Burma

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Suu Kyi Denied Request for Urgent Medical Care

Myanmar's former leader isn't eating well as a result of gum disease: reports

(Newser) - Myanmar's military rulers have denied a request to send an outside doctor to the imprisoned former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 78, who is said to be in need of urgent care. "She was suffering swelling in her gums and could not eat well and is feeling light-headed...

Hip-Hop Artist in Myanmar Gets 20 Years for Speaking Out

Byu Har criticized military-run government over electricity shortages

(Newser) - A 38-year-old Burmese hip-hop artist has been found guilty of criticizing Myanmar's military-controlled government and sentenced to 20 years in prison, a family member said Thursday. The sentence given to Byu Har, also known as Min Oat Myanmar, appeared to be the most severe so far given to any...

To US Diplomats, It's 'Turkiye'
To US Diplomats, It's 'Turkiye'

To US Diplomats, It's 'Turkiye'

State Department agrees to change while standing firm on Burma

(Newser) - The State Department said Thursday it has adopted Turkey's preferred spelling for the name of the country, Turkiye , acceding to a request from the NATO ally after several months of hesitation. The department has instructed that new official documents refer to Turkiye instead of Turkey, though the pronunciation will...

Gov't Helicopters Allegedly Hit Myanmar School, Killing Kids

13 people killed in total, per reports

(Newser) - Government helicopters have attacked a school and village in north-central Myanmar, killing at least 13 people including seven children, a school administrator and an aid worker said Monday. Civilian casualties often occur in attacks by the military government on pro-democracy insurgents and their allies. However, the number of children killed...

Convictions Rack Up for Suu Kyi
Convictions Rack Up for Suu Kyi

Convictions Rack Up for Suu Kyi

She is to serve at least 11 years in prison after 3 convictions, the latest for corruption

(Newser) - Myanmar's former elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to five years in prison on Wednesday for corruption, in just one of many cases against the 76-year-old Nobel laureate, who was ousted from power by the military in a February 2021 coup. Human rights groups believe the junta...

Biden Administration Getting Ready to Declare a Genocide

White House will reportedly make the designation formally on Monday

(Newser) - The Biden administration intends to declare that Myanmar’s years-long repression of the Rohingya Muslim population is a “genocide," US officials said Sunday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to make the long-anticipated designation on Monday at an event at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, according to the...

Aung San Suu Kyi Sentenced to 4 Years

In the first of a series of cases against her

(Newser) - A special court in Myanmar’s capital sentenced the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to four years in prison on Monday after finding her guilty of incitement and violating coronavirus restrictions, a legal official said. The sentencing was the first in a series of cases in which...

Soldiers Kill 7-Year-Old in Her Own Home in Myanmar

20 children thought to be among at least 275 people killed since Feb. 1

(Newser) - More deaths were reported in Myanmar on Tuesday, including that of a 7-year-old girl reportedly shot in her father's arms. Soldiers were raiding homes in Mandalay to look for opponents and weapons when they kicked down the family's door, asking the father whether anyone else was at...

Aerobics Instructor Unknowingly Films Coup Unfolding

Convoy of black vehicles seen approaching Parliament

(Newser) - An aerobics instructor woke up Monday and dove into an exercise routine at her usual spot in front of a large, multilane road. In doing so, she accidentally recorded Myanmar's unfolding coup d'etat . In a video uploaded to Facebook, Khing Hnin Wai is seen performing a dance routine...

Myanmar Military Carries Out Coup, Detains Aung San Suu Kyi

Military has taken over, transferred power to commander-in-chief of armed forces

(Newser) - Myanmar's de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained by the military after the armed forces carried out a coup d'etat, the BBC reports. Suu Kyi's ruling party won enough seats in November's election, just the second since military rule ended in 2011,...

Video Shows Massive Mine Collapse That Took 120 Lives

'I feel empty in my heart,' says a Myanmar miner

(Newser) - At least 126 people are dead after a terrifying mine collapse buried workers in a wave of rock and mud Thursday in Myanmar, the BBC reports. Officials say rainfall caused a heap of muddy waste to crumble at the jade mine in Hpakant township in Kachin state, setting off the...

Facebook Translation Gives Chinese Leader Unfortunate Name

Translates 'Xi Jinping' as 'Mr. Shithole'

(Newser) - Chinese President Xi Jinping recently visited Myanmar , and on the second day of his visit, some awkwardness ensued online. A statement about the visit published on the Facebook page of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi referred to Xi—but when the page was translated to English, his name came...

After 511 Days, Myanmar Frees Reuters Journalists

They reported on brutal Rohingya crackdown

(Newser) - Two Reuters journalists who were imprisoned for breaking Myanmar's Official Secrets Act over reporting on security forces' abuses of Rohingya Muslims were pardoned and released Tuesday, the prison chief and witnesses said. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were freed after President Win Myint issued a blanket pardon for...

Suu Kyi Is First to Have Canadian Honor Revoked

Myanmar leader loses honorary citizenship

(Newser) - Canada's Parliament formally stripped Aung San Suu Kyi of her honorary Canadian citizenship on Tuesday for complicity in the atrocities committed against Myanmar's Rohingya people. The Senate voted unanimously to strip Suu Kyi, Myanmar's civilian leader, of the symbolic honor bestowed on her in 2007. The upper...

UN Investigators Deliver Gravest Accusation Possible

Panel says Myanmar's military leaders should be prosecuted for genocide

(Newser) - The word genocide has been used by critics to describe the Myanmar military's brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, but a team of UN investigators has just brought the allegation to a whole new level. The three-member team says the actions of the nation's army meet the strict legal...

'Rajuma's Story Stopped Me': Veteran Reporter Can't Shake It

Jeffrey Gettleman of 'New York Times' recalls wrenching interview with Rohingya woman

(Newser) - Last week, reporter Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times wrote a harrowing account of how Myanmar soldiers ripped a baby boy from the arms of his Rohingya mother and threw the child into a fire before raping her. Now, in a first-person account, Gettleman writes that his interview with...

Myanmar Leader Stripped of Honor Amid Ethnic Cleansing Claims

De facto leader of Myanmar criticized for downplaying the issue

(Newser) - Oxford recognized Aung San Suu Kyi for her struggle to bring democracy to Myanmar when the city gave her the honorary Freedom of Oxford title in 1997. On Monday night, city councilors decided to withdraw the honor, CNN reports. Suu Kyi, the longtime activist turned de facto leader of Myanmar,...

Satellite Images Reveal How Massive Rohingya Exodus Is

One camp in Bangladesh has quadrupled in size in recent weeks

(Newser) - Massive, makeshift refugee camps are sprawling over farms and open land in southern Bangladesh as more than 420,000 Rohingya Muslims flee violent attacks in their predominantly Buddhist homeland of Myanmar. In a matter of weeks, thousands of temporary shelters have been erected in the Bangladesh district of Cox's...

UN's Human Rights Chief Just Went There on Myanmar

'Seems like a textbook example of ethnic cleansing'

(Newser) - The top human rights official for the UN has dropped a damning charge on Myanmar: "ethnic cleansing." Addressing the agency's Human Rights Council, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said that Myanmar will not allow investigators to fully assess what's happening to the Muslim Rohingya community, "...

Bodies Found After Plane Vanishes With 120 Aboard

Myanmar plane was carrying military families

(Newser) - A navy ship found bodies and aircraft parts in the seas off Myanmar while searching Thursday morning for a military transport plane carrying 120 people, a spokesman says. The Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft disappeared Wednesday afternoon about a half-hour after leaving Myeik, also known as Mergui, for Yangon on a...

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