“เนื่องจากปัญหาการสื่อสารในขณะนี้ เราจึงขอแจ้งให้คุณทราบด้วยความเคารพว่ารายการปกติของ MRTV และ Myanmar Radio ไม่สามารถออกอากาศได้” Myanmar Radio and Television กล่าวในโพสต์บนหน้า Facebook
สมาชิกในสภาของพรรค NLD ซึ่งไม่ขอให้เปิดเผยชื่อเพราะกลัวการถูกตอบโต้กล่าวว่าอีกคนหนึ่งที่ถูกควบคุมตัวคือ Han Thar Myint สมาชิกคณะกรรมการบริหารกลางของพรรค
The New York Times รายงานว่าในขณะที่นักลงทุนสมัครเล่นรวมตัวกันเมื่อสัปดาห์ที่ผ่านมาเพื่อบีบกองทุนป้องกันความเสี่ยง หรือเฮดจ์ฟันด์ ในวอลล์สตรีทด้วยการช่วยกันดันราคาหุ้นของ GameStop ไปสู่ระดับที่สูงจนน่าตกใจ ในกลุ่มของ “แมงเม่าล้มยักษ์” เหล่านี้คือนักเทรดมือใหม่สุดๆ เช่น เจดิน คาร์จากเมืองซานอันโตนิโอวัย 10 ปีที่จู่ๆ เงินของลงทุนของเขาก็เพิ่มขึ้นมาแบบไม่ทันตั้งตัว
ในเดือนธันวาคม 2019 เจดินอายุ 8 ขวบซื้อเกมลดราคาที่ GameStop และเขาอยากจะซื้อ Xbox One แม่ของเขาจึงพยายามใช้ความสนใจเรื่องเกมส์ของลูกชายให้เป็นประโยชน์จึงหาทางสอนลูกชายเกี่ยวกับการลงทุน และตัดสินใจลงทุนใน GameStop จำนวน 10 หุ้นในราคา 6.19 เหรียญสหรัฐต่อหุ้นเพื่อเป็นของขวัญงานเทศกาล Kwanzaa ของชาวแอรฟริกัน-อเมริกัน ในขณะนั้นด้วย
By The Washington Post · Erica Werner, Jeff Stein, Seung Min Kim
WASHINGTON – Ten Republican senators announced plans Sunday to release an approximately $600 billion coronavirus relief package as a counter-proposal to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan, posing a test for the new president who campaigned as a bipartisan deal-maker.
The senators, led by Susan Collins, R-Maine, said they would formally unveil the package on Monday. In a letter to Biden, they requested to meet with him and said they were offering their proposal in recognition of his “calls for unity.”
Biden spoke to Collins and has invited the 10 Republican lawmakers to the White House “for a full exchange of views” early this week, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a Sunday night statement.
The potential bipartisan discussion comes as Democrats prepare to move forward on Monday to set up a partisan path forward for Biden’s relief bill, which Republicans have dismissed as overly costly given some $4 trillion Congress has already committed to fighting the pandemic, including $900 billion in December.
The GOP proposal jettisons certain elements that have drawn Republican opposition, such as increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
It would also reduce the size of a new round of checks Biden wants to send to Americans, from $1,400 per individual to $1,000 – while significantly reducing the income limits that determine eligibility for the stimulus payments.
A $600 billion plan that is a fraction of the size of Biden’s proposal is unlikely to draw much if any Democratic support. However, the GOP offer presents a challenge for Biden, who campaigned on promises to unify Congress and the country and must decide whether to ignore the GOP overture or make a genuine effort to find common ground across the aisle.
“We want to work in good faith with you and your administration to meet the health, economic and societal challenges of the covid crisis,” the Republican lawmakers wrote.
Top Biden economic adviser Brian Deese said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the White House had received the Republicans’ letter and would review it. But he emphasized that speed was of the essence, and refused to say whether Biden was open to entertaining a smaller overall price tag.
“The president is uncompromising when it comes to the speed that we need to act at to address this crisis,” Deese said.
“The provisions of the president’s plan, the American Rescue Plan, are calibrated to the economic crisis that we face,” Deese said.
The White House is pushing its plan amid signs of a broader economic slowdown and a continued wave of enormously high unemployment claims of close to 1 million a week. The emergence in the U.S. of highly transmissible coronavirus variants has also intensified fears that another wave of lockdowns will be necessary.
Because the Senate is split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, it is significant that Republicans assembled 10 lawmakers to get behind the proposal. That means that, if Democrats were to join them, they could reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to pass legislation under regular Senate procedures.
Democrats are planning to skirt the 60-vote requirement using special budget rules that would allow the Biden package to pass with a simple majority vote. Democrats control the Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris can cast tie-breaking votes.
Democratic aides said the GOP proposal would not change their plans to move forward with the budget bill this week that would set the stage for party-line passage of Biden’s plan.
Psaki’s statement said Biden also spoke to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Sunday as they prepare to push his relief package.
“The key to getting robust job opportunities is to cease any delay, any inaction, any wait-and-see around this rescue plan,” Jared Bernstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“The American people could not care less about budget process. . . . They need relief and they need it now,” Bernstein said.
Biden’s plan would send $1,400 payments to individuals with incomes up to $75,000 per year, and couples making up to $150,000.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, one of the signers of the letter, said the GOP plan would lower those thresholds to $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for couples. Instead of $1,400 checks, the GOP plan would propose $1,000 checks, according to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., another member of the group.
The GOP plan would also reduce Biden’s proposal for extending emergency federal unemployment benefits, which are set at $300 a week and will expire in mid-March. The Biden plan would increase those benefits to $400 weekly and extend them through September. The GOP plan would keep the payments at $300 per week and extend them through June, according to three people with knowledge of the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.
Portman criticized Democrats for their plans to go it alone, saying this approach would “jam Republicans and really jam the country.”
The signers of the letter include eight Republican senators who are part of a bipartisan group that has conferred with Biden administration officials about the relief bill. In addition to Collins, Portman and Cassidy, these are Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Todd Young of Indiana, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Jerry Moran of Kansas. Also signing are Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Cassidy strongly criticized Biden for not soliciting broader input from senators in both parties. Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Cassidy said the Republican package amounted to $600 billion and was “targeted to the needs of the American people.”
Cassidy also said Biden’s push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour would cost millions of jobs.
“You don’t want bipartisanship. You want the patina of bipartisanship. … The president’s team did not reach out to anybody in our group, either Democrat or Republican, when they fashioned their proposal,” Cassidy said. “They’ve never reached out to us – that’s the beginning of the bad faith.”
Democrats bristled at Republican accusations that Biden’s relief proposal would give too much in federal aid to affluent Americans, pointing to GOP support for the 2017 tax law that nonpartisan analysts cut taxes substantially for the wealthiest Americans.
“Reasonable people can have honorable differences on the precise income limits of emergency tax relief. But there’s a degree of hutzpah in the GOP suddenly on their high horse on this point when they were just fine with permanently giving people who make over $5 million more tax relief than the bottom 60% of American taxpayers combined,” said Gene Sperling, an economist who advised the Biden presidential campaign and served as former director of the White House National Economic Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
The $900 billion relief bill Congress passed in December included $600 stimulus payments to individuals. Biden’s plan to issue a new round of $1,400 checks would bring that figure to $2,000 – making good on promises he and other Democrats made that helped the party win two Senate seats in Georgia in early January. Those victories gave Democrats the majority in the Senate, and Democrats including the two new senators from Georgia have insisted they must make good on those promises.
“The entire Democratic Party came together behind the candidates in Georgia – we made promises to the American people,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said on ABC. “If politics means anything – if you’re going to have any degree of credibility – you can’t campaign on a series of issues … and then change your mind. That’s not how it works. We made promises to the American people; we’re going to keep those promises.”
In addition to a new round of checks, a higher minimum wage and increased unemployment benefits, Biden’s plan includes rental assistance and eviction forbearance, an increased child tax credit, some $130 billion to help schools reopen, hundreds of billions of dollars for cities and states, and $160 billion for a national vaccination plan, more testing and public health jobs.
Money for vaccinations – which Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said recently was key to helping the economy – has emerged as the one real area of bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill. The GOP plan would match Biden’s call to devote $160 billion to vaccines, testing and related health care spending.
“With your support, we believe Congress can once again craft a relief package that will provide meaningful, effective assistance to the American people and set us on a path to recovery,” the GOP senators wrote.
By The Washington Post Shibani Mahtani, Kyaw Ye Lynn
HONG KONG – Myanmar’s military said Monday that it took control of the country and declared a state of emergency for a year, hours after detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of her ruling National League for Democracy in a predawn operation, staging a coup against the democratically elected government.
The raids came hours before a new session of parliament was scheduled to open and members who won the November elections were set to take their seats. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won those elections in a landslide, capturing 396 of 476 seats. It was Myanmar’s second democratic election since the country’s fragile transition from military rule to democracy.
NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt told The Washington Post that Suu Kyi, Myanmar President Win Myint and all chief ministers from their party, representing more than a dozen states and regions in the country, were taken at gunpoint. A spokesman for his party was also detained, he said.
“I expect that soldiers will arrive for me soon,” Myo Nyunt said. “This is very likely a coup, but we hope that there will also be negotiation between our leaders and the military.”
Several hours after the raids, the military in a television broadcast said that a state of emergency had been declared in Myanmar, and that power would be transferred to the commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing. Myint Swe, a former general and the military-backed vice president, will become the president, the broadcast added.
The sweep included other prominent democracy activists who have been fighting against military rule for decades, leaders of other political parties and NLD lawmakers, according to social media posts and news reports.
Communications appeared to be down or patchy in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, as well as Yangon, the country’s largest city and commercial hub. The state-run broadcaster Myanmar Radio and Television said in a Facebook post that it was not able to broadcast “due to communication problems.” Websites were also down; the Internet monitoring service Netblocks said national connectivity had fallen to 75% of normal levels.
The military has alleged voter fraud in the November vote, but Myanmar’s election commission has said there is no evidence to support its claims. The military’s proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, alleged voter fraud after winning 33 seats.
Political tensions and fears of a military takeover have prompted alarm in the international community.
In a statement sent late Sunday in Washington, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the United States was alarmed by the reports and urged Myanmar’s military to adhere to the rule of law and release those detained, or face consequences. “The United States opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede Myanmar’s democratic transition, and will take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed,” she said.
On Friday, diplomatic missions in Myanmar affirmed their support for the country’s democratic transition and urged the military to respect the results of the elections.
The military, known as the Tatmadaw, said diplomats were making “unwarranted assumptions” and denied that it was impeding the democratic transition.
Myanmar’s military ruled the country for half a century before beginning a transition to democracy in 2010 and allowing elections that ushered Suu Kyi and her party to power in 2015. But the current military-drafted constitution enshrines power for military generals, who have a quarter of seats in parliament and maintain control over key ministries.
Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest before her release in November 2010, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her resistance to military rule. The military-drafted constitution prevents her from leading Myanmar as president, but she is unequivocally the nation’s leader, revered as a deity, and rules through proxies. The military-drafted constitution also allows the army to step into a situation that may “disintegrate” the county and national solidarity.
Since taking power, Suu Kyi has disappointed old allies in the West, particularly for defending Myanmar – and its military in particular – against charges of genocide over the persecution of the Rohingya ethnic minority. Suu Kyi has in recent years moved closer to powers such as China and India, and grown increasingly estranged from countries such as the United States and Britain, which once led advocacy efforts to get her out of house arrest.
The historian and writer Thant Myint-U said Monday that “the doors just opened to a very different future.”
“I have a sinking feeling that no one will really be able to control what comes next,” he tweeted. “And remember Myanmar’s a country awash in weapons, with deep divisions across ethnic & religious lines, where millions can barely feed themselves.”
– – –
The Washington Post’s Kyaw Ye Lynn in Yangon, Myanmar and Timothy McLaughlin in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
สัญญาณเรื่องการทำรัฐประหารในเมียนมาเริ่มชัดขึ้นเรื่อยๆ หลังการควบคุมตัวอองซานซูจีและพรรคพวก
กำลังเกิดการยึดอำนาจในเมียนมา?
ปรากฎการณ์ที่ทำให้โลกต้องตะลึง จะกลายเป็นอีกหนึ่งวิกฤตทางการเงินหรือไม่?
สำนักข่าวซินหัวรายงาน “เจาะวงในร้านอาหารไทย ‘น้องใหม่มาแรง’ แห่งหนานหนิง”
อัตราการติดหวัดในบางประเทศลดลงถึง 95% เรียกได้ว่าเกือบจะหายไปเลยทีเดียว
หลังจากที่กลุ่มต่อต้านวัคซีนรวมตัวกันก่อกวนศูนยืฉีดวัคซีนโควิด-19 ที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในสหรัฐ
กรณี GameStop สร้างหายนะให้กับเฮดจ์ฟันด์ แต่มันทำให้ “แมงเม่า” หลายตัวรวยเละ
ยอดผู้ติดเชื้อโควิด-19 ในสหรัฐเพิ่ม 6 ล้านใน 1 เดือน ทำยอดสะสมทะลุ 26 ล้านราย ผู้เสียชีวิตเพิ่มเป็น 4.38 แสนราย ด้านศูนย์ควบคุมและป้องกันโรคแห่งสหรัฐเตือนไวรัสกลายพันธุ์ทำให้มีอาการรุนแรงและติดต่อระหว่างคนง่ายขึ้น
