Villagers uncovered 18 charred bodies after junta forces burned homes in a village in central Myanmar, residents and defense forces told Radio Free Asia.
An intensification of fighting between ethnic Arakan Army fighters and junta troops in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state has caused tens of thousands of villagers to flee four major townships in anticipation of additional clashes, residents said Friday.
Mention Kadavu Island to anyone in Fiji and it likely conjures up one word: Marijuana.The volcanic island – which lies south of the Fijian archipelago, about halfway between Tahiti and Sydney, Australia – is notorious for its illegal cannabis crops, often grown in hidden clumps between lines of taro leaves.
Junta troops arrested nearly 50 villagers in central Myanmar, locals told Radio Free Asia on Friday. After a junta officer was killed in a clash Wednesday, officials from the battalion entered the village in Sagaing region.
A volcanic eruption in Papua New Guinea has forced the evacuation of more than 26,000 people over the past week and created urgent humanitarian needs, a disaster official said Tuesday.
Junta bombing in western Myanmar killed four people, locals told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.Heavy artillery fired at Rakhine state’s War Shee Lar village on Monday evening exploded, injuring seven people. Five of the seven are in critical condition and were sent to Buthidaung Hospital in the township’s capital.
Uyghurs marked the one-year anniversary of a deadly fire in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi with vigils over the weekend, demanding accountability for the tragedy that they say killed as many as 44 people, four times higher than the official death toll of 10.
Bangladesh’s Election Commission set the country on a familiar but gravely uncertain path last week when it announced Jan. 7 as the date for the 12th parliamentary elections.
Residents in northern Myanmar are contracting diseases from nearby chemical waste, residents told Radio Free Asia. In Kachin state, rare earth mining produces toxic chemicals that end up in water sources, they said.
Nearly 100 civilians were caught in a battle in western Myanmar on Tuesday, locals told Radio Free Asia. As fighting in Rakhine state between the Arakan Army and junta forces continues over the disputed town of Pauktaw, residents report an increase in abductions and injuries across the region.