News
Ministries to be trimmed for ‘efficiency’ under next government
Hoping to reduce bureaucratic red tape, the National League for Democracy revealed that it will slash ministries when it takes control of the government in two months. The ministries have been rushing to compile progress reports with an eye toward easing the transition. But the flurry ...
Political prisoners hope for NLD help
With so many supporters soon to be in high places, the Former Political Prisoner Society has high expectations of the incoming National League for Democracy government. About 100 of the MPs preparing to take their seats on 1 February, including NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu ...
Youths missing since New Year
Ethnic armed groups or militia may have abducted 15 young men and women who went missing in late December, local residents fear. The men, from the Shan and Ta’ang communities in Nant Onn village, Muse township, Shan State, had gone out celebrating the Shan New ...
Ma Ba Tha continues to lead charge against Thai verdict
Hard-line Buddhist monks and their supporters again took to the streets on 17 January to protest the conviction of the two Myanmar migrant workers condemned to death for murder and rape on Koh Tao island in Thailand. The Committee to Protect Race and Religion, better known by ...
Cases to be opened over election campaign expenses
Legal cases will be opened against 175 candidates in the November 2015 general election for failing to submit their campaign expenses on time, according to the Union Election Commission. “The election tribunal will start hearing those cases on 21 January in Nay Pyi Taw,” said U ...
Rakhine IDPs call for international aid
Organisers of makeshift camps for villagers fleeing a military offensive in remote areas of Rakhine State are appealing to the international community for aid. More than 300 civilians, all of whom are said to be ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, have fled to the safety of monasteries following ...
Court of Justice says cyber attacks will not change verdict
The Court of Justice (CoJ) has insisted that the cyber attacks taking Thai court websites offline on 13 January would not force the court to change the guilty verdict in the Koh Tao murders case. The attackers also got away with cyber-theft of extensive legal records, including ...
Rakhine villagers flee Tatmadaw attacks
Rakhine residents in two northern townships say they are living in fear and do not dare go out after dark after government troops forced locals to work as porters during ongoing operations against Arakan Army militants. Relief workers say more than 300 civilians, mostly Rakhine Buddhists, ...
Lack of ethnic party MPs ‘serious weakness’ in parliament
During the 8 November election, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won by a landslide, crushing the army-linked Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and surprising many by also winning big in ethnic minority-dominated areas where ethnic political parties had expected ...
Series of small quakes near Yangon under watch
Seismologists are keeping a close eye on a series of small earthquakes shaking Yangon, with the Myanmar Earthquake Committee suspecting they are aftershocks of a larger jolt that occurred on the evening of 12 January, blacking out wide areas of the city. That quake, widely felt ...
