Government-run newspaper the New Light of Myanmar Thursday charged the U.S. Embassy and the British Embassy with interfering in Myanmar’s internal affairs through conducting courses. The newspaper considered some courses such as the English proficiency course, international relations course and the global information course conducted by the two western embassies as illegal ones.

In the two embassies’ English proficiency courses conducted between 2002 and 2006, lectures were respectively given on trafficking in persons, documents on workers of the International Labor Organization, excerpts from human rights, points on the federal principle, spoken English, assassination of General Aung San who was Myanmar’s independence hero, corruption in various nations of the world, internet news, world trade system, human rights violation and lawlessness in weak nations, the newspaper said.

The newspaper accused the lectures of being sugar-coated medicines which it said can be called poison for the media. Charging the courses with comprising discussions on Myanmar’s current economic, education, health and social aspects, the newspaper criticized that “the courses did not bring about the improvement of spoken English.”

The newspaper also charged the two embassies with opening the courses in cooperation with the main political party — the National League for Democracy (NLD), saying that “officials from NLD made contact with the two embassies and an agreement was reached between them that NLD members could take the course free of charge.” The newspaper cited comments among the private media as saying that the “opening of illegal courses by the embassies in cooperation with the NLD is a blatant interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs violating the diplomatic ethics.” So far, the two embassies have not made any response over the charge.