 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world, our headlines. Myanmar military stages school and detained senior government officials. Party for Socialism and Liberation holds anti-abduction rallies in the US. Bobby Wein files a legal challenge against election results in Uganda's Supreme Court. And finally, we look at AFRICOM and the US military's statutory presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In our first story, Myanmar's military has seized power and detained senior government officials including State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi. President Uwin Mint was also detained in the raids carried out in the early hours of February 1st. The country has been placed under the state of emergency for one year. The military has also announced that state power has been handed over to the commander of the armed forces. The state media has been taken off the air and internet telephone services have also been shut down. Conflict between the military and the civilian government intensified since the parliamentary elections in November 2020. The military alleged widespread fraud in the elections, claiming millions of voting irregularities. While 25% of the parliamentary seats are reserved for the military, it exercises additional power by backing the opposition Union's Solidarity and Development Party. The number of elections saw a decisive victory for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which secured a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament. The parliament was supposed to convene for a new term in the capital today. Councilor Suu Kyi has issued a statement urging people to protest the coup wholeheartedly. She played a key role in the transition to Myanmar from military rule to partial democracy. She did receive international praise for a decades-long resistance to military rule, including the Nobel Peace Prize. She also became the head of state, de facto head of state, after being sworn as a state councillor of Myanmar in 2016. However, her government's failure to protect Rohingya Muslims from severe violence in persecution led to widespread condemnation of her and her government. In our next story, the Party for Socialism and Liberation concluded its three-day cancel the rent campaign across the US on January 31st. The PSL was joined by hundreds of local activists and community organizations in at least 30 demonstrations across cities. The campaign demanded the cancellation of rent and mortgages, a ban on foreclosures and evictions, and using vacant housing to assist homeless people. The countrywide campaign concluded on the same day as Republican lawmakers sending a letter to President Joe Biden to scale down the proposed $1.4 trillion COVID relief bill. The bill advocates $1,400 for stimulus payments for affected individuals, among other key allocations towards vaccination, etc. A statement by the PSL echoes public concerns that a one-time stimulus payment will be insufficient. It further states that consistent replacement income is required for those who cannot work. According to the PSL, one-third of Americans are struggling to pay the bills and are unable to catch up with rent. While President Biden has issued a moratorium on evictions till March 31st, threat of evictions is increasing at Reds Double and unpaid mortgages pile up. At least 14 million people are behind in rent payments and at least $100 billion in rent use have accumulated across the country. Landlords have continued to exploit loopholes and lack of federal and local enforcement to the moratorium to evict vulnerable tenants. President Joe Biden has announced that he will ask Congress to extend the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures till September. The US Congress is now gearing up to vote on the COVID relief bill. The Democratic Party, which holds a tie-breaking majority in the Senate, is reportedly preparing to expedite the process to the budget reconciliation process. This means that the bill could potentially pass with a simple majority in the 100-member body. In our next story, you've got an opposition leader, Bobby Wine, has filed a lawsuit demanding the cancellation of the presidential election results. A lawyer for Wine's National Unity Platform Party announced that the case was filed in the Supreme Court today. Incumbent President Joe Veri Museveni had been declared the winner of the January 14th election amid accusations of rigging and fraud. Museveni reportedly secured 58.6 per 4 percent of the votes, while Wine came second with a vote share of 34.83. Bobby Wine had raised allegations of fraud and intimidation on the election day, as his polling agents were reportedly detained. He was placed under conditions of house arrest starting January 14th after the military surrounded his house. A court ruled on January 25th that Wine's house arrest was illegal and unconstitutional, however, the military did not withdraw from his residence immediately. No one was allowed to enter the premises and Wine was denied contact with his party members. In the meantime, security forces conducted multiple raids at NUP party offices. Wine is now seeking a cancellation of the results in a fresh round of elections. He has cited various irregularities including pre-tick ballots, soldiers stuffing ballot boxes and widespread use of violence. A date for the hearings is yet to be set, and thus seems to be some apprehension regarding the case. This is due to the fact that the Supreme Court has previously ruled thrice that electoral irregularities would not be sufficient to impact the outcome. For a final story, we go to the Democratic Republic of Congo where the government hosted a delegation of the United States Africa Command AFRICOM from January 27th to 29th. AFRICOM is a unified military command in the U.S. Defense Department and is responsible for military relations with 53 African countries. The stated purpose of the visit was to support military professionalism and re-establish security cooperation relationship. Here is Kambali Musawili from the Center for Research on the Congo to discuss the actual context of the U.S. military presence in the DRC. Congo is strategically positioned on the African continent. It's right at the heart of Africa. It's border-banan African countries. It's very easy from Kisangani, which is in the northeast part of the DRC, to reach the horn of Africa around Djibouti, where the U.S. has a military base as well, to reach the north of Africa, to move to the south, or to go to the west. So whoever controls the Congo, as Mao said, controls the world. And the U.S. is choosing the DRC to have its military footprint on the African continent. So that's one, the geostrategic position of the DRC. The other one is a resource control. The Congo is the sixth largest oil producer on the African continent. There is a lot of oil in the area where the U.S. military has been present. Right in the east of the area where they are, you have oil in Lake Albert. You go to the west of Congo to work in Chasa. There is oil also right by the Congo River going to the Atlantic. So they want to make sure that they protect oil reserves. And that's the military branch that came to the DRC. It's the U.S. African command. The U.S. Africa command called Africa is interested in protecting U.S. interests on the African continent, which is not African interests, which is not Congolese interests. It's really U.S. interests. The challenge now with the decision to pretty much unveil in front of everyone, for every Congolese, is for Congolese and Africans to understand what's happening in 2021 and the future of the African continent. We have many military forces on the African continent beyond even the United States. Japan has forces, Qatar has forces. The African continent now is pretty much under invasion of Western military forces and all the military forces. Why are they here? The United States will say that they want to be in the Congo because of Al Qaeda, because of ISIS. The UN group of experts in the DRC have published the reports, multiple reports, clearly stating that there is no link with rebel groups in the DRC devices. Yet the U.S. Africa command continues to repeat that the DRC is now a terrorist threat. The United States, armed, trained, assist the Ugandan military, the random military in the air versions in the DRC. No condemnation, no strong action against them up until today. The same nation which has armed, Uganda and Rwanda, Congo's neighbors in the east, is coming today to the Congolese after arming them with the weapons, where the UN group of experts have published numerous reports showing rebels in the DRC with night vision goggles, with sophisticated weaponry, and clearly telling that the weapons of the rebels in the DRC are coming from the Rwanda military, are coming from the Uganda military. These two nations getting the weapons from the United States. And today we have U.S. generals showing up in Kinshasa, the country where the U.S. government with the CIA decided to kill the first democratically elected prime minister of the DRC to come and say to us that they are in the DRC to help the Congolese. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.