Myanmar or Burma

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/37353879

Over 360 media workers were behind bars in the final month of 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported Thursday, highlighting China and Israel as jailing the highest number.

In its annual census the New York-based organization counted 361 people as being in prison on December 1, 2024, its highest total since 2022, when 370 were counted.

China, Israel, and Myanmar — with 50, 43 and 35 journalists detained, respectively — “emerged as the world’s three worst offenders in another record-setting year for journalists jailed because of their work,” CPJ said.

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and allies say they are attacking Myanmar junta troops retreating from Mansi Township, Kachin State, inflicting heavy casualties.

The Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) has announced a crackdown following the abduction of Chinese celebrities as forced labor for scam compounds in areas under its control on the Myanmar-Thai border.

The announcement came during an emergency meeting in Karen State’s Myawaddy on Wednesday between the BGF, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), and local Chinese businessmen.

China will make every effort to rescue Chinese nationals who fell foul of scam operations luring them to countries including Myanmar, the public security ministry said late on Wednesday. Overseas fraud syndicates have duped Chinese citizens with promises of high-paying jobs, food, accommodation and airfares, and trapped them in telecoms fraud dens in towns such as Myawaddy, on Myanmar's border with Thailand, the ministry said in a report by state media CCTV.

Kyu Kyu Hla, wife of Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, is known for her lavish tastes, particularly when it comes to luxury handbags. The exact number in her collection remains unknown, but she has been spotted with 15 totes from several ultraluxury brands, valued at a staggering US$ 275,000 – or over 1 billion kyats.

In a statement released on Monday, the US government agency said that Telecom International Myanmar Co, Ltd—better known as Mytel—had been sanctioned for “actions and activities” contrary to US national security and foreign policy interests.

Specifically, the company has provided “surveillance services and financial support to Burma’s military regime, enabling the regime to carry out human rights abuses through the tracking and identification of target individuals and groups,” the statement said.

Thai condo transfers to Myanmar buyers ranked second after Chinese purchasers for the first nine months of 2024, overtaking Russian buyers as the Myanmar junta’s crackdown on Thai condo purchases subsided.

The purported leader of a Japan-based crime syndicate pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges alleging that he conspired to traffic uranium and plutonium from Myanmar in the belief that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons.

An airstrike by Myanmar’s army on a village under the control of an armed ethnic minority group killed about 40 people and injured at least 20 others, officials of the group and a local charity said Thursday. They said hundreds of houses burned in a fire triggered by the bombing.

A Chinese actor who went missing Friday near the Thai-Myanmar border has been rescued unharmed by Thai police.

Xingxing was reported missing in the Thai border town of Mae Sot on Friday.

He vanished close to an area in Myanmar where Chinese people and ethnic armed groups affiliated with them run online scam centers.

After conquering most of Arakan, this marks Arakan Army's first adventure into the Ayeyarwady Region.

Given the recent closer relationship China has made with Min Aung Hlaing's junta, this snub is interesting. It demonstrates China's disapproval of the military regime to a certain extent.

The fall of the Myanmar military’s Western Command headquarters in Rakhine State’s Ann Township last month has exposed regime weapons factories along the Irrawaddy River to resistance attacks.

There are 25 weapons factories in Myanmar, 15 in Magwe Region, seven in Bago Region, two in Naypyitaw’s Tatkone, and one in Yangon’s Taikkyi Township.

The weapons factories in Magwe and Bago are located on the west bank of the Irrawaddy River.

General Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) regime began building munitions factories after China provided extensive military aid to the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in 1968, leading to intense fighting between the Myanmar military and CPB in northern Shan State.