Myanmar, Egypt, DR Congo.

Today's three stories you should know.

Feb 01, 2023

Myanmar

It’s two years today since Myanmar’s military toppled a democratically-elected government and threw its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in prison. After a vicious crackdown on protests that followed, an armed resistance movement emerged and fighting is now estimated to be at the scale of a full civil war. The military authorities today extended a state of emergency for another six months, likely delaying again elections that they had promised to hold by August. And an eerie quiet fell over the country’s largest city, Yangon, as many people stayed home and off the streets after government opponents called for a “silent strike” to mark the coup anniversary.

Egypt

An absurd, yet chilling, story out of Egypt. Five online content creators have been arrested after they produced a comedy video about going on a prison visit. The five were arrested by officers from the National Security Agency, according to lawyers, and are being held for 15 days pending an investigation. They face charges of “joining a terrorist group, funding terrorism, publishing false news and utilising social media accounts to commit acts of terrorism,” Mokhtar Mounir, a lawyer for two of the group, said. The five include Mohamed Hossam, who has more than one million followers on Facebook, and Basma Hegazy, who has more than 200,000 followers on TikTok.

DR Congo

A staggering one million people have attended a mass held by Pope Francis in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR), according to estimates. Francis is visiting the country as fighting escalates in the east after almost three decades of constant conflict. A visit to the the city of Goma was called off for security reasons. Though he wasn’t as critical of the government as some appear to have hoped, he did address the conflict and, given much of the violence in DRC has been driven by fighting over minerals, railed against the exploitation of Africa’s natural resources. “Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Hands off Africa! Stop choking Africa, it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered," he said.