BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping showed off the common touch yesterday with a surprise visit to a steamed bun restaurant in Beijing where he paid for his food and happily chatted to surprised customers.
In pictures widely shared on China’s Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, and confirmed by state media, Xi could be seen lining up for his food and posing for photographs, apparently not surrounded by the high security which normally accompanies visits by top leaders.
While such interactions are considered run-of-the-mill in Western countries, they are highly unusual for senior Chinese officials, more used as they are to scenarios carefully stage-managed by the Communist Party’s propaganda arm.
Reuters
Suu Kyi vows to contest polls
YANGON: Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party vowed yesterday to contest crucial elections in 2015 even if the constitution is not amended first to allow her to become president.
The military-drafted charter blocks anyone whose spouse or children are overseas citizens from leading the country -- a clause widely believed to be targeted at the Nobel laureate whose two sons are British.
The constitution also ring-fences a quarter of the seats in parliament for un-elected military personnel.
Suu Kyi has repeatedly warned that the charter must be changed to allow democracy to take root in the former junta-ruled country, and there had been speculation her party might even boycott the 2015 parliamentary polls.
In Myanmar, parliament chooses the president. AFP
