Myanmar
- World News
Quarantine waivered allowing 160,000 migrant workers to enter Thailand
In an effort to stop illegal border crossers looking for work, a newly signed memorandum of understanding will allow more than 160,000 migrant workers to enter Thailand without having to go through the quarantine procedure. Workers from Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos have been given a free pass from tomorrow through the MoU signed if they have been fully vaccinated with…
- World News
Record breaking amount of methamphetamine pills seized in Asia
More than one billion methamphetamine pills were seized in East and Southeast Asia last year, according to a report released by the United Nations. The illicit synthetic drug market is constantly evolving in East and southeast Asia, with every country in the region reporting methamphetamine as their drug of greatest concern, according to the UN. The UN’s report says most…
- World News
Burmese authorities confiscate OnlyFans star’s passport, cancels trip to Bangkok
A Burmese woman said she lost her job as a doctor for posing in bikini photos online, and has now had her right to travel taken away by Burmese authorities. Yangon Passport Office reportedly confiscated the OnlyFans star’s documents, causing her to cancel her planned trip to Bangkok. The 33 year old OnlyFans star Nang Mwe San qualified as a…
- World News
Dozens of Rohingya die off Myanmar coast after boat capsizes on way to Malaysia
A boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized off the coast of Myanmar on Saturday, killing at least 14 people, mostly children. More than 50 passengers remain missing after the boat capsized during a storm and 23 survivors were detained by police in Pathein district in Myanmar’s Ayeryarwady region. The UN reports that…
- 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
Myanmar’s “Myancopharm” Covid-19 vaccine available for use
A new vaccine against Covid-19 from Myanmar has been made available for use for everyone, including children under 5 years of age and pregnant women. “Myancopharm” is a jointly produced by Myanmar’s Ministry of Industry and China’s Sinopharm China National Biotec group. Myancopharm was first administered on May 4 at Zabuthiri Hospital in Myanmar’s capital Nay Pyi Taw. While China’s…
- Thailand News
Man speaking on the phone in northeast Thailand accidentally hit by train
A Burmese man has been run over by a train outside a construction site camp in Udon Thani province, northeast Thailand, at around 9:30pm yesterday. The man’s colleagues said he was using the train tracks to support his head while he lay down and spoke on the phone when the incident happened. In the grass, the body of 28 year…
- 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
Thai-Burmese border checkpoints prepare to re-open in Tak province
In the long road to ‘normal’, Thailand is now reopening many of its land border checkpoints from today. But the Thailand Pass is still in force for Thais or foreigners hoping to cross these borders. Many of the borders are reopening from today. Others this week. As the Covid-19 situation appears to ease, Thailand is preparing to re-open 2 border…
- Crime News
Thai troops kill 8 drug smugglers in Chiang Rai jungle, seize 6.7 million yaba pills
8 suspected drug traffickers have been shot dead in a firefight with Thai drug and border police that took place in the early hours of the morning in a Chiang Rai jungle. According to a Thai PBS World report, security forces have also seized around 6.7 million methamphetamine (yaba) pills in the operation. It’s understood the Thai troops were on…
- World News
Hundreds of Thai women forced into prostitution in Myanmar
There are almost 300 Thai women who have been allegedly forced into prostitution at a casino near the Thai-Myanmar border in Tak province. The story has emerged from a 25 year old escaped victim who wished to remain anonymous. A social media ‘influencer’ did a livestream earlier this year, inviting ladies to apply for public relations and entertainment roles for…
- 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
All Thailand-Myanmar border checkpoints closed, massively affecting trade
Myanmar had closed down all of the checkpoints along the Thai-Myanmar border since April 23. Business owners have cried foul saying that they might lose up to 500,000 baht per day and wanted the Thai government to coordinate with Burmese authorities to solve the problem. After the car bomb exploding on the first Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge on April 23, Thai officials…
- 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
Car bomb explodes near Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge – VIDEO
A car bomb exploded over the weekend near the first Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, on the Myawaddy side of the Thai border, adjacent to Mae Sot district in Tak. Residents in Mae Sot reported they could clearly hear the blast, which happened late Saturday night. An ethnic anti-government Burmese group is suspected to have planted the explosive in a car parked…
- World News
Car bomb and gun battle at immigration building on Thai/Myanmar border
A car bomb and a gun fight wreaked havoc in Myawaddy Township in Myanmar last night. The car bomb, suspected to have been left in a pickup truck, exploded at an immigration building near the border with Tak province in Thailand. The remains of the pickup truck suspected of carrying the bomb were found near a border checkpoint. After the…
- World News
Former leader Suu Kyi breaks silence, urges Burmese to ‘be united’
In rare comments, the former leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, has called on the Burmese people to be united. According to a Reuters report, the comments were confirmed by a source close to Suu Kyi’s legal proceedings. Suu Kyi, along with the democratically elected government, was ousted by a military coup on February 1 last year. The former…
- World News
Myanmar grants amnesty to 1,600 prisoners, no political detainees released
Myanmar’s military government granted amnesty to over 1,600 prisoners, including 42 foreigners, during the country’s New Year’s holiday from April 13-16. The figure is small compared to the 23,000 prisoners released during the holiday last year. Despite Myanmar’s ruling general’s promise to restore peace in the country this year, no political detainees were released. “As part of the celebration of…
- Thailand News
Thailand aims to employ army of 150,000 migrant workers to solve labour shortage
Thailand is looking to bring in more labourers from neighbouring countries with the help of recruitment agencies, as the government seeks to employ an army of around 150,000 foreign workers to make up for the country’s low percentage of people willing to do manual labour jobs. But the general public is worried about the clutter and spread of Covid-19 from…
- World News
US arrests 3 Thais, yakuza chief for planning to supply missiles to Burmese rebels
US authorities revealed yesterday that they have arrested three Thai men and a Japanese yakuza organised crime leader in New York City on April 4 – 5. The men are accused of trafficking heroin and methamphetamine, as well as attempting to acquire surface-to-air missiles for rebel groups in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Takeshi Ebizawa, Sompak Raksaranee, Somphop Sigsiri and Suksan…
- Thailand News
Burmese continue to flood across Thai-Myanmar border, fleeing unrest
Police raided a house in the northern province of Chiang Rai yesterday to find 71 Burmese migrants hiding inside. A Thai man who was also inside the house told police he was hired to pick up the migrants who had illegally crossed over the border from Myanmar and transport them to the house. The migrants told police they were heading…
- World News
More Karen flee Myanmar to Thai border, Myanmar arrests Karen journalist
Around 1,000 Karen hill tribe people crossed the border into Thailand on Saturday, only for Thai authorities to send them back, according to an official from a refugee camp. This month, over 10,000 Karen from Myanmar’s Kayin state have fled after clashes between Karen rebels and Myanmar’s military. Now, Burmese police have arrested a reporter for the Karen Information Centre.…
- World News
Asia News Today | Japanese yen drops to a seven year low
Nearly 9,000 soldiers from the Philippines and US are participating in the largest-ever joint military drills as the two longtime allies do some high-level sabre-rattling amid fresh tensions in the disputed South China Sea. Filipino and American soldiers will take part in the 12 day military exercises across the main Filipino island of Luzon. Philippine military chief welcomed soldiers from…
- World News
Asia News Today | Both black boxes now found on China plane & lockdown in Shanghai
The latest from the crash site of the Boeing 737 in southern China, more threats from the Burmese Junta, one of the largest cities in the world heads into a Covid lockdown and vanishing glaciers in Indonesia, yes Indonesia. Recovery crews at the site of the China Eastern Boeing 737 that crashed last Monday, have found the second black…
- World News
New report “Nowhere is Safe” accuses Myanmar of sniper attacks
A human rights group, along with Yale Law School’s Scholl Center, accuse Myanmar’s junta chief of creating a special command that deployed snipers to kill unarmed protestors. The groups say this was to create fear. The Scholl Center and Fortify Rights investigated leaked documents and 128 testimonies from survivors, medical workers, witnesses and former military and police personnel, on violence…
- World News
Myanmar calls US Rohingya genocide accusation “far from reality”
The United States announced on Monday it will classify Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya ethnic group in 2017 as a genocide. Now, Myanmar has hit back. Its foreign ministry said in a statement yesterday that the United States’ remarks are “far from realities”, claiming the United States made the decision based on “unreliable and unverifiable” sources. In 2018, the US…
- World News
Asia News Today | China plane crash latest & HK looking to relax restrictions
Investigators are now trying to piece together the final moments of a Boeing 737 flight in southern China yesterday before it plummeted into a hilly area as it was approaching Guangzhou. The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 jet, flight MU5735, carrying 132 people crashed in Wuzhou. The sudden nosedive of the plane has left aircraft accident specialists baffled as authorities…
- 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…
- Northern Thailand News
Chiang Rai officials detain 12 Chinese nationals after illegal border crossings
Border officials in the northern province of Chiang Rai have caught 12 Chinese nationals, in 3 separate operations, after the men entered Thailand illegally. According to a Bangkok Post report, the arrests happened in the Chiang Khong and Chiang Saen districts of the province in recent days. The detainees claimed they worked in casinos in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos and…
- World News
Thailand is the 61st happiest country in the world
On a list of 146 countries on the World Happiness Index, Thailand ranks at 61. Finland was ranked the happiest country, while Afghanistan was ranked least happy. Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world for five years in a row. An editor of the World Happiness Report said after the Covid-19 pandemic, all three acts labeled “acts…
