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Junta Watch
Min Aung Hlaing presents a money award to a standard artist troupe in Irkutsk, Russia on Sept. 11. / Cincds
By The Irrawaddy 24 September 2022
Resistance drone assaults taking a toll
The Myanmar navy regime is putting in anti-drone weapons at necessary buildings and locations, junta spokesman Main Normal Zaw Min Tun stated on the regime’s common press convention on Tuesday, a sign that the resistance’s drone warfare towards the regime is working successfully.
Just a little over a yr in the past, when resistance fighters collectively often known as the Folks’s Protection Drive began preventing again towards the regime, they had been armed solely with do-it-yourself weapons and rudimentary looking rifles. Immediately, many resistance teams are using drones to bomb navy targets on each land and water.
On the sixteenth ASEAN Ministerial Assembly on Transnational Crime on Thursday, the junta’s deputy residence affairs minister and police chief, Main Normal Zin Min Htet, admitted that PDF teams are utilizing improvised explosives and drones to create ever extra highly effective explosions.
Drones are among the many weapons the junta’s frontline troops most concern, as they’ll inflict harm on a large space past the particular goal, in keeping with defectors. PDFs are additionally utilizing drones towards junta floor assault troops in Karen State and Sagaing Area. 5 regime troopers had been killed in a resistance drone assault in Karen State on Wednesday.
Nuclear ambitions reaffirmed
With the Myanmar navy regime more and more pursuing nuclear expertise with assist from Russia, junta spokesman Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun confirmed at Tuesday’s press briefing the regime’s plan to implement a small nuclear energy plant mission within the subsequent few years.
With out specifying the place the reactor will likely be constructed, he stated the Atomic Power Division of the junta-controlled Ministry of Science and Know-how will set up a “nuclear data expertise heart” in Yangon, which will likely be assigned to gauge and affect public opinion on nuclear vitality.
Myanmar’s bid to accumulate nuclear expertise dates again to the time of former navy dictator Than Shwe, who additionally sought to construct a nuclear analysis heart with the assistance of Russia. The newest plan for a nuclear energy plant follows the regime’s latest signing of a nuclear roadmap settlement with Russian state-owned nuclear company Rosatom on additional atomic vitality cooperation together with the potential implementation of a modular reactor mission in Myanmar.
Although the regime says nuclear vitality can be used for peaceable functions in Myanmar, which has been hit by persistent electrical energy shortages, many imagine it’s simply an preliminary step in a plan to make the most of nuclear vitality for navy functions together with manufacturing of nuclear weapons.
Threats fall on deaf ears
Talking on the identical press convention, Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun threatened supporters of the parallel Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG) with costs punishable by dying.
Those that donate even a penny to the NUG, its parliamentary wing the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), or its armed wing the Folks’s Protection Drive (PDF) may face the dying penalty, the junta spokesman warned, including that netizens who like and share Fb posts of the NUG and its associates confronted costs carrying as much as 10 years in jail.
The navy junta has labeled the NUG, CRPH and PDF as terrorist organizations, and junta-controlled newspapers have featured studies on the theme of “figuring out and taking authorized motion towards those that assist the NUG and its associates” since January. Almost 100 folks have been prosecuted underneath the Counterterrorism Regulation, Penal Code and Digital Transactions Regulation for his or her alleged ties to the teams.
To see whether or not such threats are having the specified impact, one want look no additional than the arsenals of the PDF teams. Initially armed with do-it-yourself rifles after they shaped final yr, lots of the teams are actually outfitted with computerized assault rifles. Some are higher dressed than the regime’s forces and plenty of are nicely fed by supporters at residence and overseas. To the regime’s dismay, a latest raffle of a wooden panel created by detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s son raised greater than US$1.7 million in lower than two weeks to assist the Myanmar folks battle the regime. The quantity exceeds the $1.3 million Daw Aung San Suu Kyi obtained for profitable the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
Junta can’t verify or deny Buckingham Palace haunted
Opposite to what you might need heard, the junta’s data crew is definitely fairly responsive! Particularly if you ask for affirmation of one thing ridiculous, like whether or not or not Buckingham Palace is haunted by the ghost of Queen Elizabeth II!
A latest leaked screenshot, seen by The Irrawaddy, from the regime’s “Info Workforce” closed group on Viber, presents ample proof. The group was shaped by the crew for sharing data and has 130 members, largely from pro-regime media. The crew is led by the regime’s deputy data minister, who is understood for his unprofessionalism and reckless feedback.
Following the funeral of the Queen, a so-called journalist from pro-junta media outlet Myanmar Laborious Speak (MHT) advised the crew he had realized that her soul had but to relaxation in peace and that Buckingham Palace was haunted. (Sorry… he didn’t say how he bought the inside track!) Then he requested:
“I used to be knowledgeable that the palace is arranging to ask some monks from Myanmar for a recitation of Buddhist mantras to assist the Queen’s soul relaxation in peace. Have they invited the monks? Thanks!”
The regime’s data crew handled this absurd inquiry fairly significantly, replying—apparently with out irony—simply over an hour later: “The Ministry of Spiritual Affairs and Tradition hasn’t obtained any invitation but.”
The query by MHT is a traditional instance of the efforts of pro-junta media in Myanmar to propagate misinformation and disinformation within the nation. However why drag the Queen into it? It’s easy: the Myanmar regime was amongst a handful not invited to attend the funeral. So the junta lobbyist tried to flow into some pretend information attacking the Queen and Britain. If nothing else, the episode sheds gentle (as if any had been wanted) on simply how missing in intelligence the folks working for pro-regime media in Myanmar actually are.
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