Myanmar: Textile factories catch fire during the protest

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YANGON, Myanmar – Two textile factories of owned by Chinese companies in the Hlaing Tharyar industrial zone caught fire during the violent confrontation between protesters and security forces on March 14. No one has claimed responsible for that incident.

The Chinese embassy has called for the Myanmar military to undertake further measures for the security of Chinese investments and Chinese workers in Myanmar.

Due to the violent crackdown of security forces, 50 people have died and 129 others have been wounded in Yangon. Myanmar’s military declared the martial law in five townships of the Yangon area.

After declaring martial law, there internet services in Myanmar has been cut off.

Many people who work for the factories are going back to their localities. Hlaing Tharyar is a populous area due largely to migrant workers.

By Htay Win
Photo credit- Khit Thit

French bank will stop financing companies that exploit deforested land in the Amazon

Amazon deforestation
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Continuing a trend of European businesses moving independently to protect the Amazon, France’s BNP Paribas announced it will no longer finance companies that buy cattle or soy produced on deforested or converted Amazon lands after 2008. The measure also applies to deforested lands in Brazil’s Cerrado region, a threatened tropical savanna eco-region covering 20% of Brazil that has lost half its land to agricultural clearing.

PNB said it will only finance those who adopt a Cerrado strategy of Zero Deforestation by 2025, promoting criticism from environmentalists that it is weak action that gives deforesters a 5-year free pass in an area they see spiraling into a collapse of its biodiversity.

The immediate move to fight Amazon deforestation, however, will also affect Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Guyana, and French Guiana, which hold parts of the Amazon forest along with Brazil. An area the size of the state of Maryland was lost to deforestation in 2020.

By Milan Sime Martinić