Social development

An American journalist has been detained in Myanmar as he tried to board a flight at Yangon International Airport, the latest of dozens of reporters and editors to be arrested since the coup. Danny Fenster, managing editor of the independent outlet Frontier Myanmar, had been due to board ...

Many believe that the Rohingya have been a part of Myanmar well before the British colonists arrived and have been an integral part of the country ever since. They have been mostly concentrated in the Rakhine region of the country and have been subjected to ...

“I’ve seen lower yields on my farm each year since maybe 2017 or 2018 – there just isn’t enough water,” says Yoeum Yoeut. Yoeut, 52, is a lifelong resident of the Baran district in Cambodia’s northwest Battambang province. Her livelihood has always depended on the natural flooding ...

The prominent democracy activist Ko Mya Aye, who has spent more than three months behind bars since the February coup, faces hate speech charges under Article 505(c) of the Penal Code for incitement, which carries up to two years in prison. According to his family, the ...

In 2015, two years before the state-driven collapse of Cambodia’s political opposition, the national government dominated by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) approved the Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (LANGO). When the law was first put forward in 2011, it was met with significant opposition, ...

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has held talks with authorities in Mae Hong Son to find ways to help more than 2,000 Karen refugees who crossed the Salaween River into Thailand to flee fighting between the KNU (Karen National Union) and Myanmar ...

The COVID-19 outbreak continues to strain healthcare providers physically and financially. As they have to cope with the increased workload associated with screening patients for the new coronavirus infection and treating them if they are infected, the extra work always come with extra costs. Even though, ...

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released their annual ranking of the global state of press freedom earlier this month and Countries in Southeast Asia did poorly—none of the 11 countries in the ASEAN bloc scored above RSF’s “difficult situation” designation. RSF ranks countries based on a questionnaire given to ...

As dawn breaks over a crowded market in Yangon, a student strolls in, browsing casually through the stalls of vegetables, fruit, spices and fish. Picking up an onion to inspect the quality of the produce, he doesn’t stand out in the crowds of people. “One person ...

Every day at sunrise, Daisy* and her sisters set out to spend several hours in the heat cleaning debris from the previous day’s protests off the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. Protests have erupted around the country since the military seized control of the government ...