Ethnic minorities and indigenous people
Ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples profiles
Govt publishes data on populations of religious groups
According to the figures publicly launched by the Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population, on 21 July in the capital Naypyidaw, Buddhists constitute 87.9 percent of the country, Christians make up 6.2 percent, Muslims comprise 4.3 percent, animists are counted at 0.8 percent and Hindus are ...
Govt to release census data on religion
Data from Myanmar’s 2014 census on the populations of the country’s religious groups will be released this month, a ministry spokesperson has announced. Myint Kyaing, the permanent secretary within the Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population, told The Irrawaddy on 12 July that the religious data will ...
As war of words drags on, government in Rakhine State opts for term ‘Rakhine ethnics’
A day after thousands of Buddhist nationalists staged protests across Rakhine State, the regional government issued a statement saying it would call the state’s Buddhist majority “Rakhine ethnics”, as controversy over terminology continues to simmer. The announcement yesterday said the state government would drop the phrase ...
Govt to meet again with armed Kokang groups
The government is planning to meet with the three armed ethnic groups from the Kokang region that had been excluded from last year’s so-called nationwide ceasefire agreement, according to government peace negotiator U Hla Maung Shwe. The three groups have been fighting the Tatmadaw since ...
Laos prepares two sites for world heritage listing
Laos expects to make a submission to Unesco for world heritage listing of the Plain of Jars in northern Xieng Khuang province as well as Phou Hin Nam Nor in central Khammuan province next year. Officials from the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, Ministry of ...
Mekong dams’ annual impact put at $450M
A 30-month study by Vietnamese researchers on the impact of 11 proposed hydroelectric dams in the Lower Mekong Basin has found that the economic damage to Cambodia alone will be worth some $450 million per year. According to the researchers, the Mekong River at Kratie could, ...
Cardamom brings great changes for Phongsaly farmers
Many local farmers in Laos’s Phongsaly province are shifting to plant cardamom, after earning lucrative income from growing this crop and selling it to Chinese traders. Some families earned as much as 40 million kip per year from growing cardamom, which enabled them to send their ...
Stateless Lao still struggling for basic rights in Thailand 40 years later
The 21-year civil war in Laos forced a large number of Lao people to seek refuge in Thailand, and many of them still live in the country today. Despite a long presence in Thailand, scores of them have not yet obtained Thai citizenship and are now more concerned ...
Ohanaeze Mekong Thailand moves to unite Ndigbo in Asia
Ohanaeze Ndigbo (one of the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria) living in the Mekong River area of South East Asia, comprising Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and China recently converged on Bangkok, Thailand where they deliberated on issues of common interest and how they would ...
