Southeast Asia

Burma: pipeline plans behind Rohingya cleansing?

The Burmese port of Sittwe, epicenter of violence against the Muslim Rohingya people, is to be the starting point for the new Shwe pipeline linking Burma’s west coast with China.

Southeast Asia

China: drug lord’s execution sparks dissent

Chinese TV broadcast images of a Burmese drug lord and his accomplices on their way to a death chamber in Yunnan, prompting online protests from rights activists in Beijing.

South Asia

India: Naxalite hand in opium trade?

Authorities in India say that the Naxalite guerillas, following a series of reversals, have taken refuge in the northeast, where they are trading opium for guns from Burma.

Southeast Asia

Burma: Kachin rebels agree to peace talks

With fighting escalating after a 17-year ceasefire broke down last year, Burma’s Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has agreed to talks with the government.

Southeast Asia

Burma: new airstrikes on Kachin rebels

Burma's army claimed responsibility for air-strikes against Kachin rebel positions in the north—less than a day after the government denied the strikes had taken place. 

Southeast Asia

Burma: repression of anti-mine protesters

Aung San Suu Kyi is to lead an investigation after brutal repression of protests by farmers facing forced relocation to make way for expansion of a Chinese-owned copper mine.

Southeast Asia

Burma frees 452 (political?) prisoners

Burma freed 452 prisoners ahead of Obama’s visit, but the National League for Democracy denounced the move as empty, saying that no political prisoners were included.

Southeast Asia

Burma: invisible war in Kachin state

As Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to the US won wide media attention, more peasants were displaced by the ongoing war against tribal peoples in Burma’s north.

Southeast Asia

Burmese warlord confesses to Mekong massacre

Burmese warlord Naw Kham, hunted down in the Golden Triangle by elite Chinese forces, pleaded guilty before a court in Yunnan to a massacre of Chinese merchant crewmen.

Southeast Asia
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UN investigators renewed their call for charges against Burma military officials suspected of carrying out a genocide against the nation's minority Rohingya population over the past year. The UN Office of Human Rights published an exhaustive list of atrocities and called "for the investigation and prosecution of Myanmar's Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and his top military leaders for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes." Since last August, 700,000 Rohinga refugees have fled into neighboring Bangladesh, and many have spoken of the Burmese military's attacks on their villages, describing actions that are considered crimes against humanity under international law. This August, a UN fact-fidning mission for the first time referred to the conflict as a genocide. (Photo: UNHCR)