Crime and law enforcement

Two young women who were the focus of a Myanmar Times investigation this month into mass abductions of civilians by ethnic armed groups have been freed by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Ma Nang Htwe Yin and Nang Kyan Kham, both 20-year-old ethnic Shan pre-school teachers, were ...

Ethnic Palaung civilians fleeing fighting in Namkham township have accused forces of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) of laying landmines around their village and looting their homes. IDPs from Law Naw spoke to The Myanmar Times in a makeshift camp set up about 10 ...

Shan State politicians are urging parliament to immediately address renewed clashes in the northern part of the state which have already displaced thousands of civilians and trapped several thousand more. U Sai Tun Aung, a Pyithu Hluttaw MP for the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, submitted ...

Police have halted a Kachin vigilante group in its attempt to destroy poppy fields in Waingmaw township. The movement, apparently undeterred by the death of one of its members at the hands of poppy growers and the violence directed against it, had reportedly swelled by ...

Insurgents detonated a roadside homemade bomb to ambush a patrol unit of six troops in Narathiwat on 17 February morning, fatally injuring one and severely hurting another. Keep reading ...

Sok Bun, the real estate tycoon whose savage beating of TV personality Ek Socheata was caught on camera in July, was sentenced to three years in jail yesterday, with all but 10 months of that suspended. Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge Sor Lina also ordered the ...

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is drawing up additional regulations to raise the standards of car park safety barriers and to control the brightness levels on electronic billboards. Taiwut Khankaew, director of the BMA’s Building Control Division, said discussions were under way about the new regulations ...

A group of foreign conservation volunteers sailing off the coast of Kep province late on 12 February were set upon by a flotilla of illegal fishermen who attempted to pelt them with rocks and other projectiles, only disbanding after Cambodian maritime police fired warning shots into ...

The United States issued a warning on 12 February urging Americans to avoid a central Laos province popular with adventure travelers after a sudden spate of deadly bomb and gun attacks. Two roadside attacks killed three people last month in Xaisomboun province. Those attacks followed a series ...

A year ago, a mentally ill man was beaten to death by villagers who had mistaken him for a thief. Despite only four of those involved being sentenced, it was a harsher punishment than expected – in almost all instances of mob killings, no questions ...