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The Hill
17-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Myanmar frees nearly 4,900 prisoners including some political detainees
BANGKOK (AP) — The head of Myanmar's military government granted amnesty to nearly 4,900 prisoners to mark the country's traditional new year, state-run media reported Thursday, and an independent watchdog said they included at least 22 political detainees. At least 19 buses with prisoners aboard left Yangon's Insein prison and were welcomed outside the gate by excited family members and friends who had been waiting since early morning. Political Prisoners Network – Myanmar, an independent watchdog group that records violations of human rights in Myanmar's prisons, said in a statement that by its initial count, 22 political prisoners had been freed. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the ruling military council, pardoned 4,893 prisoners, MRTV reported. Thirteen foreigners will also be released and deported from Myanmar, it said in a separate statement. Other prisoners received reduced sentences, except for those convicted of serious charges such as murder and rape, or those jailed on charges under various other security acts. If the freed detainees violate the law again, they will have to serve the remainder of their original sentences in addition to any new sentence, according to the terms of their release. Mass amnesties on the holiday are not unusual in Myanmar. Myanmar has been under military rule since Feb. 1, 2021, when its army ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government. The takeover was met with massive nonviolent resistance, which has since become a widespread armed struggle. The country is now in civil war. Some 22,197 political detainees, including Suu Kyi, were in detention as of last Friday, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent organization that keeps detailed tallies of arrests and casualties linked to the nation's political conflicts. Many political detainees had been held on a charge of incitement, a catch-all offense widely used to arrest critics of the government or military and punishable by up to three years in prison. Among those imprisoned for incitement who were freed Thursday was the film director who works under the name of Steel and is also known as Dwe Myittar. He was arrested in March 2023 and had been held in Insein Prison. Also released, according to the independent online news outlet Myanmar Now, was Hanthar Nyein, a news producer for Kamayut Media, who was arrested in March 2021 along with co-founder U.S. journalist Nathan Maung after the authorities raided their office in Yangon. Maung was released and deported to the U.S in June of that year. Hanthar Nyein had been handed a total of seven years' imprisonment after being convicted of incitement in March 2022, and violating the Electronics Transactions Law, a charge that critics say criminalizes free speech, in December that same year. Maung told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists that he and Hanthar Nyein were blindfolded, beaten, deprived of food and water and otherwise tortured during interrogations in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. More than 220 journalists have been detained since the army ousted the elected government in February 2021, according to the U.S.-based International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, with at least 51 still imprisoned by February this year. This year's celebrations of Thingyan, the new year's holiday, were more reserved than usual due to a nationwide grieving period following a devastating March 28 earthquake that killed about 3,725 people and leveled structures from new condos to ancient pagodas. In a new year's speech, Min Aung Hlaing said his government will carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation measures in the quake-affected areas as quickly as possible. He also reaffirmed plans to hold a general election by the end of the year and called on opposition groups fighting the army to resolve the conflicts in political ways. During the holiday, the violent struggle between the army and pro-democracy forces continued with reports of clashes in the countryside but the number of casualties was unclear.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Will Fountain Wind farm plan prevail in Shasta? California decision coming soon
While Shasta County continues to fight California to stop a revived controversial wind energy project that supervisors rejected more than three years ago, the draft environmental impact report for the proposed Fountain Wind is expected to be published this spring. After the draft EIR is released, a public workshop on the project will be scheduled in Shasta County. Such meetings happen within 60 days of the report's publication, California Energy Commission officials said. The state cannot at this time give an estimate when a final decision on the project will come. Shasta County and the Pit River Tribe teamed up to sue the state over the project, which would feature 48 wind turbines on 4,500 acres in the Montgomery Creek-Round Mountain area, about 35 miles east of Redding. The turbines would have the capacity to generate 205 megawatts, enough power to about 80,000 homes, according to project applicant Texas-based ConnectGen. County officials announced the lawsuit in late November 2023 at a public meeting in Anderson that was hosted by the California Energy Commission. In October 2021, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted down the project, denying ConnectGen's appeal of the county Planning Commission's decision not to approve the wind farm. The supervisors' meeting featured more than 10 hours of public comment. But the California Legislature in 2022 approved AB 205, which allowed the Energy Commission to consider approving the project, even though Shasta County rejected it. To date, Shasta has spent more than $1 million to fight the project. The largest amount, about $968,000, has gone to legal fees. Shasta also has spent about $55,000 of the $100,000 it budgeted for its marketing campaign about the project's negative impacts on the community, county spokesman David Maung said. 'I have kept spending under the allotted $100K in anticipation of the decision being delayed, to give us flexibility for another marketing push in the near future,' Maung wrote in an email to the Record Searchlight. During the November 2023 public meeting in Anderson, the California Energy Commission was told the water source for the project was no longer viable. The commission verified this information in December 2023. ConnectGen then submitted information on a new water source on March 18, 2024. Ten days later, the commission informed ConnectGen that the change triggered more environmental review, state officials said. That meant a decision on the project would be delayed from the original estimate of mid- to late 2024. Meanwhile, last April a Shasta County Superior Court judge ruled that a judge from outside of the area will preside over the lawsuit filed against the wind project. Rather than move the case to a court in another county, Judge Stephen Baker ruled that a judge from a county other than Shasta or Sacramento counties will hear the case, but it will remain in-county. The California Attorney General's Office had objected to having a lawsuit filed against the California Energy Commission heard in Shasta County because of possible prejudice against the commission. Shasta County has received support from other counties. The San Bernardino County Land Services Department in a September 2023 letter to California Energy Commission Executive Director Drew Bohan wrote that the CEC lacks the jurisdiction to consider an application for an energy project that the state, local, regional or federal agency, collectively acting as the local agency, has denied. Any other interpretation 'would create absurd results, invite manipulation, and directly conflict with the intent and processes of AB 205,' the San Bernardino County letter in part states. Supporters of what ConnectGen is doing include California Unions for Reliable Energy, which argued in a letter sent in August 2023 to the CEC that Shasta County's interpretation of AB 205 "is contrary to the statue's plain language, inconsistent with the bill's legislative history and statutory scheme, and unsupported by case law." David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly "Buzz on the Street" column. He's part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-338-8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Shasta's spent $1M fighting wind farm, but California decides on plan
