Headlines
Civilians are being killed at an alarming rate in Myanmar’s civil war, dying in airstrikes, artillery shelling and while being held in detention, data released from an armed ethnic group fighting the junta showed.
Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak on Friday lost his final judicial chance to get out of prison when the country’s highest court rejected his request to review its 2022 decision to incarcerate him for corruption, although his lawyer claimed Najib’s legal hopes were still alive.
Western Myanmar’s once bustling town of Thantlang, with a sign above its gateway proclaiming that its inhabitants are “Not rich, but happy,” now lies in ruin after an onslaught of military raids, arson attacks, and airstrikes
Pressure escalated against Bangladesh’s leading daily as it was hit with a second Digital Security Act case on Thursday, this time against the editor, over a recent report that a minister said “undermined” the country’s independence.
The United Nations has called on Hong Kong authorities to release veteran rights activist and lawyer Albert Ho, who was returned to custody to await trial for “subversion” under a national security law after his bail was revoked earlier this month.
Journalists in Hong Kong say they are being followed by unidentified law enforcement personnel, prompting calls for a police investigation from their union amid deteriorating press freedom in the city.
Around the time of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow earlier this week, a Twitter account with more than 50,000 followers posted a photo purportedly showing Russian President Vladimir Putin kneeling before Xi and grasping his hands in apparent supplication.
An International Women’s Day march, a film about a Muslim character exploring other religions’ views on the afterlife, and an interfaith program have all recently become targets of religious conservatives’ outrage in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
Myanmar’s junta is planning 15 new villages with 750 plots of farmable land in Rakhine state as part of a pilot program that would see 1,500 ethnic Rohingyas repatriated from refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh next month.
Thailand’s election in May could result in no party winning a clear mandate, likely forcing the longtime opposition Pheu Thai party and a military-backed one to form an alliance, Thai activists and academics told BenarNews this week.