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Military Coup in Myanmar


WhatTheBuck

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I echo what Mrs. W said on the Burma v. Myanmar split - 

From 2007:

The BBC (which still refers to the country only as Burma) writes that:

Burmah, as it was spelt in the 19th Century, is a local corruption of the word Myanmar. They have both been used within Burma for a long time, says anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman, who has written extensively about Burmese politics. ...

If Burmese people are writing for publication, they use 'Myanmar', but speaking they use 'Burma', he says. ...

"Richard Coates, a linguist at the University of Western England, says adopting the traditional, formal name is an attempt by the junta to break from the colonial past. 'Local opposition groups do not accept that, and presumably prefer to use the old colloquial name, at least until they have a government with popular legitimacy,' [Coates says]. 'Governments that agree with this stance still call the country Burma.' 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7013943.stm

 

Edited by washparkhorn
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3 hours ago, Js1 said:

 

The fact that the Myanmar Constitution both gives the military 25% of seats in Parliament automatically and allows the Commander in Chief of the Army to override the president and take over/exercise sovereign state power - I cannot believe that was agreed upon.  What a farce of a new Constitution.

Well the military already had control when it was agreed upon.

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1 hour ago, washparkhorn said:

I echo what Mrs. W said on the Burma v. Myanmar split - 

From 2007:

The BBC (which still refers to the country only as Burma) writes that:

Burmah, as it was spelt in the 19th Century, is a local corruption of the word Myanmar. They have both been used within Burma for a long time, says anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman, who has written extensively about Burmese politics. ...

If Burmese people are writing for publication, they use 'Myanmar', but speaking they use 'Burma', he says. ...

"Richard Coates, a linguist at the University of Western England, says adopting the traditional, formal name is an attempt by the junta to break from the colonial past. 'Local opposition groups do not accept that, and presumably prefer to use the old colloquial name, at least until they have a government with popular legitimacy,' [Coates says]. 'Governments that agree with this stance still call the country Burma.' 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7013943.stm

 

So Myanmar and Burma are actually the same word?  Even Austin couldn't fuck up a pronunciation that bad. 

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3 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

So who do I support, and you do think supporting a party with Pelosi at the helm, and president who's a brain fart way from another aneurism, and a VP who is very far left of center in her political philosophy is a sound option ?

 

 

You forgot to work in the socialism talking point 

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31 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

When dining in Calcutta, I like the Peking Duck, with a Bombay Gin martini straight up (shaken with Mt. McKinley glacier ice). 

I like how English changes Paris, Roma, Napoli, Athína, München, Moskva, Praha, and about a million other places on the continent but we're too lazy to even contemplate changing them to match the local pronunciation. 

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2 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

I like how English changes Paris, Roma, Napoli, Athína, München, Moskva, Praha, and about a million other places on the continent but we're too lazy to even contemplate changing them to match the local pronunciation. 

I will say this is one of the few brights spots of Americans vs. the Brits. We do have their bastardized place names handed down, but in real time we go much further in trying to pronounce things correctly. Brits are so insanely indifferent to how something might be pronounced in it's native tongue it's mind boggling. They almost actively try and mangle it. Coming from a supposed worldly country of empire makes it all the more puzzling.

 

Turn on an international sportscaster with British announcers sometime. It's outright hilarious.

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So is texaggy saying that this is the blueprint and trump was just waiting to see it play out so he can now do it too, because everyone knows he won and the military will still take orders from trump? Or is that too boring of a theory. Not enough emails or pedophiles I suppose. How incompetent of a wannabe dictator do you have to be to get outdone by Mayanmar?

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1 hour ago, 'stache said:

So is texaggy saying that this is the blueprint and trump was just waiting to see it play out so he can now do it too, because everyone knows he won and the military will still take orders from trump? Or is that too boring of a theory. Not enough emails or pedophiles I suppose. How incompetent of a wannabe dictator do you have to be to get outdone by Mayanmar?

Who knew Q was short for ဇေယျာ

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4 hours ago, G650 said:

I will say this is one of the few brights spots of Americans vs. the Brits. We do have their bastardized place names handed down, but in real time we go much further in trying to pronounce things correctly. Brits are so insanely indifferent to how something might be pronounced in it's native tongue it's mind boggling. They almost actively try and mangle it. Coming from a supposed worldly country of empire makes it all the more puzzling.

 

Turn on an international sportscaster with British announcers sometime. It's outright hilarious.

This is an interesting point. Obv. anecdotal, but my british MIL makes the most ludicrous pronunciations ...I'm sure it's just what she learned. 

Passs-ta  = pasta

Tack-os = tacos

yawgurt = yogurt 

and many more I don't care to remember. Nails on the chalkboard. At one point, I said no more meals together please.

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(Reuters) -Myanmar police have filed charges against ousted leader Suu Kyi for illegally importing communications equipment and she will be detained until Feb. 15 for investigations, according to a police document. The move followed a military coup on Monday and the detention of Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi and other civilian politicians. The takeover cut short Myanmar’s long transition to democracy and drew condemnation from the United States and other Western countries.

A police request to a court detailing the accusations against Suu Kyi, 75, said six walkie-talkie radios had been found in a search of her home in the capital Naypyidaw. The radios were imported illegally and used without permission, it said.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won the election in a landslide but the military claimed it was marred by fraud and justified its seizure of power on those grounds.

The chair of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Parliamentarians for Human Rights, Charles Santiago, said the new charges were ludicrous. “This is an absurd move by the junta to try to legitimize their illegal power grab,” he said in a statement.

Suu Kyi spent about 15 years under house arrest between 1989 and 2010 as she led the country’s democracy movement, and she remains hugely popular at home despite damage to her international reputation over the plight of Muslim Rohingya refugees in 2017.

Opposition to the junta headed by Army chief General Min Aung Hlaing has begun to emerge in Myanmar.

Spoiler

 

Staff at scores of government hospitals across the country of 54 million people stopped work or wore red ribbons as part of a civil disobedience campaign.

The newly formed Myanmar Civil Disobedience Movement said doctors at 70 hospitals and medical departments in 30 towns had joined the protest. It accused the army of putting its interests above a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 3,100 people in Myanmar, one of the highest tolls in Southeast Asia.

“We really cannot accept this,” said 49-year-old Myo Myo Mon, who was among the doctors who stopped work to protest.

“We will do this in a sustainable way, we will do it in a non-violent way...This is the route our state counselor desires,” she said, referring to Suu Kyi by her title.

The latest coup is a massive blow to hopes that Myanmar is on a path to stable democracy. The junta has declared a one-year state of emergency and has promised to hold fair elections, but has not said when.

G7 CONDEMNS COUP

The Group of Seven largest developed economies condemned the coup on Wednesday and said the election result must be respected.

“We call upon the military to immediately end the state of emergency, restore power to the democratically-elected government, to release all those unjustly detained and to respect human rights and the rule of law,” the G7 said in a statement.

China has not specifically condemned the coup in its neighbour but the foreign ministry rejected the suggestion that it supported or gave tacit consent to it.

“We wish that all sides in Myanmar can appropriately resolve their differences and uphold political and social stability,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a briefing.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, its special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, urged the Security Council to “collectively send a clear signal in support of democracy in Myanmar”.

But a diplomat with China’s U.N. mission said it would be difficult to reach consensus on the draft statement and that any action should avoid escalating tension or complicating the situation.

U.S. President Joe Biden has threatened to reimpose sanctions on the generals who seized power.

U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tried but was unable to connect to Myanmar’s military following the coup.

The military had ruled the former British colony from 1962 until Suu Kyi’s party came to power in 2015 under a constitution that guarantees the generals a major role in government.

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics/myanmar-police-file-charges-against-aung-san-suu-kyi-after-coup-idUSKBN2A22NW

 

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Aung San Suu Kyi is facing charges. For one thing, she’s being charged with illegally importing and using walkie-talkies. The horror. The horror.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55915354

This analysis is encouraging:

Quote

 

Given the gravity of the military's power grab, claiming that Myanmar's national unity was at stake, and the storm of international condemnation that's followed, these charges seem comically trivial. 

But they may be enough to secure the military's objective of barring Aung San Suu Kyi from political office, as members of parliament cannot have criminal convictions. 

For 32 years the generals have tried, and failed, to neutralise the threat posed by Aung San Suu Kyi's enduring popularity. She has won every election she's been allowed to contest by a wide margin. 

The only election she did not win was one held by the military government 10 years ago - back then she was also barred from contesting by a bizarre criminal conviction which was imposed on her after an American man managed to swim across a lake in Yangon to her home, where she was being held under house arrest.

 

Sounds like the people of Myanmar mostly don’t care. 

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This is an interesting point. Obv. anecdotal, but my british MIL makes the most ludicrous pronunciations ...I'm sure it's just what she learned. 
Passs-ta  = pasta
Tack-os = tacos
yawgurt = yogurt 
and many more I don't care to remember. Nails on the chalkboard. At one point, I said no more meals together please.
Dunno there. They kinda INVENTED the language.
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On 2/1/2021 at 4:44 PM, washparkhorn said:

When dining in Calcutta, I like the Peking Duck, with a Bombay Gin martini straight up (shaken with Mt. McKinley glacier ice). 

Respect.  

My grandparents had a 1947 edition of World Book Encyclopedia that listed it as "Peping."  

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4 hours ago, Parliament said:
On 2/1/2021 at 10:38 PM, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:
This is an interesting point. Obv. anecdotal, but my british MIL makes the most ludicrous pronunciations ...I'm sure it's just what she learned. 
Passs-ta  = pasta
Tack-os = tacos
yawgurt = yogurt 
and many more I don't care to remember. Nails on the chalkboard. At one point, I said no more meals together please.

Dunno there. They kinda INVENTED the language.

Que?  Each of those words comes from other languages.

 

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Russia and China acting irresponsibly - again:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics/u-n-security-council-calls-for-release-of-myanmars-suu-kyi-idUSKBN2A42K5

(Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council called for the release of Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others detained by the military and voiced concern over the state of emergency, but stopped short of condemning this week’s coup.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is meanwhile considering an executive order in response to the coup that could include some sanctions, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

Myanmar’s long and troubled transition to democracy was derailed on Monday when army commander Min Aung Hlaing took power, alleging irregularities in an election last November that Suu Kyi’s party won in a landslide.

The 15-member U.N. Security Council said in a statement agreed by consensus on Thursday that they “stressed the need to uphold democratic institutions and processes, refrain from violence, and fully respect human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.”

Language in the statement was softer than that originally drafted by Britain and made no mention of a coup - apparently to win support from China and Russia, which have traditionally shielded Myanmar from significant council action. China also has large economic interests in Myanmar.

A spokesperson for China’s U.N. mission said Beijing hoped the key messages in the statement “could be heeded by all sides and lead to a positive outcome” in its neighbour.

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