[Myanmar] Chinese Dissident Fang Lizhi Dies

Fang Lizhi, one of China’s best-known dissidents whose speeches inspired student protesters throughout the 1980s, has died in the United States, where he fled after China’s 1989 military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. He was 76. Once China’s leading astrophysicist, Fang and his wife hid in the US Embassy for 13 months after the crackdown. In exile, he was a physics professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Fang inspired a generation, said his friend and fellow US-based exiled dissident Wang Dan, who announced the death on Facebook and Twitter.—AP

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