Myanmar

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who ambushed a stunned U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during an early encounter in 2021 with allegations that America has a worse human rights record than China, gave Blinken one more political lecture on Saturday.

Two masked gunmen entered St. Patrick Catholic Church in the town of Mohnyin, Myanmar, on Friday morning during services and fired a volley of bullets at the parish priest, Father Paul Hkwi Shane Aung. Aung was hit three times but survived the attack.

The Lowy Institute of Australia published a report on Wednesday that found China’s funding for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Southeast Asia is about $50 billion short of its commitments, apparently due to a variety of causes, from political instability in BRI countries to reduced demand for fossil fuel projects.

Joe Biden’s DHS has extended and redesignated a temporary amnesty program to nearly 10,000 Burmese nationals living in the United States.

The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a report on Monday that accused North Korean state-controlled hackers of sharing their shadowy banking and money-laundering networks with scam artists and drug traffickers across Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.

The United Nations revealed that, according to its estimates, Myanmar is now the world’s top producer of opium, dethroning Afghanistan.

The United Nations on Tuesday issued a report on the brutal treatment of people forced to work in online and telephone scam centers across Southeast Asia.

The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Index, published on Wednesday, ranked communist North Korea as the world’s worst place to be a journalist, concluding a list whose least prestigious spots are dominated by communist regimes.

The occupied region of Tibet is less free than communist North Korea, and the Asia-Pacific region generally is among the most repressed in the world, where only five percent of people live in free countries, the international organization Freedom House revealed on Thursday.

The Burmese army torched a historic Catholic church in the Archdiocese of Mandalay this week and also set fire to a convent of religious sisters.

Facebook (now known as Meta) is facing new calls from Amnesty International to pay reparations to the Rohingya people for the company’s alleged role in inciting ethnic violence in Myanmar.

Chinese-owned companies in Myanmar are allegedly responsible for illegal mining operations that are destroying the natural landscape of Myanmar’s border region with China, local miners of dysprosium and terbium — two heavy rare earth minerals used in clean energy products and smart electronics — told the organization Global Witness for a report published on Tuesday.

The president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences has condemned the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen, accusing Hong Kong of having become a “police state.”

Some 40 soldiers of the ruling military junta raided the Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Mandalay, Myanmar, Friday, detaining Archbishop Marco Tin Win and dozens of the faithful.

Pope Francis has once again called for an end to violence in Myanmar, marking the one-year anniversary of the February 1 military coup with prayers for peace.

The junta that took control of Myanmar last February has relentlessly targeted Christian clergy and places of worship. Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Monday quoted human rights activists who said it has arrested at least nine Christian leaders, subsequently killing five.

Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Bo has pleaded for an end to violence in the country following the brutal massacre of dozens of villagers on Christmas Day.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named China the world’s worst jailer of journalists on Thursday, the third year in a row that the host of the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics has taken the title.

A $372 million sum Myanmar’s government received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in February for pandemic relief has “gone missing” since a military junta seized control in a coup just two days after the aid was issued, Coconuts Yangon reported Wednesday.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced over the weekend that General Min Aung Hlaing, leader of the military junta in Myanmar, will not be invited to the association’s October 26-28 summit. The unprecedented snub of Gen. Hlaing was welcomed by the Burmese opposition, which asked ASEAN to go even further and invite a representative from the civilian shadow government.

Unidentified gunmen on Wednesday shot and killed Mohib Ullah, a high-profile advocate for the Rohingya, at a refugee camp for the Muslim minority group in Bangladesh, local police confirmed to Reuters on Thursday.

A magistrate judge in Washington, D.C. on Thursday ordered social media giant Facebook to turn over records pertaining to accounts that were shuttered in 2018 because they were linked to violence committed against the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar.

Communist officials in China’s Yunnan province forcibly quarantined over 5,000 residents of Jiegao district this week.

China is building a wall along its 1,400-mile border with Myanmar allegedly to help protect it from an alleged influx of the Chinese coronavirus, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

Norway’s Telenor is selling its subsidiary in Myanmar, where it is one of the major operators, as a result of the military coup.

Chinese government authorities locked down the southern city of Ruili, located along China’s border with Myanmar, on Monday to contain a new cluster of Chinese coronavirus infections detected in the municipality over the weekend, the state-run Global Times reported.

Cardinal Charles Maung Bo lamented Sunday the fate of the people of Myanmar “tossed in the stormy seas of man-made disaster” following the February 1 military coup d’état.

Pope Francis has joined the bishops of Myanmar (Burma) in calling for the opening of humanitarian corridors in conflict-torn Myanmar.

The Catholic bishops of Myanmar have urged the military to stop targeting places of worship, which have suffered repeated attacks in past weeks.

Social justice and politics took center stage at a Miss Universe pageant, where contestants unveiled their outfits, riddled with political messages.

Pope Francis urged Myanmar Catholics Sunday to be steadfast in faith in the midst of “violence, conflict, and repression.”

Myanmar Cardinal Charles Bo has urged Christians around the world to unite in praying for the Chinese people during the week of May 23-30.

Burmese poet Khet Thi, an ardent opponent of the junta that seized control of Myanmar from its elected civilian government in February, was arrested by regime forces on Saturday along with his wife Chaw Su.

The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Francis will celebrate a special Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica for all Myanmar Catholics who live in Rome.

The military junta in Myanmar on Thursday arrested 24-year-old model and actor Paing Takhon, hailed as “the most handsome person in Southeast Asia” by fans, because he criticized the coup.

Myanmar´s ambassador to the UK, who has criticized the military coup in his country, says he has been locked out of his embassy by colleagues.