Suu Kyi sworn in to Myanmar's parliament

May 2, 2012

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Naypyitaw, May 2: Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sworn in to Myanmar's military-backed parliament today, taking public office for the first time since launching her struggle against authoritarian rule nearly a quarter century ago.


The 66-year-old opposition leader's entry into the legislature heralds a new political era in Myanmar, cementing a risky detente between her party and the reformist government of President Thein Sein, which inherited power from the army last year.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party will occupy too few seats to have any real power in the ruling-party dominated assembly, however, and there are fears the presence of the opposition lawmakers could simply legitimize the regime without any change.

But the new lawmakers are also likely to bring a level of public debate to the legislative body that has never been seen as they prepare for the next general election in 2015.

The swearing-in ceremony took place in the capital, Naypyitaw, which was built by the former army junta. With white roses in her hair, Suu Kyi stood along with several dozen of her party's lawmakers as the speaker of the lower house asked them to read the oath.

Suu Kyi's ascent marks an astonishing reversal of fortune for a woman who became one of the world's most prominent prisoners of conscience, held under house arrest for much of the last two decades.

When the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner was finally released in late 2010, just after a vote her party boycotted that was deemed neither free nor fair, few could have imagined she would make the leap from democracy advocate to elected official in less than 18 months.




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News Network
April 9,2020

Paris, Apr 9: More than 1.5 million cases of the novel coronavirus have been registered worldwide, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 0530 GMT Thursday from official sources.

Of the 1,502,478 infections, 87,320 people have died across 192 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China late last year.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections. Many countries are only testing the most serious cases.

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News Network
June 27,2020

LGeneva, Jun 27:: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide has risen by over 177,000 in the past 24 hours to 9.4 million and the death toll has topped 480,000, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday (local time).

On Thursday, the WHO reported 167,056 new cases and 5,336 related deaths.

The fresh daily situation report estimates the number of infections confirmed in the past 24 hours at 177,012. Further, 5,116 virus-related deaths were reported over the same period, taking the toll to 484,249.

The Americas lead the count with over 4.7 million cases, followed by Europe with more than 2.6 million.

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News Network
March 28,2020

Berlin, Mar 28: The number of confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide topped 600,000 on Saturday as new cases stacked up quickly in Europe and the United States and officials dug in for a long fight against the pandemic.

The latest landmark came only two days after the world passed half a million infections, according to a tally by John Hopkins University, showing that much work remains to be done to slow the spread of the virus. It showed more than 602,000 cases and a total of over 27,000 deaths.

While the U.S. now leads the world in reported infections — with more than 104,000 cases — five countries exceed its roughly 1,700 deaths: Italy, Spain, China, Iran and France.

“We cannot completely prevent infections at this stage, but we can and must in the immediate future achieve fewer new infections per day, a slower spread,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in quarantine at home after her doctor tested positive for the virus, told her compatriots in an audio message. “That will decide whether our health system can stand up to the virus.”

The virus already has put health systems in Italy, Spain and France under extreme strain. Lockdowns of varying severity have been introduced across Europe. Merkel's chief of staff, Helge Braun, said that Germany — where authorities closed nonessential shops and banned gatherings of more than two in public — won't relax its restrictions before April 20.

As the epicenter has shifted westward, the situation has calmed in China, where some restrictions on people's lives have now been lifted. Six subway lines restored limited service in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, after the city had its official coronavirus risk evaluation downgraded from high to medium on Friday. Five districts of the city of 11 million people had other restrictions on travel loosened after their risk factor was downgraded to low.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and lead to death.

More than 130,000 people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins' tally.

In one way or another, the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak have been felt by the powerful and the poor alike.

On Friday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the first leader of a major country to test positive for the virus. He said he would continue to work from self-quarantine.

Countries are still scrambling bring home some citizens stranded abroad by border closures and a near-shutdown of flights. On Saturday, 174 foreign tourists and four Nepali nationals on the foothills of Mount Everest were flown out days after being stranded on the only airstrip serving the world's highest mountain.

In neighboring India, authorities sent a fleet of buses to the outskirts of the capital to meet an exodus of migrant workers desperately trying to reach their home villages during the world's largest lockdown.

Thousands of people, mostly young male day laborers but also families, had fled their New Delhi homes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown that began on Wednesday and effectively put millions of Indians who live off daily earnings out of work.

In a possibly hopeful sign, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared a new rapid test from Abbott Laboratories, which the company says can detect the coronavirus in about 5 minutes. Medical device maker Abbott announced the emergency clearance of its cartridge-based test Friday night, saying the test delivers a negative result in 13 minutes when the virus is not detected.

While New York remained the worst-hit city in the U.S., Americans braced for worsening conditions elsewhere, with worrisome infection numbers being reported in New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit.

New Orleans’ sprawling Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, along the Mississippi River, was being converted into a massive hospital as officials prepared for thousands more patients than they could accommodate.

In New York, where there are more than 44,000 cases statewide, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 passed 6,000 on Friday, double what it had been three days earlier.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for 4,000 more temporary beds across New York City, where the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center has already been converted into a hospital.

The struggle to defeat the virus will take “weeks and weeks and weeks,” Cuomo told members of the National Guard working at the Javits Center.

President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act on Friday, ordering General Motors to begin manufacturing ventilators. Trump had previously rejected Cuomo's pleas for tens of thousands more of the machines and the governor's calls to implement the Korean War-era production law.

Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package, after the House approved the sweeping measure by voice vote. Lawmakers in both parties lined up behind the law to send checks to millions of Americans, boost unemployment benefits, help businesses and toss a life preserver to an overwhelmed health care system.

Dr. John Brooks of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans remained “in the acceleration phase” of the pandemic and that all corners of the country were at risk.

"There is no geographic part of the United States that is spared from this," he said.

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