in comments marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death.
The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 claiming that the government in Kyiv contained neo-Nazi elements and saying the country must be demilitarized.
Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker and said some countries are still trying to destroy entire nations.
“We must overcome the hatred that gives rise to abuse and murder. We must prevent forgetfulness,” he said, according to a statement from the presidency.
“And it is everyone’s mission to do everything possible to prevent evil from winning,” he added.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that Russia’s invasion “brought back to Ukrainian soil horrors that Europe has not seen since World War II.”
“Jewish communities of Ukraine are also suffering from constant Russian terror, in particular in the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, which have a population of over a million, and other localities,” it added.
The Holocaust decimated the Jewish community in Ukraine, which during World War II was part of the Soviet Union.
It was not the first massacre of Jewish people in Ukraine’s history, which had seen previous anti-Semitic pogroms.
Russia drone barrage sparks fire in western Ukraine
KYIV: A barrage of more than 100 Russian drones sparked a fire at an industrial facility in western Ukraine and damaged residential buildings in other regions, Ukrainian officials said Monday.
The Ukrainian airforce said Moscow had dispatched 104 drones, including attack drones, and that 57 of the unmanned aerial vehicles had been shot down.
Emergency services in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region said the strikes had resulted in two fires at an industrial facility, and that firefighters were working to extinguish one.
They did not specify the type of facility hit but said there were no casualties.
The airforce said there was damage in four Ukrainian regions including Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard drones flying overhead and air defense systems countering the attack.
