Comment on China tightens church control ahead of Christmas

(BANGKOK) — Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest as a health measure due to a heat wave, the military government said as it freed more than 3,000 prisoners under an amnesty to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Those released included several political prisoners, including a member of the Kachin minority who is one of the country’s most prominent Christian church leaders. Suu Kyi, 78, and Win Myint, the 72-year-old former president of her ousted government, were among the elderly and infirm prisoners moved to house arrest because of the severe heat, military spokesperson Maj.

Where do you find influence in 2024? You can start with the offices of the Anti-Corruption Foundation in Vilnius, Lithuania, where TIME met with Yulia Navalnaya earlier this spring. There, the activist is working with 60 supporters—whose anti-Kremlin activities include tracking down the villas, yachts, and bank accounts of the Russian political elites—inside three fully operational production studios and a high-tech control room.

In Russian custom, the soul of the dead is believed to remain on earth for forty days, finishing its business among the living before it moves on to the afterlife. Surviving friends and relatives often spend this period in mourning and reflection. But the loved ones of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading dissident, did not have much freedom to abide by this custom after he died in an Arctic prison camp on February 16. For them, and especially for his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, the days and weeks that followed his death rushed by in a blur of studio lights, airport terminals, hotel rooms and video calls.

Outside the closed world of the Kremlin and the Russian prison system, few could have anticipated the death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading dissident, in an Arctic penal colony on February 16. It came as a devastating shock to the revolutionary movement he led and, more acutely, to his close friends and family.

Prince William is expected to return to royal duties Thursday, marking his first public engagements since his wife Kate, the Princess of Wales, announced her cancer diagnosis last month. William is expected to visit Surrey and West London to “spotlight the community and environmental impact organizations in the area are having through their work”, Kensington Palace said on Tuesday.