cross-referenced news and research resources about
Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Burma)
Britain conquered Burma over a period of 62 years (1824-1886) and incorporated it into its Indian Empire. Burma was administered as a province of India until 1937 when it became a separate, self-governing colony; independence outside of the Commonwealth was attained in 1948. Gen. NE WIN dominated the government from 1962 to 1988, first as military ruler, then as president, and later as political kingmaker. Despite multiparty elections in 1990 that resulted in the main opposition party winning a decisive victory, the ruling military junta refused to hand over power. Key opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
, under house arrest from 1989 to 1995, was again placed under house detention from September 2000 to May 2002 and again in May 2003; her supporters are routinely harassed or jailed.
Britain conquered Burma over a period of 62 years (1824-1886) and incorporated it into its Indian Empire. Burma was administered as a province of India until 1937 when it became a separate, self-governing colony; independence outside of the Commonwealth was attained in 1948. Gen. NE WIN dominated the government from 1962 to 1988, first as military ruler, then as president, and later as political kingmaker. Despite multiparty elections in 1990 that resulted in the main opposition party winning a decisive victory, the ruling military junta refused to hand over power. Key opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
, under house arrest from 1989 to 1995, was again placed under house detention from September 2000 to May 2002 and again in May 2003; her supporters are routinely harassed or jailed.
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Burma or Myanmar
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updated Fri. January 4, 2019
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The Guardian
April 29, 2018
OCHA has been unable to verify reports civilians have been killed in the fighting. A Myanmar government spokesman could not be reached for comment. The US embassy in Yangon said on Facebook on Friday it is “deeply concerned about intensified fighting in Kachin state, which has forced thousands ofÃÂ ...
FRONTLINE
April 28, 2018
More than seven months after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, destroying homes and demolishing much of the island's infrastructure, more than 100,000 Americans are still without power as part of the worst blackout in U.S. history. On Tuesday, May 1, in Blackout in Puerto Rico,ÃÂ ...
RTE.ie
April 28, 2018
Firefighters in Myanmar have scrambled to put out a fire in a massive garbage dump on the edge of its largest city, Yangon, as foul-smelling smoke from the burning trash that injured dozens extended into its second week. The fire has generated a haze blanketing parts of Myanmar's commercial hub andÃÂ ...
Eyewitness News
April 27, 2018
YANGON - Myanmar civil groups signed an open letter to the country's president on Thursday, urging him to immediately release two Reuters reporters accused of possessing secret government papers and police officers involved in what it called an “obviously an unreasonable case”. The letter, signed byÃÂ ...
TIME
April 26, 2018
The U.S. government is investigating allegations of atrocities committed against Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority, gathering documentation that could be used to prosecute the country's military for crimes against humanity, Reuters reports. Led by the State Department, the investigation entailed moreÃÂ ...
SBS
April 18, 2018
More than 2000 people have been trapped in Myanmar's northeast without access to humanitarian aid for seven days after fleeing clashes between an ethnic armed group and the army, humanitarian groups say. "People from three villages in Tanai Township (in Kachin State) left their villages and theÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
April 18, 2018
UK's Johnson Calls for Credible Myanmar Probe Into Reported Atrocities ... EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Britain's foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that Myanmar needed to start showing it is serious about the safety of the Rohingya and start a meaningful probe into atrocities which the UnitedÃÂ ...
The Straits Times
April 18, 2018
Two Myanmar nationals were tasked with abducting a man suspected of having an affair with the wife of a businessman. According to the plan, the man would then be interrogated, tortured and killed. But the plan went awry when the victim, Mr Aye Maung Maung Thet, 29, put up a fierce struggle andÃÂ ...
UN Dispatch
April 18, 2018
Although the Myanmar Armed Forces, known as the Tatmadaw, has been called out in previous UN reports for abuses against other ethnic minority groups, it now joins 51 other government and rebel groups on the conflict-related sexual violence “list of shame,” as Human Rights Watch called it.
Human Rights Watch
April 18, 2018
Yesterday, newly elected President Win Myint followed the tradition of releasing prisoners on the first day of the Myanmar New Year by announcing the release of more than 8,500 prisoners, including 36 political prisoners. These releases are commonly referred to as “amnesties” but are, in reality, pardons,ÃÂ ...
Telegraph.co.uk
April 18, 2018
Two hundred were freed within the first month but hopes that Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, would usher in a new era in Burma, also known as Myanmar, have been dampened by a surge of prosecutions under an online defamation law and the crackdown on the Rohingya minority. The releases took place atÃÂ ...
Human Rights Watch
April 17, 2018
The United Nations secretary-general for the first time has included Myanmar's military, or Tatmadaw, in his annual list of parties that have committed sexual violence in armed conflict. Presented today to the UN Security Council, the report details conflict-related sexual violence carried out in 2017 byÃÂ ...
CNN
April 17, 2018
In a statement on Saturday, Myanmar said it had repatriated the first Rohingya family from refugees who have fled to Bangladesh. However, the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, said in a statement on Sunday that it had no direct knowledge of the case and was not consulted or involved in this reportedÃÂ ...
The Atlantic
April 17, 2018
We made it. And from our vantage across the ocean, we continued to fight for Burma, to support its virtuous freedom fighters with our voices and resources. We were on the other side of an ocean, the right side of history. These stories were so often repeated, so well worn, that they had very nearly faded intoÃÂ ...
Mizzima News
April 12, 2018
Myanmar is planning to establish a movie studio and skill training school in Nay Pyi Taw for development of the country's movie industry, Xinhua has reported. The establishment of the school is to raise the image of Myanmar through the art of motion picture and for its development, Minister of InformationÃÂ ...
Voice of America
April 12, 2018
Two local journalists for the Reuters news agency remain in custody in Myanmar after a court Wednesday refused to drop an espionage case against them. Detained since December, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo each faces the prospect of 14 years in prison unless new Myanmar President Win MyintÃÂ ...
The Star Online
April 12, 2018
For others, however, shooting the messenger is not the answer to Myanmar's deeply rooted problems. “Facebook has been used by the government and military as a platform for their propaganda,” says head of Burma Campaign UK Mark Farmaner. “But it is government laws and policies which deny theÃÂ ...
Telegraph.co.uk
April 11, 2018
The spread of fake news and hate speech may have influenced major Western polls, but in the incendiary atmosphere of Burma's politics, it could be a matter of life or death. Just days before the US Senate took Mark Zuckerberg to task over Facebook's failure to curb hate speech among Burmese users,ÃÂ ...
CNN
April 11, 2018
"Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were reporting on issues in Myanmar in an independent and impartial way. They have not violated any laws in the course of their newsgathering and were simply doing their jobs. We will continue to do all we can to secure their release," Adler said. The ruling was made on WaÃÂ ...
New York Times
April 10, 2018
YANGON, Myanmar — Once a week, the two Reuters reporters are shuffled out of their prison cells in Yangon, Myanmar, loaded into the back of a police truck and driven to a nearby courthouse. Wearing handcuffs, the reporters, U Wa Lone and U Kyaw Soe Oo, hear one or two witnesses testify againstÃÂ ...
The Verge
April 10, 2018
In a letter obtained by The New York Times, Mark Zuckerberg responded to a group of Myanmar activists who have criticized Facebook's handling of material meant to incite violence in the country. But the groups continue to say Facebook isn't doing enough. Last week, Zuckerberg was interviewed by Vox'sÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
April 4, 2018
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The government of Aung San Suu Kyi is opening the economy and growth is rebounding in Myanmar, though the possibility of broader Western sanctions over the Rohingya refugee crisis is nevertheless giving some foreign investors pause, according to a senior IMF official.
Channel NewsAsia
April 4, 2018
SINGAPORE: President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong have written congratulatory letters to newly-elected Myanmar president Win Myint, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said in a media release on Wednesday (Apr 4). The 66-year-old was elected by Myanmar's parliament on MarÃÂ ...
ReliefWeb
April 4, 2018
Decades of conflict left nine out of the 14 Myanmar states and regions heavily contaminated with antipersonnel mines, with serious effects on the socio-economic development in affected areas. Landmines indeed mostly affect civilians and rural communities where farmers are forced to risk their livesÃÂ ...
Voice of America
April 4, 2018
The British-registered Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), after interviewing Myanmar migrants in Chiang Mai Province, said, “Burmese Muslims, as well as Hindu and Buddhist Burma-born Gurkhas of Nepali ancestry, are being required to prove their citizenship by presenting additional documents.”.
Mission Network News
April 4, 2018
“We assist several ministries in Myanmar or Burma, and quite a few have their own Bible colleges,” Christian Aid's Stephen Van Valkenburg explains. “One of the ways they reach out, and also train their students in the Bible colleges is to send them out in teams.” Teams usually consist of three to fiveÃÂ ...
Channel NewsAsia
April 4, 2018
DHAKA: A Myanmar minister will tour camps for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, an official said on Wednesday (Apr 4), the first such visit since Myanmar's army drove nearly 700,000 members of the Muslim minority over the border. Bangladesh's foreign ministry confirmed that Myanmar's social welfare,ÃÂ ...
TIME
April 4, 2018
The two defendants are reporters for Reuters, and they are accused of obtaining confidential information related to military operations in western Myanmar's Rakhine State, where violence described by the U.S. and the U.N. as a campaign of ethnic cleansing has sent more than 671,000 Rohingya MuslimsÃÂ ...
The Straits Times
April 3, 2018
YANGON (AFP) - A Myanmar pilot died on Tuesday (April 3) after a "technical failure" caused his military jet fighter to plummet into a paddy field in the centre of the country, the army said. A live video on Facebook showed flames billowing up from the crash site near Kyunkone village about an hour awayÃÂ ...
HuffPost Canada
April 3, 2018
He also suggests the federal government could target some of Myanmar's military leaders under its new Magnitsky Act that seeks to isolate human rights abusers. But Rae stops short of recommending further sanctions because, saying those would only hurt the 50 million people of an already impoverishedÃÂ ...
Smithsonian Insider (blog)
March 14, 2018
Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) have found that poaching is an emerging crisis for Asian elephants in Myanmar. Researchers first became aware of the crisis while conducting an unrelated telemetry study in which they fitted 19 Asian elephants with satellite GPS collars toÃÂ ...
Mizzima News
March 14, 2018
Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) have found that poaching is an emerging crisis for Asian elephants in Myanmar, according to a report on the nationalzoo.si.edu website. Researchers first became aware of the crisis while conducting an unrelated telemetry study in whichÃÂ ...
ReliefWeb
March 14, 2018
The new Burma/Myanmar government education system was a challenge for young children in Pee T'Hka village. The second year preschool was eliminated and so six and seven year old children who recently graduated from first year preschool were placed into Standard One before they were ready.
The Straits Times
March 14, 2018
Rohingya refugees from Myanmar continue to trickle into Bangladesh and are a heavy burden on a poor country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said as she pressed Yangon to honour its promise to repatriate them. Madam Hasina flew back to Dhaka yesterday afternoon, curtailing her first official visit by aÃÂ ...
Jefferson City News Tribune
March 14, 2018
FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 21, 2017, file photo, Rohingya Muslim children wait for food handouts distributed by a Turkish aid agency at Thaingkhali refugee camp, Bangladesh. Myanmar's government has rejected two reports presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council that concluded it committed extremeÃÂ ...
New York Times
March 14, 2018
BANGKOK — Senior Myanmar officials denied on Wednesday that the country's military had committed any crimes against Rohingya Muslims, one day after a United Nations expert suggested that the government was implicated in “the crime of genocide” against the persecuted Muslim minority. “There is noÃÂ ...
The Star Online
March 13, 2018
The woman in her 40s was found lying on her bed with blood stains and bruises on her face and arms. Ampang Jaya OCPD Asst Comm Hamzah Alias said the victim was discovered by her friend, who is also from Myanmar, at about 2.52pm on Monday (March 12). "The friend went to the victim's home afterÃÂ ...
The Guardian
March 13, 2018
Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, told reporters that social media had played a “determining role” in Myanmar. “It has … substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict, if you will, within the public. Hate speechÃÂ ...
Mizzima News
March 3, 2018
The increased security presence this week has centred around a strip of "no man's land" between the two countries where some 6,000 Rohingya sought shelter after fleeing a Myanmar army crackdown last August. The military campaign drove some 700,000 Rohingya across the border in total, with mostÃÂ ...
The Economist
March 2, 2018
THE Yangon Stock Exchange does not lack ambition. It is housed within the imposing former headquarters of the central bank. The two guards manning the entrance protect a stack of visitor badges, mostly unused. Inside, a list of “missions”—integrity, fairness and openness—hangs beside a Christmas treeÃÂ ...
KALW
March 2, 2018
On this week's media roundtable, we'll discuss the case of two Reuters reporters who've been jailed in Myanmar. They were investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men who were buried in a mass grave after being hacked to death or shot by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist villagers and soldiers.
Myanmar Times
March 2, 2018
“We urge the government of Myanmar to strengthen efforts to tackle this crisis,” it said. “In particular, we would recommend that the government of Myanmar ends the open sale of elephant and other illegal wildlife parts, which today are widely sold in markets in Yangon, Mandalay, Kyeikhteeyoe and alongÃÂ ...
The Record-Courier
March 2, 2018
The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit hosted Republic of the Union of Myanmar delegates Su Hlaing Myint, Swe Zin Phyo, Thin Thin Aung, Thurein Htun, Bawk La, Timber Management Officer Robert Guebard, Interpreter San Ohn, Fuels Battalion Chief Kyle Jacobson, Soe Shwe,ÃÂ ...
Myanmar Times
March 2, 2018
“That quake was followed by about eight strong quakes per minute and caused 40 aftershocks that were felt until January 31” says Daw Hla Hla Aung, senior researcher and patron of the Myanmar Earthquake Committee. The aftershocks were of magnitude 3.5. “This is of concerns” Hla Hla Aung adds.
Myanmar Times
March 2, 2018
First in China, then in Australia. During her time abroad, she kept on crafting jewels for herself. Friends would often ask her to sell her pieces, or design new ones for them. But she always turned down the offers. When the family came back to Myanmar after the country opened-up, she finally opened aÃÂ ...
Daily Signal
March 2, 2018
Burma Continues to Deny Genocide. ... A burned out village in northern Rakhine, an area of Myanmar populated by the Rohingya minority group. ... Last September before the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council, Burma's national security adviser, U Thaung Tun, dismissed reports of the Rohingya crisisÃÂ ...
Aljazeera.com
March 2, 2018
Some 200 troops were deployed to the border on Thursday, close to a nearby strip of land between Myanmar and Bangladesh that is home to makeshift camps housing some 6,000 Rohingya refugees. The strip of land is officially designated as Myanmar territory but is widely referred to as "no man's land"ÃÂ ...
38 North
March 1, 2018
In 1988, Burma was renamed Myanmar, but in a more important shift, it also reconsidered socialism and embraced a market economy. The same year, however, the Junta killed hundreds of people in a vicious crackdown on protesters. Holding and then ignoring election results for two years later and furtherÃÂ ...
Telegraph.co.uk
March 1, 2018
The Commons International Development Committee had been due to hold a series of meetings with senior military and civilian leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and also to scrutinise British aid projects in Burma. In January the same committee produced a damning report on the treatment of theÃÂ ...
CNBC
December 31, 1999
An English soccer team announced plans for a two match post season tour to Myanmar, despite safety concerns in the country. Leeds United, who play ... Some have questioned the decision to take the team to Myanmar, also known as Burma, because of the problems in the region. The United Nations hasÃÂ ...
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