News
Running on fumes: Fuel importers denounce new forex policy
As Myanmar’s military leaders relaxed with family members in Pyin Oo Lwin and Nay Pyi Taw for this year’s water festival in April, a crisis was slowly building in the waters off Yangon. Oil tankers from Singapore were bobbing in the Gulf of Mottama, refusing to ...
FRONTIER
Myanmar Junta's War Crime Displaces Thousands of Civilians in Kachin State
Nearly 6,000 people have fled their homes and approximately 25 have been killed in Kachin and northern Shan states by Myanmar’s regime forces from November 2021 to April, according to the rights group Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT). KWAT’s “New Threats from the Air” report ...
NORA AUNG
Myanmar’s environment hit by rare earth mining boom
Kachin State’s Chipwi Township in northernmost Myanmar is known for its pristine forests and crystal-clear water. But 10 years ago, local residents started noticing the patches of land that had been cleared on the lush mountains surrounding their town, which borders China’s Yunnan province. It started ...
Maran
Mekong News Agency journalist Maung Maung Myo jailed on terrorism charges in Myanmar
Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Maung Maung Myo and stop jailing members of the press for reporting the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. Around 6 p.m. on May 10, Maung Myo, a contributor to the local Mekong News Agency, was traveling ...
CPJ
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
Future Remains Cloudy for Exiled Myanmar Journalists in Thailand
It has been more than a year since Myanmar’s military seized power in a putsch that sent thousands fleeing the country. Among them were scores of media professionals who took up refuge here in Thailand. Some have since moved on or resettled elsewhere, but others stayed ...
Teeranai Charuvastra
Cambodia hosts meeting on humanitarian assistance to Myanmar
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations convened a meeting Friday in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, in a fresh effort to organize humanitarian assistance for strife-torn Myanmar. The hybrid meeting, which some participants joined by video, is being attended by high-level representatives from Myanmar and the ...
SOPHENG CHEANG/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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
Freelance reporter Soe Yarzar Tun faces up to 7 years in prison under anti-terror law
A court in Insein Prison last week indicted freelance journalist Soe Yarzar Tun under Section 52a of the Counter-Terrorism Law, which carries a prison sentence of up to seven years, lawyers have told Myanmar Now. The reporter was detained in Bago Region’s Thone Sel Township on ...
Aung Naing
Fog of stats enshrouds Myanmar’s wars
Myanmar’s multiple internecine conflicts are raging, with few if any signs of respite or resolution. Quantifying “old” and “new” dimensions of the conflict with the recent proliferation of new, anti-coup People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) alongside long-fighting ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) is difficult, if not impossible, ...
DAVID SCOTT MATHIESON