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ژوئن 24, 2022

Myanmar’s Suu Kyi moved to solitary confinement in jail: Military

Myanmar military authorities have transferred deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a prison in the capital from an undisclosed location where she had been held since she and her government were ousted in a coup last year, a military spokesman said.
The Nobel laureate, who turned 77 on Sunday, had been moved to the jail in Naypyitaw on Wednesday after court rulings against her, military spokesman Zaw Min Tun said.
“She was transferred to prison under the law and is being kept in solitary confinement,” he said in a statement.
Suu Kyi has been charged with about 20 criminal offences carrying a combined maximum jail term of nearly 190 years since she was toppled by the military in February 2021, including multiple counts of corruption. She denies all charges.
The پروکسی’s Burmese-language service cited sources as saying Suu Kyi was being held in a separate building inside the prison in Naypyitaw.
A source familiar with her cases told Reuters on Wednesday that all legal proceedings against Suu Kyi would be moved to a courtroom in the jail.
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing had previously allowed Suu Kyi to remain in detention at an undisclosed location, despite convictions for incitement and several minor offences.
Reuters could not reach Suu Kyi or her representatives for comment. Her lawyers have been barred from speaking about her cases. A spokesperson for the junta did not respond to requests for additional comment.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s independence hero, was first put under house arrest in 1989 after huge protests against decades of military rule. In 1991, she won the Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for democracy but was only fully released from house arrest in 2010.
She swept a 2015 election, held as part of tentative military reforms that were brought to a halt by last year’s coup.
Western countries have called the charges against Suu Kyi and her convictions a sham and demanded her release. The military says she is being given due process by an independent judiciary.
TRIAL IN PRISON
Myanmar Witness, a non-governmental group that documents human rights, issued satellite imagery of what it said were recently constructed buildings next to the main prison compound in Naypyitaw.
The Mizzima news portal also showed a photograph of a one-storey building in the jail that it said was being used in connection with Suu Kyi.
Reuters could not independently confirm whether any of the buildings were being used for the trial or to house Suu Kyi or other detained members of her National League for Democracy party.
Australian economist Sean Turnell, previously an adviser to Suu Kyi, who has been charged with violating a state secrets law, had also been moved to the Naypyitaw jail, media reports said. Suu Kyi also faces charges over breaches of the secrets law.
Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, in a statement on June 10, said Canberra rejected the court decision to prosecute Turnell.
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U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia cited sources saying the trial of Suu Kyi and Turnell started on Thursday in the jail.
Authorities had reinforced prison fences and tightened security since Suu Kyi had been moved there, RFA reported.
Suu Kyi had not been allowed to bring the household staff who had accompanied up during her detention and had decided not to bring her dog, Taekido, پروکسی Burmese reported.
Suu Kyi’s court proceedings have taken place behind closed doors with only limited information reported by state media.
It is not clear how much Suu Kyi knows of the crisis in her country, which has been in chaos since the coup, with the military struggling to consolidate power and facing increasing opposition from insurgents.

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ژوئن 9, 2022

Why more European firms are choosing Vietnam over China

Vietnam was one of the few Asian countries that did not experience an economic contraction during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021. This year, Vietnam’s GDP is expected to grow by around 5.5%, according to the World Bank.
Vietnam’s economic performance during and after the pandemic has captured the attention of some major European firms.
German automotive supplier Brose, which has 11 factories in China, is currently deciding between Thailand and Vietnam for a new production location.
In December, Denmark’s Lego announced it will build a $1 billion (€935 million) factory near the southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City, one of the largest European investment projects in Vietnam to date.Best of Express PremiumPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium
“It currently looks as if, in particular, medium-sized companies are increasingly striving to enter the Vietnam market or are putting their activities out of China on a broader basis,” said Daniel Müller, manager at the German Asia-Pacific Business Association.
Why are companies leaving?
European firms are looking for alternatives to China for several reasons. In recent years, Chinese wages have risen, making China less attractive to low-cost manufacturers.
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Average annual wages in China rose from around €5,120 ($5,400) in 2010 to €13,670 in 2020, according to Moody’s Analytics.
On the geopolitical front, China’s relationship with European governments deteriorated in 2021 when the EU imposed sanctions against China for its treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region.
Beijing then issued its own sanctions on EU officials and a previously agreed investment pact was put on ice.
In 2022, Beijing’s ongoing “zero-COVID” policy has thrown global supply chains into disarray as production sits still in locked-down cities. This has also shaken the confidence of EU firms in China as a reliable production site.
Shanghai has only just recently re-opened after months of intense lockdowns, while parts of Beijing, the capital, have also been closed for months.
All of this has dented the economy and warnings have been raised that China could fall well below its GDP growth targets this year.
In the first three months of 2022, China”s GDP grew by 4.8%, below the official annual target of 5.5%, according to the World Bank.
“Even prior to the pandemic, we have already seen businesses, particularly those in the labor-intensive manufacturing segment, starting to relocate out of mainland China to other lower-cost countries in the region, including Vietnam,” Raphael Mok, head of Asia Country Risk at Fitch Solutions, told DW.
At the same time, Vietnam has become a more attractive destination for investors, he added.
Salaries are lower than in China and Vietnam has a fast-growing middle class. The Communist government is also investing heavily in infrastructure.
The EU and Vietnam ratified a free-trade agreement in 2020, which included an investment pact, the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA). Bilateral trade rose to €49 billion in 2021, up from €20.8 billion in 2012, the year talks began over the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).
A report by Germany Trade & Invest, a research and advisory platform, points out that these pacts also give European firms easier access to public procurements in Vietnam. This includes public-private partnership projects, a favorite of the local authorities. Under the EVIPA, maximum foreign shareholding in commercial banks increased from 30% to 49%.
Why China is still essential
“Whether Vietnam will ‘replace’ China as a manufacturing option remains to be seen,” said Matthijs van den Broek, of the Dutch Business Association Vietnam (DBAV). “But as an extended or additional investment location, in addition to China, or as part of a wider China-plus-One strategy, is definitely gaining ground,” he told DW.
“China is too big and too advanced to not make any part of an Asian strategy,” van den Broek added. “Vietnam is not yet on par with China as far as education level, skilled labor and infrastructure, and logistics are concerned.”
Muller, of the German Asia-Pacific Business Association, noted that European decoupling from China depends largely on where the business is located.
German companies, for instance, are much more reliant on the Chinese market than most other European countries. German exports to China were worth €99 billion in 2020, compared with €19 billion for France, according to OEC data.
“It is still unclear whether German companies, especially the large corporations, will significantly reduce their activities in China,” Muller said. “This would be a prerequisite for countries like Vietnam to be able to count on large-scale new investments.”
It will also be dependent on the types of industry in question. In the long-term, businesses in higher value-add manufacturing, such as advanced engineering and smart appliances, will still consider mainland China as a production hub due to its supply chains, said Mok.
But lower-margin manufacturing, which requires a low-cost and less sophisticated ecosystem, “will likely continue to shift out of the country to keep production costs low,” he added.
According to Muller, if there is a further intensification of geopolitical tensions in the future, “companies will not be able to avoid looking for alternatives to China. Vietnam, he added, “will play a key role in this.”

ژوئن 2, 2022

John Hinckley to get full freedom 41 years after shooting Ronald Reagan

A federal judge gave his final blessing Wednesday to full freedom for John Hinckley, the man who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981, capping a four-decade journey through the court system for the once mentally ill Hinckley.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman said in September that he would free Hinckley from all remaining restrictions on June 15 as long as Hinckley continued to do well living in the community in Virginia as he has for years. At a hearing Wednesday in Washington which Hinckley did not attend, Friedman noted Hinckley has continued to do well, and the judge made no changes to his plans for full freedom from court oversight.
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“He’s been scrutinized. He’s passed every test. He’s no longer a danger to himself or others,” Friedman said at a hearing that lasted about an hour. Friedman devoted much of the hearing to talking about the “long road” of the case, which he was randomly assigned two decades ago, the third judge to be involved in the case.Best of Express PremiumPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium
He noted that Hinckley, who turned 67 on Sunday, was profoundly troubled when he shot Reagan but that he had been able to get mental health help. Hinckley has shown no signs of active mental illness since the mid-1980s, the judge noted Wednesday, and has exhibited no violent behavior or interest in weapons.
Hinckley was confined to a mental hospital in Washington for more than two decades after a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity in shooting Reagan. Starting in 2003 Friedman began allowing Hinckley to spend longer and longer stretches in the community with requirements like attending therapy and restrictions on where he can travel. He’s been living full-time in Virginia since 2016, though still under restrictions.
Some of those include: allowing officials access to his electronic devices, email and online accounts; being barred from traveling to places where he knows there will be someone protected by the Secret Service, and giving three days’ notice if he wants to travel more than 75 miles (120 kilometers) from his home in Virginia.
Prosecutors had previously opposed ending restrictions, but they changed their position last year, saying they would agree to Hinckley’s release from conditions if he continued to show mental stability and follow restrictions.

Prosecutor Kacie Weston said in court Wednesday that the government believes the case “has demonstrated the success that can come from a wraparound mental health system. “She noted Hinckley has expressed a desire to continue receiving mental health services even after he is no longer required to do so, and said the government wishes “him success for both his sake as well as the safety of the community.” Hinckley’s longtime lawyer, Barry Levine, said the case had “started with a troubled young man who inflicted great harm” and but that, in the end: “I think we have salvaged a life.” “John worked hard. He wanted to correct something that he was unable to erase, and this is the best outcome that one could imagine,” Levine said after the hearing, adding that “His regrets will always be with him with respect to the families of those he injured.” Levine said his client hopes to pursue a career in music and has “real talent.” In July, Hinckley _ who plays guitar and sings and has shared his music on a YouTube channel _ plans to give a concert in Brooklyn, New York. Appearances in Connecticut and Chicago for what he has called the “John Hinckley Redemption Tour” have been canceled.
Reagan recovered from the March 30, 1981, shooting, but his press secretary, James Brady, who died in 2014, was partially paralyzed as a result. Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty were also wounded. Reagan died in 2004.
In the 2000s, Hinckley began, with the judge’s approval, making visits to his parents’ home in Williamsburg, Virginia. His father died in 2008, but in 2016 he was given permission to live with his mother full time. Still, he was required to attend individual and group therapy sessions, was barred from talking to the media and could only travel within a limited area. Secret Service would also periodically follow him.
Hinckley’s mother died in 2021. He has since moved out of her home. In recent years, Hinckley has made money by selling items at an antique mall and by selling books online.
Hinckley has said on his YouTube channel that he has started a record label, Emporia Records, and that his first release will be a 14-song CD of his music. He also promotes his music on Twitter.

آوریل 13, 2022

Explained: Ruins of Mariupol port could become Russia’s first big prize in Ukraine

The Sea of Azov port of Mariupol, reduced to a wasteland by seven weeks of siege and bombardment that Ukraine says killed tens of thousands of civilians, could become the first big city captured by Russia since its invasion.
Russia said on Wednesday more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines, among the last defenders holed up in the Azovstal industrial district, had surrendered, though Ukraine did not confirm that.
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Here is why the city’s capture would be important.
STRATEGIC LOCATION
Mariupol, home to more than 400,000 people before the war, is the biggest Ukrainian city on the Sea of Azov and the main port serving the industries and agriculture of eastern Ukraine. It is also the site of some of Ukraine’s biggest metals plants.
On the eve of the war, it was the biggest city still held by Ukrainian authorities in the two eastern provinces known as the Donbas, which Moscow has demanded Ukraine cede to pro-Russian separatists.

Its capture would give Russia full control of the Sea of Azov coast, and a secure overland bridge linking mainland Russia and pro-Russian separatist territory in the east with the Crimea peninsula that Moscow seized and annexed in 2014.
It would unite Russian forces on two of the main axes of the invasion, and free them up to join an expected new offensive against the main Ukrainian force in the east.
Prominent among the Ukrainian forces that have defended Mariupol is the Azov Regiment, a militia with far right origins incorporated into Ukraine’s national guard. Russia has portrayed destroying that group as one of its main war aims.
HUMANITARIAN IMPACT
The siege of Mariupol has been the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the conflict, described by Kyiv as a war crime. Ukrainian officials say at least 20,000 civilians were killed there by Russian forces employing tactics of mass destruction used in earlier campaigns in Syria and Chechnya.
International organisations such as the Red Cross and the United Nations say they believe thousands died but the extent of suffering cannot be assessed yet because the city has been cut off.
Ukrainian officials have said around a third of the population escaped before the siege, a similar number got out during it, while around 160,000 were trapped inside. They sheltered for weeks in cellars with no power or heat, or access to outside shipments of food, water or medicine.

Daily attempts to send convoys to bring in aid and evacuate civilians failed throughout the siege, with Ukraine blaming Russia for looting shipments and refusing to let buses pass through the blockade. Moscow said Ukraine was to blame for failing to observe ceasefires.
Bodies have been buried in mass graves or makeshift graves in gardens. Ukraine says Russia has brought in mobile crematorium trucks to burn bodies and destroy evidence of killings.
Among the major incidents that drew international outcry was the bombing of a maternity hospital on March 9, when wounded pregnant women were photographed being carried out of rubble. A week later, the city’s main drama theatre was destroyed. Ukraine says hundreds of people were sheltering in its basement, and it has not been able to determine how many were killed. The word “children” had been spelled out on the street in front of the building, visible from space.
Russia denies targeting civilians in Mariupol and has said, without presenting evidence, that incidents including the theatre bombing and maternity hospital attack were staged. Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss this as a smear to deflect blame.
Ukraine says Russia forcibly deported thousands of Mariupol residents to Russia, including some unaccompanied children it views as having been kidnapped. Moscow denies this and says it has taken in refugees.
WHAT NEXT?
Western countries believe Russia’s initial war aim was to quickly topple the government in Kyiv, but Moscow has had to abandon that goal after armoured columns bearing down on the capital were repelled. Russia withdrew from northern Ukraine at the start of April and has said its focus is now on the areas claimed by the separatists in the east.

In recent days, a new Russian column has been moving into eastern Ukraine near the town of Izyum to the north of the Donbas. The fall of Mariupol could free up Russian troops in the south of the Donbas to mount an assault on Ukrainian forces from two directions.
Claiming its first big prize in eastern Ukraine could also give Russia a stronger position to negotiate at any peace talks.

آوریل 7, 2022

Explained: Who are Vladimir Putin’s daughters facing US sanctions over Ukraine war?

The United States and its allies have imposed sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two daughters as the West looks to penalise Moscow for the killing of Ukrainian civilians.
Justifying the decision, a US official said: “We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them.”
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The European Union is also expected to follow suit as it discusses imposition of fresh sanctions against Russia among its 27 members. The EU sanctions, expected to take effect by Friday, would entail a freeze of any assets held in the bloc and a ban on traveling to member countries.
The moves come after reports of alleged atrocities that Ukrainian officials say were committed by Russian troops. Moscow has, however, denied any responsibility.

As the spotlight now shines upon a family shrouded in secrecy for years, we take a look at who Putin’s daughters are.
The family
Putin has two children, Maria and Katerina, from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina, a former Aeroflot steward whom he divorced in 2013, becoming the first Russian leader to divorce since Peter the Great in 1698. According to the Kremlin’s website, Putin and his wife had Maria before leaving for Germany in 1985, where he was based as a KGB officer. Katerina was born in 1986 in the German city of Dresden.
They were named after their maternal and paternal grandmothers — Maria Ivanovna Putina and Katerina Tikhonovna Shkrebneva, according to the Kremlin biography. “According to their mother, Lyudmila, Putin loves his daughters very much,” the biography said. Putin “always spoiled them, and I had to educate them,” she is cited as saying.

Putin, who has very rarely spoken publicly about his children, responded to questions at his annual press conference in 2015, saying his daughters had not fled the country, as had been speculated.
“They live in Russia. They have never been educated anywhere except Russia. I am proud of them; they continue to study and are working,” he had said. “My daughters speak three European languages fluently. I never discuss my family with anyone. They have never been ‘star’ children, they have never got pleasure from the spotlight being directed on them. They just live their own lives.”
Putin had also added that his daughters were “taking the first steps in their careers”, and were “not involved in business or politics”. However, both daughters have since launched business ventures.

The two have been kept so far from the public view that even the Kremlin has only ever identified them by their first names.
Katerina, who uses the surname of her maternal grandmother, studied at St Petersburg State University and Moscow State University and has a master’s degree in physics and mathematics. The more famous of the two daughters, Katerina, in 2013, came fifth in the world dancing championships in Switzerland. It was footage from her dance competitions that helped people identify her as Putin’s daughter.
Married to Kirill Shamalov, the younger son of Nikolai Shamalov, a close confidant of Putin and co-owner of Rossiya Bank, the two, according to an investigation by the Reuters in 2015, have corporate holdings worth more than $2 billion, as well as a luxury £4m beachfront villa in the French resort of Biarritz. Krill is already facing sanctions by the United Kingdom.
According to the Reuters report, Katerina, now, is the deputy director of the Institute for Mathematical Research of Complex Systems at Moscow State University. A Guardian report states that she also heads the $1.7 billion “artificial intelligence issues and intellectual systems” institute at the university.
Putin’s elder daughter Maria Vorontsova, 36, is a paediatric endocrinologist, studying the effects of hormones on the body. She co-wrote a book on stunted growth in children, and is listed as a researcher at the Endocrinology Research Centre in Moscow. She’s also a businesswoman with پراکسی Russia identifying her as co-owner of a company planning to build a massive medical centre.

In 2013, Maria married Russian-born Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen, and the couple lived in the penthouse of an exclusive Amsterdam apartment building. In 2014, some Dutch neighbours called for her to be expelled from the country after the downing of MH17 by pro-Russian forces over Ukraine.
Recently a group from Amsterdam had appealed to Maria to plead with her father to end the invasion of Ukraine. A sign placed on land owned by the couple read: “Less than 2,000km from your peaceful piece of free land, your father is decimating an entire free country and its people. It seems your old man is hard to reach and clearly impossible to stop by even his hangmen. But as we all know, fathers and daughters are a different story.”
Why the secrecy?
Putin’s two daughters have kept such a low profile that even the Russians do not know what they look like.
During a press conference in 2019, Putin declined to directly answer a question about his daughters’ growing business clout and their ties to the government. He referred to Maria and Katerina as “women”, never acknowledging them as his children. “I am proud of them. They continue to study and they work,” Putin had said. “They are not involved in any business activity and they are not involved in politics. They are not trying to push their way anywhere,” he added.

Opening up about his family a bit, Putin, in an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS, had acknowledged that he enjoys communicating with his grandchildren but doesn’t like to be open about his family for security reasons. “I have grandchildren, I am happy. They are very good, sweet, like that,” Putin told TASS. “I get great pleasure from communicating with them.”
What brought the spotlight upon them?
Maria and Katerina, who have been off the radar for most of their lives, had the spotlight on themselves after their names featured on America’s new list of sanctions.
“We have reason to believe that Putin, and many of his cronies, and the oligarchs, hide their wealth, hide their assets, with family members that place their assets and their wealth in the U.S. financial system, and also many other parts of the world,” a senior US administration official told reporters, according to news agency Reuters.

“We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The sanctions’ list also includes the daughter and wife of Russian foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov. The US also banned Americans from investing in Russia, and targeted Russian financial institutions and Kremlin officials, in response to what President Joe Biden condemned as Russian “atrocities” in Ukraine.