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Modi Buys the Bridge, Resistance Owns the River

Min Aung Hlaing got to New Delhi on May 30 for a five-day state visit and left with what junta media said was the biggest diplomatic breakthrough of his presidency. He left with full state honors from Modi, a rare earths deal, a rupee-kyat currency settlement agreement, and renewed commitments to two infrastructure projects that have been collecting dust for years. The problem with the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project is that Chin State's Paletwa, the route's key transit point, has been held by the Arakan Army since January 2024. The India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway runs through Sagaing, where resistance forces are formidable, and contested parts of Karen State. The rare earths deal has the same sort of shape to it. The accessible dysprosium and terbium deposits are in Kachin State's Pangwa-Chipwi belt, under control of the Kachin Independence Army since October 2024, and the ore currently runs to Yunnan processors under a KIA-structured deal. India has spent about $340 million on Kaladan over two decades and it still isn’t done.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (pre-monsoon offensive), The Diplomat (Neighborhood First policy), DVB (U.S. sanctions risk), DVB (northeast India dissent)

Old Dog Learns New Tricks

Much news this week recapping the election story (again). The usual summary, but for those who haven’t been keeping up: Aung Hlaing hung up his uniform in exchange for a longyi on April 10 when he made himself president. That was after elections in which the military-proxy USDP took 339 of 420 contested seats AND awarded themselves 25 percent of parliamentary seats. That gave military-aligned lawmakers more than 86 percent of the new legislature. Turnout in the election was 54 percent, but the National League for Democracy had been dissolved and voting was canceled in many conflict areas across the country. The commander-in-chief title was given to General Ye Win Oo, a former intelligence chief. Aung San Suu Kyi was (reportedly) moved from prison to house arrest after (reportedly) meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group: "The uniforms may have changed to civilian clothes, but this is not a political transition."

Read more: East Asia Forum (Myitsone Dam revival), International Crisis Group (economic crisis), DVB (food insecurity), The Diplomat (junta propaganda machine), Foreign Policy (China's role)

Junta Hires Roger Stone as Beijing Hauls Tungsten

Roger Stone continues to rake in $50,000 a month from the junta's lobbying budget. He was brought on as a consultant to DCI Group, which signed a $3 million, one-year contract with Naypyitaw's Information Ministry in mid-2025 to rebuild ties with the Trump administration around trade, natural resources, and humanitarian relief. The pitch is that Washington gets rare earths diverted away from China, and the junta gets rehabilitated. Marco Rubio told a House panel that Beijing holds "tremendous" influence over the regime, said Myanmar was "a hard nut to crack," and said only "baby steps" were realistic. He’s right, and there might be a case for moving faster. A Chinese mining company working with the United Wa State Army has been running tungsten out of Shan State's Mong Ton Township since February. The product gets moved through Tachileik and Mong Phyak to Mongla on the Chinese border. Wang Yi received the junta's foreign minister Tin Maung Swe, himself a former ambassador to Beijing, in the Chinese capital on Friday and restated his terms. He wants continued Belt and Road progress and safety guarantees for Chinese staff in-country.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Rubio quotes, Wang Yi), The Irrawaddy (DCI contract, Stone)

A Fifth of the Map and a Full Air Force

The junta controls 21 percent of Myanmar's territory against resistance forces that control about 42 percent. On Saturday, four airstrikes on Mahlaing Township's Thayetkaung Pin village killed five civilians and wounded 15. Three of the dead were teenagers walking home from a weekend class. The same night near Kyaukphyu, a Y-12 transport modified for combat dropped eight bombs on three villages. The strike wounded a 12-year-old girl and two elderly residents, gutted a family home, and killed three cows and two pigs. Since the 2021 coup, Insecurity Insight has reported almost 2,000 attacks on health care facilities. Min Aung Hlaing announced his "100-day peace plan" on April 20, but DVB says at least 149 people have been killed by regime aerial attacks since.

Read more: Asia Times (territorial control), DVB (post-April 20 toll), Narinjara (Kyaukphyu strike), ReliefWeb (healthcare attacks)

Beijing Plays All Sides of the Border Fence

Wang Yi went to Naypyidaw in April to reaffirm Beijing's support for Min Aung Hlaing's new presidency, with the usual script of stability, sovereignty, and friendship on the agenda. What was less prominent in the announcements was that Beijing has been keeping its own channels open with the ethnic armed groups that control Kachin State's rare-earth deposits, particularly around Chipwi and Pangwa. The mines are in Myanmar, but processing, pricing, and downstream industrial power all run through China.

Read more: East Asia Forum (CMEC joint security), East Asia Forum (Modi meeting, ASEAN exclusion)

Resistance Takes Roadshow to Ottawa, Canberra

NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung wrapped up a cross-country Canadian tour on June 3 and pitched the newly forged SCEF alliance to Parliamentary Secretary Robert Oliphant after stops in Toronto and Vancouver. The Steering Committee for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union binds the NUG and the ousted lawmakers of the CRPH with four ethnic armed organizations, including the KNU and KIO. The delegation has now introduced the coalition in Washington, Tokyo, and Istanbul. SCEF representatives briefed envoys from 24 countries at a Bangkok session on Friday. In Australia, Aung San Suu Kyi's youngest son Kim Aris made his first visit to the country on June 4 and called for independently verified proof that his mother is still alive.

Read more: DVB (SCEF member organizations), Mizzima (Bangkok briefing), DVB (Kim Aris demand)

Arakan Army Takes a Headcount in Maungdaw

Village administrators connected to the Arakan Army have started collecting names of Rohingya residents aged between 18 and 30 in Maungdaw Township. They're using household registration documents to create lists (for as-yet-unrevealed reasons) in villages including Paungzar, Hla Baw Zar, Kyauk Hla Ka, and Mingalar Gyi. Some young people who previously joined armed groups have gone missing for long stretches without a word, and residents say anxiety over the registration is pushing youth to sneak out of their villages before the next gang comes knocking.

Read more: Muslim Network TV

Tourist Visas, Drone Lessons, Mizoram Detour

India's NIA has asked a Delhi court for voice samples from Matthew Aaron Van Dyke, a US citizen, and six Ukrainian nationals who were arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act over a (purported) plan to train Myanmar's ethnic armed groups in drone warfare, assembly, and jamming. The case was filed March 13 after the group reportedly flew in on tourist visas, made their way to Mizoram, and then went into Myanmar without permits. The agency also wants its investigation window extended from 90 to 180 days, saying forensic work on seized devices and a trace of the money trail is still ongoing. The next hearing is July 2.

Read more: ANI News

Junta's Plainclothes Dragnet Tightens in Kalay

For about three months, junta forces in plainclothes have been working Kalay Township in Sagaing. Reports say they’re using unmarked vehicles to grab solo travelers and young adults off roads, from near hotels, and at bus terminals, before shipping them to the Central Regional Training Center 10 for redistribution to military camps nationwide. On June 6, the Kalay Public Strike Steering Committee told residents to avoid Bogyoke Road and the Sanpya intersection, steer clear of bus terminals, and to never travel alone.

Read more: Mizzima

Naypyidaw Calls Moscow to Reboot the Servers

Yatanarpon Cyber City, the junta's Silicon Valley fantasy planted near Pyin Oo Lwin in the mid-2000s, has found a new patron in Russia. Cut off from Western technology and apparently unwilling to fall fully into Beijing's arms, the military is now working on the project through a Moscow partnership that's built on surveillance tech and digital sovereignty. The campus has been stalled for the better part of two decades, hobbled by patchy electricity, sanctions, and the (tiny?) problem that it’s difficult to find investors for a military-run tech park.

Read more: The Diplomat

Yangon Throws a Travel Expo, State Department Sends Regrets

Myanmar's tourism ministry is pitching Bagan, Mandalay, and Inle Lake to ASEAN buyers and European operators at an International Travel Expo in Yangon this June. It's being billed as the country's most ambitious comeback push since the pandemic/ 2021 coup. The U.S. State Department still has Myanmar at Level 4 "Do Not Travel," and Australia says the security picture is still unpredictable even in major cities. The EU extended its sanctions in April over human rights violations. Strange times to be making a strong travel pitch, but A for effort?

Read more: Eturbonews

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TNLA's Mining Stash Takes Half a Village With It

Gelignite stored by the Ta'ang National Liberation Army's economic department blew up (like, as in, exploded) around noon on May 31 in Kaung Tat village, Namhkam Township, killing at least 39 people and injuring dozens more. The blast site, about three kilometers from the Chinese border, left a crater where the storage building stood. More than half the village's houses were destroyed, and those nearest the center were blown apart completely. The TNLA confirmed the gelignite was held by its economic department for use at nearby mining and quarrying sites that run jointly with Chinese businessmen and produce raw materials for silicon metal used in semiconductors and solar panels. Residents of the 200-household village say they were never warned about the local storage of explosives.

Read more: Bangkok Post (witness), The Hindu (mine operators), DW (blood shortage), DVB (six children killed), Arise TV (Pan Lone damage)

General Gets the Full Red Carpet

Min Aung Hlaing arrived in India on Saturday and got more than a meeting with Modi - he also got Bodh Gaya, Hyderabad House, and a tour of NTPC's clean-energy research facility in Greater Noida, with business talks in Mumbai to follow today and tomorow. India is the first country he's visited since swapping fatigues for a civilian suit in April, and New Delhi treated it accordingly. A joint statement revived the long-stalled Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit project and the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway (70 percent done but going nowhere), agreed to improve the rupee-kyat settlement mechanism and cooperation on critical minerals. Bilateral trade was ~$2.5 billion in FY2025; India is Myanmar's fourth-largest trading partner. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri shared New Delhi’s position on engagement: "Disengagement only produces a vacuum that others go on to fill, to our detriment, and those others have no interest in democracy," he said. Modi raised Aung San Suu Kyi's case but pulled up short of asking for her release.

Read more: Dawn (cyberscam rescues), Economic Times (ICCR scholarships), The Wire (China vacuum rationale), DVB (Indian investment), KDH News (Western sanctions stance)

Washington Gets in Line for Junta Dirt

The Trump administration has put aside decades of bipartisan sanctions policy and is laying groundwork to cooperate with Myanmar's generals (we wonder if they share some of the same view as in India), and rare-earth minerals are the prize. A group of entrepreneur-diplomats has materialized in the gray space between business and statecraft, each positioning themselves as the broker who can connect Trump and the junta. One told Foreign Policy the scene is like "Shark Tank."

Read more: Foreign Policy

Beijing Dusts Off the Myitsone Blueprint

The junta has started public consultations on restarting the $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam, a Chinese-backed hydroelectric megaproject that Thein Sein shelved in 2011 after it became a politically inconvenient as a lightning rod for popular anger. The dam is in territory largely controlled by the Kachin Independence Army, which hasn't softened its position. Running "public consultations" through a government that holds no meaningful elections and controls little of Kachin State makes the word “public” do a lot of work.

Read more: SCMP

Eighty-One Candles, No Sign of the Birthday Girl

Kim Aris still wants to know if his mother is still alive. The younger son of Aung San Suu Kyi launched an "81 for 81" campaign yesterday, suggesting that supporters walk 81,000 steps, run 81 kilometers, or cycle 81 kilometers between now and ASSK’s 81st birthday on June 19. She was reportedly moved to house arrest earlier this month after more than five years in solitary confinement, with no family visits, no lawyer access, and a single undated, grainy photograph the junta offered as proof of life. Aris, 49, says he plans to skate 81 kilometers in a day to mark the occasion.

Read more: Yahoo News NZ

Rakhine's Rebels Inherit the Junta's Strategy

Satellite analysis from Bellingcat shows 115 villages in Rakhine State partially or completely destroyed since the coup, and the Arakan Army's fingerprints are on much of the recent damage. The centerpiece is Htan Shauk Khan, where Human Rights Watch says the AA "may have killed at least 170 Rohingya men, women, and children" on May 2, 2024. The death toll came to light more than a year later, after survivors made it into Bangladesh and the camps at Cox's Bazar where they told the tale. The AA denies it, claiming those killed were junta soldiers and Rohingya militants.

Read more: Bellingcat

Thirteen-Gun Salute on the Tamu Border

The Assam Rifles fired heavy weapons 13 times at Min Thar Village in Tamu Township on the night of May 31, hitting a junta-held position about a mile from the Indian border, hours after Min Aung Hlaing met with Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in New Delhi. Junta forces responded with three rounds of counter-battery fire before the exchange settled in the wee hours around 3:30. The garrison at Min Thar houses about 300, including Pyu Saw Htee militias, Shanni Nationalities Army elements, and Meitei and Naga insurgents who have been known to run armed campaigns against the Indian government from Myanmar soil.

Read more: Mizzima

Thought Police Keep a Spreadsheet

The Myanmar Internet Project counted 374 people arrested for speaking their minds online between February 2022 and July 2024. The surveillance net has made even basic connectivity a risk and (therefore) a chore. In Rakhine's Thandwe area, residents have to trek more than 10 miles by motorbike or car, then hike two hours up a mountain to find a phone signal. One source used that route to reach family for the first time in more than two years.

Read more: Mizzima

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Junta Goes Shopping for Dysprosium

New military chief Ye Win Oo is running a three-front war in the borderlands, and the prize on the northern shelf is worth more than the territory. The army retook Tonzang in Chin State on May 21 after ten days and Mawtaung near the Thai border a day earlier after two weeks of effort. Regime forces are pushing into northern Kachin toward the clay deposits around Chipwi and Pangwa townships that produce roughly half the world's heavy rare earths, including the dysprosium and terbium needed for EV motors and wind turbines. The Kachin Independence Army, which took the mining belts in October 2024, isn't moving. "We will welcome them with the barrels of our guns," spokesperson Naw Bu said. On the highway front, fighting continues along the Mandalay-Myitkyina corridor despite the military's May 5 claim of control. Resistance forces have lost 24 of the 104 towns they held since the coup; 80 remain in rebel control.

Read more: AP News (Tonzang, Mawtaung timeline), Nation Thailand (Chin State capture), The Irrawaddy (highway ambushes, civilians), Daily Sabah (three-front scope), Rare Earth Exchanges (China's rare earth role)

Delhi Toasts the Generals While Chin State Burns

Indian Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh Kumar Tripathi spent four days in Naypyidaw, meeting the junta's new Commander-in-Chief Ye Win Oo, Defense Minister Htun Aung, and Chief of the General Staff Ko Ko Oo to pencil in joint naval exercises and hydrographic surveys in the Bay of Bengal. Two Indian warships pulled in at Yangon's Thilawa Port with more than 500 personnel aboard for what New Delhi billed as a goodwill mission. Delhi also opened a two-week U.N. peacekeeping course for 30 junta officers for civilian protection and convoy security, even though the military continues to pound Chin State with what local monitors say are cluster munitions and indiscriminate carpet-bombing. Tens of thousands of Chin civilians have fled into Mizoram, India already.

Read more: DVB (civilian casualties), Narinjara (fuel ban)

Beijing Calls Time on the Brotherhood

At Kunming talks on May 12-13, China leaned on the TNLA to hand back four towns, including Nam Kham and Mong Long, and shrink back to the two-township footprint it last held in 2008 within the next month. It was the 11th meeting of the type since Operation 1027 began, and the TNLA arrived having already tried to soften the junta up with a public statement recognizing the Min Aung Hlaing regime, plus the handover of more than 100 POWs in Kyaukme at the beginning of this month. The junta seems to be seeing the overtures as weakness, not goodwill. The Three Brotherhood Alliance, once the war's most effective fighting coalition, isn’t what it used to be, and the Arakan Army is now the only member still gaining territory with any authority.

Read more: Shan Herald

ASEAN Chooses Not to Notice

The 48th ASEAN Summit's May 8 statement described the junta's December-to-January vote as "the conclusion of the three phases of Myanmar's general elections." This despite the fact(s) that an estimated 10.5 million people were excluded completely, another 11 million boycotted, and the military's proxy party swept the civilian seats as the generals kept their constitutionally guaranteed 25 percent of unelected slots. The number of votes cast came to roughly half of the number counted in the 2020 election the military spent five years trying to overturn. The summit also welcomed the release of more than 4,000 "prisoners," of whom 292 were confirmed political detainees. On the Five-Point Consensus the junta signed in April 2021 and has ignored ever since, ASEAN said "minimal progress" had been found.

Read more: Mizzima

Twenty Million in Need but No New Resolutions

UN OCHA's latest access snapshot puts about 20 million people in need. That’s about one in three Myanmar residents. The report also counts 3.6 million displaced (1.7 million of them in the Northwest, Rakhine, and Southeast). The Security Council's last action was UNSCR 2669, a non-binding resolution that was adopted in December 2022 with China, Russia, and India abstaining. That resolution demanded an end to all violence and the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint. None of that has happened, and there’s been approximately no real progress on the ground since.

Read more: ReliefWeb (scale-up urgency), Modern Diplomacy (food insecurity)

Junta's Preferred Target Features a Red Cross

Regime forces account for more than 70 percent of nearly 2,000 attacks on healthcare facilities in Myanmar since the coup, according to an Insecurity Insight tally. The report also counts 173 health workers killed, 930 arrested, and more than 500 facilities damaged. The remaining 30 percent is spread between ethnic armed groups, PDFs, criminals, and other “unidentified” actors. The biggest threat is the almost daily airstrikes, according to a CDM doctor in Mindat who has managed to survive two strikes on his own hospitals. The parallel National Unity Government says there are currently 106 hospitals, 808 clinics, and 192 mobile clinics running in resistance-held areas, staffed by about 5,000 workers.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Fertilizer Famine Before the Monsoon

The EU is sending EUR 8 million to the World Food Programme as one in four people (more than 12 million), are staring down acute food insecurity. Farmers are cutting back on fertilizer in advance of this year’s monsoon planting season. Fuel prices have tripled since late February, forcing the cost of a basic food basket up almost 40 percent in Magway Region, the steepest rise in the country. A 50 percent reduction in fertilizer use could shave up to 15 percent off national agricultural output, with the pain continuing well into 2027.

Read more: UNRIC

Year Nine, $710 Million

The UN and Bangladesh say the price tag for another year of the Rohingya crisis is $710.5 million. That’s what they think it will cost to reach about a million and a half people in Cox's Bazar, Bhasan Char, and the host communities of Ukhiya and Teknaf. The 2025-26 Joint Response Plan, launched in March 2025 as a two-year plan with a one-year budget cycle, unites 98 partner organizations, half of them Bangladeshi national groups, to deal with the problem. Early, voluntary, and lasting repatriation to Myanmar stays at the top of the five objectives. The $710.5 million needed is expected to cover costs for the full 12 month 2026 calendar year.

Read more: ReliefWeb

Tatmadaw's Minsk Errand

Myanmar's defense minister, Htun Aung, landed in Belarus for meetings with his Belarusian counterparts, a tour of the Military Academy, and visits to military units and "enterprises with various specializations," according to the Belarusian Ministry of Defense. Few other details are available at the present time.

Read more: Nasha Niva

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Forty Days of the President's Peace

Since Min Aung Hlaing's April 10 inauguration, the military has carried out 219 attacks by air over the country, killing at least 122 people and wounding 240 more, according to DVB's tally. On May 11 and 12, warplanes hit Mindat in southern Chin State more than a dozen times, killing four people including a prisoner of war and destroying 15 homes. In Kani Township, a junta column looted every house in Thamin Chan village, taking away rice, cooking oil, and furniture on 18 commandeered carts and burning four homes to the ground before moving on toward Sone Chaung. Sagaing Region saw 62 of the 219 attacks and 34 of the dead.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Mizoram refugees), Mizzima (15,000 displaced), BNI Online (Kanpetlet strikes), Mizzima (500 factory troops), DVB (cumulative toll)

Hormuz to the Rice Paddy

Fuel prices have tripled in Myanmar since late February, the direct knock-on from Iran's Strait of Hormuz closure to a country that imports more than 90% of its fuel and nearly all of its fertilizer. Magway region’s basic food prices are 38% higher than the national baseline, the biggest increase in the country. The Karenni Human Rights Group is saying that there’s a risk of famine for more than 200,000, as junta troops have been arresting farmers, deliberately flooding fields, and cutting off the flow of goods. The group first raised famine warnings in November 2025, and by its own account the situation has become worse since then.

Read more: Narinjara (WFP representative), ReliefWeb (kyat depreciation), CNN (farmer-level cost), Mizzima (Karenni IDP famine)

Thirteen Million Names in the Crosshairs

In his first act after appearing at the Central Body for Conscription in Naypyitaw on Thursday, Defense Minister General Tun Aung told immigration offices in every township to put together conscription lists for about 13 million eligible citizens. The regime's target is 50,000 recruits yearly in groups of 5,000, and it has already pulled in nearly 120,000 people in 24 batches since the law came into force in February 2024. Defectors and resistance groups say conscripts are being used as cannon fodder, with some shot by officers for retreating, which may explain an appetite for better paperwork.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

The Junta's Best Export Is Its Own Workers

Migrant remittances were $5.6 billion in 2025, which is the single largest source of foreign currency flowing into Myanmar. Compare that with the $670 million received in 2022. Behind that increase is a 2024 rule that forces workers abroad to send a quarter of their earnings back home by way of official banking channels; passport renewals and the right to work overseas are held as collateral in exchange for compliance. Foreign direct investment, by contrast, was $83 million last year, so the regime pulls roughly 67 times more from its own diaspora than it can get from outside investors. Inflation is about 30 percent, reserves are about $8.5 billion as of March 2024, and sanctions have choked most of the usual capital channels, so the generals need every dollar they can get for fuel, medicine, and food.

Read more: Straits Times

Proof of Life Still Needed

Speaking outside the UK Parliament yesterday, Kim Aris said there is "still no credible, independently verified proof" that his 81-year-old mother is alive. The junta's April 30 state media photo, showing Aung San Suu Kyi seated on a wooden bench with two officials, hasn't convinced him. "Moving my mother, an 81-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from one secret place to another is not freedom. She remains a hostage," Aris wrote on Facebook, more than five years after the coup that put her there.

Read more: The Independent

Death Sentences Compound Bosses

The junta's first bill under Min Aung Hlaing's new "civilian" government proposes the death penalty for anyone who tortures or unlawfully detains victims in order to force them into scam work. Life in prison is now on the table for the crime of running a compound or crypto fraud schemes. Parliament will come together in early June. The legislation also relaunches the central anti-scam committee, whose predecessor collapsed after its chair, then-Home Affairs Minister Tun Tun Naung, was fired because of kickbacks from the operations he was supposed to be shutting down. In China, eleven members of the Ming family were hanged on January 29 after a Wenzhou court convicted them last September.

Read more: CNA ($20B US losses), The Irrawaddy (bank/telecom integration), Cryptopolitan (Ming family sentences)

Stitch and Ditch

Kings Rich Fashion, an H&M supplier operating for a decade in Shwepyithar Township, is going to shut down at the end of June, putting more than 1,000 workers out work. Management blames dried-up orders; workers say it’s because foreign brands have been quietly abandoning Myanmar since the 2021 coup. Nearby at Nay Shwe Win factory, management gave pink slips to 19 union organizers on May 9, then sacked 103 more when their colleagues complained the next day, a sequence the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar says is textbook union-busting. The factory supplies ONLY, Terranova, Pimkie, and LC Waikiki. The minimum daily wage for garment workers is currently 7,800 kyats; for context, two kilograms (4 and a half pounds) of rice now costs 5,000.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (sector headcount), DVB (ILO Convention 87)

Sagaing Fault Clears Its Throat Again

A 5.2 earthquake struck 35 kilometers southeast of Yangon at 8:35am local time on Monday, shallow enough at a depth of 10 kilometers to set some Bangkok high-rises swaying. A second, smaller tremor came thirteen minutes later. Buildings were evacuated in Yangon and neighboring towns as a precaution. Shaking rolled as far as Chiang Mai and Lampang (both in Thailand) with no reported casualties or notable damage. The USGS figures that up to 42,000 people in the zone of strong shaking and another 238,000 in moderate shaking. The epicenter was about 23 kilometers from the Sagaing Fault, the same system that caused March 2025's 7.7 disaster.

Read more: The Nation (China quake casualties), ReliefWeb (USGS PAGER estimates)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

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ASEAN Peace Plan Officially Moribund

Five years in, ASEAN's Myanmar peace plan is officially "moribund," and everyone at the 48th Summit in Cebu apparently said so out loud. Philippine President Marcos called it a "thorny problem" with no clear solutions, said the closed-door retreat got occasionally "emotional," and admitted members had reached a "tacit agreement" to let foreign ministers go feel out new approaches, though he stopped well short of calling it a breakthrough. Thailand's foreign minister proposed inviting his Myanmar counterpart to a meeting in July; Singapore objected to him showing up in person. Malaysia's Mohamad Hasan said atrocities were still happening and the junta hadn't earned its seat back, a position Indonesia and Singapore reportedly share. The junta responded by accusing unnamed members of "discriminatory measures" and interference in internal affairs, and insisted "the majority" of ASEAN had welcomed its recent moves.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Thailand's proposal reception), The Irrawaddy (junta's election claim), DVB (protest groups' demands), PIA Philippines (Marcos), Philippine Inquirer (Thailand's congratulations)

Fifty Grand a Month to Launder a Junta

Roger Stone, convicted felon, Trump confidante, and now registered foreign agent for Myanmar's military, is pulling $50,000 a month to help rebuild relations between Washington and a regime that UN investigators say has "substantial evidence" of war crimes and crimes against humanity stacked against it. FARA filings show Stone consulting through DCI Group on "public affairs services" for the ministry of information, with a brief for trade, natural resources, and humanitarian relief. The contract comes at a time that Min Aung Hlaing, the general who led the 2021 coup, was appointed president last month after elections that were almost universally dismissed as a sham. In March, more than 450 people were killed in air and drone strikes, the deadliest month for civilians since resistance to the coup began.

Read more: The Guardian

Proof of Life, Please

Kim Aris says he hasn't heard from his mother in two years, the last contact a heavily censored handwritten letter in which she wrote that her cell was extremely hot in summer and very cold in winter. When the junta announced on April 30 that Aung San Suu Kyi, now 80, was being moved to house arrest, he didn't celebrate. The image that came with the announcement was an undated, unlocated photograph (the first public picture in years) of her on a bench, flanked by uniformed men. The embassies of Norway, the UK, Australia, and Switzerland issued coordinated statements on May 5 and 6 demanding family access, legal counsel, medical care, and contact with UN and ASEAN representatives. The Philippines, as 2026 ASEAN chair, pushed Special Envoy Ma Theresa Lazaro to get a direct meeting. A video making the rounds on Facebook as a "recent update" from her lawyer turned out to be an AP clip from April 2021; her legal says they haven't seen her since her trial finished in December 2022.

Read more: DVB (global rallies), AFP (viral video debunked), Mizzima (Win Myint silence), ABC News (Kim Aris appeal)

Spymaster Opens Boys-Only Boarding Schools

Ye Win Oo's first major act as commander-in-chief is a chain of 13 "Youth Education Training Schools" for single males under 19, that will open in June for the 2026-27 academic year in Yangon, Naypyidaw, and eleven other cities including Myitkyina, Lashio, and Sittwe. A May 1 recruitment letter from the Directorate of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare promises a high-school education with an exit ramp into military universities, medical programs, and sergeant-major courses. A source close to the military told DVB the program was originally meant only for the children of serving, retired, and deceased soldiers before the regime opened enrolment to anyone to make sure that it hit its numbers. Appointed by Min Aung Hlaing on March 30, Ye Win Oo is the first intelligence chief to rise to the military's top post; the U.S. Treasury sanctioned him in February 2021 as the regime's "eyes and ears."

Read more: DVB

A Thousand Boots, Still No Road to Bhamo

More than 1,000 regime troops pushed into Shwegu Township between May 5 and 9, trading heavy casualties with a KIA-PDF coalition that has held the area since martial law was declared on April 23. The likely goal is punching through to relieve the besieged garrison at Bhamo, where the KIA's siege has dragged into a second year. Airstrikes ran in concert with the ground push. The regime's consolation prize came by way of state media, which claimed the 548-kilometer Mandalay-to-Kachin road is open again, and all 12 towns along it are back under military control.

Read more: DVB

Five Pounds of Ruby for the General

Miners near Mogok dug up an 11,000-carat ruby in mid-April, the second-largest ever pulled from that valley, and it ended up on a table in Min Aung Hlaing's office in Naypyidaw within weeks. The stone, roughly 2.2 kilograms with a purplish-red hue and what the junta's own statement called "exceptionally large, rare, and difficult to find," is considered more valuable than the 21,450-carat record-holder from 1996, thanks to better color and clarity. The rough gem has no official price tag, though conservative per-carat estimates put the floor around $11 million, with the ceiling dependent on whether it gets cut, auctioned, or locked away as a state trophy. Mogok is also where the Ta'ang National Liberation Army ran the mines after capturing the area in July 2024, holding them until a China-brokered ceasefire handed control back to the army late last year. State media ran a front-page photo of the cabinet gathered around the rock.

Read more: AP News (boycott calls), Tippah News (cabinet inspection), GNLM (historical discoveries), The Express ($11M floor), Khmer Times (quality comparison)

General's Son Has a New Corner Office

A 40×60-foot plot in Pyin Oo Lwin's Yatanarpon New City was selling for 20-50 million kyat before Aung Pyae Sone, Min Aung Hlaing's son, took charge of the project. It now commands a price of up to 500 million kyat. The general's son controls housing, water, electricity, and roads for the entire development, which the regime is billing as a "Green and Smart City" built around AI and electronics manufacturing. Local military officers and their wives are reportedly selling forest land under informal contracts to meet demand from speculators, scam syndicates, money launderers, and buyers trying to find refuge from kyat depreciation. Prices across the wider Pyin Oo Lwin market are up about 35 percent since 2024.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Duterte's Docket Inspires a New Filing

A 2023 war crimes complaint against Min Aung Hlaing has been sitting untouched at the Philippine Department of Justice, and survivors from Chin State want the Cebu summit to be the moment that changes. The Chin Human Rights Organisation timed its appeal to the ASEAN reunion, arguing that Rodrigo Duterte's ICC trial in The Hague has given their case new momentum. If Manila was willing to hand over its own former president to an international court, why not pursue a foreign junta chief? The complaint invokes the Philippines' International Humanitarian Law Act and points to the September 2021 killing of Pastor Cung Biak Hum, shot in Thantlang while trying to put out fires set by military operations. Similar cases against Min Aung Hlaing are already open in Argentina, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and Turkey.

Read more: DVB (ASEAN summit tie-in), Philippine Inquirer (Duterte ICC parallel)

Yadana's Dwindling Wells

Myanmar's energy minister U Ko Ko Lwin met with PTTEP (Thailand)'s chief executive in Naypyidaw on May 8 to pitch drilling new wells at the Yadana gas project, where output has been falling, and tightening security along the Myanmar-Thailand pipeline. It was the second meeting in as many months, after Thai Deputy PM Maris Sangiampongsa brought up the same issue during an April courtesy call on Myanmar's president. The two sides also reviewed the M3 (Aung Thinkha) block and prospects in deepwater offshore projects.

Read more: Nation Thailand (Yadana meeting)

Yangon’s Rising Tariffs

The Finance Ministry’s Notification 49/2026, issued March 30 and effective May 1, raised tariffs on fish and seafood from 5% to 15%, dairy from 3% to 5%, and snacks from 15% to 20%. Electric machinery and motorcycle tire rates were also bumped up.

Read more: VDB Loi (commodity list), VDB Loi (tariff rates)

Newsroom Above the Noodle Stall

Some 60 exiled Myanmar news outlets and more than 200 journalists are crammed into the Thai city of Mae Sot, but their money is running out. US funding cuts in 2025 and Swedish reductions in 2026 took CJ Platform from 17 staff down to six, as salaries were first cut in half, then 70%, before the remaining team gave up their safe houses and moved into the office to sleep. Founder Min Thu Win Htut now checks which Facebook posts have reached monetization every day the moment he opens his eyes. News isn’t a likely path to riches, to be sure.

Read more: Reuters Institute Oxford

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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House Arrest and a Press Release

The junta says that Aung San Suu Kyi, 80, has been moved from Naypyidaw Prison to house arrest at an undisclosed location, and the remainder of her sentence will be served at a "designated residence.” Apparently the move is "to show humanitarian concern, and to demonstrate the kindness of the state." Her lawyers learned of the change from the news. Barred from seeing her in person since 2023, they told DVB that no meeting had taken place despite a Reuters report claiming otherwise. The photograph which state media ran as proof, showing Suu Kyi seated with two uniformed officers, was taken in 2022, according to her son Kim Aris, who has publicly demanded "proof of life" from Min Aung Hlaing and says he remains unsure if his mother is alive. A "Proof of Life" campaign has launched across Japan, South Korea, Australia, the UK, the US, and Canada.

Read more: DVB (international demands), Mizzima (Burma Campaign UK), The Diplomat (sentence timeline), BBC (battlefield)

Fourteen Down, Only Ninety to Go

The junta has clawed back 14 of the 104 towns that resistance forces have captured over the past 20 months. We’re not sure if that reads as comeback or a stalemate, but maybe it depends on who's briefing you. The list of recapture territories includes Lashio, Myawaddy, and Takaung (that one’s been held by NUG-aligned PDF fighters since mid-2024). The method is generally the same - airstrikes to soften things up, then ground troops to take control. On April 24, five bombing runs hit Lel Mu Thaw village in KNU-controlled Kyaukkyi Township, killing a 15-year-old and wounding five others. The territorial gains come alongside a Chinese pressure campaign that’s pushed ethnic armed groups, particularly in northern Shan State, toward ceasefires they didn't negotiate from strength.

Read more: Borderlens (Chinese pressure, EU sanctions), Mizzima (wounded names)

Timor-Leste Does What ASEAN Won't

A criminal file accusing Min Aung Hlaing of war crimes and crimes against humanity has reached Dili's Court of First Instance for judicial review, the next phase in proceedings that were begun in February by the Chin Human Rights Organization under universal jurisdiction. The allegations include the massacre of ten people, including a journalist and a 13-year-old boy who had his hands tied behind his back before his throat was slit, as well as an aerial attack on a hospital that killed four medical staff alongside four patients. Dili's reward for its efforts was the expulsion of its charge d'affaires from Naypyidaw. Cases against Min Aung Hlaing are now accumulating in Argentina, Turkey, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste, to say nothing of ongoing proceedings at the ICC and ICJ in The Hague.

Read more: The Diplomat (ASEAN chair recommendations), DVB (lead lawyer), Mizzima (Chin State atrocities)

China's Magnet Problem Has a Kachin Connection

Two-thirds of the terbium and dysprosium processed in China, the heavy rare earths inside pretty much every EV motor and wind turbine magnet, come from Myanmar, according to Chinese customs data. Mining sites in Kachin State numbered 300 in 2023, with a big increase coming after the 2021 coup let junta-aligned forces and ethnic armed groups carve up the most productive ground. Beijing also tightened its own environmental mining rules, which is part of why the digging migrated south across the border where things are more… shall we say, lax? The International Energy Agency's 2026 rare earths report has left Myanmar out of its main charts, blaming a lack of reliable reserve data.

Read more: Dandc EU

Myanmar Shell Game on the Thai Bourse

Shareholders of Thai-listed Advanced Connection Corporation voted nearly nine-tenths in favor of a 300-million-baht private placement on April 27, giving two Singapore companies, Sky Avia Trading and Heli Asia Trading, a combined 23.25% stake that would make them ACC's largest shareholder bloc. Both belong to arms broker Kyaw Min Oo's Sky Aviator network, which supplies parts for Russian combat aircraft to the Myanmar Air Force. On paper, the companies are owned by Wee Lee Lian, Kyaw Min Oo's longtime nominee director, a structure that was put in place after public scrutiny of his arms brokering in 2022. Justice For Myanmar has flagged the deal to Thailand's SEC, SET and Anti-Money Laundering Office, and ACC's own financial advisor recommended against approval. The SEC told ACC to give shareholders “sufficient information.” Shareholders approved it anyway.

Read more: Mizzima

Delhi's Admiral Drops By the Junta's Frigate

Indian Navy chief Admiral Dinesh Tripathi boarded the Myanmar Navy frigate UMS Kyan Sit Thar this week, and then took a tour of the Central Naval Command in Yangon as well as the Naval Training Command. He took the opportunity to hand over a containerized small arms simulator and a rigid inflatable boat for "maritime security in the Bay of Bengal region." The four-day trip finishes today with sit-downs in Naypyidaw alongside Defence Minister General Htun Aung, armed forces chief General Ye Win Oo, and navy commander Admiral Htein Win. Delhi does this work under the flag of its MAHASAGAR vision and in light of the 1,640-kilometre border it shares with Nagaland and Manipur.

Read more: Edexlive (training handover), Times of India (2017 MoU, IMNEX), Economic Times (meeting roster), Economic Times (Neighbourhood First framing), Stratnewsglobal (diplomat dinners, ship captain)

Arakan Army Reopens the Border, Pockets a Fee

The Teknaf inland port on the Naf River took its first cargo in more than a year on May 2, when a vessel arrived carrying 963 timber logs valued at roughly $16,000. It’s a modest figure, but the reopening matters less for what was on the boat than for the fact that it was the Arakan Army who waved it through. The AA now controls the full 271-kilometer border stretch with Bangladesh. Port officials say the one-year-and-17-day closure left more than 1,000 workers without income, and traders are now pushing Dhaka to expand things further.

Read more: Narinjara

Stars and Stripes Back in Mandalay

The U.S. Embassy reopened the Jefferson Center in Mandalay on April 30, with Charge d'Affaires Doug Sonnek hosting a reception in the heritage building, which has now been structurally reinforced after last year’s earthquake. Twenty days after Min Aung Hlaing's inauguration by a pro-military parliament, Washington has reopened its cultural outpost.

Read more: DVB

Five Years of Five Points

ASEAN heads to its May 2026 Cebu summit with 201 civil society groups telling the bloc to shut the door on anyone linked to Myanmar's junta. An April 24 open letter argues the Five-Point Consensus has given the generals five years of impunity even though their campaign of terror grinds on. On the same day, the ASEAN Chair welcomed "the release of U Win Myint," pointedly skipping his presidential title, and referred to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi without calling her State Counselor. ASEAN has barred "non-political representatives" from Myanmar since 2021, a line the signatories say is nowhere near enough as the junta gets post-election structures ready in a bid to walk right back into the room.

Read more: Mizzima (EU €15M pledge), Borderlens (Thailand FM visit)

Red Zone Press Edition

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Myanmar has been ranked 166th of 180 countries on RSF's World Press Freedom Index, a position that keeps it firmly in the "red" category after the junta shepherd’s-hooked four more publishing licenses this year over allegations of “harming national security and public peace.” Eighteen journalists are still locked up.

Read more: BNI Online

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.

Headlines:

Min Aung Hlaing Offers Peace, Brings Death Penalty

Wang Yi Drops By to Bless the New Boss

Three Fronts, and a Junta Stretched Thin

Sold on a Fault Line

Ta'ang Spring, Beijing Winter

Brussels Hits Snooze on Sanctions Until 2027

ASEAN Asks Nicely for the Other 22,000

The Junta Doesn't Like What It Can't Read

Mae Sot Bridge Stirs, Maybe

Min Aung Hlaing Offers Peace, Brings Death Penalty

Min Aung Hlaing signed emergency ordinances on Friday that put 60 townships in nine states and regions under direct military command, transferring all executive and judicial authority to Regional Military Commands for 90 days. Military tribunals have been given permission to hand down death sentences without any right of appeal. The order is for territories in Shan, Rakhine, Sagaing, Chin, Magwe, and Mandalay Region, including 14 in Rakhine, most of them already held by the Arakan Army. Just a few days earlier, he was assuring visiting Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow that he was doing his best to find peace, even though he also set a July 31 deadline for ethnic armed organizations to come to the table or face "necessary action." The martial law list includes territories held by the TNLA and United Wa State Army, groups that have already accepted his presidency.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Ye Win Oo delegation), DVB (death penalty appeals), DVB (inauguration)

Wang Yi Drops By to Bless the New Boss

Wang Yi went to Naypyitaw on April 25, the first senior Chinese official to call since Min Aung Hlaing took the presidency, and apparently left with everything both sides wanted. Min Aung Hlaing got diplomatic cover. Beijing offered "firm support" for his sovereignty, a promise to speak up for the regime at the UN, in ASEAN, and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation forum, and Wang's quotable belief that Myanmar "will become a developed country" under his leadership. China received security guarantees in the form of a personal assurance that no activity harming Chinese interests would be permitted on Myanmar soil, renewed momentum on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, and more commitments on the Mandalay-Muse-Kyaukphyu railway. Wang's visit was his third to Myanmar since the 2021 coup and came days after a similar call by Sihasak.

Read more: AP News (ASEAN, border talks), The Irrawaddy (Myitsone Dam revival), Nation Thailand (Wang Yi), The Irrawaddy (junta military losses), New Day Myanmar (Min Aung Hlaing)

Three Fronts, and a Junta Stretched Thin

The KNLA surrounded the regime's Waw Lay command base (71 kilometers south of Myawaddy) on Saturday, leaving it standing only because airstrikes and suicide drones kept resistance forces back. In Rakhine, the military sent troops and heavy weapons to at least seven positions west of Sittwe between April 21 and 23, after Arakan Army chief Twan Mrat Naing set an end-of-2027 deadline to take Sittwe, Kyaukphyu and Man Aung. The one bright spot for the generals came on April 25. After a six-month village-by-village grind, troops retook Falam in Chin State. Rihkawdar, the resistance-held trade hub on the Indian border, is reportedly next on the list.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Thai border spillover), The Irrawaddy (Falam casualty toll), BNI Online (Sittwe fortifications)

Sold on a Fault Line

The regime's 14th public meeting since December pitching the revival of the Myitsone Dam took place in Myitkyina on April 25, well-timed to Wang Yi's swing through Naypyitaw. The 6,000-MW, $3.6 billion project is 25 km from the Sagaing Fault (that’s the one that caused last March's 7.7 shaker). Kachin's junta-appointed chief minister again repeated the story about how the dam will solve local electricity needs. Early construction has already displaced more than 15,000 people. The Kachin Independence Army, which currently controls large areas of the state, says its opposition comes along with overwhelming local sentiment.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Ta'ang Spring, Beijing Winter

The PSLF-TNLA, which captured all or parts of 13 townships during Operation 1027 and built a civilian-led Ta'angland Council as a counter to Chinese-style top-down rule, congratulated Min Aung Hlaing on taking (no pun intended) the presidency on April 15, 2025. Chinese pressure pushed the TNLA to sign the Haigen ceasefire in Kunming last October, after which it pulled out from Mogok and Momeik. In March the MNDAA overran Kutkai with Chinese connivance. The TNLA still holds six Ta'angland townships.

Read more: Mizzima

Brussels Hits Snooze on Sanctions Until 2027

The EU rolled over its Myanmar sanctions for another year on April 27, keeping asset freezes, travel bans, and an arms embargo in place on 105 people and 22 entities through the end of April next year. One name was removed from the list, but that’s because they died. The UN has numbered the conflict's displacement at 3.6 million, and the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has confirmed nearly 8,000 killings and close to 31,000 arrests since February 2021. Brussels said it "stands ready to impose additional restrictive measures."

Read more: Brussels Times (dual-use export ban), Anadolu Agency (military training ban), Devdiscourse (Min Aung Hlaing), Internazionale (detention toll)

ASEAN Asks Nicely for the Other 22,000

The Philippines, as ASEAN chair, called on the junta April 24 to release more political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, whose 27-year sentence was trimmed by a sixth as a result of the April 17 amnesty. Sihasak passed along ASEAN's concerns to Min Aung Hlaing, who said "good things" were being considered for the 80-year-old and that she was being "well looked after."

Read more: Asia Media Centre

The Junta Doesn't Like What It Can't Read

Three news agencies, Khonumthung Media Group, Chin World, and Myatmaukkhit News Agency, lost their publishing licenses on April 24, with the ban backdated to April 9. All three are accused of publishing content detrimental to "national security, the rule of law, and public peace." Two of them mostly covered happenings in Chin State. Khonumthung's editor Salai Robert said the outlet had declined to renew its license under an administration that treats independent media as an enemy, and that the revocation fits a pattern stretching back to the 2021 coup, when 7Day, Mizzima, DVB, Myanmar Now, and Khit Thit lost their licenses on the same day.

Read more: IFEX

Mae Sot Bridge Stirs, Maybe

The Myawaddy-Mae Sot Friendship Bridge No. 2 is reportedly expected to reopen for commercial traffic within days. If it comes to pass, it will be the end of a closure that began August 18. The bridge is a main artery on the East-West Economic Corridor, and its eight-month shutdown has brought official border trade to a standstill. Border traders say no official announcement has come through yet, so the re-opening is, as of now, still a rumor.

Read more: Asian News Network

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.

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Horton International is your premier partner for executive search in Southeast Asia. Whether you're a small startup or a global corporation, our reliable and effective recruiting solutions are tailored to meet your unique needs. With extensive experience and offices across the region, we excel at overcoming recruitment challenges and securing top talent for your organization.

Click here to learn how Horton can make your life easier.

The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.

Headlines:

The General's Pardon, the General's Prison

One in Seven Never Arrives

Planting Season Meets an Empty Fertilizer Sack

Telenor's Paper Trail

A Pack Costs More Than a Day's Wage

Airstrikes Don't Respect Borders

The General's Pardon, the General's Prison

Win Myint walked out of Taungoo Prison on April 17 after five years, two months, and sixteen days, freed by the same man who arrested him. That more or less summarizes the week. Min Aung Hlaing, one week into his role as "civilian president," gave amnesty to 4,514 prisoners to celebrate the Thingyan new year, commuted all death sentences, and shaved a sixth off of Aung San Suu Kyi's 27-year sentence, leaving the 80-year-old with only 22 and a half years still to serve. Win Myint is now at his daughter's house in Naypyidaw under what sources say is “strict surveillance.” Of the 4,514 released, the Political Prisoners Network Myanmar confirmed that 292 were political prisoners, and more than 22,000 are still detained. Suu Kyi's son Kim Aris hasn't heard from his mother in more than two years and continues to ask for proof she's alive.

Read more: CNA (analyst skepticism), DVB (son's demands), DVB (surveillance details), DVB (concurrent casualties), New York Times (re-arrest conditions)

One in Seven Never Arrives

A fishing trawler carrying roughly 250 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants sank in the Andaman Sea on April 9. The boat was headed to Malaysia from the Bangladeshi port of Teknaf, and the disaster left only nine survivors. The wreck is the latest story after what UNHCR said was the deadliest year on record for the Bay of Bengal crossing. 2025 saw nearly 900 dead or missing, meaning one in seven of the 6,500 who tried to make the journey never arrived. The camps in Cox's Bazar, home to around half a million children, have seen food rations cut and education spending gutted, even as fighting in Rakhine keeps pushing new arrivals across the border. More than 2,800 have attempted the crossing through April 13 of this year.

Read more: AsiaNews (Rakhine conditions), ReliefWeb (IOM rescue appeal), ReliefWeb (Save the Children), DVB (Penang interception)

Planting Season Meets an Empty Fertilizer Sack

Beijing put a lid on fertilizer exports in late March to protect its domestic supply, but this is a huge problem for Myanmar because planting season is getting near and a 50-percent cut in fertilizer use could reduce rice yields by up to 15 percent, according to a WFP warning. China normally accounts for about half of Myanmar's 1.1 million-ton yearly fertilizer imports. Urea bags that traded hands for 90,000 kyat before the shortage now need 150,000 on the open market. The regime has made some controlled-price stock available for 105,000 kyat to rice farmers in Naypyidaw's Lewe Township. "Ten bags of rice do not even cover the cost of one bag of fertilizer," one farmer said.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Telenor's Paper Trail

A class-action lawsuit filed in Norway on April 8 names 1,253 customers who say that Telenor forked over personal data, including addresses and last-known locations, to the junta after the 2021 coup. The company's own transparency reports show it complied with 96 percent of the 153 data requests it was given. One request, made in September 2021, targeted activist Aung Thu while he was already in prison. He was re-arrested under counter-terrorism laws at the prison gates on his release the following month. Telenor, majority-owned by the Norwegian government, entered the market in Myanmar in 2013 with a promise to connect a country just opening up. It then walked away in 2022 with 18 million customers on its books. The plaintiffs, represented by a Swedish rights organization, want a minimum of €11 million in damages.

Read more: The Guardian

A Pad For More Than a Day's Wage

The junta is widening its ban on sanitary pad distribution in the Sagaing and Mandalay regions with a claim that the products are being diverted to treat wounded resistance fighters and protect their feet (!). Medical workers say that’s nonsense. A pad can’t stay in place, can’t absorb enough blood, and can’t keep a gunshot wound clean. What it will do is push hidden-market prices from 3,000 kyat a pack to 9,000, (compare against a 7,800 kyat daily minimum wage). Aid groups have turned to reusable pads, but women without clean water to wash themselves then are at risk of infection, irritation and UTIs. The Sisters2Sisters collective says the policy is deliberately brutal and gender-based violence.

Read more: News18

Airstrikes Don't Respect Borders

Myanmar Air Force Yak-130 and MiG-29 jets dropped nine bombs on a Karen National Union hospital in Bue So township, Kayin State, on April 20. At least one landed on Thai territory near Mae Wan on the Salween River. The target was about half a kilometer from the border opposite Mae Sam Laep village in Sop Moei district, Mae Hong Son province. Thai rangers from the 36th Ranger Regiment evacuated panicked residents to Huai Kong Kaad village after the impact.

Read more: Khaosod English

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.

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Read more

News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.

Read more

News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.

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News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.

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Southeast Asian business news delivered to your inbox every weekday with the Mekong Memo.

The Memo is published each weekday for the countries of your choice. Paid subscriptions receive full editions while free subscribers usually only get top headlines and the first few stories. We can’t do this without your support, so please consider a paid subscripti…

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