Burma
- World News
Myanmar junta wants political opponents prosecuted faster
Myanmar’s junta is pushing the courts to prosecute political opponents‘ trials faster despite it impacting defendants’ lawyers’ preparation. The regime has instructed courts to finish all trials of opponents, including the leader of the democratically elected party Aung San Suu Kyi. A Yangon-based lawyer, who spoke anonymously, says this is not always a fair tactic. “It is not always good…
- World News
Myanmar journalists go into hiding after threats from junta over “incorrect” reporting
Fearing retribution after reporting that the Myanmar junta killed three civilians and wounded 19 others, journalists inside the country are going into hiding. The ruling military threatened to sue the news agencies for the reports that detail the killings as being near a Buddhist pagoda in Mon state last week. According to Radio Free Asia, BBC Burmese and The Irrawaddy online…
- World News
Resistance Groups Report Heavy Myanmar Regime Losses
Around 20 Myanmar junta soldiers and pro-regime militia members have been reportedly killed in resistance ambushes. According to Irwaddy.com, the soldiers were killed in Taze Township as the Taze People’s Defence Force (TPDF) and other resistance groups ambushed about 80 soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee militia members near Shwetakyaw village in the Sagaing Region’s Taze township. The ambush came after…
- World News
Myanmar youth artists hold art challenge to raise awareness of country’s plight
Myanmar’s youth artists are hosting an art challenge to raise awareness of their country’s continued struggle for democracy. According to Irrawaddy, the challenge is named #Revtober, an off-shoot of the worldwide art challenge of Inktober. The challenge will see daily drawings and paintings that follow a prompt list for the 31 days of October. The artwork will be shared on…
- World News
Myanmar junta to reopen borders to tourists, but travel still isn’t advised
Myanmar’s junta has announced that after two years of closed borders, the country will soon allow tourists to apply for visas to travel into Myanmar. But with military coup related violence still rife in Myanmar, governments worldwide still advise against all but essential travel to the country. Activists are urging foreigners not to travel to Myanmar in light of the…
- World News
VIDEO: Thai soldiers destroy footbridge used by Burmese refugees fleeing unrest
In a video posted online on Tuesday, Thai soldiers can be seen dismantling a footbridge in Tak province on the border of Myanmar. The bridge was used by Burmese refugees fleeing unrest in Karen state to cross over into Thailand in recent months. Human rights organisations are urging the Thai authorities to investigate their forces’ treatment of refugees. The Thai…
- World News
Myanmar’s ex-leader Suu Kyi sentenced to 5 years in prison
Ousted leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi has been found guilty of corruption and sentenced to five years in prison by a court in Myanmar, according to an anonymous source with access to her trial, which is being tightly controlled by the junta. The charge was the first of 11 corruption charges filed against her, so her prison sentence…
- World News
Ousted Burmese leader Suu Kyi appears in court on corruption charge
Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically-elected former leader of Myanmar who was ousted in a military coup last year, has appeared in court on a corruption charge. The case is one of multiple cases being brought against her, with the threat of lengthy prison time if she’s found guilty. According to comments made to Reuters by an unnamed source close…
- World News
US says Rohingya violence was ‘genocide’ as Asean envoy meets Myanmar junta leaders
US President Joe Biden has determined that the violence against the Rohingya minority committed by Myanmar’s military in 2017 amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity, a US official told Reuters on Sunday. The move comes as a special Asean envoy begins three days of visits with junta officials in Myanmar, aiming to begin a peace process. The US Secretary…
- World News
UN High Commissioner accuses Myanmar’s army of war crimes, including burning alive
In a new report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights accused Myanmar’s army of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including burning women and children alive in Kayah State. Kayah State is home to mainly people of the Kareni, or ‘Red Karen’ ethnic group, one of the many ethnic groups fighting for autonomy in Myanmar. The report claimed the…
- Thailand video news
Thailand News Update | Thai evacuees from Ukraine test positive
Thai police raided a home suspected of being the headquarters for an illegal gambling website that swindled more than 100 million baht from South Korean victims. Officers arrested four South Korean men and a Thai woman who was renting the home in Samut Prakan, just southeast of Bangkok. The suspects face charges of organising, advertising, and inviting people to gamble…
- World News
1-year ceasefire declared in Myanmar by junta leader
After nearly a year of deadly conflict between the Burmese military junta that overthrew the government and citizen protesters and rebel insurgent groups, Burmese junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing has declared a ceasefire in Myanmar after meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The Prime Minister met with the junta leader on Friday after months of the Association of…
- World News
Myanmar ousted leader’s prison sentence reduced to two years
Myanmar’s ousted State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to four years in prison yesterday, but it was then reduced to two years following a partial pardon by the military junta’s commander, according to state television. Her indictments were unrest and violating Covid-19 epidemic guidelines, according to the junta’s ruling court, which ordered the first judicial decision in a…
- World News
Burmese UN envoy calls for international support for democracy in Myanmar
The Burmese UN envoy says he’s intent on seeking international support for democracy in his country. Kyaw Moe Tun was speaking to Japanese news agency NHK at the UN offices in New York. He was made UN envoy by the former Burmese government, which was ousted in a military coup in February, despite having been democratically elected. According to a…
- World News
US judge orders Facebook to disclose anti-Rohingya content as part of international case against Myanmar
A court in the US has ruled that Facebook must disclose posts it removed from its network on the grounds that they were inciting violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The move comes as a number of countries take action against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice. The Bangkok Post reports that Judge Zia Faruqui has criticised Facebook for…
- World News
Former Burmese junta leader Than Shwe infected with Covid-19
As the current Burmese military junta, mired with mass civil unrest stemming from their coup February 1, struggles with the increasingly rampant Covid-19 pandemic, Than Shwe, leader of the previous military junta has been hospitalised with Covid-19. The former strongman leader, now 88 years old, is said to be in stable condition after being diagnosed with the virus. Than Shwe…
- World News
Burmese coup causes food prices to rise, income fall
As clashes between the military who took over the country in a coup Feb 1 and protestors in cities and insurgents in the countryside rage on, prices on necessities like food spike and many are going hungry in Myanmar. People who could once afford healthy, balanced meals of pork and vegetables and rice are now scraping by simple cheap foods…
- World News
3 journalists from Myanmar arrested in Chiang Mai
Police in Northern Thailand arrested 3 senior journalists who had fled Myanmar due to orders from the military junta to stop reporting, the director and editor of the news agency Democratic Voice of Burma said in an email to the Associated Press. The journalists, along with 2 associates, were arrested yesterday in Chiang Mai for allegedly illegally entering Thailand. Police…
- Covid-19 News
Illegal border crossings bringing in new Covid-19 infections
Authorities are worried about illegal border crossings into Thailand bringing in the Coronavirus after 5 recent Covid-19 infections from such crossings. Bypassing all health and security checkpoints along the border, 5 Thai nationals were identified today as being positive for Covid-19 after they snuck into the country, according to the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration. Authorities nabbed 2 after border…
- World News
Burmese protests countrywide call for a “spring revolution”
Calls for a “spring revolution” erupted from thousands of protestors marching across Myanmar today to protest the Burmese military junta. The country has been in turmoil since the Feb 1 coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s government and installed military rule. Protests have raged for 4 months despite the Burmese military cracking down on demonstrations, often violently and bloodily,…
- World News
Covid-19 and the coup may push half of Myanmar into poverty
With the devastating double whammy of a global pandemic and the military coup descending into civil war, the UN fears that nearly half the people of Myanmar could be living in poverty by next year. The United Nations Development Program predicted that up to 25 million Burmese people could suffer below the poverty line by the beginning of 2022. The…
- World News
Burmese military launch more airstrikes close to Thai border
For the second day in a row, the Burmese junta has carried out airstrikes close to the border with the northern Thai province of Mae Hong Son. The strikes, hitting at rebel-held areas, were confirmed by a Thai official yesterday. Myanmar has been in a state of upheaval since a February 1 military coup ousted the democratically-elected government of Aung…
- World News
Pro-democracy Burmese: no negotiations until prisoners released
Until the Burmese military junta releases all political prisoners, the pro-democracy unity shadow government in Myanmar are refusing mediation talks. This throws a wrench in the works of the ASEAN summit’s plans to keep a dialogue open and bring about peace in the turbulent country. In their meeting this week, Burmese General Min Aung Hlaing had said he was open…
- World News
ASEAN nations agree to appoint envoy to broker cross-party talks in Myanmar
Member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have agreed to appoint an envoy to act as mediator in cross-party talks in Myanmar. The country has been rocked by months of violence following a February 1 military coup in which the democratically-elected government of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted. The leader of the coup, Min Aung…
- World News
Red paint in Burmese streets mark 700+ deaths
Marking over 700 deaths in the Burmese military crackdown, anti-coup protesters in Myanmar are splashing red paint across the streets of Yangon to represent the blood of those killed in the growing crisis. Myanmar has ground to a halt as the military junta attempt to silence opposition to their February 1 takeover with deadly force. 714 deaths have been verified…
- World News
$85 to retrieve the dead after bloody Burmese military clash
Activists say the Burmese military is charging US$85 to families to recover the bodies that security forces killed in last Friday’s violent clash. The city of Bago, just northeast of Yangon, was raided by military forces with 82 people killed according to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a local advocacy group. Since the February 1 coup, the military has been…
- World News
Burmese refugees are being aided, PM Prayut assures
Burmese refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border are being provided with humanitarian assistance according to a statement by PM Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday. PM Prayut spoke about the growing crisis at Government House Wednesday after a cabinet meeting. He said that the two countries, since they are neighbouring, need to be in agreement and work together and Thailand can’t take sharp independent…
- World News
Fears grow in Myanmar as military junta orders internet shutdown
Pro-democracy activists in Myanmar are desperately trying to find alternative communication channels as the country’s internet blackout worsens. On Thursday, the military ordered internet providers to cut off wireless broadband access, despite businesses in the country calling for a halt to the ongoing disruption to service. Internet provider Ooredoo texted customers to inform them that the Burmese military has issued…
- World News
Government has repatriation plan for Thai citizens if Burmese situation deteriorates
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it has formulated a plan to evacuate Thai citizens from Myanmar should the situation deteriorate further. Spokesman Tanee Sangrat says the Thai Embassy in Yangon has confirmed that protests against the ruling junta are ongoing, but deliveries of food have not been affected. According to a report in the Bangkok Post, Tanee says the…
- World News
Miss Grand Myanmar finds refuge in Thailand for 3 months
Miss Grand Myanmar (from the Miss Grand International pageant) will remain safely in Thailand for the next 3 months after her passionate plea for international aid to the people of Myanmar. During the recent Miss Grand International pageant, Miss Grand Myanmar, Han Lay, called for global attention to the continuing Burmese crisis following the February 1 military coup. Han Lay…
