Planet Watch

UN: world refugees break record

War across large swaths of the Middle East and Africa in the first six months of 2014 forcibly displaced some 5.5 million people, signalling yet another record, the UN reports.

South Asia

India: Bodo militants massacre tribal people

National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) militants shot dead at least 50 adivasis, or tribal people, in a wave of coordinated attacks across India's northeast state of Assam.

Southeast Asia

Burma: anti-Muslim pogrom in Mandalay

A Buddhist mob attacked Muslims in Burma's second city of Mandalay, damaging a mosque and Muslim-owned shops and leaving at least five injured.

Southeast Asia

Golden Triangle opium boom

The UN in its new Southeast Asia Opium Survey finds that opium production in Burma soared in 2013—along with renewed insurgency wars in the country's north.

The Andes

Bolivia, Venezuela reject US drug criticism

For a fifth year running, the White House "blacklisted" Bolivia and Venezuela for perceived insufficient anti-drug efforts—and both governments reacted with anger.

Southeast Asia

Blood jade empire as Burma warlords diversify

Burma’s military and the rebel Kachin Independence Army vie in control for a semi-underground jade industry in the northern jungles, with the exports going to China.

Southeast Asia

Burma marks 1988 pro-democracy uprising

Burma’s regime finally allowed commemorations of the 1988 uprising that launched the democracy movement—but there has been no accountability for the bloody repression.

South Asia

Buddhist pogroms in Burma, Sri Lanka

The campaign of ethnic cleansing against Muslims in Burma has spread from the coast to the country’s heartland, with similar attacks now mounting in Sri Lanka.

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.