Myanmar
Fighting a Brutal Regime With the Help of a Video Game
U Sein Lin, a retired history teacher in Myanmar, had never played a video game in his life. But about a month ago, while scrolling through Facebook, he stumbled on War of Heroes — The PDF Game. He has been playing it nearly nonstop ever since. For Mr. Sein Lin, 72, killing virtual Myanmar troops […]
Know More
Assassinations Become Weapon of Choice for Guerrilla Groups in Myanmar
The unity government claims that at least 14,890 regime soldiers have died in the fighting, while it has lost just 1,000 fighters. The regime refuses to discuss casualty figures. But earlier this year, the junta acknowledged that military-appointed ward administrators were being killed at a rate of more than one a day. Nearly as many […]
Know More
Biden to Host Southeast Asian Leaders as He Tries to Return Focus to China
WASHINGTON — President Biden plans to host the leaders of Southeast Asian nations at the White House on Thursday and Friday, delivering a message of solidarity — and aiming to provide a bulwark against Chinese influence in the region — even as much of his administration remains focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The two-day […]
Know More
Bangladesh Shutters Dozens of Schools Set Up by Rohingya in Camps
KUTUPALONG CAMP, Bangladesh — Every morning, Mohammad Reyaz, a sixth grader, appears in uniform outside his school for Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh. And every morning, he returns home with a sullen face after finding its gate locked. Bangladeshi authorities shut the school down last month. It is one of more […]
Know More
Myanmar’s Health System Is in Collapse, ‘Obliterated’ by the Regime
The surgeon was in the middle of operating on a patient when the squad of soldiers entered the hospital looking for doctors to arrest. A receptionist alerted the surgeon, Dr. Kyaw Swar, but it was too late for him to stop the procedure. Hoping to avoid attention, he ran out into the hallway and collected […]
Know More
Myanmar Is Still at War, More Than a Year After Military Coup
On jungle crests about a mile from the front lines in eastern Myanmar, a former hotel banquet coordinator slipped his index finger onto the trigger of an assault rifle. A dentist recalled picking larvae from a young fighter’s infected bullet wound. A marketing manager described the adapted commercial drones she is directing to foil the […]
Know More
Myanmar Is Mired in Conflict and Chaos a Year After a Coup
In the days after the military in Myanmar seized power on Feb. 1 last year, millions of people took to the streets to oppose the takeover, walking off their jobs in what has become an enduring nationwide civil disobedience movement and resisting the junta’s murderous violence. One year later, the Southeast Asian nation is mired […]
Know More
Pay Your Power Bill, Myanmar Soldiers Say, or Pay With Your Life
“In the past 10 months, the country has lost all its gains from the past 10 years,” said U Hein Maung, an economist based in Myanmar. “The cost of doing business has increased substantially. There is a booming informal economy of drug trafficking, illegal logging, money laundering and other illegal businesses.” A decline in electricity […]
Know More
Stay or Go? For Myanmar’s Latest Wave of Refugees, There’s No Good Choice.
He was already preparing to leave when the gunfire erupted without warning. The soldiers were shooting at civilians and burning down homes, again. In a panic, Biak Tling stuffed two days’ worth of clothes into a backpack and fled. He covered 220 miles over two days on his motorbike, eventually making his way across a […]
Know More