A Myanmar judge on Monday found two Reuters journalists guilty of breaching a law on state secrets and jailed them for seven years, in a landmark case seen as a test of progress towards democracy in the Southeast Asian country. Yangon northern district judge Ye Lwin said Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28,…

A major effort was under way to reach thousands of people trapped in their homes after a dam swollen by monsoon rain overflowed early Wednesday in central Myanmar, officials said. A surge of water inundated the rural flatland in Bago region after the Swar Chaung dam spillway, which regulates the release of water, collapsed due…

Facebook’s action means an essential blackout of the military’s main channel of public communication.

Nearly one million Rohingya Muslims marked Eid al-Adha on Wednesday in the world’s largest refugee camp, almost a year to the day since a brutal military crackdown drove the persecuted minority from Myanmar in huge numbers. Prayers were offered in makeshift mosques across southern Bangladesh to celebrate the Islamic festival of sacrifice as cows were…

Because Myanmar censors all communications in and out of the jails, the letters are limited to family news

At least 15 people have been killed and dozens injured in a landslide at an old jade mine in northern Myanmar, state media reported on Sunday, as rains complicate the search for more victims. The accident is the latest to strike the multi-billion dollar industry centred in Kachin state, the source of most of the…

The World Bank said on Thursday it would provide up to $480 million in grant-based support to Bangladesh to address the needs of Rohingya refugees including health, education, water, sanitation and social protection. The World Bank’s board approved a $50 million grant to add to an existing health-sector support project in Bangladesh, the first in…

Myanmar’s military said it sacked a top general who was named in fresh EU sanctions against security officials accused of serious rights violations in the Rohingya crisis, including killings and sexual violence. Myanmar is accused of waging a crackdown in Rakhine state that forced 700,000 to flee that the UN and major western powers have…

A record 68.5 million people have been forced flee their homes due to war, violence and persecution, notably in places like Myanmar and Syria, the UN said on Tuesday. By the end of 2017, the number was nearly three million higher than the previous year and showed a 50-percent increase from the 42.7 million uprooted…

Muslim refugees who have fled to Bangladesh if they volunteer to return, the country’s National Security Adviser Thaung Tun said on Saturday. He was speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security conference in Singapore, where he was asked if the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where most Rohingya live, could trigger use of the…

Marooned on a dusty slope in the world’s largest refugee camp, Osiur Rahman looked to the hill where a Rohingya girl was buried in a landslide just days earlier and contemplated his chances should the earth give way beneath his feet. “Our families would be killed. There are children everywhere around here. We constantly fear…

Rohingya militants massacred Hindu villagers during last year’s uprising in Myanmar’s Rakhine, Amnesty International said Wednesday in a report that sheds fresh light on the complex ethnic rivalries in the state. The killings took place on August 25, 2017, the report said, the same day that the Rohingya insurgents staged coordinated deadly raids on police…

When Hujjat Islam heard a fire had razed a Rohingya camp in New Delhi, his first reaction was relief: it could have been him and his family, their belongings burned to ashes, if he had not found a home for them elsewhere in the city. The fire last month gutted the flimsy shacks of plywood…

Yangon: Seven soldiers in Myanmar were sentenced for their part in the extrajudicial killings of 10 Rohingya Muslim men, according to a Facebook post by the army chief late on Tuesday. The bloody incident in Inn Din village on 2 September is the only atrocity to which the military has admitted during its violent crackdown…

Dhaka: Bangladesh has begun relocating 100,000 Rohingya refugees to safer ground before the monsoon season for fear of deadly landslides and floods in the congested camps, an official said Sunday. The UN says about 150,000 refugees in Bangladesh’s southeast — where nearly one million Rohingya in total live in shanties on hillsides — are extremely vulnerable…

By Jawad Akram Recent flare-up of anti-Muslim riots in Kandy, a central district in Sri Lanka, by Sinhalese Buddhist extremists has recalled the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state of Myanmar by local Buddhist majority, last year (2017). Sinhalese Buddhists constitute about 75 percent of Sri Lanka’s 21 million population and Muslims in…

Yangon: Facebook said Tuesday it is “seriously” fighting hate speech in Myanmar, following blistering criticism from UN officials who said the platform had morphed into a “beast” that helps spread vitriol against Rohingya Muslims. The social media giant has faced mounting pressure to snuff out inflammatory posts aimed at the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority…

YANGON: Three bombs exploded in different locations in Rakhine’s state capital Sittwe early Saturday morning, including at the home of a high ranking official, Myanmar police told AFP. “Three bombs exploded and three other unexploded bombs were found. A police was injured but not seriously,” a senior officer said on the condition of anonymity, adding…

Myanmar’s Home Minister Kyaw Swe says that his country is ready to take back Rohingya Muslims who fled during violence. He told Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid in Dhaka on Friday that Myanmar is ready under a deal signed by the two countries last year. He said that Myanmar will implement the recommendations by a commission…

United Nations, United States: Myanmar has failed to put in place conditions for the safe return of 688,000 Rohingya refugees who fled an army crackdown six months ago, the UN refugee chief said Monday. The refugees are sheltering in makeshift camps in Bangladesh despite an agreement reached between Myanmar and Bangladesh allowing for their return…

Yangon: Aerial photos of Rakhine state have emerged that appear to show several bulldozed Rohingya settlements, renewing accusations Myanmar is wiping out the homes and history of the Muslim minority. Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Bangladesh since insurgent attacks on police posts triggered a brutal military crackdown. The UN has led…