Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to three more years in prison

Other news of the day: a well-known Hindu leader belonging to a religious sect in Karnataka was arrested for alleged rape; Marcos promises to increase the number of Filipino nurses authorized to work abroad; two Tibetan monks sentenced to three years in prison for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama; more than 200 church buildings destroyed in the Ukraine conflict.

MYANMAR

Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to another three years in prison and hard labor for electoral fraud in the November 2020 elections that gave him victory. This was declared today by a court led by the coup junta that deposed the government of the former Nobel Prize winner last year. Suu Kyi had already been sentenced to 17 years in prison during a closed trial.

MALAYSIA

Rosmah Mansor, wife of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, was found guilty of corruption and sentenced by the Kuala Lumpur High Court to 10 years in prison and to pay a fine of 216 million dollars. Defense attorneys stated that they will appeal the sentence. Last week, her husband and her former prime minister was sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud related to the management of the 1Malaysia Development Bhd fund.

PHILIPPINES

President Marcos promised increase the annual quota of Filipino nurses who can work abroad, currently 7,500. During the pandemic there was a great demand for nurses in other countries, but the health crisis forced emigration to be limited. In the Philippines, health professionals receive very low salaries compared to other countries in the region.

INDIA

Police in the southern state of Karnataka arrested an influential Hindu leader accused of raping two underage students. Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru belongs to the religious sect lingayat -who venerates Shiva as the only deity- and allegedly assaulted the two girls in his seminar. 17% of the population of Karnataka, including many politicians, belong to this religious sect.

TIBET

Chinese authorities Two Tibetan monks sentenced to three years in prison for having photos of the Dalai Lama on their mobile phones. Both belonged to the community of 250 monks of the Barong monastery, in Sershul (Shiqu) county, Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. They had been in preventive detention for two years after their arrest, in 2020

RUSSIA

In six months of war, 205 church buildings in 14 regions of Ukraine were destroyed or seriously damaged – the figure includes mosques, synagogues, administrative and educational buildings of religious communities. This was announced by the National Service for Religion and Ethnic Policy in kyiv, clarifying that most of the buildings belong to the Autocephalous Orthodox Church (PZU).

KYRGYZSTAN

Kyrgyzstan has simplified the procedures for accepting IT specialists from Russia and other countries, according to the Ministry of Economy and Trade. They will be granted the status of “digital nomad”, which will allow them to operate without a visa, registration or work permit, depending on “favorable geopolitical and natural conditions”.