The media has "exaggerated" the number of Rohingya refugees fleeing an army crackdown, Myanmar's commander-in-chief said Thursday, in a brash rebuttal of accusations of ethnic cleansing by his forces.Some 520,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's western Rakhine state since August 25, when the military launched a sweeping campaign against militants from the Muslim minority.

The Security Council will on Friday hold an informal meeting on Myanmar to hear former UN chief Kofi Annan provide details of a report on the plight of Rohingya Muslims, diplomats said.The UN's top political affairs official, Jeffrey Feltman, will travel to Myanmar on Friday for four days of talks on the crisis.More than 500,000 people, mostly Rohingyas, have since late August fled an army campaign in Myanmar's Rakhine state that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Hasina Begum's earliest memory is of watching the jungle cut down to expand the camp in Bangladesh that is the only home the 31-year-old Rohingya refugee has ever known.Begum is one of about 300,000 Rohingya who escaped turmoil in Myanmar before the latest eruption of violence brought another half a million refugees to Bangladesh, pushing already overcrowded camps to breaking point.She was just five when her family fled persecution of the Muslim minority in Myanmar and has become trapped

A boat packed with Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state capsised late Sunday night near the coast of Bangladesh, leaving at least two people dead and scores missing, officials said.Coast guard and border guard officials said the boat was overloaded with about 100 people when it sank in the mouth of the Naf river that separates Myanmar from its South Asian neighbour Bangladesh."It capsised near (the coastal village of) Galachar with nearly 100 people.

More than half a million Rohingya refugees have fled the atrocities in the Rakhine State to neighbouring Myanmar since the latest spate of violence began end of August.

Rohingya militants whose attacks triggered an army crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state unleashing a huge wave of refugees said Saturday their one-month ceasefire would end in two days, but added they were open to peace if the government reciprocated.In a statement released through its Twitter account, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) said its unilateral truce would end at midnight on October 9."The humanitarian pause was conducted in order to enable humanitarian actors to

Bangladesh on Thursday announced it would build one of the world's biggest refugee camps to house all the 800,000-plus Rohingya Muslims who have sought asylum from violence in Myanmar.The arrival of more than half a million Rohingya Muslims from Buddhist-dominated Myanmar since August 25 has put an immense strain on camps in Bangladesh where there are growing fears of a disease epidemic.A Bangladesh minister gave details of the mega camp as Myanmar's army blamed Rohingya militants f

PARIS – As is so often the case, it was an artist who sounded the warning. His name is Barbet Schroeder, and the alert that he issued came in the form of his fine, sober film The Venerable W., a portrait of Myanmar’s Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu. Known as “W,” Wirathu is the other face of a religion that is widely perceived as the archetype of peace, love, and harmony.

ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is facing unpredictable times ahead.

Bangladesh has deployed secret police in the burgeoning refugee camps near its border with Myanmar, where Rohingya claiming to be members of a militant group say they have found fertile ground for recruitment.Authorities in Bangladesh, which was already grappling with its own Islamist militancy problem before the latest mass influx of Rohingya refugees, have repeatedly said there are no extremists among the new arrivals.But inside the camps are a number of self-proclaimed members of the ARSA