Aung Gyi is forced to fish covertly under the shroud of night in western Myanmar waters as China bids to transform the strategically key region into a shipping and industrial hub, squeezing out locals who fear being left behind in the gold rush.Myanmar has declared Rakhine state, associated by many worldwide with the military’s 2017 bloody crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, open for business – but locals fear they are being left out of the gold rush as new rules restrict traditional practises.Pad

Myanmar faced accusations of genocide in a landmark lawsuit filed by Gambia at the United Nation’s top court on Monday over the Southeast Asian nation’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims, Gambia’s government said.Gambia said it was acting on behalf of the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in bringing the case against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.The lawsuit accuses mainly Buddhist Myanmar of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention through a br

A global rights group cast doubt Friday on Bangladesh's claims that thousands of Rohingya refugees are ready to move to a new island site that critics say is prone to natural disasters.Dhaka has long wanted to move 100,000 people to the silt islet of Bhashan Char to relieve overcrowded mainland camps where almost a million Rohingya have lived since fleeing a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.Bangladeshi officials have said that between 6,000 to 7,000 Rohingya have already expr

Only a few months ago, Myanmar was shocked with news of the rape of a three-year-old girl who has since been given the pseudonym “Victoria”. Victoria was raped at a private nursery home in May.

Thousands of Rohingya living in Bangladesh refugee camps have agreed to move to an island in the Bay of Bengal, officials said Sunday, despite fears the site is prone to flooding.Dhaka has long wanted to move 100,000 refugees to the muddy silt islet, saying it would take pressure off the overcrowded border camps where almost a million Rohingya live.Some 740,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar in August 2017 in the face of a military crackdown, joining 200,000 refugees already in makeshift tent settleme

As if human rights abuses, corruption charges and deadly landslides haven’t hurt the industry enough, Myanmar’s multi-billion-dollar jade and gemstone industry now has to deal with the challenges of e-commerce.Myanmar produces 90 percent of the world’s jade and is a major player in the global gem economy, but poor regulations mean up to two-third of the country’s production is possibly not subjected to tax according to a report by the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) in March.The

Around 64 percent of consumers in Southeast Asia are confident of going cashless for a full day, highlighting the region’s strong drive towards digital payments.And while almost half of ASEAN’s citizens in a recent survey by Visa are confident they can go cashless for up to three days, awareness of cashless payment systems in Myanmar is still relatively low.Although more than 40 percent of the survey’s respondents expect to utilise cashless payment in the coming year, awareness of contactless

The Bangladesh military said Thursday it has ordered an investigation after a Rohingya family in a refugee camp accused army troops of raping a 12-year-old girl.The inquiry comes as around a million Rohingya in vast camps in Bangladesh face increasing hostility two years after fleeing a military offensive in Myanmar.Mohammad Osman, an elder brother of the alleged victim, said three soldiers entered their shanty at the Nayapara Rohingya camp on Sunday evening and sexually assaulted his sister.

Accessing everything from Wikipedia to Google Maps in Myanmar is about to get a lot easier when it finally adopts the universal code underpinning phone and online communication next week.Tech experts say the move to bring the country more in step with the rest of the digital world is crucial, but will cause "chaos" in a rocky transition period.Myanmar is the last nation to embrace unicode that has significant numbers of people online.

Bangladesh is set to erect barbed-wire fencing, guard towers and cameras around Rohingya camps, the home minister said Thursday citing security concerns, in a move critics said would turn the refugee settlements into prisons.Dhaka has been growing frustrated with the Rohingya in Bangladesh - who number nearly a million - since the collapse of a recent repatriation attempt to encourage them to return home to Myanmar.The stateless Muslim minority live in large camps in southeastern border towns