News
Myanmar: Abuses Mount Since Military Coup
Myanmar’s junta has been responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity since the military coup in February 2021, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2023. The security forces have been implicated in mass killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, sexual violence, and attacks on civilians in ...
Myanmar junta discusses elections with ethnic groups
Myanmar’s military junta is holding talks with three ethnic rebel groups on staging elections in areas they control, a rebel spokesman said on Friday, as the military prepares for polls the United States has said will be a “sham.” The country has about 20 ethnic rebel ...
Traders defy the law to import more teak into the USA from Myanmar than before the coup
Despite sanctions put in place against the brutal military junta in Myanmar, US traders continue to source precious teak from the country for luxury yachts and flooring. The allegations are made in the new EIA report Acts of Defiance – How US traders are ignoring sanctions to import ...
Myanmar’s junta stays quiet as climate change hits
On November 13, as country delegates at the UN climate summit in Egypt, known as COP27, continued their negotiations, Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG), Myanmar’s parallel administration, sent a letter to the meeting reaffirming its commitment to reduce climate-warming emissions. He added that ...
Thin Lei Win
Myanmar junta bans Irrawaddy news agency after months of harassment
Myanmar’s junta has officially banned online news outlet The Irrawaddy and charged the outlet’s registered publisher for violating national security laws, state media reported over the weekend, following months of legal harassment. The ban is the latest on at least 20 media groups – news agencies, ...
RFA Burmese
Myanmar state of affairs worsening, ETI warns businesses
In a position statement, the ETI points to a Commission of Inquiry into the decline of workers’ rights in Myanmar established by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in March, noting such a move is the ILO’s highest-level investigative procedure which is generally set up when a member state ...
Hannah Abdulla
Environment ignored as Myanmar struggles with coup
When Myanmar’s military staged a coup more than one year ago and seized power from a democratically-elected civilian government, not only did it undo a decade of opening up the country that brought a degree of freedom and prosperity to ordinary citizens, it also condemned ...
Thin Lei Win
More than 130 journalists arrested in Myanmar, media group says
A total of 135 journalists have been arrested in Myanmar since the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup that overthrew civilian rule in that country, according to a local press freedoms group. Among those arrested, 109 were men and 26 were women, while three other journalists were ...
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Climate danger grows in ‘vulnerable’ Myanmar after military coup
There is increasing concern that Myanmar is at risk of a serious environmental crisis, as the generals who seized power in a coup on February 1 focus on cementing their control and shoring up their position by stepping up lucrative but devastating policies of exploiting ...
John Liu, Rory Wallace and reporter in Myanmar
Following coup, Myanmar’s Indigenous vow to protect forests ‘until the end of the world’ (commentary)
The Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar is a beautiful and rich expanse of rainforest, ocean, and mangroves where we still have wild tigers and elephants, and where the forest provides all that we need in life. It is my home land. Our Indigenous communities depend ...
Esther Wah