The regional bloc must support the growing calls for a global arms embargo on Myanmar. Words alone have failed to persuade the Myanmar military to stop killing and jailing its civilian opponents. Both the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have called on the Myanmar military to cease its use of violence.

Envoys from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) arrived in Myanmar Thursday for talks with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, as the coup-stricken nation enters its fifth month of crippling unrest.Myanmar has been in chaos and its economy paralysed since the February coup, with more than 800 people killed in a brutal military crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.Erywan Pehin Yusof, Brunei's second minister for foreign affairs, and ASEAN Secretary-General

The chair and secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plan to travel to Myanmar this week even as the 10-nation group remains divided on how to respond to the military coup there, four diplomatic sources have said. Myanmar is a member of ASEAN which has a policy of non-interference in the affairs of members, but it has led the main diplomatic effort to resolve the crisis that has engulfed the country since 1 February when the military staged a

Conflict has raged for decades in Myanmar’s borderlands, where myriad ethnic armed groups are fighting with the military for greater autonomy. Since February’s coup, however, dozens of new, grassroots people’s defence forces have emerged to oppose the junta, with battles occurring in areas of the country that were previously peaceful.“The people of Myanmar have been left with no other choice.

A shadow government in Myanmar seeking to reverse the 1 February coup has joined forces with a rebel group to "demolish" junta rule, it said Saturday.Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) government and launched a brutal crackdown on dissent.

Myanmar's junta chief has said deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health and will appear in court within days during the general's first television interview since the coup.Min Aung Hlaing, who toppled Suu Kyi in a 1 February putsch, gave a two-hour interview to Hong Kong's Phoenix Television on Thursday, with the full programme yet to air."Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health.

Desperate residents of a Myanmar town hit by clashes between the military and an anti-junta defence force pleaded for help Wednesday as the United Nations (UN) warned the fighting may have forced thousands to flee.Government forces used artillery to flush out rebels from the western town of Mindat after fighting broke out on 12 May, a spokesman for a local insurgent group said, and later cut off its water supply.One resident who did not want to be named said that most of those who had been tr

The United Nations (UN) on Tuesday appealed for US$943 million to cope with the Rohingya humanitarian crisis, fearing that a COVID outbreak in South Asia could reach refugee camps before vaccines do. The agency said the funds were needed urgently this year for nearly one million refugees from the Muslim minority who fled to Bangladesh from neighbouring Myanmar after a deadly crackdown in 2017.Most are crowded into squalid refugee camps, and the pandemic has rendered them even more vu

Six opposition rebels have been killed after days of clashes in Myanmar, an anti-junta defence force made up of civilians said Sunday, as Britain and the United States (US) condemned the military's violence against civilians.Myanmar has been in uproar since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a 1 February coup, triggering a massive uprising which authorities have sought to quell with lethal force. Pope Francis on Sunday called for an end to the bloodshed and

The special ASEAN leaders meeting conducted on Saturday 24 April indicates a collective attempt by the regional organisation to seriously deal with the deteriorating situation in Myanmar based on “the ASEAN way”. The face-to-face forum, hosted by Indonesia at the ASEAN secretariat in Jakarta, resulted in a five-point-consensus; summarising plans to stabilise the political turmoil in Myanmar. This agenda, however, has attracted supports as well as criticisms towards ASEAN.