News

Proposals to amend the 2013 anti-corruption law were submitted to parliament on 19 May aimed at cutting the state budget. U Myint Soe of the Pyithu Hluttaw’s Public Affairs Management Committee said the main proposal was to allow for a reduction in the size of the 15-member ...

A draft of the long-awaited Sugar Act is to be revised with recommendations from industry figures at a meeting of the Sugar and Sugar Related Products Merchants and Manufacturers Association on 17 May. Once the revision is complete the act will be submitted to parliament through Myanmar’s ...

In the face of ever-rising energy demands and climbing temperatures, the Ministry of Electricity and Energy has released an aspirational blueprint for its first 100 days in office. Myanmar’s ministry will strive to finish building electricity transmission yards across the country to boost electricity generation, said ...

Student leaders who led an interfaith “peace walk” of almost 100 people in downtown of Yangon on 14 May are to be charged under Article 19 of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law. The participants of the peace walk, many of whom were drawn from the Yangon ...

Protestors from a plywood factory in the Sagaing Industrial Zone resumed their march to Naypyidaw on 12 May, following five days of negotiations in the capital and Wundwin Township, where they rested, with no results. The workers said negotiations between the protestors, the factory and the ...

In response to protests outside the site of a controversial, re-launched copper mine, the company behind the project released a statement ridiculing the demonstration as representing a reckless minority. Residents are calling on the government to intervene, and have said the mine should not be allowed ...

Parliament is taking steps to slash one repressive law used to crack down on activists and will debate heavily revising another later this week. The junta-era, 1975 State Protection Act was revoked by the Pyithu Hluttaw on 9 May after the conclusion that the law was explicitly ...

Recent years have seen dramatic changes to Myanmar’s media landscape, with the previous quasi-civilian government taking steps to unshackle a press corps long muzzled by successive military regimes dating back to 1962. In the wake of World Press Freedom Day, which was celebrated on 3 May, ...

A fire near Arakan State’s Sittwe Township left hundreds of Rohingya Muslims homeless as it swept through dozens of shelters at the Baw Du Ba internally displaced person camp on 3 May, local sources said. “A total of 392 families stayed in the 49 longhouses. We ...

A merger between the ministries of electric power and energy, ordered by the new government in March, is now complete and the new structure will be submitted to the cabinet for approval, officials said. U Pe Zin Tun will head up the new ministry. The ...