Myanmar’s Suu Kyi gets 4 more years in prison, official says
BANGKOK — A court in Myanmar sentenced ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to four more years in prison Monday after finding her guilty of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions, a legal official said.
Suu Kyi was convicted last month on two other charges and given a four-year prison sentence, which was then halved by the head of the military-installed government.
The cases are among about a dozen brought against the Nobel Peace Prize laureate since the army seized power last February, ousting her elected government and arresting top members of her National League for Democracy party.
If found guilty of all the charges, Suuk Kyi, 76, could be sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.
Monday’s verdict in the court in the capital, Naypyitaw, was conveyed by a legal official who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities, who have restricted the release of information about Suu Kyi’s trials.
Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in a 2020 general election, but the military claimed there was widespread electoral fraud, an assertion that independent poll watchers doubt.
She is being held by the military at an unknown location, where state television reported last month she would serve her sentence.
The military-installed government has not allowed any outside party to meet with Suu Kyi since it seized power, despite international pressure for talks including her that could ease the country’s violent political crisis.
The military’s seizure of power was quickly met by nonviolent nationwide demonstrations, which security forces quashed with deadly force, killing over 1,400 civilians, according to a detailed list compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Jan. 6 House panel: Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress, rejected a request for an interview by the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
In a letter to committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., Jordan said, “The American people are tired of Democrats’ nonstop investigations and partisan witch hunts.”
Thompson told Jordan in a letter last month that the panel wants him to provide information surrounding his communications with Trump on Jan. 6 and Trump’s efforts to challenge the result of the 2020 election.
“We understand that you had at least one and possibly multiple communications with President Trump on January 6th,” the letter read. “We would like to discuss each such communication with you in detail.”
In his response Sunday, Jordan insisted, “I have no relevant information that would assist the Select Committee in advancing any legitimate legislative purpose.”
Jordan brought up false claims about voter fraud during an October hearing
how a pilot of a single-engine plane averted death twice Sunday, first when he crash-landed onto railroad tracks, then when police officers rescued him, bottom right, just before a commuter train smashed into the Cessna 172. The plane had engine failure after taking off from Whiteman Airport in the Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles.
on a motion to hold former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena. Jordan admitted that he spoke with Trump on the day of the attack.
The panel is also seeking information regarding Jordan’s meeting with Trump and members of his administration in November and December 2020, and in early January 2021, “about strategies for overturning the results of the 2020 election.”
Pope about vaccines: Pope Francis suggested Monday that getting vaccinated against the coronavirus was a “moral obligation” and denounced how people had been swayed by “baseless information” to refuse one of the most effective
measures to save lives during the pandemic.
Francis, 85, used some of his strongest words yet calling for people to get vaccinated in a speech to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, an annual event in which he sets out the Vatican’s foreign policy goals for the year.
“Vaccines are not a magical means of healing, yet surely they represent, in addition to other treatments that need to be developed, the most reasonable solution for the prevention of the disease,” he said.
Francis and Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI have been fully vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech shots.
Some Catholics have claimed that vaccines based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses were immoral and have refused to get the shots.
Ugandan schools reopen: Uganda’s schools reopened to students Monday, ending the world’s longest school disruption due to the COVID19 pandemic.
The reopening caused traffic congestion in some areas of the capital, Kampala, and students can be seen carrying their mattresses in the streets, a back-to-boarding school phenomenon not witnessed here for nearly two years.
Uganda’s schools have been fully or partially shut for more than 83 weeks, the world’s longest disruption, according to figures from the U.N. cultural agency. The shutdown affected more than 10 million learners.
The East African country of 44 million people first shut down its schools in March 2020, shortly after the first coronavirus case was confirmed on the African
continent. Some classes were reopened to students in February 2021, but a total lockdown was imposed again in June as the country faced its first major surge. Kazakhstan protests: Nearly 8,000 people in Kazakhstan were detained by police during protests that descended into violence last week and marked the worst unrest the former Soviet nation has faced since gaining independence 30 years ago, authorities said Monday.
President KassymJomart Tokayev on Monday described the unrest that followed initially peaceful protests against rising energy prices as a “terrorist aggression” against the mineral-rich Central Asian nation of 19 million and dismissed reports that authorities targeted peaceful demonstrators as “disinformation.”