YANGON, Myanmar: Voting was underway in Myanmar’s elections on Sunday, with the party of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi heavily favored to retain power it had wrestled from the powerful military five years ago.
More than 90 parties are competing for seats in the lower and upper houses of Parliament, while there are also elections at the state and regional levels.
With the opposition in disarray, Suu Kyi, who is the nation’s leader with the title of state counsellor, remains Myanmar’s most popular politician. But her government has fallen short of expectations, with economic growth doing little to alleviate widespread poverty and a failure to ease tensions among the country’s fractious ethnic groups.
There are more than 37 million people eligible to vote, including 5 million first-timers. Fear of the coronavirus and safety measures put in place to contain it may hurt voter turnout. Traditional campaigning was severely limited by social distancing and quarantines in some areas.
Suu Kyi, 75, cast her ballot late last month in the capital Naypyitaw, as citizens 60 years of age and over were encouraged to vote in advance, as well as those who were forced by the coronavirus to stay away from their home constituencies.
Voters in the country’s biggest city, Yangon, lined up early outside polling stations.
“We need someone to lead our country like we have a leader in our home,” said Susil Chand, who is in the paper-selling business. “Thus, today voting is crucial as a chance to get a good leader for us.”
Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won the last elections in 2015 in a landslide, ending more than five decades of military-directed rule in the country.
Her party’s main challenger, as it was five years ago, is the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, which has led the opposition in Parliament.
The ability of Suu Kyi’s administration to run the country has been hamstrung by a clause in the 2008 army-drafted constitution giving the military 25% of the seats in Parliament, allowing it to block constitutional reforms.
The Election Commission said it would begin to announce results Monday morning. But it may take up to a week to collect all the votes, some of which will come from remote jungle areas.
With little sign of major interest in policy debates, the vote is seen as a referendum on Suu Kyi’s leadership.
“There is no major party really putting an alternative, a credible alternative, forward,” Yangon-based political analyst Richard Horsey said, explaining part of the reason Suu Kyi’s side has a winning hand in Myanmar’s heartland, where its ethnic Burman majority lives.
Even more important for the ruling party’s prospects, he said, is “the personal support, even love, that many people have for Aung San Suu Kyi herself, almost irrespective of how the government administration performs, how the economy performs and so on.”
The love does not extend to the borderlands, the states occupied by the myriad ethnic minorities who have been seeking greater political autonomy for decades.
Suu Kyi’s ambitious plans to reconcile with the minorities have foundered. Their grievances have frequently erupted into armed rebellion, posing major threats to national security.
The ethnic political parties in 2015 had cooperated with Suu Kyi’s party on a constituency by constituency basis to ensure victory against candidates from the Union Solidarity and Development Party.
But this year, the ethnic parties, disappointed with her failure to reach a deal to expand their political rights, will be supporting only their own candidates.
The Election Commission caused major controversy when it canceled voting in some areas where parties critical of the government were certain to win seats. The commission blamed armed insurgency, but critics said the agency was carrying out the NLD’s bidding. More than 1 million people are estimated to have been disenfranchised.
The plight of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority — an issue of concern to foreign friends of the country — played no real role in the campaign. A brutal 2017 counterinsurgency campaign by Myanmar’s army drove about 740,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to Bangladesh, leading to a World Court investigation of possible genocide.
Long-standing prejudice against the Rohingya, whom many consider illegal immigrants from South Asia despite their families having been settled in Myanmar for generations, has deprived most of Myanmar citizenship and basic rights, including voting.
Suu Kyi party set to win Myanmar vote with weak opposition
https://arab.news/w959m
Suu Kyi party set to win Myanmar vote with weak opposition
- More than 90 parties are competing for seats in the lower and upper houses of Parliament
- There are also elections at the state and regional levels
At least 14 killed after billboard collapses in Mumbai during thunderstorm
- Agency owning the billboard did not have a permit to put up the hoarding, which was bigger than an Olympic swimming pool
Videos showed the towering hoarding billowing in the wind before collapsing on houses and a fuel station next to a busy road in the eastern suburb of Ghatkopar on Monday as a dust storm and rain lashed the city in the evening, bringing traffic to a standstill and disrupting flights at Mumbai airport.
Mumbai’s municipal corporation (BMC) said at least 75 injured people were taken to hospitals following the accident and 31 have been discharged.
The agency owning the billboard did not have a permit from the BMC to put up the hoarding, the municipal body said in a statement. The hoarding measured about 1,338 square meters (14,400 square feet), it said, bigger than an Olympic pool’s 1,250 square meters and nine times more than the maximum permitted size for a hoarding.
The BMC said it has instructed the agency to remove all its hoardings immediately.
“To prevent such accidents from happening again, instructions have been given to conduct a structural audit of all hoardings in Mumbai and immediately take down dangerous ones,” Eknath Shinde, the chief minister of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said in a post on X.
About 25 people and some cars were still trapped under the crumpled hoarding, said a BMC official, who did not want to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Officials from fire services, police, disaster response and other authorities continued rescue operations that were taking longer because gas cutters could not be used at the site due to the presence of the fuel pump.
Melinda Gates to leave Gates Foundation
- Nonprofit organization has become one of the most influential in the world
- Melinda to receive $12.5 billion for use on her philanthropic efforts ‘on behalf of women and families’
LOS ANGELES: Philanthropist Melinda French Gates announced Monday she was leaving the nonprofit foundation she established with her ex-husband Bill Gates — an organization that has become one of the most influential in the world.
The announcement from the 59-year-old French Gates comes three years after her divorce from the 68-year-old Microsoft co-founder.
Under the agreement between the former power couple, French Gates — whose resignation will take effect on June 7 — will receive $12.5 billion for use on her philanthropic efforts “on behalf of women and families.”
“After careful thought and reflection, I have decided to resign from my role as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” French Gates wrote in a statement posted on social media.
“This is a critical moment for women and girls in the US and around the world — and those fighting to protect and advance equality are in urgent need of support.”
The announcement comes in an election year in the United States when abortion is expected to play a pivotal role, as Democrats seek to exploit voter dissatisfaction with Republican efforts to restrict access to the procedure.
French Gates has long-standing links to prominent Democratic Party politicians.
“Melinda, this is so exciting,” former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wrote on X.
“Thanks for everything you’ve already done, and I can’t wait to see all you do next. Onward!“
Bill Gates married Melinda French in 1994. The couple have three children together, but announced their divorce in 2021.
They had continued to co-chair the foundation they set up using the vast wealth acquired through the success of Microsoft.
But the break in leadership had always been a possibility.
In July 2021, the Seattle-based foundation announced that while the pair would continue to work together in the aftermath of their marital separation, the arrangement was subject to review.
“If after two years either decides they cannot continue to work together as co-chairs, French Gates will resign her position as co-chair and trustee,” a statement at the time said.
“In such a case, French Gates would receive personal resources from Gates for her philanthropic work. These resources would be completely separate from the foundation’s endowment, which would not be affected.”
With a focus on child poverty and preventable diseases, the foundation has been heavily involved in the fight against malaria and in providing toilets and sanitation in poorer parts of the world.
The foundation’s website says it has spent $53.8 billion since 2000, and claims the number of children around the world who die before their fifth birthday has halved in this time.
Bill Gates on Monday thanked his ex-wife for her “critical contributions” to the organization.
“As a co-founder and co-chair Melinda has been instrumental in shaping our strategies and initiatives, significantly impacting global health and gender equality,” he said.
“I am sorry to see Melinda leave, but I am sure she will have a huge impact in her future philanthropic work.”
The organization’s chief executive, Mark Suzman, said its name would change to simply the Gates Foundation.
“I truly admire Melinda, and the critical role she has played in starting the foundation and in setting our values, she has played an essential role in all that we’ve accomplished over the past 24 years,” he said in a video posted to social media.
“I will miss working with her and learning from her. I look forward to seeing her continued impact.”
Army whistleblower who exposed alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan is sentenced to prison
- Former army lawyer David McBride sentenced to five years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to three charges
- Rights advocates argue that McBride’s conviction and sentencing reflected a lack of whistleblower protections in Australia
MELBOURNE: An Australian judge sentenced a former army lawyer to almost six years in prison on Tuesday for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
David McBride, 60, was sentenced in a court in the capital, Canberra, to five years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to three charges including theft and sharing with members of the press documents classified as secret. He had faced a potential life sentence.
Justice David Mossop ordered McBride to serve 27 months in prison before he can be considered for release on parole.
Rights advocates argue that McBride’s conviction and sentencing before any alleged war criminal he helped expose reflected a lack of whistleblower protections in Australia.
McBride’s lawyer Mark Davis said he planned to file an appeal against the severity of the sentence.
McBride’s documents formed the basis of an Australian Broadcasting Corp. seven-part television series in 2017 that contained war crime allegations including Australian Special Air Service Regiment soldiers killing unarmed Afghan men and children in 2013.
Police raided the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in 2019 in search of evidence of a leak, but decided against charging the two reporters responsible for the investigation.
In sentencing, Mossop said he did not accept McBride’s explanation that he thought a court would vindicate him for acting in the public interest.
McBride’s argument that his suspicions that the higher echelons of the Australian Defense Force were engaged in criminal activity obliged him to disclose classified papers “didn’t reflect reality,” Mossop said.
An Australian military report released in 2020 found evidence that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians. The report recommended 19 current and former soldiers face criminal investigation.
Police are working with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian investigation agency established in 2021, to build cases against elite SAS and Commando Regiments troops who served in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
Former SAS trooper Oliver Schulz last year became the first of these veterans to be charged with a war crime. He is accused of shooting dead a noncombatant man in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012
Also last year, a civil court found Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith had likely unlawfully killed four Afghans. He has not been criminally charged.
Human Rights Watch’s Australia director Daniela Gavshon said McBride’s sentencing was evidence an Australia’s whistleblowing laws needed exemptions in the public interest.
“It is a stain on Australia’s reputation that some of its soldiers have been accused of war crimes in Afghanistan, and yet the first person convicted in relation to these crimes is a whistleblower not the abusers,” Gavshon said in a statement.
“David McBride’s jail sentence reinforces that whistleblowers are not protected by Australian law. It will create a chilling effect on those taking risks to push for transparency and accountability – cornerstones of democracy,” she added.
India inks 10-year deal to operate Iran’s Chabahar port
- India developing port to bypass Pakistan in bid to transport goods to Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia
- Washington says US sanctions on Iran “remain in place,” warns countries they will be imposed
NEW DELHI: India signed a 10-year contract with Iran on Monday to develop and operate the Iranian port of Chabahar, the Narendra Modi-led government said, strengthening relations with a strategic Middle Eastern nation.
India has been developing the port in Chabahar on Iran’s south-eastern coast along the Gulf of Oman as a way to transport goods to Iran, Afghanistan and central Asian countries, bypassing the port of Karachi and Gwadar in its rival Pakistan.
US sanctions on Iran, however, slowed the port’s development.
“Chabahar Port’s significance transcends its role as a mere conduit between India and Iran; it serves as a vital trade artery connecting India with Afghanistan and Central Asian Countries,” India’s Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said in Tehran, after the signing of the agreement.
“This linkage has unlocked new avenues for trade and fortified supply chain resilience across the region.”
US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel, asked about the deal, told reporters that US sanctions on Iran remain in place and warned that Washington will continue to enforce them.
“Any entity, anyone considering business deals with Iran — they need to be aware of the potential risks that they are opening themselves up to and the potential risk of sanctions,” Patel told reporters.
The long-term deal was signed between Indian Ports Global Limited (IPGL) and the Port & Maritime Organization of Iran, authorities in both countries said.
Under the agreement, IPGL will invest about $120 million while there will be an additional $250 million in financing, bringing the contract’s value to $370 million, said Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash.
IPGL first took over operations of the port at the end of 2018 and has since handled container traffic of more than 90,000 TEUs and bulk and general cargo of more than 8.4 million tons, an Indian government official said.
A total of 2.5 million tons of wheat and 2,000 tons of pulses have been shipped from India to Afghanistan through Chabahar Port, the official added.
“It will clear the pathway for bigger investments to be made in the port,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told reporters in Mumbai on Monday.
Blinken in Ukraine on unannounced visit to show US support
- Blinken arrived by overnight train from Poland and was due to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Kyiv: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived Tuesday morning in Kyiv on an unannounced visit meant to reassure Ukrainians of continued US support and flow of weapons as Russia pummels the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Marking his fourth visit to Kyiv since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, Blinken arrived by overnight train from Poland and was due to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to an AFP journalist accompanying him.
The visit comes just weeks after the US Congress finally approved a $61 billion package of financial aid for Ukraine after months of political wrangling, unlocking much-needed arms for the country’s stretched troops.
The aid is expected to flow at an accelerated pace as Washington seeks to make up for lost months while Congress struggled to agree on assistance.
“First this trip is to send a strong signal of reassurance to the Ukrainians who are obviously in a very difficult moment both with grinding battle on the Eastern Front but also with the Russians now expanding some cross-border attacks into Kharkiv,” a senior US official who spoke on condition of anonymity told reporters aboard the train.
The secretary intends in particular to detail how US aid will “be executed in a fashion to help shore up their defenses and enable them to increasingly take back the initiative on the battlefield.”
The last visit by a senior US official was in March, when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan went to Ukraine.
Russia is “clearly throwing everything they have in the east and expanding the fighting to Kharkiv is representative of that strategy,” the official said.
“But we have a lot of confidence that the Ukrainians will increasingly be effective in pushing the Russians back as our assistance flows in both from the United States and other allies and partners.”
In addition to holding talks with Zelensky, Blinken is expected to meet with his counterpart Dmytro Kuleba as well as members of the civil society and additionally deliver a speech focused on “Ukraine’s strategic success.”
Also up for discussion is a bilateral defense agreement that the United States hopes to conclude before the NATO summit in Washington in July.
“The negotiations are in their final stages, we’re very close,” the US official said.
