Suu Kyi’s alma mater removes her portrait
london — The Oxford University college where Aung San Suu Kyi studied said on Saturday it had taken down a portrait of the Myanmar leader, a decision that follows widespread criticism of her over the Rohingya crisis.
The portrait, which was on display in the main entrance of St Hugh’s College, was replaced on Thursday with a new painting gifted by Japanese artist Yoshihiro Takada. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi studied at St Hugh’s, graduating in philosophy, politics and economics in 1967 before completing a masters in politics in 1968.
“We received a new painting earlier this month which will be exhibited at the main entrance for a period,” the college said in a statement. “The painting of Aung San Suu Kyi has, meanwhile, been moved to a secure location.”
The university did not say whether the removal was linked to the ongoing crisis in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State. —
beijing — The United States is probing North Korea to see whether it is interested in dialogue and has multiple direct channels of communication with Pyongyang, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Saturday.
The disclosure came as Tillerson expressed hope for reducing tensions with North Korea, which is fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the US mainland.
Donald Trump has said he will never allow that to happen. “We are probing, so stay tuned,” Tillerson said during a trip to China. “We ask: ‘Would you like to talk?’”
He then said the US had “a couple of, three channels open to Pyongyang.”
“We can talk to them. We do talk to them,” he said, without elaborating.
Tillerson’s remarks followed a day of meetings in Beijing, which has been alarmed by recent exchanges of war-like threats and personal insults between North Korean leder Kim and Trump.
“I think the whole situation’s a bit overheated right now,” Tillerson said. “I think everyone would like for it to calm down.
“Obviously it would help if North Korea would stop firing off missiles. That’d calm things down a lot.”
South Korean officials have voiced concerns that North Korea could conduct more provocative acts near the anniversary of the founding of its communist party on October 10, or possibly when China holds its Communist Party Congress on October 18. US officials including Tillerson say Beijing, after long accounting for some 90 per cent of North Korea’s foreign trade, appears increasingly willing to cut ties to its neighbor’s economy by adopting United Nations sanctions.
But to reach any diplomatic solution, Tillerson would still need to overcome some basic US assumptions about North Korea and China.
The first would be getting Kim to view nuclear weapons as a liability, not a strength. —