Nearly four dozen members of the Burmese junta-affiliated Border Guard Police and soldiers have fled to Bangladesh since Tuesday night amid intensifying fighting between junta troops and Arakan Army rebels in neighboring Rakhine state, officials said.
Myanmar prisons nationwide released over 3,000 prisoners on Wednesday, according to junta-controlled media.
At least 25 ethnic Rohingya civilians were killed and thousands forced to flee their homes amid junta airstrikes and heavy artillery over the weekend in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, according to residents.
A recent wildfire in a Tibetan-populated area of China’s Sichuan province ravaged vast swathes of forests covered with pine and oak trees that nurtured a hidden treasure and an economic lifeline for residents — matsutake mushrooms.
A Malaysian court on Friday charged an Israeli man with two firearms-related offenses after he was found in possession of a cache of guns and more than 100 rounds of ammunition in the capital Kuala Lumpur.
An anti-junta army and allied forces on the Thailand-Myanmar border claimed the last battalion in a major trade hub, the rebel forces said in a statement on Thursday.
The first officer of a Bangladeshi-crewed ship hijacked off East Africa in early March conveyed Eid al-Fitr greetings on behalf of the 23 sailors who had fasted during Ramadan while being held captive by Somali pirates, his brother said Wednesday.
Palestinians living in Malaysia are celebrating Eid al-Fitr with heavy hearts this year as the war in Gaza looms over the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
In the event of the Dalai Lama’s death, Buddhist monks are banned from displaying photos of the Tibetan spiritual leader and other “illegal religious activities and rituals,” according to a training manual Chinese authorities have distributed to monasteries in Gansu province in China’s northwest, a source inside Tibet and exiled former political prisoner Golok Jigme said.
Over 100 junta troops surrendered after guerilla-style militias captured two of their camps in central Myanmar, a militia member told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.