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anonymous

At Least 91 People Killed In Myanmar As Violence Continues To Escalate : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...violence-continues-to-escalate

shared by anonymous on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Local media in Myanmar say security forces killed at least 91 civilians in 40 towns on Saturday, in what appears to be the deadliest day of protests since the start of the coup last month.
  • The brutal crackdown came as the military marked the annual Armed Forces Day holiday. In a televised speech in the capital, Naypyitaw, coup leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing continued to justify the coup by accusing the government of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi of failing to investigate the military's accusations of voter fraud in the November general election — which saw Suu Kyi's party win in a landslide.
  • Min Aung Hlaing addressed the ongoing protests against the military indirectly — denouncing demonstrations against the coup as "terrorism" that is "harmful to state tranquility." The general promised fresh elections, but did not provide details on when a new vote would be held.
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  • The deaths of 91 protesters on Saturday comes in addition to the 328 killed by the junta since the start of the coup, according to figures released Friday by the activist group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. AAPR notes that around a quarter of those killed died from shots to the head, which the group says raises concerns that demonstrators are being targeted for killing. In addition to the dead, more than 3,000 demonstrators have been arrested, charged or sentenced since the start of the coup, according to AAPR. As violence continues to escalate, so too do fears that armed groups who oppose the military coup are positioning themselves to join the fray.
  • In a statement on Twitter, the U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar, Thomas L. Vajda, denounced what he described as "horrifying" bloodshed and called for "an immediate end to the violence and the restoration of the democratically elected government."
  • The European Union, which earlier this week sanctioned 11 people in relation to the coup, called the killing of unarmed civilians — including children — "indefensible" in a post on Twitter. "This 76th Myanmar armed forces day will stay engraved as a day of terror and dishonour," wrote the bloc's delegation to the country.
  • Other global observers of the crisis, like historian Thant Myint-U, have warned of the international implications if the violence in Myanmar continues to spiral out of control.
anonymous

Myanmar: At least 114 killed in bloodiest day of protests yet - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by anonymous on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • At least 114 civilians were killed across Myanmar on Saturday, according to a tally by the independent Myanmar Now news outlet, as the military junta continued to crack down on peaceful protests.The killings in 44 towns and cities across the country would represent the bloodiest day of protests since a military coup last month.
  • Among those killed is reportedly a 13-year-old girl, who was shot in her house after the junta's armed forces opened fire in residential areas of Meikhtila, in Mandalay region, according to Myanmar Now. She is among 20 minors killed since the start of the protests, Myanmar Now reported.
  • The lethal crackdown came on the country's Armed Forces Day. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, said during a parade in the capital Naypyitaw to mark the event that the military would protect the people and strive for democracy, Reuters reported.State television had said on Friday that protesters risked being shot "in the head and back." Despite this, demonstrators against the February 1 coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns.
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  • The UN office in Myanmar said it "is horrified by the needless loss of life today with reports of dozens of people shot dead by the military across the country, in the bloodiest day since the coup."
  • According to the latest tally by the nonprofit Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 328 people have been killed in Myanmar since the military coup on February 1. Saturday's deaths would bring the total number of civilians killed to more than 400, but the exact number remains unclear. Aid groups fear the number may be higher.
  • A boy reported by local media to be as young as 5 was among at least 29 people killed in Mandalay. At least 24 people were killed in Yangon, Myanmar Now said, according to Reuters.
  • Meanwhile, one of Myanmar's two dozen ethnic armed groups, the Karen National Union, said it had overrun an army post near the Thai border, killing 10 people -- including a lieutenant colonel -- and losing one of its own fighters, Reuters reported.A military spokesman did not respond to calls from the news agency seeking comment on the killings by security forces or the insurgent attack on its post.
  • The US Embassy in Myanmar joined the European Union and United Kingdom embassies in condemning killings by security forces in Myanmar on Saturday and calling for an end to the violence.
  • News reports cited by Reuters said there were deaths in the central Sagaing region, Lashio in the east, in the Bago region, near Yangon, and elsewhere. A 1-year-old baby was hit in the eye with a rubber bullet.In Naypyitaw, Min Aung Hlaing reiterated a promise to hold elections, without giving any time frame, Reuters reported.
  • The military has said it took power because November elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's party were fraudulent, an assertion dismissed by the country's election commission.Suu Kyi, the elected leader and the country's most popular civilian politician, remains in detention at an undisclosed location. Many other figures in her party are also being held in custody.
  • In its warning on Friday evening, state television said protesters were "in danger of getting shot to the head and back." It did not specifically say security forces had been given shoot-to-kill orders, and the junta has previously suggested some fatal shootings have come from within the crowds.
  • Diplomats told Reuters that eight countries -- Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand -- sent representatives, but Russia was the only one to send a minister.
  • Support from Russia and China, which has also refrained from criticism, is important for the junta as those two countries are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and can block potential UN actions.Armed Forces Day commemorates the start of the resistance to Japanese occupation in 1945 that was orchestrated by Suu Kyi's father, the founder of the military.
  • Gunshots hit the US cultural center in Yangon on Saturday, Reuters reported, but nobody was hurt and the incident was being investigated, US Embassy spokesperson Aryani Manring said.Protesters have taken to the streets almost daily since the coup that derailed Myanmar's slow transition to democracy.
  • General Yawd Serk, chair of the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army - South, one of the ethnic armies in the country, told Reuters in neighboring Thailand: "If they continue to shoot at protesters and bully the people, I think all the ethnic groups would not just stand by and do nothing."
aidenborst

Opinion: Michael Flynn is playing with fire - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US politics Trump history crisis Culture policy GOP Michael-Flynn coup

shared by aidenborst on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • It's hard to get a grip on what's happened to one-time war hero, retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn.
  • Flynn, a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, shockingly appeared to support a military coup in the United States during a Sunday keynote address to a Dallas conference organized by supporters of QAnon conspiracy theories.
  • An audience member at the Dallas event asked Flynn: "I want to know why what happened in Minamar (sic) can't happen here?" The audience raucously cheered this question. Flynn replied, "No reason. I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That's right." Again, the audience cheered heartily. Enter email to sign up for the CNN Opinion newsletter. "close dialog"Healing a divided country starts with listening. Sign up for refreshing takes from every perspective. Please enter aboveSign me upBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Thanks for Subscribing!Continue ReadingBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy."close dialog"/* effects for .bx-campaign-1376913 *//* custom css .bx-campaign-1376913 *//* custom css from creative 52220 */.bxc.bx-custom.bx-campaign-1376913 .bx-row-image-logo img { height: 42px;}@media screen and (max-width:736px) { .bxc.bx-custom.bx-campaign-1376913 .bx-row-image-logo img { height: 35px;}}/*Validation border*/.bxc.bx-custom.bx-campaign-1376913 .bx-row-validation .bx-input { border-color: #B50000; /*Specify border color*/ border-width: 1px; box-shadow: none; background-color: transparent; color: #B50000; /*Specify text color*/}/* rendered styles .bx-campaign-1376913 */.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative:before {min-height: 220px;}.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative {border-color: #c1c1c1;border-style: solid;background-size: contain;background-color: white;border-width: 1px 0;border-radius: 0;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative:before {min-height: 200px;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative> *:first-child {width: 780px;vertical-align: middle;padding: 10px;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative> *:first-child {width: 340px;padding: 20px;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913.bx-active-step-1 .bx-close {stroke: rgb(193, 193, 193);stroke-width: 2px;width: 24px;height: 24px;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913.bx-active-step-1 .bx-close {width: 30px;height: 30px;padding: 0 0 10px 10px;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913 .bx-group-1376913-y4M7jyO {width: 660px;text-align: left;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913 .bx-group-1376913-y4M7jyO {text-align: center;width: 315px;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1376913 .bx-element-1376913-tVcUlRZ {padding: 0;width: au
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  • On Monday, Flynn seemed to be trying to dial back, saying on social media that he doesn't support a military coup. Yet Flynn's comments in Dallas Sunday were made on video, which can be seen here by anyone who wants to judge Flynn's response for themselves.
  • Flynn's recent musings about coups, martial law and overturning legitimate presidential elections are all a very long way from the period after 9/11, when he served in the elite Joint Special Operations Command as a highly regarded intelligence officer in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  • Flynn was so well thought of that he was eventually promoted to lieutenant general and to run the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), but Flynn's overseers in the Obama administration thought he was an ineffective manager of DIA, a large agency with 17,000 employees, and in 2014 he was pushed out of his post.
  • After Trump won the presidency in 2016, he appointed Flynn his national security adviser, a post in which he served for the record briefest amount of time; only 24 days.
  • Flynn was fired for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about the content of conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition. Flynn later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the same issue.
  • Trump pardoned Flynn, but the eradication of his conviction doesn't seem to have impacted Flynn's continuing lack of good judgment: Calling for the overturning of a legitimate presidential election; floating the imposition of martial law and appearing to approve of a coup in the United States.
rerobinson03

Opinion | The Story Behind the Myanmar Coup - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...myanmar-coup.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 02 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • Myanmar’s decade-long experiment in conditional democracy just ended in a textbook example of a coup — a coup that was a pre-emptive strike.
  • The Tatmadaw invoked the Constitution (which it drafted back in 2008) to declare a state of emergency for a year; the already-powerful commander in chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, is now essentially a dictator. He has pledged “to practice the genuine, discipline-flourishing multiparty democratic system in a fair manner” and has announced plans to hold another election at an unspecified date.
  • But the military still has much power, constitutionally guaranteed: It controls the ministries of defense, home affairs and border affairs; 25 percent of seats in the national and regional assemblies are reserved for it; it has veto authority over amendments to key provisions of the Constitution.
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  • Beyond the personal tensions, there is, of course, institutional antagonism. For some three decades, the N.L.D. was subject to crushing persecution at the hands of the Tatmadaw and the security forces; hundreds of the party’s members were arrested, tortured, killed or driven into exile.
  • At a minimum, the coup, being a major step backward, may undermine morale and cohesion among the troops. Decades of armed conflict with several ethnic groups have inflicted numerous casualties on ordinary soldiers. Desertion has been on the rise. Can the generals expect full compliance from the institution after the coup?
aidenborst

Media should call GOP election fight an attempted coup, historian says - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Politics US trump history Culture gop election-overview election fraud coup

shared by aidenborst on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The Republican effort to contest the presidential election results on the Senate floor this week is raising questions about how media outlets should cover the moment, and whether the Trump-supported action should be called an attempted "coup."
  • A dozen GOP senators have announced that they will object to counting votes in Biden's clear Electoral College win during what has traditionally been a ceremonial exercise on Capitol Hill. The effort comes despite no credible evidence suggesting widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
  • The Republican effort to contest the presidential election results on the Senate floor this week is raising questions about how media outlets should cover the moment, and whether the Trump-supported action should be called an attempted "coup."
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  • "Should TV networks show the proceedings live when the GOP objectors are boldly lying?" asked CNN Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter. Should they call it a "coup?""I've been using that word for months now," historian and author Timothy Snyder told Stelter on "Reliable Sources" Sunday.
  • A dozen GOP senators have announced that they will object to counting votes in Biden's clear Electoral College win during what has traditionally been a ceremonial exercise on Capitol Hill.
  • "Is it accurate to call this a coup attempt? ... Is President Trump betraying his oath of office? Are the lawmakers supporting him seditious? These words matter a lot right now," Stelter said at the start of his show.
  • A whopping 83% of Fox News viewers say Biden was not elected legitimately, according to a new Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll, but Snyder said that "unlike previous elections, we actually did have an election in 2020 that people around the world could admire."
  • Before Election Day, right-wing media outlets said "Trump would win and he would only lose if it was rigged," Stelter said. In the "MAGA bubble," the only people you hear from are "Trump supporters and experts who sound very smart," he added.
mattrenz16

Michael Flynn and the endless insurrection - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by mattrenz16 on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The insurrection is far from over.In the same week, the sitting US President warned that US democracy is in peril, a group of scholars said the American experiment could fail and a retired US general -- who served, briefly, as national security adviser -- seemed to endorse a military coup.
  • On the one hand, the retired general -- that's Michael Flynn -- is disgraced in the eyes of his former colleagues, was prosecuted on charges of lying and foreign lobbying and then pardoned by Trump. He appeared this past weekend at a fringe conspiracy theory conference and said there's no reason what's happening in Myanmar (a violent coup by the country's military) shouldn't happen in the US.
  • "Let me be VERY CLEAR - There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not at any time called for any action of that sort," he said. Read more from CNN's Donie O'Sullivan.
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  • At the same conference this weekend, he and Powell suggested Trump could just be reinstated. Here's a fact check on that from CNN's Tara Subramaniam.
  • A coup after an election, actually. What's happening in Myanmar wasn't just any coup; the military seized control of the country after the election in November. QAnon extremists have been fixated on it.
  • So is it sedition? Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, now a Democrat, argued Monday on CNN that Flynn should be prosecuted for sedition.
  • Treason: "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."
  • Rebellion or insurrection: "Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."
  • Seditious conspiracy: "If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."
  • It's also not that Republicans in Arizona and Georgia are still trying to selectively audit their states' election results months after the elections ended and a shocking number of Republican voters question the legitimacy of Biden's win.
  • To them, it is the raft of restrictive voting laws being passed in key states by Republican legislatures around the country that threatens democracy.
  • "Democracy is more than a form of government. It's a way of being; it's a way of seeing the world. Democracy means the rule of the people -- the rule of the people. Not the rule of monarchs, not the rule of the moneyed, not the rule of the mighty -- literally, the rule of the people."
aidenborst

US Army will not investigate Flynn's comments about a coup after he appeared to endorse... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US politics Culture policy Army Coup Michael-Flynn

shared by aidenborst on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The US Army said Wednesday that it will not investigate former Gen. Michael Flynn for statements he recently made in which he appeared to endorse a Myanmar-style coup occurring in the US.
  • "We are aware of the statements LTG (R) Flynn made May 30 and June 1. The Army is not investigating these statements further at this time," an Army spokesperson said in a statement.
  • Flynn is facing bipartisan criticism after appearing to endorse a Myanmar-style coup in the US during an event in Dallas on Sunday in which an audience member raised the idea.
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  • "Let me be VERY CLEAR - There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not at any time called for any action of that sort," the message said.
  • "I want to know why what happened in Minamar (sic)can't happen here?" the audience member, who identified himself as a Marine, asked Flynn.
  • "No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That's right," Flynn responded.
  • Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that "the department is not going to have an official comment one way on this."
  • "Flynn's remarks border on sedition. There's certainly conduct unbecoming an officer. Those are both things that can be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and I think that as a retiree of the military, it should certainly be a path that we consider to have consequences for these types of words," Luria, a retired Navy commander, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on "AC360."
rachelramirez

Burkina Faso Votes for New President After Coup | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

america.aljazeera.com/...-new-president-after-coup.html

Burkina Faso election politics

shared by rachelramirez on 30 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Burkina Faso votes for new president after coup
  • Burkina Faso voted on Sunday in an election to choose the country's first new president in decades
  • Compaore seized power by that route and ruled for 27 years, winning four elections, all of which were criticized as unfair.
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  • The election was pushed back from Oct. 11 because of an abortive coup in September by members of the elite presidential guard, in which transitional President Michel Kafando and his prime minister were taken hostage.
  • That coup cost more than $50 million in lost revenue, trimming growth by 0.3 percentage points.
manhefnawi

A Coup in Cuba | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...coup-cuba

General Batista Regime Coup Cuba

shared by manhefnawi on 11 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • the ‘Sergeants’ Revolt’ of 1933, which deposed the president and installed a new regime under a middle-class academic, Ramon Grau San Martin
  • He soon removed Grau and, with the support of the army and the approval of the United States, ruled the country efficiently under figureheads of his choosing until 1940, when he himself ran for president and won
  • organised the second successful coup of his career at the headquarters of the Cuban army at Camp Columbia, outside Havana
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  • There was little resistance
  • the palace hung white sheets out of the windows as a surrender signal
  • Batista cancelled the election and installed himself as dictator. The regime he replaced had been both weak and corrupt, and was not widely regretted
  • Batista was determined to build up income from tourism
  • Cuban tourism blossomed and  helped the economy to boom
leilamulveny

Opinion | How President Biden Can Support Myanmar - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...myanmar-biden-help.html

opinion biden support myanmar new york times crisis policy Politics

shared by leilamulveny on 10 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Myanmar’s nominal transition to democracy ended abruptly on Feb. 1 when the military arrested the civilian government and seized power. This coup was the most egregious among the three in the country’s modern history. The military claimed it was acting in response to election irregularities, but the charges it later imposed on elected leaders — the country’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was accused of illegally importing walkie-talkies, for example — were preposterous. Of course, the Burmese military leaders’ actual goal is to nullify the results of the November 2020 democratic elections.
  • Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, later expanded sanctions to include individual members of the Burmese military.
  • More than 130 nongovernmental organizations around the world have called on the Security Council to take such action.
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  • The United States should ensure that companies that do business in America are not also doing business with Singaporean companies that have interests in Myanmar.
  • Since Mr. Biden rightly designated Myanmar’s crisis “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” in his executive order, he should also ask Congress to investigate how the Burmese military’s actions endanger the security of the United States.
  • The Burmese military spent much of the past three decades operating under economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union. Military leaders have recently made clear they are not afraid of blanket sanctions. While the military may not fear sanctions, coup leaders have responded violently to courageous protesters.
  • The military responded with a massacre. I fled, along with close to 10,000 other student activists, to the forested areas along the border with Thailand. Eventually I made my way to the United States, where I now teach political science, social change in Southeast Asia and the challenge of establishing democracies.
  • leilamulveny on 10 Mar 21
     
    Tun Myint (@DrTunMyint) is an associate professor of political science at Carleton College in Minnesota. He was a student leader of the 1988 democracy movement in Myanmar and is a co-founder of Mutual Aid Myanmar.
hannahcarter11

Violence Continues In Myanmar As Police Enforce Curfew And Occupy Hospitals : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ce-curfew-and-occupy-hospitals

violence myanmar coup

shared by hannahcarter11 on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • More than a month after the military orchestrated a coup against the country's democratically elected leader, Myanmar police are continuing to use violence against peaceful protesters.
  • The death toll is continuing to rise — and it now includes a local official from the deposed leader's political party.
  • the body of U Khin Maung Latt, who campaigned for candidates from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party in recent elections, was released to his family on Sunday. Police reportedly took him by force from his home late Saturday. Witnesses reported seeing him being kicked and beaten. Police told the family he died after fainting. The pro-democracy activist was buried on Sunday.
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  • The military is using increasingly aggressive tactics to try to maintain order as it arrests protesters throughout the country
  • The violence isn't limited to the sites of demonstrations. For days, heavy weapon fire has been heard in the evenings as police patrol the streets to enforce an 8 p.m. curfew.
  • Multiple universities and hospitals are being occupied by police, and security forces often target medical personnel and ambulances, The Associated Press reports. Occupying hospitals lets police easily arrest wounded people, who they would presume to be protesters, the AP said.
  • Elsewhere in the city, army troops asked Mandalay Technological University staff members if they could use the institution as a base; after staffers rejected the request, soldiers cleared the area by force, Myanmar Now reported.
  • Social media posts from the country are full of reports of demonstrators facing tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and even live rounds as they gather in Myanmar's largest cities.
  • "You can see them walking down the streets in Yangon, firing up through the windows as people look in horror down on the streets,"
  • In February, Myanmar's ambassador to the U.N., who was appointed before the coup, pleaded for international assistance — and was removed from his position the next day
  • The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners reports that at least 54 people have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup, and nearly 1,800 have been arrested. Around 300 of them have been released, but the rest remain in detention, AAPP says.
  • Meanwhile, state-run media is characterizing the demonstrations as "riots."
  • The country's deposed civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has had two trial appearances, even as she has been unable to meet with her attorney.
tsainten

Myanmar police who fled to India say they refused orders to shoot protesters - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by tsainten on 12 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Tha Peng said he and six colleagues all disobeyed the February 27 order from a superior officer, whom he did not name.Read More
  • police in Mizoram on March 1 by another Myanmar police lance corporal and three constables who crossed into India, according to a classified internal police document seen by Reuters.
  • "As the Civil disobedience movement is gaining momentum and protest(s) held by anti-coup protesters at different places we are instructed to shoot at the protesters," they said in a joint statement to Mizoram police.
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  • Myanmar's military junta, which staged a coup on February 1 and deposed the country's civilian government, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
  • Around 100 people from Myanmar, mostly policemen and their families, have crossed over a porous border into India since the protests began, according to a senior Indian official.
  • rotesters should either be stopped by rubber bullets or shot below the knees. Reuters could not verify police policies.
  • "shoot till they are dead,"
  • Fearing imprisonment for siding with the protesters and their civil disobedience movement, she said she decided to flee Myanmar.
  • All three said there was substantial support for the protesters within Myanmar's police force."Inside the police station, 90% support the protesters but there is no leader to unite them," said Tha Peng, who left behind his wife and two young daughters, one six months old.
yehbru

Echoing QAnon forums, Michael Flynn appears to suggest a Myanmar-style coup should happ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US Politics Trump Michael Flynn QAnon

shared by yehbru on 31 May 21 - No Cached
  • Michael Flynn, former President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, appeared to endorse a Myanmar-style coup in the United States on Sunday.
  • "I want to know why what happened in Minamar (sic)can't happen here?" a member of the audience, who identified himself as a Marine, asked Flynn.
  • "No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That's right," Flynn responded
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  • Powell, who has frequently pushed the falsehood that Trump was reelected, also appeared at the event and said Trump should be "simply reinstated" and that a "new inauguration day is set."
  • Some QAnon followers are obsessed with the idea that the US military will somehow put Trump back into office. Some believed and hoped Trump would declare martial law on Inauguration Day to stop Joe Biden from entering the White House.
  • Talk among Trump supporters of a coup not only happens online, CNN spoke to followers of the former President in Ventura, California, in February who said they wanted to see a Myanmar-style coup happen here.
Javier E

Yevgeny Prigozhin's 'coup' was just the first act in his plot to destroy Vladimir Putin - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...e-first-act-plot-destroy-putin

russia coup support crisis politics

shared by Javier E on 07 Jul 23 - No Cached
  • the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) has gone so far as to run an initial inquiry into levels of public support, gauged by monitoring social media posts and internet searches by ordinary Russians.
  • Its findings, intercepted and leaked by Ukrainian intelligence, suggests that 17 of
  • Russia’s 46 regions sided with Prigozhin. Putin had support from just 21 regions, while the remaining eight remained split. Moscow apparently backed the Russian President, but his home city of St Petersburg was ready to throw its support behind the Wagner chief. Public support for Prigozhin in the republic of Dagestan was reportedly as high as 97 per cent.
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  • the country may be on the edge of civil war. It’s not just wishful thinking: the country has a history of failed coups leading to political upheaval.
Javier E

'We will coup whoever we want!': the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-and-the-billionaire-tech-bros

tech hubris billionaire

shared by Javier E on 27 Nov 23 - No Cached
  • there’s something different about today’s tech titans, as evidenced by a rash of recent books. Reading about their apocalypse bunkers, vampiric longevity strategies, outlandish social media pronouncements, private space programmes and virtual world-building ambitions, it’s hard to remember they’re not actors in a reality series or characters from a new Avengers movie.
  • Unlike their forebears, contemporary billionaires do not hope to build the biggest house in town, but the biggest colony on the moon. In contrast, however avaricious, the titans of past gilded eras still saw themselves as human members of civil society.
  • The ChatGPT impresario Sam Altman, whose board of directors sacked him as CEO before he made a dramatic comeback this week, wants to upload his consciousness to the cloud (if the AIs he helped build and now fears will permit him).
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • Contemporary billionaires appear to understand civics and civilians as impediments to their progress, necessary victims of the externalities of their companies’ growth, sad artefacts of the civilisation they will leave behind in their inexorable colonisation of the next dimension
  • Zuckerberg had to go all the way back to Augustus Caesar for a role model, and his admiration for the emperor borders on obsession. He models his haircut on Augustus; his wife joked that three people went on their honeymoon to Rome: Mark, Augustus and herself; he named his second daughter August; and he used to end Facebook meetings by proclaiming “Domination!”
  • as chronicled by Peter Turchin in End Times, his book on elite excess and what it portends, today there are far more centimillionaires and billionaires than there were in the gilded age, and they have collectively accumulated a much larger proportion of the world’s wealth
  • In 1983, there were 66,000 households worth at least $10m in the US. By 2019, that number had increased in terms adjusted for inflation to 693,000
  • Back in the industrial age, the rate of total elite wealth accumulation was capped by the limits of the material world. They could only build so many railroads, steel mills and oilwells at a time. Virtual commodities such as likes, views, crypto and derivatives can be replicated exponentially.
  • Digital businesses depend on mineral slavery in Africa, dump toxic waste in China, facilitate the undermining of democracy across the globe and spread destabilising disinformation for profit – all from the sociopathic remove afforded by remote administration.
  • on an individual basis today’s tech billionaires are not any wealthier than their early 20th-century counterparts. Adjusted for inflation, John Rockefeller’s fortune of $336bn and Andrew Carnegie’s $309bn exceed Musk’s $231bn, Bezos’s $165bn and Gates’s $114bn.
  • Zuckerberg told the New Yorker “through a really harsh approach, he established two hundred years of world peace”, finally acknowledging “that didn’t come for free, and he had to do certain things”. It’s that sort of top down thinking that led Zuckerberg to not only establish an independent oversight board at Facebook, dubbed the “Supreme Court”, but to suggest that it would one day expand its scope to include companies across the industry.
  • Any new business idea, Thiel says, should be an order of magnitude better than what’s already out there. Don’t compare yourself to everyone else; instead operate one level above the competing masses
  • Today’s billionaire philanthropists, frequently espousing the philosophy of “effective altruism”, donate to their own organisations, often in the form of their own stock, and make their own decisions about how the money is spent because they are, after all, experts in everything
  • Their words and actions suggest an approach to life, technology and business that I have come to call “The Mindset” – a belief that with enough money, one can escape the harms created by earning money in that way. It’s a belief that with enough genius and technology, they can rise above the plane of mere mortals and exist on an entirely different level, or planet, altogether.
  • By combining a distorted interpretation of Nietzsche with a pretty accurate one of Ayn Rand, they end up with a belief that while “God is dead”, the übermensch of the future can use pure reason to rise above traditional religious values and remake the world “in his own interests”
  • Nietzsche’s language, particularly out of context, provides tech übermensch wannabes with justification for assuming superhuman authority. In his book Zero to One, Thiel directly quotes Nietzsche to argue for the supremacy of the individual: “madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule”.
  • In Thiel’s words: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
  • This distorted image of the übermensch as a godlike creator, pushing confidently towards his clear vision of how things should be, persists as an essential component of The Mindset
  • In response to the accusation that the US government organised a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia in order for Tesla to secure lithium there, Musk tweeted: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
  • For Thiel, this requires being what he calls a “definite optimist”. Most entrepreneurs are too process-oriented, making incremental decisions based on how the market responds. They should instead be like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, pressing on with their singular vision no matter what. The definite optimist doesn’t take feedback into account, but ploughs forward with his new design for a better world.
  • This is not capitalism, as Yanis Varoufakis explains in his new book Technofeudalism. Capitalists sought to extract value from workers by disconnecting them from the value they created, but they still made stuff. Feudalists seek an entirely passive income by “going meta” on business itself. They are rent-seekers, whose aim is to own the very platform on which other people do the work.
  • The antics of the tech feudalists make for better science fiction stories than they chart legitimate paths to sustainable futures.
ethanmoser

Turkey detains 9 colonels in north Cyprus for Gulen ties | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...rth-cyprus-for-gulen-ties.html

turkey detain colonels coup geneva

shared by ethanmoser on 16 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Turkey detains 9 colonels in north Cyprus for Gulen ties
  • urkey's state-run news agency says nine Turkish colonels have been detained in northern Cyprus as part of the investigation into the movement allegedly responsible for a failed coup in July.
  • Ankara accuses the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the violent coup attempt and has launched a sweeping purge of his followers, arresting 41,000 people and purging more than 100,000 from government jobs. Gulen denies the claims. Earlier this week, top diplomats from Turkey, Greece and Britain met in Geneva to discuss ways of providing post-reunification security for the divided island of Cyprus.
sarahbalick

Dilma Rousseff: Brazilian congress votes to impeach president | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ss-impeach-brazilian-president

brazilian congress votes president

shared by sarahbalick on 19 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Dilma Rousseff: Brazilian congress votes to impeach president
  • In a rowdy session of the lower house presided over by the president’s nemesis, house speaker Eduardo Cunha, voting ended late on Sunday evening with 367 of the 513 deputies backing impeachment – comfortably beyond the two-thirds majority of 342 needed to advance the case to the upper house.
  • “The fight is now in the courts, the street and the senate,”
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • s the crucial 342nd vote was cast for impeachment
  • the chamber erupted into cheers and Eu sou Brasileiro, the football chant that has become the anthem of the anti-government protest. O
  • pposition cries of “coup, coup,coup” were drowned out.
  • Watched by tens of millions at home and in the streets, the vote – which was announced deputy by deputy – saw the conservative opposition
  • 137 deputies voted against the move.
julia rhodes

Other Nations Offer a Lesson to Egypt's Military Leaders - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...o-egypts-military-leaders.html

military leaders egypt nytimes atatuk turkey middle east crisis policy history

shared by julia rhodes on 26 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Is the era of the military big man back?
  • The turmoil highlights the central role of the military in some postcolonial Muslim countries, where at least in the fitful early stages of democracy, it forcefully imposes itself as the self-appointed arbiter of power and the guardian of national identity.
  • But a look at other Muslim countries that have struggled with democratic transitions, including two other polestars of the Muslim world, Pakistan and Turkey, should provide a kind of warning to General Sisi.
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  • In Turkey, a court recently imprisoned dozens of senior military officers on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, a punitive reminder to a military once accustomed to reasserting its authority through coups.
  • Though General Sisi is riding a wave of popularity among some Egyptians and neighboring countries, notably Saudi Arabia and Israel, for cracking down on Islamists, the events in Turkey and Pakistan have shown the limits of military power.
  • Military and civilian leaders have been competing for power in Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt for decades. The military has exercised muscular influence in all three countries, openly or behind the scenes, because of weak civilian rule that can be traced to the foundation of the states — in some cases, in a bid to circumscribe Islamist influence.
  • Yet as all three countries climb the ladder toward functioning democracies, the effort is complicated by outside pressure, which often favors the military.
  • Pakistani, Turkish and Egyptian generals profess to love democracy, but they practice it with varying degrees of reluctance.
  • Instead, the military has deeply embedded itself in each state’s DNA, winning privileges and lucrative jobs for its officers, all the while controlling politics in blunt fashion. Pakistan’s generals have mounted four coups over the past 55 years; Turkey has had three. In both Pakistan and Egypt, analysts describe the military as the core of the “deep state.”
  • In all three countries, Islam is often seen as the boogeyman of democracy, Dr. Nasr said. “But that is wrong. The real struggle in the Middle East is between civilian rule and the military.”
  • For years, Turkey was the model of progress for many Muslim countries. But the military’s retreat has been driven, in part, by the country’s desire to join the European Union. And the gloss of civilian rule vanished in June when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan violently suppressed a protest movement in central Istanbul, suggesting that one authoritarianism was being replaced with another. This month’s treason trial brought out sharp divisions between secularists and Islamists, underscoring how Turkey’s nation-building model remains a work in progress.
  • Egypt’s generals ousted the monarchy and established a republic in 1952. Turkey’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a military revolutionary, led a fierce secularization drive in the 1920s.
  • His support from Egyptian civic society could evaporate as revulsion grows at the bloodshed against Islamists and the military’s crackdown on other dissenters. If he alienates Western support, financing from the Middle East cannot sustain his country for very long. And, as events in Turkey and Pakistan have shown, the military’s eminence can endure only by strategically ceding space to civilian players — or the use of violent repression.
martinelligi

Myanmar coup: 'We were told to shoot protesters', say police who fled - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-56343982

myanmar coup Politics crisis

shared by martinelligi on 10 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Police officers from Myanmar have told the BBC they fled across the border into India after refusing to carry out the orders of the military which seized power in a coup last month. In some of the first such interviews, more than a dozen defectors told us they escaped, fearing they'd be forced to kill or harm civilians.
  • The military is edgy. They are becoming more and more brutal." As we speak, Naing pulls out his phone to show me photos of the family he left behind - a wife, and two daughters aged just five and six months.
  • ey say they're part of a growing number of officials who are joining the pro-democracy, civil disobedience movement (CDM) in the country.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Authorities in Myanmar have asked India to return any defectors, to "uphold friendly relations".
  • Htut, who is 22, says he and other police were paired with members of the military as they patrolled the streets. Protesters who were peacefully banging utensils in support of the pro-democracy movement were threatened with arrest.
  • n 2017, Myanmar's army responded to attacks on police by Rohingya militants with a deadly crackdown, driving more than half a million Rohingya Muslims across the border into Bangladesh in what the UN later called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing"
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