News
Anti-smuggling teams abolished: Commerce ministry
The government’s mobile task force teams, which aimed to clamp down on the country’s thriving illegal border trade, have been abolished, the Ministry of Commerce announced on 30 December. “All teams will stop, starting from today,” Than Win, the director of the Ministry of Commerce, told ...
Activists call for witness protection as major Thai human trafficking trial begins
Thai authorities must step up witness protection for a major human trafficking trial with the accused including an army general and one investigator fleeing the country fearing for his life, activists said on 24 December as the first witnesses gave evidence. The case includes 88 defendants allegedly ...
NLD lawmaker: ‘They are now operating the jade mines around the clock’
During the 8 November elections, Khin Maung Myint, 65, won an upper house parliament seat for the National League for Democracy in Kachin State’s Hpakant District, an area that has long been famous for its jade mines. The newly elected MP spoke with Myanmar Now ...
Protest outside Thai embassy in Myanmar against murder verdict
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside Thailand’s embassy in Yangon on 25 December after two Myanmar migrants were sentenced to death by a Thai court for murdering two British backpackers, in a verdict that has sparked anger in their homeland. Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun were found ...
Myanmar politician objects Koh Tao verdict
A Myanmar political group, 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, today showed its objection against the death sentence handed down to two Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand. Keep reading ...
Budget discussion cancelled as inflation concerns grow
Individual ministries will not be called to parliament to explain their budget requests for 2016-17 until debate begins in January in an effort to speed up the approval process, Myanmar MPs were told on 23 December. Parliamentarians arrived yesterday expecting to hear representatives from the ministries ...
Thai court hands Myanmar men death penalty for British tourist murders
Two Myanmar migrants were sentenced to death on 24 December for murdering a pair of British holidaymakers on a Thai island, in a case that sullied the kingdom’s reputation as a tourist haven and raised questions over its justice system. Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun were ...
Budget bill proposes $3b deficit
The current government headed by President U Thein Sein has proposed a K24 trillion (US$18.4 billion) budget for the incoming government, including a K3.9 trillion deficit – more than $3 billion at current exchange rates. The draft was submitted to the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw on 22 ...
Freed students defiant
Still defiant, three of the four Yadanabon University students jailed in October on riot charges were released from Mandalay’s Ohbo Prison on 22 December. A fourth, Ko Naing Ye Wai, remains behind bars. Their conviction followed a demonstration in front of the university last June in ...
For migrants, the legal route brings few benefits: report
They are mired in debt bondage, their pay slips are slashed by hidden fees and fabricated taxes, and they’re forced to work excessive hours in slave-like conditions absent of breaks and without the guarantee of overtime pay. This is the lot of migrant workers who ...
