The pre-dawn air is crisp at Saikkhaung village, in Myanmar’s largely rural Shan State, as I board the 5 a.m. train for the three-hour journey to Taunggyi, the state capital. Women sit on the floor in the passenger coaches, stringing together sardine-sized fish to be sold in the daily market near Taunggyi railway station, alongside […]
Japan Inc. pours cash into Myanmar despite Rohingya crisis
May 28, 2018 by
YANGON — Japanese companies are investing aggressively in Myanmar with help from Tokyo, even as their European and American counterparts shy away while hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims flee the country to escape persecution. Japan’s businesses were approved to devote a record $1.47 billion to the Southeast Asian nation for the fiscal year ended […]
US Slaps Sanctions on Myanmar General Over Rohingya Campaign
December 27, 2017 by
The United States imposed sanctions Thursday on a Myanmar army chief accused of leading an ethnic cleansing campaign against Rohingya Muslims. Myanmar General Maung Maung Soe was among 52 accused human rights abusers worldwide who are targeted by U.S. Department of Treasury sanctions. Also included was former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, who the U.S. said […]
The Politics Of Myanmar’s Changing Tea Culture
December 7, 2017 by
Pulling low wooden stools out from under a short square table, a group of longyi-clad men sits down at an open-air tea shop in downtown Yangon, Myanmar. One man makes a kiss-kiss noise and calls out an order to the young waiter. Moments later, porcelain teacups filled with steaming laphet yay — sweet Burmese tea carefully mixed with black […]
In dirt-poor Myanmar, smartphones are transforming finance
October 19, 2017 by
MYANMAR’S democratic transition sometimes seems marked as much by continuity as by change. Depressingly, the army continues its bloody persecution of Rohingya Muslims in the west, for example (see article). But elsewhere moves to open the country’s markets, started by the preceding military regimes, have gathered pace. New commercial and financial services are springing up. […]
Boris Johnson caught on camera reciting Kipling in Myanmar temple
October 2, 2017 by
The foreign secretary has been accused of “incredible insensitivity” after it emerged he recited part of a colonial-era Rudyard Kipling poem in front of local dignitaries while on an official visit to Myanmar in January. Boris Johnson was inside the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred Buddhist site in the capital Yangon, when he started uttering […]
Yangon Stock Exchange looks for Belt and Road boost
September 26, 2017 by
The Yangon Stock Exchange, launched in December 2015, expects to enjoy indirect benefits from China’s Belt and Road Initiative as more Sino-Myanmar joint ventures are set up and demand for capital increases. “China is a major economic and trade partner with Myanmar. Myanmar’s enterprises need to grow together with their Chinese counterparts,” said Thet Htun […]
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