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With asking price of $142 million, no bidders for home of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi

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With asking price of $142 million, no bidders for home of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi
News

News

With asking price of $142 million, no bidders for home of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi

2024-08-15 19:33 Last Updated At:19:41

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — A second attempt to auction the family home of Myanmar's imprisoned former leader Aung San Suu Kyi failed on Thursday after no bidders showed up, likely deterred by the court-ordered asking price of $142 million.

Suu Kyi spent 15 years in the home under house arrest, hosting visiting dignitaries including U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and many see it as a historical landmark in her nonviolent struggle against military rule, for which she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

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FILE - Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walk through the garden after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar on Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool, File)

FILE - Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walk through the garden after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar on Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool, File)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Unidentified legal officials from Kamayut district court walk into an entrance of the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Unidentified legal officials from Kamayut district court walk into an entrance of the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

An unidentified legal official from Kamayut district court speaks outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, MyanmarThursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

An unidentified legal official from Kamayut district court speaks outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, MyanmarThursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

The minimum sale price of 300 billion kyats was a reduction from the initial attempt in March to get 315 billion kyats, about $150 million at official rates.

With black-market exchange rates, which better reflect the real value of the kyat — which has been plummeting — the March asking price was about $90 million and the current price was closer to $46 million — still a lot to pay in a country in the middle of a civil war where nearly half the people are living below the national poverty line of 76 U.S. cents per day, according to the United Nations.

Proceeds from the sale of the 1.9-acre (0.78-hectare) lakeside property in Yangon were to be split between Suu Kyi and her estranged older brother. Suu Kyi’s lawyers had challenged the auction order.

The attempted auction was held in front of the closed gates of the property, which has served as an unofficial party headquarters and a political shrine for the country’s pro-democracy movement.

It lasted less than one minute before a district court official announced there had been no bidders and she ended the proceedings.

According to legal procedures, the court will continue to handle the auction process, but the details are not yet known.

The two-story colonial-style building in Yangon, the country's largest city, was given decades ago by the government to Suu Kyi’s mother, Khin Kyi, after her husband, independence hero Gen. Aung San, was assassinated in July 1947.

Suu Kyi, 79, remained there after her 2010 release from house arrest until moving in 2012 to the capital, Naypyitaw, to serve in parliament. She became the nation’s leader after a 2015 general election.

Her elected government was ousted in an army takeover in February 2021, and Suu Kyi is now serving a combined 27-year sentence after being convicted of a string of criminal charges.

Her supporters and independent analysts say the charges were concocted to discredit her and legitimize the military’s seizure of power.

The court-ordered auction followed a bitter decades-long legal dispute between Suu Kyi and her brother, Aung San Oo, who has sought an equal division of the property.

Suu Kyi’s lawyers have not been allowed to meet with her since they last saw her in person in December 2022.

FILE - Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walk through the garden after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar on Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool, File)

FILE - Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walk through the garden after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar on Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool, File)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Unidentified legal officials from Kamayut district court walk into an entrance of the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Unidentified legal officials from Kamayut district court walk into an entrance of the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Journalists gather outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

An unidentified legal official from Kamayut district court speaks outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, MyanmarThursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

An unidentified legal official from Kamayut district court speaks outside the residence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the home is auctioned in Yangon, MyanmarThursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

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The Gulf of Whatnow? Mapmakers grapple with Trump's geographic renaming plans

2025-01-23 15:31 Last Updated At:15:40

What's in a name change, after all?

The water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba will be critical to shipping lanes and vacationers whether it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, as it has been for four centuries, or the Gulf of America, as President Donald Trump ordered this week. North America’s highest mountain peak will still loom above Alaska whether it’s called Mt. Denali, as ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2015, or changed back to Mt. McKinley as Trump also decreed.

But Trump's territorial assertions, in line with his “America First” worldview, sparked a round of rethinking by mapmakers and teachers, snark on social media and sarcasm by at least one other world leader. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the Trumpian “Gulf of America” on an official document and some other gulf-adjacent states were considering doing the same, it was not clear how many others would follow Trump's lead.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that if Trump went ahead with the renaming, her country would rename North America “Mexican America.” On Tuesday, she toned it down: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”

Map lines are inherently political. After all, they're representations of the places that are important to human beings — and those priorities can be delicate and contentious, even more so in a globalized world.

There’s no agreed-upon scheme to name boundaries and features across the Earth.

“Denali” is the mountain's preferred name for Alaska Natives, while “McKinley" is a tribute to President William McKinley, designated in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. China sees Taiwan as its own territory, and the countries surrounding what the United States calls the South China Sea have multiple names for the same body of water.

The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps. Many Arab countries don’t recognize Israel and instead call it Palestine. And in many official releases, Israel calls the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”

Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.

Trump's executive order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — concludes thusly: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.”

But what to call the gulf with the 3,700-mile coastline?

“It is, I suppose, an internationally recognized sea, but (to be honest), a situation like this has never come up before so I need to confirm the appropriate convention,” said Peter Bellerby, who said he was talking over the issue with the cartographers at his London company, Bellerby & Co. Globemakers. “If, for instance, he wanted to change the Atlantic Ocean to the American Ocean, we would probably just ignore it."

As of Wednesday night, map applications for Google and Apple still called the mountain and the gulf by their old names. Spokespersons for those platforms did not immediately respond to emailed questions.

A spokesperson for National Geographic, one of the most prominent map makers in the U.S., said this week that the company does not comment on individual cases and referred questions to a statement on its web site, which reads in part that it "strives to be apolitical, to consult multiple authoritative sources, and to make independent decisions based on extensive research.” National Geographic also has a policy of including explanatory notes for place names in dispute, citing as an example a body of water between Japan and the Korean peninsula, referred to as the Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by Koreans.

In discussion on social media, one thread noted that the Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though it's still commonly known by its original moniker. Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg, renamed its Market Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard and then switched back to Market Street several years later — with loud complaints both times. In 2017, New York's Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo to great controversy. The new name appears on maps, but “no one calls it that,” noted another user.

“Are we going to start teaching this as the name of the body of water?” asked one Reddit poster on Tuesday.

“I guess you can tell students that SOME PEOPLE want to rename this body of water the Gulf of America, but everyone else in the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico,” came one answer. “Cover all your bases — they know the reality-based name, but also the wannabe name as well.”

Wrote another user: “I'll call it the Gulf of America when I'm forced to call the Tappan Zee the Mario Cuomo Bridge, which is to say never.”

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

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