YANGON: The National League for Democracy was forged in an uprising against one-party rule. Its activists spent years in jail under Myanmar's military junta. But since taking power three years ago, the party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has found an unlikely ally - the Chinese Communist Party.The friendship has blossomed in high-level exchanges between Suu Kyi and Chinese leaders, but also in interactions between party members on visits that mix tours of container terminals or education projects with boozy dinners and shopping trips.The trips are part of a push to make Myanmar a vital stop on Chinese President Xi Jinping's flagship Belt and Road Initiative, offering to build deep-sea ports, hydropower dams and economic zones in a country desperate for investment.Reuters interviewed more than 20 party members and lawmakers who have visited China on expenses-paid trips, through which Beijing hopes to overcome historic distrust and fears among many in Myanmar of becoming … [Read more...] about Silk Road sweeteners: China woos Myanmar’s NLD with junkets
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Our ecological damage is a moral issue
The recent news on heat wave over Greenland causing massive ice melt should be a grave concern and wake up call to humanity. Human-caused climate change has been affecting our ecological systems. According to the news, the heat wave that smashed high temperature records in five European countries a week ago is now over Greenland, accelerating the melting of the island’s ice sheet and causing massive ice loss in the Arctic. Greenland, the world’s largest island has 82 percent of its surface covered in ice. Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute said that the area of the Greenland ice sheet that is showing indications of melt has been growing daily and has hit a record of 56.5 percent this year. More than 10 billion tons (about 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools) of ice was lost to the oceans by surface melt last week alone, creating a net mass of ice loss of some 197 tons from Greenland in July. Very timely is the release of the pastoral … [Read more...] about Our ecological damage is a moral issue