Military seizes power from elected government in Myanmar

The power has been handed over to military chief General Min Aung Hlaing and imposing a state of emergency for a year in Myanmar, also known as Burma, where neighbouring China has a powerful influence.
Myanmar’s military, in what it said had responded to “election fraud”, seized power on Monday in a coup against the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with other leaders of her party in early morning raids.
Western nations condemned the sudden turn of events, which derailed years of efforts to establish democracy in the poverty-stricken country of Myanmar and raised even more questions over the prospect of returning a million Rohingya refugees.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kyi’s election win followed decades of house arrest and struggle against the military, which had seized power in a 1962 coup and stamped out all dissent for decades.
The November vote faced some criticism in the West for disenfranchising many Rohingya but the election commission rejected military complaints of fraud. In its statement declaring the emergency, the military cited the failure of the commission to address complaints over voter lists, its refusal to postpone new parliamentary sessions, and protests by groups unhappy with the vote.