Clad in elaborate headdresses representing dragons and wizards, Myanmar's ethnic Pa'O fire huge, homemade rockets into the sky – an annual call for plentiful rains and a chance for a windfall of cash. The Pa'O are one of the largest of the country's minority groups, numbering around 1.2 million people and living mainly in Shan state's highlands.They are overwhelmingly Buddhist but many intertwine animism with their faith, believing they descend from a she-dra

Ever since Myanmar undertook a series of political, economic and administrative reforms in 2011, the country’s economy has steadily improved. According to data from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Myanmar is enjoying some of the highest growth rates in the region.

Thousands of people in northern Myanmar took to the streets on Monday to protest against the proposed reinstatement of a Chinese-backed mega-dam they say will cause huge environmental damage and bring little benefit to the country.The protest came just days ahead of a trip by civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi to Beijing for a summit on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).Myanmar's former military junta signed a 2009 deal with Beijing to construct the Myitsone dam in Kachin state.B

Fighting between the Myanmar army and ethnic Rakhine rebels has escalated in the western state's temple-studded town of Mrauk U, sources confirmed Wednesday, with reports of military jets streaking across the sky.Riven by complex ethnic and religious divides, Rakhine state was the epicentre of a brutal military campaign in 2017 that forced some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh.But the army is now locked in deadly battles with the Arakan Army (AA), a group that cla

When the National League of Defence (NLD) won the general elections in 2015, paving the way for Myanmar’s first non-military president in over half a century, many farmers sensed a renewed hope for the nation. In fact, Aung San Suu Kyi’s pledge to tackle the issue of land grabbing and to protect farmers in the country was one of the reasons for her victory.However, the Myanmar government has done the opposite.

Between June 2017 and April 2018, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Humanitarian Health carried out a study on almost 400 migrant women from Myanmar between the ages of 15 and 55, who were married to Chinese men and experienced childbearing in the five years they were in China.The study, supported by the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT), found that almost 40 percent of them were victims of forced marriages.

The term Islamophobia has its roots in the Greek word Phobos which refers to the God of fear and is used to denote terror. As such, the literal meaning of Islamophobia would be the ‘fear of Islam’. However, the term has evolved over the years to represent the many prejudices faced by Muslims by virtue of their faith. The modern interpretation is no more obvious than the recent Christchurch shootings. The shooter had no agenda other than prejudice and hatred towards Muslims.

A Myanmar court on Tuesday sentenced a prominent ethnic Rakhine leader to 20 years in jail for treason, a verdict likely to intensify anger amid fighting between the ethnic group and the army.Security forces tried to calm hundreds of supporters outside the court in Rakhine state capital Sittwe as Aye Maung was escorted to a waiting police van following the verdict.Aye Maung, the former chairman of the Arakan National Party – which is renowned for hard-line views against the Rohingya Muslim mi