06/23/2022, 09.46
ASIA TODAY
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Trial against Aung San Suu Kyi moved to jail.

Today'sheadlines: Laos risks following Sri Lanka, where a wealthy tycoon has been appointed finance minister; in China, two human rights lawyers tried in court; South Korea will send a billion in aid to Afghanistan; Malaysia's palm oil crisis deepens.

MYANMAR

Myanmar's military junta has ruled that the judicial proceedings against Aung San Suu Kyi will take place in prison and no longer in a courtroom. The former Nobel Peace Prize laureate is being held at an unknown location in the capital Naypyitaw and the trial has been taking place behind closed doors for months. Ousted from government in a coup, Suu Kyi has been accused by the military of dozens of crimes.

SRI LANKA

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Sri Lankan casino magnate Dhammika Perera as finance minister. Perera replaces one of the president's brothers, Basil, who resigned in recent weeks with part of the cabinet. Invested with the mandate to revive the economy, Perera will have to work alongside Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has accused him of corruption in the past.

LAOS

Some say protests may soon erupt in Laos in a similar scenario to Sri Lanka, although at the moment, for fear of retaliation, criticism against the government is  mostly on social media. The economic crisis has been going on for months, and the country may find itself declaring bankruptcy, economists explain. Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh revealed that he is aware of the criticism against the People's Revolutionary Party.

CHINA

Two well-known Chinese human rights lawyers will be tried behind closed doors this week on subversion charges. The hearings for Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, who were arrested in June 2020, have been scheduled at the Linshu County Court in northeastern Shandong Province. Both are prominent figures within the New Citizens Movement, which fights for citizens to exercise their civil rights.

MALAYSIA

The crisis in palm oil production is worsening: on the one hand, fertilizers have become too expensive; on the other, there is also a shortage of foreign labor on the plantations. If 36,000 workers were missing before the pandemic, now planters say they need at least 120,000.

SOUTH KOREA - AFGHANISTAN

South Korea will provide million in humanitarian assistance to earthquake victims in Afghanistan. This was stated today by the Foreign Ministry in Seoul. According to Taliban authorities, there are about 1,000 dead and more than 1,500 injured. The 6.1-magnitude quake struck an area about 160 km (100 miles) southeast of Kabul.

UKRAINE

The occupied city of Mariupol still remains segregated in quarantine due to cholera infections, dysentery, and other illnesses caused by lack of water and anti-sanitary conditions, reports Mayor Vadim Boyčenko while the Russians release no information about the real conditions of the population, which are steadily worsening.

UZBEKISTAN

Uzbek President Mirziyoyev also proposed a referendum on changes to the country's constitution, "to deal with this difficult time and complicated situations together," without specifying content, but introducing a rule that resets his presidential terms to zero in imitation of Russia's 2020 Putin constitution.

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