Unions call for strike in Myanmar
YANGON: Myanmar’s major trade unions called on members to shut down the economy from Monday to support a campaign against last month’s coup, turning up the pressure on the junta as security forces cracked down on demonstrators staging widespread protests.
“To continue economic and business activities as usual...will only benefit the military as they repress the energy of the Myanmar people,” an alliance of nine unions said.
“The time to take action in defence of our democracy is now. We call for...the full extended shutdown of the Myanmar economy,” they said in a joint statement.
A spokesman for the military did not answer calls seeking comment. The call by the unions came as an official from the party of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi died overnight in police custody. The cause of death of National League for Democracy official Khin Maung Latt was not known.
Ba Myo Thein, a member of the upper house of parliament which was dissolved after the coup, said reports of bruising to Khin Maung Latt’s head and body raised suspicions that he had been abused.
“It seems that he was arrested at night and tortured severely,” he said. “This is totally unacceptable.”
Police in Pabedan, the Yangon district where Khin Maung Latt was arrested, declined to comment.
Some of the biggest protests in recent weeks were staged on Sunday. Police fired stun grenades and tear gas to break up a sit-in by tens of thousands of people in Mandalay, the Myanmar Now media group said. At least 70 people were arrested.
Police also launched tear gas and stun grenades in the direction of protesters in Yangon and in the town of Lashio in the northern Shan region, videos posted on Facebook showed.
A witness said police opened fire to break up a protest in the historic temple town of Bagan and several residents said in social media posts that live bullets were used.
Video posted by Myanmar Now showed soldiers beating up men in Yangon, where at least three protests were held despite overnight raids by security forces on campaign leaders and opposition activists.
One of the biggest days of protest since February 1 coup, over 50 people killed by security forces so far
LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed his gratitude on Sunday to health workers, responding to criticism over his government’s pay proposal by saying he had tried to give the service as much as he could.
Johnson, who himself was treated in hospital last year when he became severely ill with Covid-19, has come under fire for failing to meet his promise to look after health workers who have been fighting a coronavirus pandemic for more than a year by proposing a 1 per cent pay increase for the National Health Service.
Earlier, Britain’s opposition Labour Party stepped up its criticism of the government’s budget, calling the pay offer to health workers “reprehensible” and pledging to vote against its freeze on income tax thresholds.
But Johnson defended his government by saying it was investing in the National Health Service and that “we have tried to give the NHS as much as we
The opposition Labour Party has stepped up its criticism of the budget, calling the pay offer to health workers ‘reprehensible’
possibly can”.
Last week, his government set out its plans to help the economy weather the Covid-19 crisis, with Finance Minister Rishi Sunak promising to do “whatever it takes to support the British people and businesses”.
And while Johnson enjoys a large majority in the lower house of parliament, his Conservative government’s plans have come under fire for what some say is its targeting of lower- and middle-income earners and not being generous enough to health workers, after a year of battling the coronavirus pandemic.
Johnson, who was the face of Britain’s campaign to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum, promoted what has become a disputed promise that Brexit would free up an extra £350 million a week for the NHS.
But in the budget, the government proposed the 1 per cent pay rise for NHS workers, an offer one nurses union, the Royal College of Nursing, called “pitiful” and has threatened to strike over.
Labour, which is flagging in opinion polls despite criticism of Johnson’s uneven handling of the pandemic, has called on the government to stand by what it said was an earlier commitment to hand NHS workers a 2.1 per cent pay increase.