The Myanmar junta has charged a Japanese journalist under a "fake news" law, a report said Tuesday, in the latest blow to press freedom since the military seized power.Freelance reporter Yuki Kitazumi was arrested last month and charged on Monday – World Press Freedom Day – with spreading fake news, according to a report by Kyodo news agency.He is one of 50 journalists currently held in Myanmar as part of the junta's crackdown on widespread protests against its 1 February coup.

Thousands of anti-coup protesters marched in Myanmar on Sunday, calling for a "spring revolution" with the country in its fourth month under a military regime.Cities, rural areas, remote mountainous regions and even rebel-controlled border territories have been in uproar since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a 1 February coup.The junta has aimed to suppress dissent through a brutal crackdown involving mass arrests and an escalating death toll.Demonstrations k

Explosions rocked Myanmar's largest city Yangon on Saturday as protesters held flash marches for democracy, defying a brutal junta that has held onto power for three bloody months. The country has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on 1 February, bringing an abrupt end to Myanmar's short-lived experiment with democracy.The power grab has triggered a massive uprising which the authorities have tried to quell with lethal force and live

A Myanmar swimmer has abandoned his dream of competing at the Tokyo Olympics in protest at the junta ruling his homeland, saying that taking part would be "propaganda" for the regime.Win Htet Oo is one of Myanmar's top swimmers but in early April, the 26-year-old said he was no longer interested in going to Tokyo."To accept the MOC (Myanmar Olympic Committee) as it is currently led is to recognise the legitimacy of a murderous regime," he wrote in a statement on Faceb

Thousands of ethnic Karen villagers in Myanmar are poised to cross into Thailand on Friday if, as expected, fighting intensifies between the Myanmar army and Karen fighters, joining those who have already escaped the turmoil that followed a 1 February coup.Karen rebels and the Myanmar army have clashed near the Thai border in the weeks since Myanmar’s generals deposed an elected government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, displacing villagers on both sides of the border. “

Myanmar's junta said Tuesday it would heed regional pleas to stop violence only when the country "returns to stability", as fresh fighting erupted with a major ethnic rebel group along its eastern border.The nation has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a 1 February coup, triggering a protest movement that security forces have met with deadly crackdowns.The violence – in which more than 750 people have been killed by security forces, a

Every day at sunrise, Daisy* and her sisters set out to spend several hours in the heat cleaning debris from the previous day’s protests off the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.Protests have erupted around the country since the military seized control of the government after arresting democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on 1 February, and declared a year-long state of emergency.According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a non-profit rights organisation

Human rights groups and people in Myanmar have criticised an agreement between Min Aung Hlaing, the general who seized power in a military coup nearly three months ago, and Southeast Asian leaders to end the violence-hit nation’s crisis, saying it fell short of restoring democracy and holding the army to account for killing hundreds of civilians.There were no immediate protests in Myanmar’s big cities a day after the armed forces’ chief flew to Jakarta to meet leaders of the Associat

Southeast Asian leaders held Myanmar crisis talks Saturday with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing who has become the focus of international outrage over a military coup and crackdown that has left more than 700 dead.The senior general was at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Indonesia's capital, marking his first foreign trip since security forces staged a coup that ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in early February.Mass protests by an angry population have

A weekend summit on the Myanmar coup crisis will be a test for ASEAN's credibility and unity, a senior Thai official said Thursday, amid an escalating death toll and violence across its western border.Security forces in Myanmar have killed at least 739 people since a 1 February military coup ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to a local monitoring group.The Myanmar military has stepped up the use of lethal force as it seeks to quell mass protests against the junta, with a