US lawmakers proposed sanctions Friday against Myanmar's military, in some of the strongest efforts yet by Washington to pressure the Southeast Asian nation to end abusive treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority.House Republicans and Democrats introduced legislation that would curtail assistance or cooperation with Myanmar's military and require the White House to identify senior military officials who would have US visa bans imposed or re-imposed against them.A bipartisan group i

Myanmar must grant citizenship to the Rohingya to allow hundreds of thousands of people from the Muslim minority to return to Rakhine state from where they were driven by an army campaign, the UN refugee chief said Thursday."These people cannot remain stateless because this statelessness exposes them to discrimination and abuse, as has been the case in the past," said Filippo Grandi, the UN high commission for refugees.More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine since late August d

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrived on her first visit to conflict-battered northern Rakhine State on Thursday, an official said, an unannounced trip to an area that has seen most of its Rohingya Muslim population forced out by an army campaign.Suu Kyi, a nobel laureate who leads Myanmar's pro-democracy party, has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defence of the Rohingya.Some 600,000 of the stateless minority have fl

Muslim countries led by Saudi Arabia want the United Nations to denounce serious rights abuses in Myanmar and demand an end to the military campaign against the Rohingya, according to a draft resolution seen by AFP on Wednesday.In one of the worst refugee crises in decades, more than 600,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled an army crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state since late August.The draft resolution introduced this week to the General Assembly's human rights committee said UN member

Myanmar on Wednesday accused Bangladesh of delaying the repatriation of Rohingya Muslims who have fled Rakhine state since August, as conditions worsen for the stateless minority penned into squalid refugee camps.More than 600,000 members of the Muslim minority have fled a brutal army crackdown in mainly Buddhist Myanmar over the past two months.After weeks of intense global pressure and UN accusations of ethnic cleansing, Myanmar vowed to take back Rohingya who meet "verification"

Only a few years ago Beyonce and Jay-Z were posing for photos among Myanmar's famed temples, heralding the former junta-run country's rise as one of the hottest new tourist destinations on the map.But that dream is cracking as images of burnt villages and Muslim Rohingya fleeing army-led violence in western Rakhine shock the globe, sparking outrage over a staggering scale of human suffering that has festered along the border.Ever since the bloodshed broke out in late August, tourism

Bangladesh is planning to introduce voluntary sterilisation in its overcrowded Rohingya camps, where nearly a million refugees are fighting for space, after efforts to encourage birth control failed.More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar in August triggered an exodus, straining resources in the impoverished country.The latest arrivals have joined hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled in earlier waves from Myanmar&

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Myanmar's army chief Thursday to help end the violence in Rakhine state that has forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee.In a phone call with Min Aung Hlaing, Tillerson expressed "concern about the continuing humanitarian crisis and reported atrocities in Rakhine", according to a statement by State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

The UN Security Council is weighing a draft resolution that would pressure Myanmar to address the violence that has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee, according to the text obtained by AFP on Wednesday.The proposed resolution, drafted by Britain and France, would call on Myanmar authorities to "immediately cease military operations" and allow refugees now living in makeshift camps in Bangladesh to return.The six-page text does not threaten sanctions, but lays

Nations have pledged 345 million dollars (294 million euros) to care for Myanmar's Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, an "encouraging" step in the response to the intensifying crisis, the UN said Monday.