The Irrawaddy
Government relocates Yangon squatters
The Yangon divisional government plans to relocate squatters and provide them with temporary housing, said Yangon Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein on 25 May at a press conference. He warned against trespassing and living on vacant, private or government land from 25 May onward, and said that people ...
Communities demand regulation as jade mining destroys landscape
Ywel Jer remembers a time when Saijarbon, an ethnic Kachin village perched upon a hilltop in Hpakant Township, was surrounded by mountains. In the past 10 years, however, vast mountain areas around the village here in northern Myanmar’s Kachin State have been turned into rubble by ...
Yangon ‘peace walk’ leaders charged for illegal assembly
Student leaders who led an interfaith “peace walk” of almost 100 people in downtown of Yangon on 14 May are to be charged under Article 19 of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law. The participants of the peace walk, many of whom were drawn from the Yangon ...
Talks fail, Sagaing labor protestors resume march to Naypyidaw
Protestors from a plywood factory in the Sagaing Industrial Zone resumed their march to Naypyidaw on 12 May, following five days of negotiations in the capital and Wundwin Township, where they rested, with no results. The workers said negotiations between the protestors, the factory and the ...
Myanmar’s media landscape through the years
Recent years have seen dramatic changes to Myanmar’s media landscape, with the previous quasi-civilian government taking steps to unshackle a press corps long muzzled by successive military regimes dating back to 1962. In the wake of World Press Freedom Day, which was celebrated on 3 May, ...
Fire at Arakan state IDP camp leaves hundreds homeless
A fire near Arakan State’s Sittwe Township left hundreds of Rohingya Muslims homeless as it swept through dozens of shelters at the Baw Du Ba internally displaced person camp on 3 May, local sources said. “A total of 392 families stayed in the 49 longhouses. We ...
President’s office calls out media company for alleged govt bribe
Burma’s President’s Office sent a warning on Wednesday to a media company who they allege gave a large monetary gift to a government official during Burma’s Thingyan festival last week. President’s Office Minister Aung San Suu Kyi released guidelines on gifts for civil servants on April ...
Myanmar celebrates first Pulitzer prize-winning female journalist
Esther Htusan, 29, is one of four AP journalists who worked on an investigation into severe labor abuses within the Southeast Asian fishing industry, a sector which supplies seafood to supermarkets and restaurants abroad. The team’s reporting contributed to the freeing of approximately 2,000 slaves; ...
Suu Kyi vows to amend Junta-era constitution
Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi vowed on 18 April to push for constitutional amendments to build a true democracy in the Southeast Asian country as it emerges from decades of military control. “Our policies and principles are to ensure national reconciliation, internal peace, the ...
Avian Flu strikes poultry farms in Sagaing division
Surveillance of the poultry trade in Sagaing Division’s Monywa Township has been ramped up after an avian flu outbreak over the past several weeks. Local authorities have since killed over 20,000 chickens and restricted poultry trade from farms in the area.“With the help of the police ...
