Arakan International Relations Lead Story News Rohingya
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday called on countries to suspend providing weapons to Burma over violence against Rohingya Muslims until the military puts sufficient accountability measures in place.
Arakan Lead Story News Rohingya
Burma’s government said it has evacuated at least 4,000 non-Muslim villagers amid ongoing clashes in northwestern Arakan State, as thousands more Rohingya Muslims sought to flee across the border to Bangladesh on Sunday.
The UN children’s agency (UNICEF) and Burma’s government reiterated their goal of spending $5.9 million this year on landmine risk education, victims’ assistance, capacity-building and other related projects as a ceremony was held yesterday to mark International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action.
The first, voluntary repatriation of 68 Burmese refugees from camps along the Thai-Burmese border began on Tuesday, in a move the UNHCR called a “milestone”.
Labour Issues Lead Story News Rangoon
The four detained suspects are all members of one family that operated the Ava Tailors garment shop in the heart of Rangoon’s old colonial quarter.
Lead Story News Women's Issues
Women who are victims of abusive husbands face cultural and legal barriers if they want to file for a divorce or lodge a criminal complaint.
Lead Story Natural Disasters News Pegu Division
“Farmlands located in the east and west of Zigon were destroyed. The floodwater is yet to subside, and the river is still swelling.”
Lead Story News Society Women's Issues
Women’s activists and lawmakers say a stigma on single mothers should be addressed and youth sex education expanded to stop a rise in abandoned newborns.
Lead Story Natural Disasters News
Extreme weather conditions over the past week affected nearly 60,000 people, according to government figures.
Burma’s parliamentary Farmland Investigation Commission has cited the overwhelming layers of bureaucracy as the foremost cause for delays in returning confiscated land to its original owners.
Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement says it has delivered humanitarian relief for over 3,800 villagers displaced by recent hostilities.
The Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement has been urging the shop owners to vacate the land since 2013, claiming that the area is owned by the government.
Flash flooding continues to wreak havoc across Burma this week claiming three lives and leaving a path of destruction. Three people have been killed in the floods in Magwe Division,[…]
The Burmese government is drawing up plans to shutter displacement camps across the country, but aid workers say food rations and sustainable security should be first on the priority list.
Although the Burmese military doesn’t want camps established for those recently displaced by clashes between government troops and the Kachin Independence Army, a cabinet official for the government has insisted that camps should be set up if necessary.
Burma’s Minister for Labour, Immigration and Population Thein Swe has denied an assertion made by one of his cabinet colleagues last week of plans to relax travel restrictions for holders of National Verification Cards, the vast majority of whom would be Rohingya Muslims.
“Security and rule of law in the nation are at critical risk,” said a party statement.
“This is in no way a repatriation, rather it is propaganda,” said the Bangladeshi government’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner.
Burma on Saturday repatriated the first Rohingya family from nearly 700,000 refugees who have fled to Bangladesh, after months of fraught talks with Dhaka and amid the United Nations’ warnings that the country is not ready for their return.
Lead Story News Refugees Rohingya
A Burmese government minister will visit Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh on Wednesday, officials said, a rare trip that Dhaka hopes will help speed the return home of hundreds of thousands of the neighbouring nation’s Muslim minority.
The families of two people killed when a bridge in Myaungmya Township collapsed over the weekend have received 2.6 million kyats ($1,950) in financial assistance from two Union ministries and the Irrawaddy Region government.
Lead Story News Women's Issues
The draft bill has this week been sent to the Office of the Attorney General for ratification, before it is in turn passed on to the Union parliament for deliberation.
Analysis Lead Story News Women's Issues
The Home Affairs Ministry has been blasted for re-enforcing harmful assumptions about gender-based violence after it released a document positing that women consuming alcohol was among the leading causes of the rape of women and children.
The state government has offered financial assistance of 500,000 kyat (US$375) to both families of those killed.
International Relations Lead Story News Rohingya
The UN refugee agency and other groups have urged a rethink of the plan to send Rohingya refugees back to Burma amid fears of forced repatriations and the inability of aid agencies to ensure the safety of hundreds of thousands who fled bloodshed at home.
International Relations Lead Story News Refugees Rohingya
Bangladesh has delayed the repatriation of Rohingya Muslim refugees to Burma, set to start on Tuesday, because the process of compiling and verifying the list of people to be sent back is incomplete, a senior Bangladeshi official said.
Two senior government officials over the weekend inspected camps being readied in anticipation of the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Rakhine State, who are currently sheltering in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Lead Story News Refugees Rohingya
Minister Win Myat Aye said a group of 450 Hindu refugees will be allowed back across the border on 22 January as the first step in the repatriation process.
Twenty-four political parties release a statement opposing the recent appointment of five foreign nationals to a 10-member “advisory team” tasked with monitoring implementation of recommendations laid out in August by the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State.
Arakan Lead Story News Rakhine
President Htin Kyaw has established yet another governmental body to address the situation in troubled Rakhine State, this one comprised of Burmese and foreign members including the chairman of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission and a former US presidential aspirant.
