Ethnic minorities and indigenous people

On March 14, International Day of Action for Rivers, 23 countries’ indigenous, together with  thousands of river stewards, defenders, and allies called for the protection of their rivers and rights to manage them,  with hundreds more joined in via social media and digital outreach. “We cannot ...

SREKOR COMMUNE, STUNG TRENG PROVINCE — Fut Kheun has been keeping a close watch on the water levels at the Sesan II reservoir, in the remote Srekor commune of Stung Treng province. The ethnic Kreung villager is living close to the water at the reservoir, two ...

Muesaw Chokedilok, an ethnic Karen woman from Thailand’s Kaburdin Village in Chiang Mai’s Omkoi district, hops aboard an old pickup truck for a rugged ride up the mountain. With her are a group of housewives from the same village, all clad in cotton handwoven clothes ...

Rackety trucks rush across China’s border with its backwater neighbor, stirring up clouds of dust and drowning the tweets of tropical birds. Chinese projects to construct roads in one of Asia’s poorest countries date back to 1962 when Laos was subject to a proxy war between the global Cold ...

Vietnam and the U.S. have announced that cooperation on cross-border crime has led to a U.S. grand jury indictment of an American teacher accused of traveling to the Southeast Asian nation to have sex with minors. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of California ...

Myanmar authorities on Wednesday arrested nearly 50 Rohingya Muslims in Yangon region as they attempted to flee the country for Malaysia, a lawmaker said, while a separate group of Rohingya detainees appeared in court in Ayeyarwady region to face charges on traveling without official permission ...

Members of Wisconsin’s Hmong community are speaking out after reports that the Trump administration is seeking authority to deport thousands of Hmong residents to Laos. A State Department spokesperson on Monday confirmed to Wisconsin Public Radio that the administration is calling on Laos to accept deported ...

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with ethnic Karenni youth in eastern Kayah state Wednesday to discuss local grievances there, the latest step to shore up her ruling National League for Democracy’s relations with ethnic groups as the party faces year-end elections. The visit, and ...

The number of civilians displaced during the past year amid an uptick in armed conflict in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state has reached more than 100,000, a regional relief organization said Monday, as authorities continue to limit area access to groups providing aid. The new figure based ...

The group says they have trained more than 300 teams and about 70 are in operation, helping injured civilians and delivering aid to those in need. The recruits say they are being persecuted by the country’s army. They have been conducting rescue and medical drills, but Myanmar‘s military ...