INSIDER
The Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar has been plagued by wars and natural disasters since it became independent from Britain in 1948, when it was still called Burma.
The smell of decaying bodies permeated the streets of Myanmar’s second-largest city on Sunday as people worked frantically by hand to clear rubble in the hope of finding someone still alive, two days after a massive earthquake struck that killed more than 1,600 people and left countless others buried.
Even before a powerful 7.7-magnitude quake hit Myanmar, more than 3 million people in the country faced displacement.
The United Nations food agency says that more than 1 million people in the war-torn nation of Myanmar will be cut off from food assistance due to critical funding shortfalls.
An independent online news agency in Myanmar is alleging that one of its journalists arrested two years ago has been subjected to daily physical and mental abuse after exposing human rights violations in the country’s main prison where he is being held.
Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages despite international pressure on the military four years after it seized power from an elected civilian government.
An airstrike by Myanmar’s army on a village under the control of an armed ethnic minority group has killed about 40 people and injured at least 20 others, officials of the group and a local charity say.
Myanmar’s military government has announced that provisional results of a census taken in October put the Southeast Asian nation’s population at about 51.3 million, a slight drop from the last official nationwide count of about 51.5 million taken 10 years ago.
U.N. experts say there has been a slight drop in the production of opium in Myanmar, the world’s biggest source of the illicit drug from which heroin is derived, but warn there are still strong prospects for future expansion of the deadly trade.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has asked judges to issue an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
Witnesses say a powerful rebel group has seized a key trading town in northeastern Myanmar on the Chinese border, taking control of a lucrative rare earth mining hub in another setback for the military-led government.
The U.N. Development Programs is warning that Myanmar’s Rakhine state, home to the Rohingya minority and engulfed in conflict between government forces and a powerful ethnic group, could face an imminent acute famine.
Three well-armed militias launched a surprise joint offensive in northeastern Myanmar a year ago, breaking a strategic stalemate with the regime’s military with rapid gains of huge swaths of territory that inspired others to attack around the country.
Three well-armed militias launched a surprise joint offensive in northeastern Myanmar a year ago, breaking a strategic stalemate with the regime’s military with rapid gains of huge swaths of territory that inspired others to attack around the country.
Zaw Myint Maung, a senior member of Myanmar’s former ruling party arrested during the 2021 military takeover, has died.
The main group coordinating opposition to military rule in Myanmar has rejected a surprise offer from the ruling generals to hold talks on a political solution to the country’s nationwide armed conflict.
State-television in Myanmar says the death toll in the military-run country from flooding and landslides caused by Typhoon Yagi has reached at least 74.
The editor of an independent online news service in Myanmar says a military court has given a life prison sentence to one of its journalists and sentenced another to 20 years after convicting them under a counterterrorism law.
Britain is circulating a United Nations resolution on Myanmar urging renewed peace efforts.
Myanmar’s military regime says it has lost communications with the commanders of a strategically important army headquarters in the northeast.
The military regime that seized power in Myanmar 3 1/2 years ago extended a state of emergency in the civil war-wracked country for another six months, saying it needs time to prepare for long-promised elections.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers have gathered in the capital of Laos for a regional forum that runs through Saturday.
A group that monitors armed conflict in Myanmar says an intensification of fighting in the Southeast Asian nation's civil war has resulted in a sharp increase in destructive attacks on schools.
Myanmar’s military government has held a wreath-laying ceremony in the country’s largest city to mark the 77th anniversary of the assassination of the country’s fallen independence heroes, including Gen. Aung San, the father of the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Recently renewed combat in northeastern Myanmar between troops of the military government and ethnic minority militias has in the past few days become more complicated, as two minority groups not previously involved in the fighting stepped into the fray.
New fighting has broken out in northeastern Myanmar, bringing an end to a Chinese-brokered cease-fire and putting pressure on the military regime as it faces attacks from resistance forces on multiple fronts in the country’s civil war.
Supporters of Myanmar’s imprisoned ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi have carried out peaceful flower-themed protests marking her 79th birthday.
A new United Nations report says East and Southeast Asia are awash in record amounts of methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs.
A powerful ethnic armed group fighting Myanmar’s military government in the country’s western state of Rakhine is claiming to have seized a town near the Bangladesh border, marking the latest victory for foes of the country’s military government.
Reports that soldiers of Myanmar’s military government last week carried out a massacre of more than 30 civilians in a village in central Myanmar have been supported in interviews with a local administrator and a man who says he survived the killings.
Guerrilla fighters from the main ethnic Karen fighting force battling Myanmar’s military government have withdrawn from the eastern border town of Myawaddy two weeks after forcing the army to give up its defense.
Officials in Thailand say about 1,300 people have fled from eastern Myanmar into Thailand as fresh fighting erupted at a border town that has recently been captured by ethnic guerillas.
Thailand’s foreign minister says he has urged Myanmar’s military authorities not to violently respond to its army’s loss of an important border trading town to its opponents.
Myanmar’s military has begun basic training at military bases and schools across the country for draftees called up under the country’s recently activated conscription law.
Guerrilla fighters from Myanmar’s Karen ethnic minority are claiming to be close to seizing control of a major trading town bordering Thailand.
The U.N.’s leading human rights body has agreed to measures aimed at putting pressure on Myanmar and Iran, whose governments have been accused of using violence against their own people.
Myanmar’s main pro-democracy resistance group says its armed wing launched drone attacks on the airport and a military headquarters in the capital, Naypyitaw.
Thailand delivered its first batch of humanitarian aid to war-torn Myanmar on Monday, sending ten trucks over the border from the northern province of Tak in what officials hope will be a continuing effort to ease the plight of millions of people displaced by fighting.
No bidders appeared at a court-ordered auction of the family home of Myanmar’s imprisoned former leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, where she had been held under house arrest for nearly 15 years.
Ever since Myanmar's military announced it is implementing conscription to fill its ranks, Thwel sees very few options.
Myanmar’s military government says it will draft 60,000 young men and women yearly for military service under its newly activated conscription law, with call-ups beginning after the April festival marking the country’s traditional New Year.
Myanmar’s military government has for the first time activated a decade-old conscription law that makes young men and women subject to at least two years of military service if called up, effective immediately.
Nine members of the United Nations Security Council have condemned “indiscriminate” airstrikes by Myanmar’s military against civilians.
When the army overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in 2021, it looked like a walkover that could entrench the military in power indefinitely.
Myanmar’s leading resistance group and allied ethnic armed groups battling the military government have released a political road map to ending military rule and enabling a peaceful transition of power.
Myanmar was a rising star in Southeast Asia before its military seized power three years ago in a takeover that has brought civil strife and a tightening vise of international sanctions, undoing years of progress and leaving the economy 10% smaller than it was in 2019.
A court in military-controlled Myanmar has ordered the family home of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, where she spent 15 years under house arrest, be put on auction in March following a decades-long legal dispute between her and her brother.
A study issued Tuesday by researchers collecting evidence of war crimes in Myanmar supported reports that air strikes by the military government damaged churches in the Buddhist-dominated country’s sole Christian-majority state.
Myanmar’s military says it has reached a cease-fire agreement with an alliance of three ethnic minority guerrilla groups that it has been battling in the north.
A veteran Laotian diplomat recently appointed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ special envoy to Myanmar, has arrived on his first mission to the strife-torn nation.
Airstrikes by Myanmar’s military on a village under the control of the pro-democracy resistance in the country’s northwest are reported to have killed at least 17 civilians, including nine children.
Reports from Myanmar say its military government has been freeing soldiers and police who had been jailed for desertion and absence without leave as authorities seek to get them to return to active duty.
A major offensive against Myanmar's military-run government by an alliance of three militias of ethnic minorities has been moving at lightning speed, inspiring resistance forces around the country to attack.
A Myanmar army battalion based near the Chinese border has reportedly surrendered to an alliance of ethnic armed groups that launched a surprise offensive last month in the country’s northeast.
A military court in Myanmar has sentenced a general who until recently was a senior member of the country’s ruling council to five years in prison for abusing his authority and taking bribes.
State media in Myanmar says the military-run Southeast Asian nation is holding its first joint naval exercise with Russia.
A group of human rights researchers has officially launched a website they hope will facilitate the task of obtaining justice for victims of state violence in Myanmar.
A former high-profile Myanmar army officer who had served as information minister and presidential spokesperson in a previous military-backed government has been arrested and charged with spreading false or inflammatory news.
An alliance of ethnic rebel groups has launched a coordinated offensive in northeastern Myanmar to seize military targets in areas near the Chinese border.
Myanmar’s military government has hosted representatives from ethnic rebel groups to mark the eighth anniversary of the signing of a multilateral cease-fire agreement.
Myanmar’s military is accused of launching an airstrike on a camp for displaced persons in the northern state of Kachin that killed about 30 people, including about a dozen children.
The head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee urged Iran to release imprisoned peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi and let her accept the award at the annual prize ceremony in December.
The son of ousted Myanmar leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi says he has always avoided talking to the media, but this time is different.
Myanmar’s imprisoned former leader, Aung San Suu Kyi is suffering from symptoms of low blood pressure including dizziness and loss of appetite, but is being denied treatment at qualified facilities outside the prison system.
The United Nations chief has renewed an urgent call on the international community to seek a unified strategy to end the worsening crisis in Myanmar.
A court in military-ruled Myanmar has sentenced a photojournalist for an underground news agency to 20 years in prison with hard labor for his coverage of the aftermath of a deadly cyclone in May.
Myanmar won’t take over the rotating leadership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as scheduled in 2026, in the latest blow to efforts by its ruling generals to gain international recognition after violently seizing power in 2021.
A Swiss citizen has been arrested in military-ruled Myanmar for creating a film that allegedly insulted Buddhism.
A group of investigators says Myanmar’s military and affiliated militias are committing increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes, including aerial bombings targeting civilians.
Myanmar’s military-led government has reduced the prison sentences of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a clemency connected to a religious holiday in the Buddhist-majority country.
Myanmar’s military-controlled government has extended the state of emergency it imposed when the army seized power from an elected government 2 1/2 years ago, forcing a further delay in elections it promised when it took over.
Reports from Myanmar say its military-controlled government plans to transfer the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi from a prison in the capital of Naypyitaw to home confinement as part of an act of of clemency to be granted prisoners next week.
The military-controlled government of strife-torn Myanmar has unveiled a new giant statue of a sitting Buddha that is scheduled to be consecrated on Aug. 1.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers have renewed their alarm over and condemnation of the deadly air strikes and artillery shelling in Myanmar.
Thailand’s top diplomat says he met with ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in detention over the weekend and she conveyed her openness to engage in talks to resolve the crisis in her strife-torn nation.
Myanmar’s prolonged civil strife, tensions in the disputed South China Sea and concern over arms buildups in the region are expected to dominate the agenda when Southeast Asia’s top diplomats gather for talks this week in Indonesia.
Reports from Myanmar say airstrikes carried out by the country's military on two villages in the north-central region killed nearly a dozen civilians, including a Buddhist monk and a child.
Opponents of Myanmar's military government are applauding fresh financial sanctions imposed by the United States on the Southeast Asian nation.
Alarm over Myanmar’s still-unfolding deadly civil strife, including an armed attack on an aid convoy, and China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea are expected to challenge Southeast Asian leaders’ commitments to non-interference and consensus decision-making as they meet in Indonesia this week.
A witness and independent media say airstrikes by Myanmar’s military have killed as many as 100 people, including many children, who were attending a ceremony held by opponents of army rule.
Myanmar’s military governmenttook another major step in its ongoing attempts to cripple its political opponents on Wednesday , dissolving dozens of opposition parties including that of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to meet a registration deadline ahead of elections.
Myanmar’s military government has denied reports of a new mass killing of civilians by its troops, instead blaming pro-democracy resistance groups for the deaths of more than 20 people, including three Buddhist monks.
A resident and members of Myanmar's anti-government resistance say soldiers have rampaged through several villages, raping, beheading and killing at least 17 people.
Myanmar’s military government has announced it is extending a state of emergency it imposed when it seized power two years ago, a move that appears to set back its plans for an election that had been expected in August.
Two years after Myanmar's generals ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, thousands of people have died in civil conflict and many more have been forced from their homes in a dire humanitarian crisis.
A human rights group and 16 individuals have filed a criminal complaint in Germany seeking punishment of Myanmar’s generals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
