Myanmar’s junta bombed a monastery in the country’s northwest on Saturday, killing five people, including children, just one day before it publicly announced that a recent earthquake had destroyed almost 10,000 religious buildings across the country.
As the United Nations called for $275 million in aid for quake-hit Myanmar, neighboring China pledged 1 billion yuan (US$137 million), eclipsing the offers from other international donors.
Junta airstrikes in northwestern Myanmar killed more than 30 civilians, including an entire family, residents and officials told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.
The Tibetan government-in-exile called Tuesday for an independent investigation into the death of an influential Tibetan Buddhist leader said to have died in Vietnam, where he was reportedly in hiding from the Chinese government.
A rebel army and allied forces near Myanmar’s northwestern border with India have seized towns that were previously under the junta control, sources told Radio Free Asia.
Some North Korean hospitals are posting prices for treatment and medicine in a break from past practice that suggests authorities are abandoning the goal of providing free health care, sources in the country have told Radio Free Asia.
International aid groups who want to provide assistance to earthquake-hit areas of Myanmar must gain prior approval from junta authorities, said a top military official, as the death toll surpassed 3,500.
Hundreds of Tibetans have taken to social media to demand that China restore Tibetan language studies in schools, just days after Beijing released a white paper claiming that the right to use Tibetan language is guaranteed in Tibet.
Chinese officials have confirmed the death of an influential Tibetan Buddhist leader who went missing eight months ago shortly after he publicly called for the preservation of Tibetan language and culture, two sources told Radio Free Asia.
Residents of an informal Port Moresby settlement that was razed following the gang rape and murder of a woman by 20 men say they are being unfairly punished by Papua New Guinea authorities over alleged links to the crime.