VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has offered to give refuge on Vatican territory to Myanmar's detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Italian media said on Tuesday.
"I asked for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and I met her son in Rome. I have proposed to the Vatican to give her shelter on our territory," the pope said according to an account of meetings with Jesuits in Asia during his trip there earlier this month.
The Corriere della Sera daily published an article by Italian priest Antonio Spadaro giving extracts from these private meetings, which took place in Indonesia, East Timor and Singapore between September 2 and 13.
"We cannot stay silent about the situation in Myanmar today. We must do something," the pope is reported as saying.
"The future of your country should be one of peace based on respect for the dignity and rights of everyone and respect for a democratic system that enables everyone to contribute to the common good."
Suu Kyi, 78, is serving a 27-year prison sentence on charges ranging from corruption to not respecting Covid pandemic restrictions.
In 2015, her National League for Democracy won Myanmar's first democratic election in 25 years.
She was arrested by the military when it staged a coup in 2021 and is said by local media to be suffering health problems in detention.
The 1991 Nobel Peace laureate was once hailed as a beacon for human rights.
But she fell from grace among international supporters in 2017, accused of doing nothing to stop the army persecuting the country's mainly Muslim Rohingya minority.
The crackdown is the subject of an ongoing United Nations genocide investigation and persecution continues, according to Rohingya refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Mainly Buddhist Myanmar has been in turmoil since the 2021 coup, with the junta fighting both establish ethnic rebel groups and newer pro-democracy forces.
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Pope offers refuge to Myanmar's jailed Suu Kyi
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Pope offers refuge to Myanmar's jailed Suu Kyi
- Suu Kyi, 78, is serving a 27-year prison sentence on charges ranging from corruption to not respecting Covid pandemic restrictions
Russia sends ‘hundreds’ of missiles, drones at Ukraine
Russia pounded Ukraine with drones and ballistic missiles overnight on Thursday, targeting energy systems and injuring at least seven people in the capital Kyiv, and the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, officials said.
“Hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles targeted energy systems, depriving people of power, heating, and water,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.
Two people were hurt in a “massive” attack on Kyiv, which also hit various buildings, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Klitschko said on Telegram there had been hits on both residential and non-residential buildings on both sides of the Dnipro River bisecting the city.
Fragments had fallen near two residential buildings in one district, but no fire had broken out.
Reuters witnesses heard explosions resound in the city.
Four people, including a baby boy and a four-year-old girl, were hurt in a missile and drone attack on the southeastern city of Dnipro and surrounding district, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said on Telegram.
One person was hurt in a drone attack on the southern city of Odesa on the Black Sea, which also damaged an infrastructure facility and an apartment building where a fire broke out at an upper floor, head of the city’s military administration, Serhiy Lysak said.
Lysak also said that a fire engulfed pavilions at one of the city’s markets and damaged a supermarket building.
Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said that energy infrastructure was damaged in Odesa district.
’BLOW TO PEACE EFFORTS’
“Each such strike is a blow to peace efforts aimed at ending the war. Russia must be forced to take diplomacy seriously and de-escalate,” Sybiha said.
Ukrainian officials have met Russian officials under US mediation in Abu Dhabi in the latest US push to end the war.
But the talks so far have failed to resolve differences over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, sources say, and Russia has pressed on with attacks often focused on Ukrainian
energy facilities
in the depths of a harsh winter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday the US needed
to put more pressure on Russia
if it wanted the war to end by summer.
“Hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles targeted energy systems, depriving people of power, heating, and water,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.
Two people were hurt in a “massive” attack on Kyiv, which also hit various buildings, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Klitschko said on Telegram there had been hits on both residential and non-residential buildings on both sides of the Dnipro River bisecting the city.
Fragments had fallen near two residential buildings in one district, but no fire had broken out.
Reuters witnesses heard explosions resound in the city.
Four people, including a baby boy and a four-year-old girl, were hurt in a missile and drone attack on the southeastern city of Dnipro and surrounding district, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said on Telegram.
One person was hurt in a drone attack on the southern city of Odesa on the Black Sea, which also damaged an infrastructure facility and an apartment building where a fire broke out at an upper floor, head of the city’s military administration, Serhiy Lysak said.
Lysak also said that a fire engulfed pavilions at one of the city’s markets and damaged a supermarket building.
Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said that energy infrastructure was damaged in Odesa district.
’BLOW TO PEACE EFFORTS’
“Each such strike is a blow to peace efforts aimed at ending the war. Russia must be forced to take diplomacy seriously and de-escalate,” Sybiha said.
Ukrainian officials have met Russian officials under US mediation in Abu Dhabi in the latest US push to end the war.
But the talks so far have failed to resolve differences over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, sources say, and Russia has pressed on with attacks often focused on Ukrainian
energy facilities
in the depths of a harsh winter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday the US needed
to put more pressure on Russia
if it wanted the war to end by summer.
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