BANGKOK – Thai authorities have ordered an anti-junta television channel to stop broadcasting as the kingdom’s military rulers tighten the screw on dissent ahead of a controversial referendum vote.

The junta has banned campaigning ahead of an August 7 plebiscite on a new draft of a charter in what will be the first public vote of any kind since the military seized power two years ago.

The junta says its new charter will end the political upheaval that has rocked the kingdom for a decade.

But critics decry the document as a divisive and naked attempt to cement the power of an army that has staged a dozen coups in the past century.

The junta has instituted an array of restrictions on free speech and, with the referendum looming, has arrested or warned scores of people for airing criticism of the charter draft.

On Thursday broadcasting authorities ordered a 30-day blackout of an anti-junta TV station run by ‘Red Shirt’ supporters of the ousted government of Yingluck Shinawatra.

“Peace TV must stop broadcasting,” said the order by the National Broadcasting, Telecommunication Commission (NBTC).

It accused the channel of violating a junta edict by “reporting information that caused confusion, provocation, incited conflict and caused divisiveness in the kingdom”.

Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan, who has a daily programme on the channel, said he would seek a court injunction on the order.

His group are die-hard supporters of the Shinawatras – a family of tycoons-turned-politicians who have won the hearts of the country’s rural majority and dominated electoral politics since the early 2000s.

But the clan is reviled by Thailand’s elite and have been repeatedly booted out of power by judicial rulings and military coups.

Analysts say the frequent changes in government, often spurred by months of mass protests, have cost the kingdom a “lost decade” of potential development and economic growth.

The ruling junta has promised elections will go ahead in 2017 but has not clarified what will happen if the charter is rejected in the referendum, raising fears the timetable will slip.

The referendum is yet to catch the public imagination in Thailand, with junta opponents unconvinced a vote ‘No’ will do anything to loosen the military’s grip on the country.

HONG KONG – A key figure in Hong Kong’s ‘Umbrella Revolution’ was convicted Thursday of participating in a protest that sparked mass pro-democracy rallies, in a prosecution blasted as a “chilling warning” by rights campaigners.

Joshua Wong – who led the demonstrations that paralysed the city for months – could be jailed for up to two years following the verdict, which comes as tensions remain high in the semi-autonomous city with fears growing that Beijing is tightening its grip.

The 19-year-old has always said the various protest-related cases against him were political persecution.

Rights group Amnesty International described cases against peaceful protesters as intimidation Thursday in the wake of the verdict.

Wong was convicted for taking part in an unlawful assembly after he and others climbed over a fence into a government complex forecourt known as Civic Square on September 26, 2014, triggering wider rallies that exploded two days later when police fired tear gas to disperse crowds.

The key players in Hong Kong’s political unrest

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Fellow student leaders Alex Chow and Nathan Law were also convicted over the same protest Thursday – Chow for taking part and Law for inciting others to do so.

“No matter what is the penalty… we will still continue to fight against suppression from the government,” Wong said after the ruling.

“We know facing the largest communist regime in the world is a long-term battle for us to fight for democracy.”

The three defendants, who smiled in resignation at the verdict, were released on bail and are due back in court on August 15 for sentencing.

The charge of participating in an unlawful assembly has a maximum sentence of up to five years, but the magistrates court where the trio were tried can only give a maximum jail term of two years per offence due to its status as a lower court.

Political analyst Ivan Choy said the public may have an “antagonistic attitude” towards the government if the trio receive a heavy sentence, while Amnesty said that “vague charges” against student leaders “smacked of political payback”.

“The Hong Kong authorities’ prosecution of three pro-democracy student leaders sends a chilling warning for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in the city,” Amnesty said in a statement.

It added the city’s public order laws failed to meet international standards and were being used “in an attempt to intimidate people from exercising their right to peaceful assembly”.

Wong was at the forefront of the ‘Umbrella Movement’, which brought parts of Hong Kong to a standstill for more than two months in 2014 as residents called on Beijing to allow fully free elections of future leaders.

Young campaigners were left angry and frustrated after the rallies failed to win political reform, with Wong and Law since founding a new political party, Demosisto, campaigning for self-determination for Hong Kong.

Law is also a candidate for the city’s upcoming legislative council election, but he will not be able to stand if his prison sentence is over three months.

Wong has been in and out of court hearings for the past year after being charged with multiple offences linked to various protest actions.

In the ruling Thursday, magistrate June Cheung said Wong had known that climbing over the fence was “disturbing order”.

Defence lawyers had argued authorities should not have fenced off Civic Square – previously a popular protest site open to the public – in the febrile months before the Umbrella Movement.

The prosecution said the fact they climbed into the square was unlawful and that the protest was pre-planned.

Both Wong and Law were acquitted in June over an anti-China protest in the first of a series of cases against him to reach a verdict.

Another student leader, Billy Fung, was charged Thursday over a protest in January where students stormed into an official meeting at Hong Kong University angered by the appointment of a pro-Beijing figure to a senior university role.

Hong Kong was returned to China by Britain in 1997 with its freedoms guaranteed for 50 years, but there are fears those liberties are disappearing.

BEIJING – Torrential rain lashing northern China in recent days has left nearly 100 people dead or missing, official figures showed.

At least 24 people in the provinces of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing, Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi have been confirmed dead in a rainstorm that has been pounding the region since Monday, according to figures from the civil affairs ministry.

Hebei was the worst hit, with 14 dead and 72 missing, it said in a statement late Wednesday.

Around 123,000 people were evacuated in 11 cities across Hebei, and more than 7,000 houses were destroyed, it said, adding that traffic, power and communications were also disrupted.

Northern China is normally arid but flooding is not uncommon during the summer monsoon season.

Hundreds of flights cancelled as heavy rains persist in Beijing

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In the summer of 2012 Beijing was lashed by the worst rains to hit the capital for more than 60 years and around 80 people were killed.

Heavy downpours have already wreaked havoc in southern China this year, causing floods in several major cities including Wuhan in the central province of Hubei.

Since Saturday, 24 people have died as a result of rain in seven southern and central provinces, the civil affairs ministry said Wednesday.

YANGON – Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has accepted an invite from Barack Obama to visit the United States, her government said Thursday, the first time the pair will meet since last year’s landmark elections.

“She accepted the invitation and will discuss a visit there at a mutually convenient time,” Aye Aye Soe, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, told AFP.

The invitation reinforces Suu Kyi’s primacy on the international stage as the real head of a government she is technically barred from leading.

Despite winning a landslide in last November’s elections, an event that brought to an end decades of brutal military rule, Suu Kyi is banned from being president by a junta-era constitution.

Instead she has taken the role of Foreign Minister and created a new position for herself titled “State Counsellor”. She has also appointed a long term friend and ally, Htin Kyaw, to be a proxy president.

It is not clear when the visit will take place but it is expected to occur before Obama leaves office as American voters head to the polls in November.

“President Obama has six months of his term left and they would like to maintain good relations between our two countries,” Aye Aye Soe said.

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, delivered the invitation on Wednesday during a visit to the capital Naypyidaw.

Obama and Suu Kyi first met in 2012 shortly after the veteran dissident was released from house arrest where she had spent much of the last two decades under junta rule.

President Obama also met Suu Kyi during a visit to Myanmar in 2014 in which he criticised the ban on Suu Kyi taking the presidency.

Myanmar’s peaceful transition from military to civilian rule has been hailed in a world where such transitions seem rare.

But the military, who spent decades brutalising the population and enriching themselves, remain enormously influential.

Officers are still guaranteed a quarter of legislative seats, giving them a veto on constitutional change, while the military retains control of the crucial home, border and defence ministries.