See art you can’t touch and maybe not afford at Bangkok’s debut NFT exhibition

By Thitima Sukontaros Apr 1, 2021 | 1:34pm Bangkok time

Digital works that will be show and sold at this weekend’s Mango Art Festival at Lhong 1919. From left, works by Tan-star, William Char and Zebracan. At right, the JPG collage of early works by American digital artist Beeple which sold for US$69 million earlier this month.

Those who laughed when a duct-taped banana sold for US$120,000 and were blown away when a Nyan Cat GIF sold for $540,000 last month could be forgiven for thinking April Fool’s day came early two weeks ago when a JPG image sold for US$69 million.

On the same day that U.S. artist Beeple collected his record haul for an intangible work that can never hang on a wall, Thai artist Phurichaya Panyasombat sold her first work of blockchain NFT art for THB50,000 (US$1,600). And on Saturday, the crypto art trend will reach fad-forward Bangkok with the opening of an exhibition at a Sino-hip riverside venue.

“The news of Beeple’s NFT work drew a lot of attention from people in Thailand, and I’ve been observing NFT since the beginning of this year,” said Watjanasin Charuwattanakitti of Thonglor’s Palette Artspace, who is organizing the Mango Art Festival opening at riverside venue Lhong 1919. He says it will be Bangkok’s first NFT art show.

For those not running on the latest updates, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are files registered as unique via blockchain in the same way as cryptocurrency. They can be anything digital, from photos and music to paintings and even tweets. People have begun paying serious money for things like clips of basketball players to collect and trade like cards. They’ve also been storming the art world, which was already a place for people to park their fortunes.

Saturday’s opening at Llong 1919 will feature works by a number of local artists including Tan-star and Kyoko Abe. It runs through Tuesday.

Watjanasin said NFT is perfect for the pandemic-era art trade. Because many are still unfamiliar with the format, he said the gallery found young, upcoming digital artists to showcase and sell their work securely to people around the world.

If all goes well, he may offer NFTs of his private erotic works at another venue he owns, Bangkok’s Museum of Sex

Phurichaya, aka Fxaq27, said she didn’t think NFT was a passing fad as she believes digital works will have a place in museums around the world going forward. On top of that, human culture is increasingly expressed online, and she thinks the internet memes that define their place in historical records.

“I haven’t collected any NFTs yet, but when I have more money, I will definitely own some,” she said. “It’s like collecting a piece of history if you buy one-time hit internet memes such as Bad Luck Brian.”

Ahead of the curve is Siriphong “Preto” Tipayakesorn, a Thai visual artist who began collecting NFTs from NBA Top Shot and other artists and is now making his own. Siriphong, who lives in New York and has worked at a number of its museums, said he just spent US$2,000 (THB62,500) on a hypnotic visual and audio piece by American street artist Greg Mike.

“We have to admit that buying and collecting art is an extravagant hobby,” he said. “People who appreciate such activities usually have enough money that they’re not worried about how they’re going to feed themselves tomorrow.”

He said he doesn’t mind the fact it can only be appreciated online, where anyone can make a free copy of it. He said the large sums spent to own such works give a different satisfaction compared to, say, owning Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. “A copy is a copy,” he said, comparing copies of NFT works to the worthless prints of famous originals people buy.

FIND IT

Mango Art Festival

Lhong 1919


11am until late, April 3 to April

A Statement from ArtStation on NFT

By ArtStation Team 

Dear all

The last few hours since announcing our intention to run a proof of concept for NFTs on ArtStation have been humbling. Based on the strong demand from artists wanting a way into the world of NFTs, we sincerely felt an obligation to explore this path and help artists succeed.

In light of the critical reception on social media regarding NFTs, it’s clear that now is not the right time for NFTs on ArtStation. We are very sorry for all the negative emotions this has caused. Despite our attempts to validate our approach, we clearly made a mistake and admit fault. It was our bad.

We feel that NFTs are a transformative technology that can make significant, positive change for digital artists. It’s our hope that at some point in the future we’ll be able to find a solution that is equitable and ecologically sound. It will take time for us to reflect on this and we’ll do our best to earn back your trust.

Sincerely,

The ArtStation Team

March 8, 2021

A Statement from ArtStation - ArtStation Magazine

There's another pandemic under our noses, and it kills 8.7m people a year

Rebecca Solnit

While Covid ravaged across the world, air pollution killed about three times as many people. We must fight the climate crisis with the same urgency with which we confronted coronavirus

‘Climate change is invisible, in everyday political consciousness, because it occurs on a scale too vast in time and space to see with the naked eye and because it concerns imperceptible phenomena such as atmospheric composition.’ Photograph: Jeff Zehnder/Alamy

Fri 2 Apr 2021 


It is undeniably horrific that more than 2.8 million people have died of Covid-19 in the past 15 months. In roughly the same period, however, more than three times as many likely died of air pollution. This should disturb us for two reasons. One is the sheer number of air pollution deaths – 8.7 million a year, according to a recent study – and another is how invisible those deaths are, how accepted, how unquestioned. The coronavirus was a terrifying and novel threat, which made its dangers something much of the world rallied to try to limit. It was unacceptable – though by shades and degrees, many places came to accept it, by deciding to let the poor and marginalized take the brunt of sickness and death and displacement and to let medical workers get crushed by the workload.

We have learned to ignore other forms of death and destruction, by which I mean we have normalized them as a kind of moral background noise. This is, as much as anything, the obstacle to addressing chronic problems, from gender violence to climate change. What if we treated those 8.7 million annual deaths from air pollution as an emergency and a crisis – and recognized that respiratory impact from particulates is only a small part of the devastating impact of burning fossil fuels? For the pandemic we succeeded in immobilizing large populations, radically reducing air traffic, and changing the way many of us live, as well as releasing vast sums of money as aid to people financially devastated by the crisis. We could do that for climate change, and we must – but the first obstacle is the lack of a sense of urgency, the second making people understand that things could be different.

I have devoted much of my writing over the past 15 years to trying to foreground two normalized phenomena, violence against women and climate change. For all of us working to bring public attention to these crises, a major part of the problem is trying to get people engaged with something that is part of the status quo. We are designed to respond with alarm to something that just happened, that breaches norms, but not to things that have been going on for decades or centuries. The first task of most human rights and environmental movements is to make the invisible visible and to make what has long been accepted unacceptable. This has of course been done to some extent, with coal-burning power plants and with fracking in some places, but not with the overall causes of climate chaos.

The first obstacle is the lack of a sense of urgency, the second making people understand that things could be different

Climate change is invisible, in everyday political consciousness, because it occurs on a scale too vast in time and space to see with the naked eye and because it concerns imperceptible phenomena such as atmospheric composition. We can only see its effects – as cherry blossoms in Kyoto, Japan, peaking earlier this year than at any time since records began being kept in 812 AD, and even there the beauty of flowers is gloriously visible while the disturbance of seasonal patterns is dry data that is easy to miss. Other effects are often overlooked or denied – there were California wildfires before climate change, but they are bigger, stronger, faster, in a longer fire season now, and recognizing that also requires paying attention to data.

Among the striking phenomena of the early weeks of the pandemic were air quality and birdsong. In the quiet as human activity halted, many people reported hearing birds singing, and across the world air pollution levels dropped dramatically. In some places in India, the Himalayas were visible again, as they had not been for decades, meaning that one of the subtle losses of pollution was vistas. According to CNBC, at the outset of the pandemic, “New Delhi recorded a 60% fall of PM2.5 from 2019 levels, Seoul registered a 54% drop, while the fall in China’s Wuhan came in at 44%.” Returning to normal means drowning out the birds and blurring out the mountains and accepting 8.7 million air pollution deaths a year.

Those deaths have been normalized; they need to be denormalized. One way to do so is by drawing attention to the cumulative effect and the quantifiable results. Another is to map out how things could be different – in the case of climate change, this means reminding people that there is no status quo, but a world being dramatically transformed, and that only bold action will limit the extremes of this change. The energy landscape is also undergoing dramatic change: the coal industry has collapsed in many parts of the world, the oil and gas industry are in decline. Renewables are proliferating because they are steadily becoming more and more effective, efficient and increasingly cheaper than fossil-fuel generated power. A lot of attention was paid to whatever actions might have caused Covid-19 to cross from animals to humans, but the actions that take fossil fuel out of the ground to produce that pollution that kills 8.7 million annually, along with acidifying oceans and climate chaos, should be considered far more outrageous a transgression against public health and safety.

My hope for a post-pandemic world is that the old excuses for doing nothing about climate – that it is impossible to change the status quo and too expensive to do so – have been stripped away. In response to the pandemic, we in the US have spent trillions of dollars and changed how we live and work. We need the will to do the same for the climate crisis. The Biden administration has taken some encouraging steps but more is needed, both here and internationally. With a drawdown on carbon emissions and a move toward cleaner power, we could have a world with more birdsong and views of mountains and fewer pollution deaths. But first we have to recognize both the problem and the possibilities.


Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is also the author of Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions. Her most recent book is Recollections of My Nonexistence

Amazon finally acknowledges delivery driver bathroom problem

By  Kerry J. Byrne

NY POST

April 3, 2021 

An Amazon delivery driver carries boxes into a van outside of a distribution facility on Feb. 2 in Hawthorne, California.Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Amazon acknowledged Friday that it has a loo-ming problem.

LOO IS BRITISH SLANG FOR BATHROOM,

The web giant fessed up that its delivery drivers have limited access to bathrooms, meaning that accusations of them urinating in bottles or elsewhere in public are likely to be true.

“We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes,” the online retail giant posted on its AboutAmazon portal. “And this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed.”
The admission comes following a Twitter spat with Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) last month in which the congressman accused Amazon of being a union-busting operation that will “make workers urinate in water bottles.”

Amazon originally denied the claim.

“You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you?” the company responded on Twitter. “If that were true, nobody would work for us.”

Amazon’s mea culpa admits that the original response was wrong.

“It did not contemplate our large driver population and instead wrongly focused only on our fulfillment centers.”

© Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images An Amazon driver shared this photo with Insider of a bottle of pee inside a delivery van last week. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

But, the company added: “This is a long-standing, industry-wide issue and is not specific to Amazon.”

No word yet on how Amazon will solve the problem, other than to report “[we] will look for solutions.”

MORE ON:

AMAZON
Amazon joins major companies slamming GOP-led voting laws

Leaked document shows what Amazon looked for in Twitter warriors

AOC says Amazon workers are ‘defecating in bags’ as union vote looms

Andrew Yang embraces plan to build NYC’s first green energy hub in Queens

UNIONIZING IN THE GIG ECONOMY
A leaked Amazon document reveals what its army of warehouse workers are and aren't allowed to say on social media

© Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images 

Amazon's army of warehouse employees trained to defend the company on Twitter is at it again.

The employee accounts follow a standard format, and tend to resurface amid negative press coverage.

A newly leaked Amazon document reveals what the workers are and aren't allowed to discuss.

Amazon's army of warehouse workers paid to be on Twitter is notorious for showing up in conversations with the intent of defending Amazon.

The workers are also notorious for having eerily robotic speech patterns.

"I can assure you that I'm a real account," a recent response from one such worker said. "I'm part of a program that lets me come on here & have conversations about what working for Amazon has been like for me. I'd like to know why you feel we are treated/paid bad. I've been so happy here & the pay/benefits are great."

There's a good reason for those speech patterns, according to a leaked Amazon document obtained by The Intercept. Amazon has a set of guidelines for what those employees can and cannot say, and even offers examples of how to respond.

First and foremost is that "FCAs," or "Fulfillment Center Ambassadors," cannot respond to anything regarding unionization, according to the document.

That's particularly notable given this week's unionization vote at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. If it passes, it would be the first major union of Amazon workers.

Additionally, they can't respond to direct media requests without approval from Amazon's public relations department. They are also barred from responding to "compound" criticisms, or a tweet that also contains a topic that Amazon PR has not approved the FCAs to comment on.

The document offers an example of a tweet that FCAs should not respond to based on such criteria: "@Amazon why are you still advertising on breitbart?! Between that and barely paying your employees, I'm ready to quit shopping with you," the example said.

Similarly enlightening, the document offers a variety of examples of the type of social media posts that FC Ambassadors should interact with - and the kind of responses the company finds appropriate.

The first example directly addresses the years-long reports from Amazon workers that they have to pee in bottles during shifts to save time: "Example: 'Daily Sun: Amazon employees forced to urinate in bottles during their shift'."

An Amazon driver shared this photo with Insider of a bottle of pee inside a delivery van last week. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

The example response in the document reads almost exactly like some of the responses from FC Ambassadors.

"No, that's not right," the example says. "I worked in an Amazon FC for over four years and never saw anyone urinate in a bottle. There are easily accessible bathrooms in every one of our buildings I've ever been in."

Amazon's FC Ambassador program isn't new.

Back in 2018, Amazon admitted to paying a small army of employees to tweet positive things about the company. The document obtained by The Intercept is from 2018, when the program was formed under the code name "Veritas" (Latin for "truth).

It established the foundation of the program, and its purpose: "To address speculation and false assertions in social media and online forums about the quality of the FC associate experience, we are creating a new social team staffed with active, tenured FC employees, who will be empowered to respond in polite - but blunt - ways to every untruth," the document says.

FC Ambassadors are paid the same hourly rate they get for their warehouse work, Amazon says, and it's an "entirely voluntary" program.

Since the program started in 2018, a variety of accounts originally associated with it have been deactivated. And in the last few weeks, a handful of new FC accounts have sprung up as reports surfaced once again of employees having to urinate in bottles to preserve work time. The vast majority of FC Ambassador replies on social media specifically address these reports.

When reached for comment, Amazon spokesperson Lisa Levandowski said: "FC Ambassadors are employees who work in our fulfillment centers and choose to share their personal experience - the FC ambassador program helps show what it's actually like inside our fulfillment centers, along with the public tours we provide. We encourage anyone who wants to see for themselves to sign up for a tour at www.amazonfctours.com."

Russian doctors complete heart surgery during hospital fire

Issued on: 03/04/21
  

After completing the operation, the doctors evacuated their patient from the burning building before transferring him to another hospital Handout Russian Emergencies Ministry/AFP

Moscow (AFP)

A team of doctors successfully completed open heart surgery inside a Russian hospital that caught fire on Friday as firefighters battled the flames from the outside, regional emergency services said.

The wooden roofed building in the far eastern city of Blagoveshchensk caught fire and 60 patients were evacuated as it filled with smoke.

But a team of eight doctors performing the operation on the ground floor carried on.

"We had to save this person and we did everything," Valentin Filatov, head of the cardio surgery unit, said in an interview with state television.

The Amur region branch of the emergencies ministry said electricity to the operating theatre was provided with a separate cable, while firefighters ensured smoke did not spread to the room.

After the operation, the patient was evacuated from the burning building to another hospital, the ministry added.

Medic Antonina Smolina said that "there was no panic" among the hospital staff.

Local authorities promised to award the doctors who continued with the operation and the firefighters who extinguished the blaze.

Xinjiang the musical sings to Beijing's tune of ethnic unity

Issued on: 03/04/2021 

China is on an elaborate PR offensive to rebrand the northwestern region of Xinjiang where US says "genocide" has been inflicted on the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. Photo exhibition on Xinjiang by China Photographers Association

 NICOLAS ASFOURI AFP


Beijing (AFP)

A new state-produced musical set in Xinjiang inspired by Hollywood blockbuster "La La Land" has hit China's cinemas, portraying a rural idyll of ethnic cohesion devoid of repression, mass surveillance and even the Islam of its majority Uyghur population.

China is on an elaborate PR offensive to rebrand the northwestern region where the United States says "genocide" has been inflicted on the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

As allegations of slavery and forced labour inside Xinjiang's cotton industry draw renewed global attention, inside China, Beijing is curating a very different narrative for the troubled region.

Rap songs, photo exhibitions and a musical -- "The Wings of Songs" -- are leading the cultural reframing of the region, while a legion of celebrities have seemingly unprompted leapt to the defence of Xinjiang's tarnished textile industry.

Beijing denies all allegations of abuses and has instead recast Xinjiang as a haven of social cohesion and economic renewal that has turned its back on years of violent extremism thanks to benevolent state intervention.

The movie, whose release was reportedly delayed by a year, focuses on three men from different ethnic groups dreaming of the big time as they gather musical inspiration across cultures in the snow-capped mountains and desertscapes of the vast region.

Trailing the movie, state-run Global Times reported that overseas blockbusters such as "La La Land" have "inspired Chinese studios" to produce their own domestic hits.

But the musical omits the surveillance cameras and security checks that blanket Xinjiang.

Also noticeably absent are references to Islam -- despite more than half of the population of Xinjiang being Muslim -- and there are no mosques or women in veils.

In one scene, a leading character, a well-shaven Uyghur, toasts with a beer in his hand.

At least one million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim groups have been held in camps in Xinjiang, according to right groups, where authorities are also accused of forcibly sterilising women and imposing forced labour.

That has enraged Beijing, which at first denied the existence of the camps and then defended them as training programmes.

- Reality check -

Last month, China swiftly closed down the Clubhouse app, an audio platform where uncensored discussions briefly flowered including on Xinjiang, with Uyghurs giving unvarnished accounts of life to attentive Han Chinese guests.

The current PR push on Xinjiang aims at controlling the narrative for internal consumption, says Larry Ong, of US-based consultancy SinoInsider.

Beijing "knows that a lie repeated a thousand times becomes truth", he said.

To many Chinese, that messaging appears to be working.

"I have been to Xinjiang and the film is very realistic," one moviegoer told AFP after seeing "The Wings of Songs" in Beijing.

"People are happy, free and open," he said, declining to give his name.

Last week, celebrities, tech brands and state media -- whipped up by outrage on China's tightly controlled social media -- piled in on several global fashion brands who have raised concerns over forced labour and refused to source cotton from Xinjiang.

Sweden's H&M was the worst-hit and on Wednesday attempted to limit the damage in its fourth-largest market.

The clothing giant issued a statement saying it wanted to regain the trust of people in China, but the message was greeted with scorn on the Twitter-like Weibo platform, where 35 million people shared the fashion chain's comments.

The pushback has taken on a pop culture edge, with a rap released this week castigating "lies" by the "Western settlers" about cotton from the region, while state broadcaster CGTN is set to release a documentary on the unrest that prompted the Beijing crackdown.

It is impossible to gain unfettered access to Xinjiang, with foreign media shadowed by authorities on visits and then harassed for their reporting.

This week, BBC journalist John Sudworth hurriedly left China for Taiwan, alleging "intimidation" after reporting on conditions in the cotton farms of Xinjiang.

© 2021 AFP

France's Total closes gas plant after Mozambique jihadist attacks

Issued on: 03/04/2021 - 

This file photo taken on October 21, 2014 shows the logo of French oil company headquarters Total in La Defense buisness district, near Paris. © Martin Bureau, AFP archive

French energy giant Total has shut its operations and withdrawn all staff from a site in northern Mozambique following last week's deadly jihadist attack in the area, security sources said Friday.

"Total has gone," a security source in Maputo told AFP, adding that "it will be hard to persuade them to return" this year.

And a military source added, "all the facilities are abandoned.

"Total made a decision to evacuate all of its staff", after drone surveillance showed insurgents were in areas "very close" to the gas plant in Afungi.

Another source confirmed the were reports that insurgents were not far from the site.

Afungi peninsula is only 10 kilometres (six miles) from the town of Palma, which came under attack more than a week ago, resulting in the death of dozens of people, including at least two expatriate workers.

The brazen assault on March 24 was the latest in a string of more than 830 organised raids by the Islamist militants over the past three years during which more than 2,600 people have died.

Total had already evacuated some staff and suspended construction work in late December following a series of violent attacks near its compound.

But last week's raid is seen as the biggest escalation of the Islamist insurgency ravaging Cabo Delgado province since 2017.

Many civilian survivors fled their homes flocking towards the heavily secured gas plant.

'Security compromised'

An estimated 15,000 people have gathered near the site, while more are still arriving and "security is compromised", said another source.

The humanitarian "situation continues to deteriorate," added the source.

Total's clear-out came as Afungi army commander Chongo Vidigal declared on Thursday the gas project was "protected".

"We are currently in the special area in Afungi and never had a terrorism threat," he said.

Total did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Most means of communication were cut after the Palma onslaught began.

Thousands of troops have been deployed to Cabo Delgado, but Mozambique's ability to fight the insurgency has long been questioned, with analysts pointing to poor training and lack of equipment.

Government security forces are also bolstered by a South African private military company, Dyck Advisory Group (DAG).

Total and its partners planned to invest $20 billion in the project, the largest amount ever for a project in Africa.

In February, Total chief executive Patrick Pouyanne insisted that the project, which it inherited from the US energy firm Anadarko, was still on track to begin operations in 2024.

He said this having reached agreement with Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi to set up a 25-kilometre (15-mile) radius secure zone around the site.

But last week the jihadists attacked, just 10 kilometres from the compound and reportedly beheaded residents and ransacked buildings in the latest rampage.

Hundreds, including many foreign workers, have been evacuated by air and sea while thousands of locals walked to safety.

The UN said it has recorded at least 9,100 people internally displaced by the latest violence.

The violence has uprooted nearly 700,000 people from their homes since October 2017.

Cabo Delgado's jihadists have wreaked havoc across the province with the aim of establishing a caliphate.

The insurgents are affiliated with the Islamic State group, which claimed the Palma attack.

(AFP)

Myanmar's rebel groups voice support for protesters as junta continues crackdown
Issued on: 03/04/2021 - 

The Myanmar military’s deadly crackdown on anti-coup protests has angered some of the country’s ethnic armed groups, prompting fears a broader conflict could erupt STR AFP

Yangon (AFP)

Ten of Myanmar's major rebel groups threw their support behind the country's anti-coup movement on Saturday, fanning fears that a broader conflict could erupt in a country plagued for decades by on-and-off fighting between the military and the ethnic armies.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from power on February 1, triggering an uprising that the junta has sought to quell with deadly crackdowns.

According to a local monitoring group, more than 550 people have been killed in the anti-coup unrest, bloodshed that has angered some of Myanmar's 20 or so ethnic groups and their militias, who control large areas of territory mostly in border regions.

On Saturday, 10 of these rebel groups met virtually to discuss the situation, condemning the junta's use of live ammunition on protesters.

"The leaders of the military council must be held accountable," said General Yawd Serk, leader of rebel group the Restoration Council of Shan State.

Last week, the junta declared a month-long ceasefire with ethnic armed groups, though exceptions might be made if "security and administrative machinery of the government... are encroached on".

The announcement did not encompass stopping lethal force against anti-coup demonstrations.

But Yawd Serk said the ceasefire means security forces should halt "all violent actions", including against protesters.

The 10 rebel groups that met online are signatories to a nationwide ceasefire agreement that was brokered by Suu Kyi's government, which attempted to negotiate an end to the ethnic militias' decades-long armed struggle for greater autonomy.

But distrust runs deep for the ethnic minorities of Myanmar, and Yawd Serk said the 10 signatories to the nationwide ceasefire would "review" the deal during their meeting.

"I would like to state that the (10 groups) firmly stand with the people who are... demanding the end of dictatorship," he said.

Last week, a UN special envoy on Myanmar warned the Security Council of the risk of civil war and an imminent "bloodbath".

- 'No reason for conflict' -

The rebel groups' meeting also comes a week after one of them, the Karen National Union (KNU), seized a military base in eastern Karen state, killing 10 army officers. The junta retaliated with air strikes.

The KNU has been a vocal opponent of the military junta and said it is sheltering hundreds of anti-coup activists.

On Saturday, it condemned the military's use of "excessive force by engaging in non-stop bombing and air strikes" from March 27 - 30, which have "caused the deaths of many people including children".

"The air strikes have also led to the further displacement of more than 12,000 people," it said.

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said the military has only been targeting KNU's 5th Brigade -- which led the seizure of the military base.

"We had an air strike on that day only," he told AFP.

"We have signed a nationwide ceasefire agreement... If they follow the NCA, there is no reason for conflict to happen," Zaw Min Tun said.

Ethnic Karen local media and rights groups have reported multiple bombings and air strikes across the state over recent days.

- 'This madness must stop' -

With the junta cutting wifi services, mobile data and imposing a nightly internet blackout that has gone on for nearly 50 days, information flow in the country has been effectively throttled.

"This madness must stop," UN rights rapporteur Tom Andrews in a tweet. "Sanctions & an arms embargo must be imposed to cut their [the junta's] access to revenue and weapons."

At least two cities saw security forces violently crack down before noon on Saturday.

In eastern Mon state, a man was shot in the stomach and died on his way to the hospital.

"He was trying to help our young protesters," a fellow protester told AFP.

Demonstrators in Yangon, Mandalay and the central city Monywa continued to come out Saturday, wearing helmets and using sandbags as barricades as they faced off against authorities.

But "two were shot in the head," said a rescue worker in Monywa who had to pick up the bodies.

CNN -- which was granted access by the junta -- arrived this week with correspondent Clarissa Ward, who was ferried around Yangon in a military convoy.

On Friday, she spoke to two sisters -- Shine Ya Da Na Pyo and Nay Zar Chi Shine -- who were later detained along with another relative.

Local media reported they had flashed a three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance, while speaking to Ward.

"We don't know where they've been detained," said a relative of the sisters who did not want to be named.

"They seized their phones, and we lost connection with them... Our family is trying our best for their release."

CNN did not respond to request for comment on the incident.

© 2

Several killed in fresh Myanmar protests as junta represses online dissent

Issued on: 03/04/2021 

Protesters gather behind a barricade during a protest against the military coup, in Monywa, Myanmar April 3, 2021 in this photo obtained by Reuters. © Reuters

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Myanmar security forces opened fire on pro-democracy protests on Saturday killing four people, a protester and media said, as the military reinforced its bid to end dissent with arrest warrants for online critics and internet blocks.

Despite the killing of more than 550 people by the security forces since the Feb. 1 coup, protesters are coming out every day, often in smaller groups in smaller towns, to voice opposition to the reimposition of military rule.

Security forces in the central town of Monywa fired on a crowd killing thee people, the Myanmar Now news service said.

"They started firing non-stop with both stun grenade and live rounds," the protester in Monywa, who asked not to be named, told Reuters via a messaging app. "People backed off and quickly put up ... barriers, but a bullet hit a person in front of me in the head. He died on the spot."

One man was shot and killed in the southern town of Thaton, the Bago Weekly Journal online news portal reported. The media outlet earlier reported one person was killed in Bago town but later said the person was wounded by had not died.

Police and a spokesman for the junta did not answer telephone calls seeking comment.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group, in a statement earlier in the day, said the security forces had killed 550 people, 46 of them children, since the military overthrew an elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

The demonstrations that drew tens of thousands of people in the early days of defiance in big cities have largely stopped with opponents of the coup adopting "guerrilla rallies" - small, quick shows of defiance before security forces can respond. People also gather at night for candle-lit vigils.

"People are still protesting every day because we believe strongly that this is a fight between good and evil," protest leader Tayzar San said in an audio message to Reuters.

The authorities are also waging a campaign to control information. They had shut down mobile data and on Friday ordered internet providers to cut wireless broadband, depriving most customers of access, though some messages and pictures were still being posted and shared on social media.

Authorities issued warrants for 18 celebrities, including social media influencers and two journalists, under a law against material intended to cause a member of the armed forces to mutiny or disregard their duty, state media reported late on Friday.

All of them are known to oppose military rule. The charge can carry a prison term of three years.

Actress Paing Phyoe Thu said she would not be cowed.

"Whether a warrant has been issued or not, as long as I'm alive I'll oppose the military dictatorship who are bullying and killing people. The revolution must prevail," she said on Facebook.

Paing Phyoe Thu regularly attended rallies in the main city of Yangon in the weeks after the coup. Her whereabouts were not immediately known.

Silencing critics

State broadcaster MRTV announced the warrants for the 18 with screenshots and links to their Facebook profiles.

While the military has banned platforms like Facebook, it has continued to use social media to track critics and promote its message.

MRTV maintains a YouTube channel and shares links to its broadcasts on Twitter, both of which are officially banned.

The United States condemned the internet shutdown.

"We hope this won’t silence the voices of the people," State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter told a briefing.

The United States and other Western countries have denounced the coup and called for the release of Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her campaign against military rule. She has been charged with violating an official secrets act that is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The coup has rekindled old wars with autonomy-seeking ethnic minority forces in the north and the east.

Myanmar's oldest insurgent group, the Karen National Union (KNU), has seen the first military air strikes on its forces in more than 20 years, after it announced its support for the pro-democracy movement.

The KNU said more than 12,000 villagers had fled their homes because of the air strikes. It called for an international embargo on arms sales to the military.

Media has reported that about 20 people were killed in air strikes in KNU territory in recent days, including nearly a dozen at a gold mine run by the group.

Fighting has also flared in the north between the army and ethnic Kachin insurgents. The turmoil has sent several thousand refugees fleeing into Thailand and India.

(REUTERS)

Rebel group says more than 12,000 displaced by Myanmar junta air strikes
AFP 

reA bel group has accused Myanmar's military of deploying "excessive force", saying on Saturday that continuous air strikes have displaced more than 12,000 unarmed civilians, including children.

 

© Handout A rebel group has accused Myanmar's military of using "excessive force" after air strikes injured unarmed civilians

Late last month, the ethnic armed group Karen National Union (KNU) seized a military base in eastern Kayin state, killing 10 army officers. The junta retaliated with air strikes.

The KNU has been a vocal opponent of the military junta -- which ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from power two months ago -- and said it is sheltering hundreds of anti-coup activists.

On Saturday, the KNU condemned the use of "excessive force by engaging in non-stop bombing and air strikes" from March 27 - 30, which have "caused the deaths of many people including children".

"The air strikes have also led to the further displacement of more than 12,000 people who have fled their villages and caused a major humanitarian crisis."

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said the military has only been targeting KNU's 5th Brigade -- which led the seizure of the military base and killed officers.

"We had an air strike on that day only," he told AFP.

Video: Strong, unified message needed, says Myanmar's special envoy to the UN (CNBC)

"We have signed a nationwide ceasefire agreement... If they follow the NCA, there is no reason for conflict to happen," Zaw Min Tun said.

Ethnic Karen local media and rights groups have reported multiple bombings and air strikes across the state over recent days.

About 3,000 people fled to neighbouring Thailand on Monday, crossing the Salween River to seek shelter. But most returned to Myanmar by Wednesday, which Thailand claimed was "voluntary".

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power on February 1, triggering a massive uprising across the country with protesters demanding the restoration of the elected government.

Information flow in the country has also been throttled, with the junta cutting wifi services, mobile data and imposing a nightly internet blackout that has gone on for nearly 50 days.

Myanmar's border regions are largely controlled by various ethnic armed groups that have long agitated for greater autonomy.

Territory in the northern Kachin state -- held by the Kachin Independence Army -- has also seen a recent step-up in military activity.

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