Latest Myanmar News

Civilian casualties rise in Myanmar's civil war as resistance forces tighten noose around military

May. 09, 2024 03:58 AM EDT

BANGKOK (AP) — Six months into an offensive against Myanmar ’s military government, opposition forces have made massive gains, but civilian casualties are rising sharply as regime troops increasingly turn toward scorched-earth tactics in the Southeast Asian country's bitter civil war. ...

Rape, terror and death at sea: How a boat carrying Rohingya children, women and men capsized

May. 08, 2024 01:43 AM EDT

MEULABOH, Indonesia (AP) — The boat glided across waters that were dark and still, under a night sky that was cloudless and calm. But on board, the 12-year-old girl quaked with fear. The captain and crew who she says had tortured her and three other women and girls were not...

From flooding in Brazil and Houston to brutal heat in Asia, extreme weather seems nearly everywhere

May. 07, 2024 22:14 PM EDT

In sweltering Brazil, flooding killed dozens of people and paralyzed a city of about 4 million people. Voters and politicians in India, amid national elections, are fainting in heat that hit as high as 115 degrees (46.3 degrees Celsius). A brutal Asian heat wave has closed schools...

Powerful ethnic armed group in western Myanmar claims to capture base and hundreds of soldiers

May. 06, 2024 12:57 PM EDT

BANGKOK (AP) — A powerful ethnic minority armed group battling Myanmar's army in the country's west claimed Monday to have taken hundreds of government soldiers prisoner when it captured a major command post. The Arakan Army, the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the...

Philippine students are told to stay home as Southeast Asia swelters in prolonged heat wave

Apr. 29, 2024 20:59 PM EDT

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Southeast Asia was coping with a weekslong heat wave on Monday as record-high temperatures led to school closings in several countries and urgent health warnings throughout the region. Millions of students in all public schools across the Philippines were...

Ethnic Karen guerrillas in Myanmar leave a town that army lost 2 weeks ago as rival group holds sway

Apr. 24, 2024 12:02 PM EDT

BANGKOK (AP) — Guerrilla fighters from the main ethnic Karen fighting force battling Myanmar’s military government have withdrawn from the eastern border town of Myawaddy two weeks after forcing the army to give up its defense, residents and members of the group said Wednesday. ...

World seeing near breakdown of international law amid wars in Gaza and Ukraine, Amnesty says

Apr. 23, 2024 20:38 PM EDT

LONDON (AP) — The world is seeing a near breakdown of international law amid flagrant rule-breaking in Gaza and Ukraine, multiplying armed conflicts, the rise of authoritarianism and huge rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar, Amnesty International warned Wednesday as it published its...

The remains of a WWII pilot from Michigan are identified 8 decades after a fatal bombing mission

Apr. 23, 2024 14:42 PM EDT

DETROIT (AP) — Military scientists have identified the remains of an Army Air Forces pilot from Michigan eight decades after he died during a World War II bombing mission in Southeast Asia. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Monday the remains of 2nd Lt. John E. McLauchlen...

Myanmar’s figurehead vice president, a rare holdover from Suu Kyi's civilian government, steps down

Apr. 22, 2024 14:54 PM EDT

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s Vice President Henry Van Thio, who served in the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and then continued in the position after the military ousted her to seize power in 2021, is stepping down for unspecified health reasons, state media said Monday. ...

About 1,300 people from Myanmar flee into Thailand after clashes broke out in a key border town

Apr. 20, 2024 05:11 AM EDT

BANGKOK (AP) — About 1,300 people have fled from eastern Myanmar into Thailand, officials said Saturday, as fresh fighting erupted at a border town that has recently been captured by ethnic guerillas. Fighters from the Karen ethnic minority last week captured the last of the...