News
Farmers told to prepare for drought as El Niño’s stay extended
Just six months after record-setting floods wreaked havoc on crops, farmers are being told to get ready to withstand severe drought. Meteorologists predict it’s likely to be one for the decades. The El Niño event that hit Myanmar last year – and caused conditions among the ...
Evicted villagers fear for their safety
Resident from Nyaung Ni village tract, who were forcefully evicted from purported military-owned land, are concerned for their safety as they have been warned not to leave the village, or they will face arrest starting 1 February. “This morning, when the children went to school, they ...
Leprosy patients suffer months with no medical care
After nine months without medical care, the posting of a single doctor to a “leprosy village” in Yangon is only a small consolation for its nearly 200 residents. For months, the villagers depended on donors to provide medicine and on health assistants or volunteers to administer ...
Energy Ministry promises clampdown on oil prices
Myanmar energy officials have pledged to push down the price of petrol at the pump still further, as it emerged that some filling station owners are profiting from globally plummeting oil prices by keeping their prices up – or even raising them. At a press conference ...
Parliamentary sketchbook: the NLD takes their seats
It had been a long wait: Almost three months since the election that swept Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy to victory, but also decades of being kept on the sidelines by military control. Finally on 1 February, Myanmar’s NLD MPs took ...
Thai police rescue 29 Myanmar trafficking victims
Thai authorities have rescued nearly 30 Myanmar victims from alleged human traffickers’ hands in Phuket province. Keep reading ...
Yangon buses in a feud for gas
A row has flared between Yangon bus owners and the regional transport authority over access to compressed natural gas. Ma Hta Tha, the Yangon Region Supervisory Committee for Motor Vehicles, says it is inviting buses to sign up to receive more CNG, but some owners ...
Evicted families promised land but face food, supply shortfall
Thousands of Myanmar families evicted from military-owned land have been promised new plots in exchange for the 560 acres they were allegedly squatting on. The minister for security and border affairs in Yangon said the government has a compensation plan, but was light on the ...
Migrant workers languish in Malaysian detention centres
Thousands of Myanmar migrant workers are spending months or even years in detention camps in Malaysia waiting for the government to confirm their citizenship status, migrant rights groups say. The delay has caused a backlog in the 11 detention camps throughout Malaysia, recently returned workers say. ...
Reduced Rakhine State budget under fire
The incoming Rakhine State parliament will have only half the funds it needs to develop the state, a local MP has complained. The state parliament adopted the 2016-17 budget on 25 January, days before it rose to give way to the new parliament elected last ...
