Myanmar army rallies supporters, bans flights through April

Supporters of Myanmar’s military rallied in the nation’s largest city as it moved to suspend all flights through April, raising fresh concerns about the army’s crackdown a day after it seized power in a coup and detained senior government officials and activists. The rally in the commercial capital Yangon is the first since de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues were taken in early morning raids on Monday. “It is not a coup, but just an act of retaining the power to prevent others from misusing it,” a monk, Tipitaka Thitsar Pwintlin, told the pro-military crowd, urging them to thank the army for protecting the nation and its majority Buddhist religion. The military on Tuesday instructed airlines to suspend all flights until April 30 -- an extension of travel restrictions put in place by the previous government to contain the spread of Covid-19 -- and reopened the country’s stock exchange for trading from Wednesday. Broader sanctions like those imposed before the country’s shift to democracy more than a decade ago are likely to hit Myanmar’s 55 million citizens, many of whom overwhelmingly voted for Suu Kyi’s party.<br/>