Myanmar's ruling military, apparently wary of igniting another outbreak of mass demonstrations, tried to quash rumors yesterday that fuel rations would be slashed in the face of rising global oil prices.
A sudden hike in fuel prices last year led to protests that ballooned into anti-government street protests that were brutally crushed by the military.
A report in the state-owned New Light of Myanmar yesterday said that rationing of gasoline, diesel and compressed natural gas will remain the same.
As fuel prices increase worldwide, rumors have been rampant in Yangon that instead of increasing fuel prices, the government might reduce the ration for private-car owners to 3.8 liters from 7.6 liters a day.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, suffers from a constant gasoline shortage because of limited domestic oil production and meager foreign exchange reserves.
Gasoline and diesel has been sold under a rationing system in the country's major city, Yangon, since 1980. Each car has a ration book, allowing car owners to purchase 227 liters per month.
Since November, the government has slashed the gasoline and diesel quotas of senior civil servants by at least 75 percent.
Last August, the government imposed a surprise 100 percent to 500 percent price hike on vehicle fuel at state-owned gas stations, triggering the most sustained challenge to the junta in nearly two decades.
During the last week of September, troops crushed the protests, which were led by Buddhist monks, killing an unknown number of demonstrators.
They also raided monasteries and arrested thousands of monks and lay people.
The regime said 10 people were killed during the crackdown, but Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, a senior UN human rights official, said at least 31 died in the former capital Yangon.
Human rights groups say the death toll was far higher.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS