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Geopolitics

Aung San Suu Kyi Steps On Foreign Soil For First Time In 24 Years

BANGKOK POST (Thailand)

BANGKOK – Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has landed in Thailand for her first trip abroad in 24 years. Upon arrival Tuesday, she was greeted at the airport by a swarm of media, as well as own compatriots, who have a strong immigrant presence in Thailand.

Her visit began with a morning tour of Myanmar immigrant workers in Mahachai, district of Samut Sakhon province (see video below).

The visit, which is expected to last four days, will include a meeting with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and other visits to Myanmar immigrant neighborhooods. "Thailand's workforce is heavily reliant on low-cost foreign workers, both legal and trafficked, with Myanmar nationals accounting for around 80 percent of the two million registered foreign workers in the kingdom," The Bangkok Post reports.

After Thailand, Aung San Suu Kyi is slated to travel on to Geneva, London and Oslo, where she will finally accept in person the Nobel Prize for Peace that she was awarded in 1991.

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Economy

Forced Labor, Forced Exile: The Cuban Professionals Sent Abroad To Work, Never To Return

Noel, a Cuban engineer who had to emigrate to the faraway island of Saint Lucia, tells about the Cuban government's systematic intimidation techniques and coercion of its professionals abroad. He now knows he can never go back to his native island — lest he should never be allowed to leave Cuba again.

Forced Labor, Forced Exile: The Cuban Professionals Sent Abroad To Work, Never To Return

Next stop, Saint Lucia

Laura Rique Valero

Daniela* was just one year old when she last played with her father. In a video her mother recorded, the two can be seen lying on the floor, making each other laugh.

Three years have passed since then. Daniela's sister, Dunia*, was born — but she has never met her father in person, only connecting through video calls. Indeed, between 2019 and 2023, the family changed more than the two little girls could understand.

"Dad, are you here yet? I'm crazy excited to talk to you."

"Dad, I want you to call today and I'm going to send you a kiss."

"Dad, I want you to come for a long time. I want you to call me; call me, dad."

Three voice messages which Daniela has left her father, one after the other, on WhatsApp this Saturday. His image appears on the phone screen, and the two both light up.

The girls can’t explain what their father looks like in real life: how tall or short or thin he is, how he smells or how his voice sounds — the real one, not what comes out of the speaker. Their version of their dad is limited to a rectangular, digital image. There is nothing else, only distance, and problems that their mother may never share with them.

In 2020, Noel*, the girls' father, was offered a two-to-three-year employment contract on a volcanic island in the Caribbean, some 2,000 kilometers from Cuba. The family needed the money. What came next was never in the plans.

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