Police seize a stash of illicit narcotics worth 1.6 billion kyats ($1.17 million) and arrest two suspects at a checkpoint in Lel Pyin village, part of Kachin State’s Hpakant Township, with a follow-up search of the accused possessors’ property yielding an additional 700 million kyats in drugs.
Lead Story Natural resources News
The fatal incident occurred after a crowd of freelance miners gathered at the site entrance to protest the temporary closure of the mine by its contractors.
“A day before, the flooding has been about a metre to two metres in the streets,” said a local resident.
Neighbourhood watch groups are formed in the lawless jade mining town following two murders in broad daylight.
Crime Ethnic issues Kachin Lead Story News
An ethnic Tai-Leng, or “Red Shan,” schoolteacher was reportedly shot dead by unknown assailants on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the murder of a fellow Red Shan man in similar fashion, both in the Kachin State jade mining township of Hpakant.
Lead Story Natural Disasters News
Two freelance pickers were buried under a landslide of excavated soil as they sifted for scraps of jade.
Kachin Lead Story Natural resources News
Two jade scavengers were killed and another injured at yet another deadly landslide at Hpakant’s mines.
Kachin Lead Story Natural resources News
The victim of the shooting told DVB that the mining company previously had no issue with freelancers scavenging at its worksite, but things went sour on Saturday.
Conflict Kachin Lead Story Natural resources News
Members of the Kachin Independence Army started a fire that destroyed a warehouse in Hpakant Township on Wednesday, according to Myawady News.
No casualties were reported in a fire that did extensive damage to property owned by a mining company in Hpakant Township on Wednesday.
Kachin Lead Story Natural resources News
The protestors issued a list of six points, including a demand to permit day-labourers forage freely through mounds of soil dumped by mining companies.
Kachin Lead Story Natural resources News
“Its weight was calculated at 210 tons upon discovery; however the top broke off during the excavation … that was about 40 tons worth.”
Conflict Kachin Lead Story News
According to an international watchdog, Burma is the third-worst country in the world for landmine casualties.
Conflict Kachin Lead Story News
“Local residents informed us that stray artillery shells, apparently fired from a position in the cemetery outside of Namya, landed in the school compound, wounding the teacher.”
Conflict Kachin Lead Story News
A KIA spokesman says the Kachin militia engaged Burmese troops along the road between Kamaing and Hpakant on Monday morning after government forces had advanced on a position where the KIA’s 6th Battalion had dug in.
Kachin Lead Story Natural resources News
“They were tied to bamboo poles and tortured. And they were warned not to scavenge on a ‘Kachin’ site.”
Ethnic issues Kachin Lead Story News
A military mouthpiece claimed that three men allegedly working for the Kachin Independence Army confessed to carrying out a recent series of bomb attacks in Burma’s jade-mining region.
Kachin Lead Story Natural resources News
The incident took place at a site that had been closed for the rainy season because of fears about the stability of its massive pile of mining waste.
Nandar Hlaing, who was recently assigned to work as a village administrator in Hpakant Township, was shot and killed in front of her children on Sunday evening.
Environment Lead Story Natural resources News
Villagers in Kachin State’s Hpakant Township feel threatened as whole mountains are turned into dangerous, unstable waste heaps.
The attack, on a company apparently targeted for refusing to give in to extortion demands from an armed group, left at least 10 vehicles damaged or destroyed.
No one has taken responsibility for at least eight separate bombing incidents in the jade-mining town of Hpakant on Sunday.
Lead Story Natural Disasters Natural resources News
Local officials say around 20 people may have been buried when a slag heap collapsed on Thursday evening.
Ethnic issues Lead Story News Video
On this episode of DVB’s Doh Pyay Doh Myay Roadshow, the team visits Hpakant in southern Kachin State, where the hunt for Jade is intensifying as political change in Burma looms.
Kachin Lead Story News Politics
Miners have been tearing into Burma’s northern hills in recent months, in a rush to excavate more jade from the world’s richest deposits of the gemstone before a new government takes office next year.
Business Environment Lead Story News
Hpakant miners are continuing to risk their lives to find precious stones less than a week after a nearby landslide killed more than a hundred people.
The troops belonged to a security detail protecting the incumbent Kachin State Chief Minister La John Ngan Hsai.
91 bodies have been pulled from a landslide near a jade mine in Kachin State and an estimated 100 people are still missing, an official told DVB on Sunday.
Conflict Kachin Lead Story News
Residents from a number of villages in central Kachin State have been ordered by the Burmese army to evacuate the region, following clashes with Kachin rebels.
Conflict Kachin Lead Story News
Each side presented differing perspectives on how armed clashes broke out last week, but agreed to consider investigating the causes of the hostilities.
