Payments to Suu Kyi claimed as Myanmar junta raises pressure
MANDALAY, Myanmar — A Myanmar construction magnate with links to military rulers said he personally gave more than half a million dollars in cash to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a broadcast on state television aimed at discrediting the ousted civilian government.
The statement by Maung Waik could pave the way for more serious charges against Suu Kyi, who has been detained since the Feb. 1 military takeover while security forces increasingly use lethal force against a popular uprising demanding the restoration of democratically elected leaders.
The military has already tried to implicate Suu Kyi in corruption, alleging she was given $600,000 plus gold bars by a political ally. She and President Win Myint have been charged so far with inciting unrest, possession of walkie-talkies and violating a pandemic order limiting public gatherings.
In the latest salvo of allegations, Maung Waik, who has previously been convicted of drug trafficking, told state TV on Wednesday night that he gave cash to government ministers to help his businesses. He said the money included $100,000 given to Suu Kyi in 2018 for a charitable foundation named after her mother, $150,000 in 2019 for which he did not specify a reason, $50,000 in February 2020 and $250,000 in April, again with no purpose specified.
The country’s Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating the allegations and vowed to take action against Suu Kyi under the Anti-Corruption Law, the staterun newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, a court has issued an arrest warrant for the country’s U.N. ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, on charges of treason, the newspaper reported.
Juror picked in Chauvin trial:
Attorneys at the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death moved closer to seating a jury Thursday, choosing a 10th juror hours after clashing over how much the panel should hear of Floyd’s own actions.
The latest juror, a white woman in her 50s, is a registered nurse. She was added after reassuring lawyers and the judge that she could refrain from using her own medical knowledge to add to evidence presented in court at Derek Chauvin’s trial.
Earlier, prosecutor Jerry Blackwell argued that a forensic psychiatrist should be allowed to testify how Floyd’s behavior as officers attempted to put him into the squad car was consistent with any reasonable person’s anxiety or panic during a traumatic event. Officers who confronted Floyd after he allegedly tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store pointed a gun at him, and he struggled and told them he had claustrophobia as they tried to force him into the car.
Prosecutors want to show that Floyd might have been unable to comply with the officers’ orders and wasn’t actually resisting arrest — something Blackwell said he was certain that Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson intended to do.
“The defense is doing a full-on trial of George Floyd, who is not on trial, but that is what they’re doing,” said Blackwell, adding that the defense also planned to make arguments about Floyd’s drug use.
Nelson said that if the prosecution gets to present that evidence to the jury, the defense should be able to tell the jury about Floyd’s drug arrest a year earlier, when he did not resist getting put into a squad car.
Trail of damage: Storms that left splintered homes and broken trees across Alabama and Mississippi moved into Georgia and Florida on Thursday, rousing residents with early morning warnings as forecasters said the threat of dangerous weather would move up the south Atlantic
seaboard.
The National Weather Service said at least two people were hurt when an apparent tornado struck southwest Alabama, destroying a house. Pieces of homes and twisted metal lay amid broken trees in the hardest-hit areas, but no one died and the region appeared to escape the kind of horrific toll many feared after ominous predictions of monster twisters and huge hail.
“Overall, we have a lot to be grateful for, as it could have been much worse,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.
Ethiopia crisis: President Joe Biden is dispatching Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., to Ethiopia to meet with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to express the administration’s “grave concerns” about the growing humanitarian crisis and human rights abuses in the Tigray region and the risk of broader instability in the Horn of Africa.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement Thursday that Coons will also discuss the situation with African Union leaders.
Coons, a longtime ally of Biden’s, heads to Ethiopia as a long-running conflict in the Tigray region intensifies and the Biden administration steps up pressure on Abiy to withdraw troops from the northern
region amid growing reports of war crimes.
Germany church abuse: A report commissioned by Germany’s Cologne Archdiocese on church officials’ handling of past cases of sexual abuse found 75 cases in which high-ranking officials neglected their duties.
The findings on Thursday prompted the archbishop of Hamburg to offer his resignation to Pope Francis.
The report commissioned by
Cologne’s archbishop, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, absolved Woelki himself of any neglect of duty with respect to abuse victims.
However, Woelki’s late predecessor, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, was accused of two dozen instances of wrongdoing such as failing to follow up on or report cases of abuse, not sanctioning perpetrators or not caring for victims.
Meisner retired in 2014 and died in 2017.