Aung San Suu Kyi’s son calls on governments to impose ‘tougher sanctions’ on Myanmar
International governments should impose “tougher sanctions” on Myanmar and restrict its military from accessing aviation fuel, the son of the country’s ousted leader has said.
Kim Aris’ mother Aung San Suu Kyi was the head of Myanmar’s government before she was arrested during a military coup in the country in 2021.
He has spoken to Sky News after chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his team went undercover deep in the jungle in Myanmar to report on the civil war which has been raging in the country since the coup.
They spent a month in Myanmar with resistance fighters, medics and volunteers who are fighting a war the military regime claims isn’t happening.
Asked why international governments are not speaking about the war in Myanmar as much as people in the country would hope, Mr Aris said: “Unfortunately, I think it’s kind of an indication of the disinterest of people in what’s going on on the other side of the world… Until people themselves start to get involved, the governments aren’t likely to do anything.”
He added that governments have “condemned what’s happening” but now need to take more meaningful steps.
Resistance fighters in the jungle in Myanmar
Kim Aris and his mother Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar in 2010. Pic: AP
Asked what measures those might be, Mr Aris said: “Tougher sanctions would help, and making sure the military are restricted or completely cut off from aviation fuel and those kinds of things.
“This would help immensely.
“And just being able to get aid to the people who need it. At the moment, the military are cutting off all aid to everybody.”
Mr Aris’s call to restrict Myanmar‘s access to aviation fuel comes as the military is using fighter jets to bomb targets during the civil war.
He cited a report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights which says China and Russia are the main suppliers of advanced weapons to Myanmar’s military.
Read more:
Maps and charts reveal scale of death and destruction in Myanmar
The secret Myanmar hospital on the frontline
Why the risk of going to Myanmar was worth taking
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Inside Myanmar: The hidden war
‘No concrete news of Suu Kyi’s whereabouts’
Mr Aris grew up in the UK with his mother in the early years of his life and remained in Britain when she returned to Myanmar as a political figure who promoted democracy and human rights.
He told Sky News the last time he spoke to his mother was before her government was overthrown more than two years ago.
Mr Aris continued: “Yes. I haven’t really received any concrete news about her whereabouts and I haven’t had any communication with her since before the coup.
“So despite my requests for official channels, I haven’t received any response.
“It is hard, but I’m kind of used to it, having lived with this most of my life.”
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Myanmar’s military rulers repeatedly imprisoned Suu Kyi under house arrest between 1989 and 2010 as they viewed her as someone undermining the peace and stability of the country.
However, following her release from house arrest for the final time she became state counsellor, the title for the de facto leader equivalent to a prime minister, in 2016.
Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders led a democratic experiment in the country before it was crushed by the military coup in 2021.
Their government was overthrown and she was arrested alongside others.
Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn pay packet.
Tesla shareholders have approved the whopping financial package for the CEO – who’s already worth an estimated $491bn – if he hits a series of ambitious targets over the next 10 years.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
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