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Min Aung Hlaing Takes His Roadshow to Hanoi

Myanmar's president finished a three-day visit to Vietnam on Sunday, his third stop in ASEAN since he took office in April and part of a campaign to (try to) normalize relations with a bloc that has kept him excluded from top-level meetings since 2021. To Lam and Min Aung Hlaing made a show of putting defense and security forward as "key pillar" of their relationship, with military training, officer swaps, search-and-rescue work and information sharing about cross-border crime all in the mix. Viettel, Vietnam's (military-run) telecoms group, now runs Mytel with Myanmar's military-connected partners. The delegation took time for a tour of VinFast's Hai Phong EV plant and got a pitch on digital infrastructure and cybersecurity. Despite the rosy stories, though, the money picture is less… inspiring. Two-way commerce dropped from $853 million in 2020 to $590 million in 2025, then accelerated pace a little in order to find $335 million in the first half of 2026, but that’s versus the talk of a billion dollar target. Vietnamese firms are invested in 107 active projects in Myanmar. The President’s next stop is Cambodia.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (rights criticism), Vietnam News (investment total), The Diplomat (visit count), QDND (trade target), Independent (Russia and Kazakhstan trips)

Turk Ask Council to Send Generals to The Hague

UN human rights chief Volker Turk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that member states should be sending Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. He said that credible sources have verified more than 1,200 civilian deaths, and open-source figures are even worse, with suggestions that the real figure could be more than 3,000. Turk also called for a stop to arms, ammunition, jet fuel and dual-use transfers "where there is a clear risk" they will allow for violations. A separate OHCHR document reported on 2,353 instances of Rohingya forced labor in northern Rakhine in the month of January. The grim findings included 75 counts involving children (some as young as six), as well as a booming (and unregulated) rare earths mining industry in Kachin and Shan states. The UK says military-driven displacement has passed 3.6 million. Despite Turk’s pleas, no state has yet filed an ICC referral.

Read more: Yenisafak (non-refoulement warning), Anadolu (IIMM findings), ReliefWeb (Rohingya exodus), OHCHR (rare earths), UK Government (UK statement)

Navy Triples Force to Reopen Chinese Nickel Plant

A 38-vessel Navy convoy arrived in Singu a couple of days ago, and the force is nearly three times the size of the 14- or 15-vessel flotilla (accounts differ) that left the Gaw Wein jetty in Mandalay on August 21. The earlier convoy lost seven boats to Kachin Independence Army attacks near Shwegu, and about 100 personnel surrendered. Only seven boats carrying about 800 troops in addition to weapons and food arrived in besieged Bhamo after Myanmar Air Force jets ran strikes to clear the river. The new convoy is trying to push further upstream to Tigyaing, where China Nonferrous Metal Mining and Construction's Tagaung nickel processing plant has been sitting idle since a People's Defence Force takeover in July 2024. Regime forces have retaken Tigyaing and Singu, 58 miles north of Mandalay, but there’s no confirmed date for the plant’s re-opening.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (ambush), DVB (convoy confirmation)

UNHCR Rejects Role in Malaysia's Deportation Plan

Malaysia is expected to load 1,476 Myanmar nationals onto two Navy warships and a hospital ship later this month, and the UN refugee agency says it wants nothing to do with it. UNHCR stands by its position that conditions in Myanmar are not sufficient for a safe return and referred to customary international law that prohibits sending people back to places where their rights are at risk. The sailing is expected to be the first phase of a program that will eventually include about 5,000 people. The shipment is still planned despite communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil saying last month that deportees would not be sent back "if they would either be persecuted or their lives would be threatened."

Read more: The Diplomat

Filmmaker Charged Over Drone Strike on Plane

American filmmaker Matthew Aaron VanDyke, whose 2014 documentary "Point and Shoot" won Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, is currently in Delhi's Tihar Jail after an NIA court approved his interrogation over a drone strike on a Myanmar passenger plane. The (Indian) National Investigation Agency says VanDyke and six Ukrainians ran drone-warfare training for ethnic armed groups after they crossed into Myanmar without the required permits. According to the agency, at least two FPV kamikaze drones sporting RPG-type warheads hit and damaged a Myanmar National Airlines ATR-72-600 at Myitkyina airport as passengers were boarding for a flight to Mandalay. No injuries were reported.

Read more: The Tribune (flight details), Independent (war toll), India Today (mercenary framing)

H&M Supplier Shuts Yangon Plant, 3k Jobs Gone

Teng Hui, a garment supplier to retailer H&M, has shuttered its factory in Yangon with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs. The exit is the latest in a run of foreign brands getting their garment sourcing out of Myanmar. Garments are one of the last industries that still bringing dollars in despite Western sanctions, so the loss will be felt by more than just the people who have most recently lost their jobs.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Yangon Dams Overflow

Nga Moe Yeik Reservoir, 26 miles north of Yangon, overflowed by 2.5 feet on September 3, sending creek water into seven Hlegu Township wards. Mahura Dam is spilling 1.5 feet over its spillway and Paunglin Dam is nearing full capacity, so now nine more townships are under flash flood warnings as thunderstorms continue to be forecast in Yangon and Bago through tomorrow.

Read more: DVB (evacuation advisory)

Hpa-An Checkpoints Become Conscription Traps

Soldiers at Hpa-An's checkpoints and Thanlwin River bridges are stopping masons, shop clerks and commuters to inspect ID cards, then taking the men aside to get them conscripted. It seems that showing an ID card and proving local residence is no longer always enough to dodge the impromptu drafts. Rural villages have not yet seen open raids to grab manpower, but quotas have to be filled every three to four months, and when locals refuse to go, villages sometimes are paying migrant workers to serve as substitutes. Karen State's government has denied social media reports that Chief Minister Saw Myint Oo told officials to issue military summonses and authorize arrests if quotas ran short. Separately, in Mandalay, workshops and small businesses are losing staff as young workers quit or leave town rather than risking callup under the junta’s conscription law. Owners are reporting empty workbenches and delayed orders as young men disappear from the workforce as they go into hiding.

Read more: Karen News (checkpoints), The Irrawaddy (Mandalay conscription)

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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Tugboat Lost, Airstrikes to Cover the Retreat

A pusher tugboat with its hull torn open by drone strikes near Katha was what it took to bring the junta's air force down on Shwegu. The 15-vessel flotilla, loaded with rations and reinforcements for an encircled garrison at Bhamo, left Mandalay on August 21 and has been bleeding boats ever since. It lost a base at Zinbon, saw escort vessels routed there, and then abandoned the tugboat near Bokone Village, where KIA and PDF forces took it. The remnants of the convoy are now stuck unloading at Shwegu's river port under suicide drone and rocket fire, as fighter jets and Y-12 transports are working overtime to keep it there.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (casualties), BNI Online (convoy timeline)

Airstrikes Kill 88 Civilians in Two Weeks

The Burma Air Force flew 239 airstrikes in nine regions between August 8 and 23, killing 88 civilians and wounding 157, according to National Unity Government figures. Rebels abandoned Falam, Chin State's only airport town, in April after running out of ammunition under a six-month assault. By late May the military claimed the entire northern half of the state. Mass conscription has refilled army ranks with tens of thousands of troops, although China has brokered ceasefires with some ethnic armed groups and helped choke off weapons routes to others.

Read more: DVB (floods), Myanmar Now (Mindat), Al Jazeera

Rosatom to Break Ground on Nuclear Plant

Rosatom signed the site-survey contract this month, and director general Alexei Likhachev said that "this is essentially the start of construction." The company is expected to break ground not far from Naypyidaw sometime next year. The 110MW plant, modest when compared to installed national capacity of roughly 6,900MW, is expandable to 330MW and will run on two RITM-200N reactors adapted from Russia's nuclear icebreaker fleet. Putin said its a "flagship" project during Min Aung Hlaing's August visit to Moscow. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin laid it on thicker, saying it is "a new symbol of Russia-Myanmar friendship." Nobody has revealed who is going to be paying for the thing. Observers expect the junta, already funding a multi-front war it can barely afford, to take Russian soft loans that would be repayable once the plant starts generating power, or to settle the bill in kind from natural resources. Rosatom is making a similar pitch to Vietnam, Indonesia, and Laos.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (March 2025 agreement), The Irrawaddy (arms trade)

UN Ties $1.4B Rare Earth Boom to Chinese Buyers

Satellite imagery showed 302 new mining sites in Kachin State since the coup, almost two and a half times the previous total, feeding a trade to the Chinese market that peaked at $1.4 billion in 2023, the UN Human Rights Office said in a report. The report also put confirmed civilian deaths at 8,075 since the coup, a lower count than ACLED's estimated 100,000-plus total deaths (that one includes combatants). Internal displacement is 3.6 million people, with 12.4 million people facing acute hunger. Rights chief Volker Turk called on "all states, companies and investors to undertake serious soul-searching" about their dealings with the country.

Read more: Al Jazeera (annual death toll), Myanmar Now (100,000 death toll)

Scam Compounds Move Into Yangon Hotels

Chinese-linked syndicates once confined to barbed-wire compounds in Shan and Karen states are now running entire floors of fraud out of leased hotels and "IT training centers" in Yangon, guarded by digital locks and elevators instead of jungle fences. The venues often carry the names of legitimate hospitality chains, with windowless upper floors converted into secure facilities. The Tatmadaw and allied militias have been reported to be active partners as illicit cash flows into local real estate and business licenses.

Read more: Shan Herald

Junta Navy Sails to Malaysia to Collect 1,476

Two navy warships and a hospital ship will pick up 1,476 nationals from Malaysia on September 29. It’s the opening batch of a 5,000-person voluntary return deal that Anwar Ibrahim announced in July. Kuala Lumpur has been holding more than 10,000 Myanmar nationals in immigration detention and wants their identities and refugee claims verified by year-end. Malaysia is host to 215,600 UNHCR-registered refugees, almost all from Myanmar, including more than 126,000 Rohingya. No independent monitoring of the September 29 group is expected, and Malaysia's main Rohingya rights group has asked that government to put the plan on pause because returnees' lives would be at risk.

Read more: AP News (registration document rollout), Myanmar Now (Refugee Convention status)

Nine Years on, Rohingya Camps Run Low on Food

Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees rallied in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar camps, as they pass the nine year mark since Myanmar's military drove them out. They are protesting conditions that have reportedly gotten worse. More than 1.2 million refugees are packed into about 30 camps, where almost everyone still lives in bamboo-and-tarpaulin lean-tos. More than half the shelters need repairs. Funding has collapsed.

Read more: Myanmar Now (repatriation), ReliefWeb (children), ReliefWeb (aid), ReliefWeb (Canada funding)

Naypyidaw Presses Bangkok Again on Rebel Arms

General Ye Win Oo met Thai National Security Council chief Chatchai Bangchuad in Naypyidaw in an attempt to cut cross-border arms shipments to resistance forces. The meeting is the latest of at least three similar approaches since early August when Min Aung Hlaing raised it with Thai PM Anutin Charnvirakul. Ye Win Oo then held his own Bangkok meeting with counterpart General Ukris Boontanondha before the two militaries' annual summit. The regime readout also mentioned cooperation on cyber-scam and gambling operations, drug smuggling, and restricted chemicals, but the arms pipeline into Karen, Karenni, and Tanintharyi is the one Naypyidaw keeps beating the drum on.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Fuel Caps, Rice Prices, and Floodwaters All Rise

The Petroleum Products Regulatory Department raised its weekly cap on 92 RON gasoline to 3,710 kyats a liter, about $1.40 at the parallel rate, up from 3,575 the week before, and diesel climbed to 4,240 kyats from 4,070. Rice prices were up almost 4 percent month-on-month in July and about 10 percent over a year earlier. Fertilizer prices are also still well above last year but crop prices have barely moved. In the south, the Taninthayi River rose to a level of 7.5 meters, past its 7.3-meter danger mark, submerging a stretch of the Union Highway by more than three feet and sending 700 people into evacuation shelters.

Read more: The Star (floods), Cambodianess (fuel caps), ReliefWeb (food prices)

MEHL Detains Three Over Import Deals

Three senior officials at Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited, the military's flagship conglomerate, have been detained because of improper import dealings in a rare internal corruption case. The arrests have opened up a look into wider irregularities in how MEHL brings goods into the country. The conglomerate's import operations have never been subject to independent audit. No names have been released, and no charges have been so far been made public.

Read more: Myanmar Now

Bo Kyi Wins Magsaysay Award

Bo Kyi, jailed for seven years after Myanmar's 1988 uprising, won the 2026 Ramon Magsaysay Award for more than 26 years of documenting political detentions through the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. AAPP reports more than 22,000 political prisoners still behind bars since the coup. Bo Kyi dedicated the award to them, as well as making a call for Aung San Suu Kyi's unconditional release.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (founding history), DVB (fifth Myanmar laureate)

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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Air Strike at Sagaing Monastery

A fighter jet dropped two bombs on Swel Le Oh village in Sagaing's Myaung township Friday, hitting a monastery hall where more than 100 people, many of them elderly, had gathered for a three-month meditation retreat during Buddhist Lent. Fourteen died and 20 were wounded; a rescuer said the aircraft circled back for a second pass while they worked. "It wasn't a mistaken target, they intentionally attacked a monastery," said Nway Oo Myaung, a pro-democracy rebel who was there.

Read more: AP News (villagers flee), SCMP (death toll), BBC (victims), DW (military claim), Daily Sabah (analysts)

Starlink Goes Dark

Starlink access cut out in Myanmar, knocking an estimated 13 million users (almost a quarter of the population) offline. Many had come to depend on SpaceX's dishes after years of shutdowns on the ground network. Almost two-fifths of the country's townships already have intermittent or total blackouts every month, and for resistance-held areas with no fiber and no cell towers, Starlink was frequently the only connection to the outside world. SpaceX has yet to explain the outage or give a timeline for the restoration of service.

Read more: SCMP

Families Hide Sons as Draft Quotas Double

Ward administrators across Mandalay have been told to double conscription quotas to 4-10 men, aged 18 to 35 per intake, starting in September, and residents say families are hiding sons or leaving the city. The regime has run 27 recruitment batches since forced conscription began in April 2024, bringing in an estimated 135,000 men. Deputy Home Affairs Minister Min Thu said authorities are coming up with lists of draft evaders and giving them to security forces for arrest. The regime has never published quota numbers at any level, be that national, city, township, or ward.

Read more: DVB

Junta Attacks Crossing It's Selling to Moscow

Troops in southern Tanintharyi backed by drone strikes and daily artillery have been pushing through Thayetchaung, Launglon, and Myitta townships since mid-August, trying to wrest the Hteekhee trade corridor from KNU Brigade 4. This is also the crossing that the junta has been showing off to Russian investors. Infantry Battalion 104 has been shelling areas along the Launglon-Maungmagan Road, and more than 10 area villages have emptied out, as local defense forces expect the offensive to widen over the coming days.

Read more: BNI Online

Junta Burns a Path to Dawei Port

About 700 troops have moved through Tanintharyi Region since July, burning homes and clearing land around the Dawei Special Economic Zone, the deep-sea port that was once celebrated (and pitched) as a bypass to the Strait of Malacca. Russian-made Su-30SME jets are flying air support, giving the army an edge over scattered Tanintharyi People's Defence Force units trying to defend the area. Local group MAGGA Initiative says the military captured and killed three humanitarian workers in Yebyu Township after they ran into an army convoy. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has been talking up the prospect of jobs for small and medium businesses inside the zone; Naypyidaw continues to say the corridor can cut cargo transit times by four to six days (as compared to via the strait), but how much of the site is currently secured is unclear, and construction has mostly been stalled since 2013.

Read more: Militarnyi (offensive), Defense Post

Rubio Designates Min Zin "Wrongfully Detained"

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Chiang Mai-based scholar Min Zin "wrongfully detained," a month ahead of Xi Jinping's Washington visit. Min Zin, a naturalized US citizen and founder of the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar, was taken into custody in Yunnan while attending an academic conference at the Chinese government's invitation. Beijing says he was held on suspicion of espionage endangering national security. ISP-M's work covers China's dealings in the borderlands, where Beijing has been accused of backing both the junta and anti-junta factions.

Read more: DVB (family reaction), Myanmar Now (Xi visit timing)

Ye Win Oo Picks Bangkok for First Foreign Trip

Ye Win Oo, given the military's top job when Min Aung Hlaing moved into the presidency in April, chose Bangkok for his first foreign outing, meeting Thai army chief Ukris Boontanondha to talk about the shared border, drug trafficking, and cyberscam networks. The agenda also covered counterterrorism, training, and humanitarian and disaster relief. It comes after Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's welcome of Min Aung Hlaing earlier this month, and the Thai foreign minister is framing the outreach as "not about legitimacy; it's about reality." UN experts have dismissed this year's election as a "sham," staged as the junta tries to end five years of isolation since the 2021 coup.

Read more: Al Jazeera

Naypyidaw Verifies 308k Rohingya, Blocks Return

Nine years after the 2017 crackdown, Naypyidaw says it has verified 308,000 of the 820,000 names Bangladesh has put forward for repatriation, but has hastened to add that it will not be taking anyone back until Rakhine State is safe. The military no longer controls most of the region, as much of it held by the Arakan Army.

Read more: ReliefWeb, DVB (sea escapes), DW (EU aid), ReliefWeb (sea deaths)

Minsk Trip Yields Nine Deals and Army Boots

Nine agreements signed in Minsk run the gamut of defense, security, trade, and public health, and even include a footwear factory (location undisclosed) that’s to be built by insolvent Belarusian shoemaker Belvest, whose $85 million debt has it hunting new markets. Perhaps unrelatedly, Quartermaster-General Zaw Myo Tin is looking for new boots for the armed forces. Min Aung Hlaing also set by-elections for the 102 townships that were skipped in the 2025-2026 phased vote for "early 2027," and invited Belarusian observers to monitor them.

Read more: DVB (visa exemption), DVB (footwear factory), By (Lukashenko)

Cholera Follows the Floodwaters into Yangon

Cholera has killed three people, one in Yangon and two in Sittwe, and hospitalized about 500 with what is suspected to be cholera in the nation’s commercial capital. Authorities haven’t directly connected the outbreak to the monsoon, but flooding has displaced thousands of households in Ayeyarwady after the Ngawun River embankment breached at Laymyethna, and another 538 households in Kayin State.

Read more: The Malaysian Reserve (response teams), ReliefWeb (flooding), ReliefWeb (aid access)

Kachin Villagers Torch KIA Checkpoint

Residents in Kachin State set a KIA checkpoint ablaze after troops there shot and injured a civilian driver, the latest trouble following months of rising anger about the fees that the locals are charged by those running the post. The Kachin Independence Army has spent years fighting the junta; but this time the target of public fury was one of its own toll gates.

Read more: Myanmar Now

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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Min Aung Hlaing Takes His Dawei Pitch to Moscow

Min Aung Hlaing showed up in Moscow on Monday for his seventh Russia trip since the coup, bringing along Tanintharyi's chief minister for a visit that’s intended to boost the Dawei Special Economic Zone. Russia's Inter RAO signed a June deal with the Launglon Economic Development Company for a coal plant, oil refinery, and deep-sea port, and the Kremlin agenda also includes a review of last year's Rosatom pact for a small modular nuclear reactor. Thailand is looking at a similar playbook and at a Thai-Russian Joint Commission meeting a few days earlier, Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa talked up Dawei as the anchor for an overland route to Chon Buri that would allow cargo to avoid the Strait of Malacca. A five-year military cooperation deal signed in February, with details still under wraps, will round out the visit. No signing dates were given for any of the SEZ projects.

Read more: Internazionale (prior visits), WRAL (business forum), DVB (Putin meeting), Anadolu (Kremlin history), MRTV (delegation)

Junta Retakes Magway Oil Field, Kills CDF-Asho Chief

A three-month military offensive to retake Magway's oil field has killed nearly 30 civilians, destroyed more than 330 homes in Myaing and Pauk, and displaced tens of thousands. An ambush 77 kilometers west of Magway city killed CDF-Asho Commander-in-Chief Salai Yoe Chin and two other members during a logistics run in Ngape Township. Ngape sits on the Ann-Padan corridor, where CDF-Asho and the Arakan Army have jointly overrun at least three junta outposts since October, squeezing supply lines to the military's Western Command in Ann. The AA now controls 14 of Arakan State's 17 townships in addition to Paletwa in (neighboring) Chin State. The Asho Chin group says it plans to keep fighting alongside the AA.

Read more: Myanmar Now (displacement), DVB (ambush)

Junta Sorts Rohingya Into Residents, Ghosts, Terrorists

The junta's Foreign Ministry says it has verified 308,797 of the 828,824 names that Bangladesh gave them as former Rakhine residents, and expects to take them back once security in the state stabilizes. That asterisk is going to be doing some heavy lifting, given the Arakan Army's hold over much of Rakhine. Another 4,241 names were put in amother bucket as accused terrorists, a label Bangladesh's repatriation commissioner Mizanur Rahman poopooed by saying "terrorist or not, they are residents of Myanmar." A further 113,507 names were not able to be verified at all. Previous repatriation arrangements in 2018 and 2019 resulted in *checks notes*: no returns. The United Council of Rohingya, the elected body representing refugees in Cox's Bazar, says the whole affair is "misleading propaganda." It rejects Naypyidaw's continued use of "Bengali" and its claim that only 540,000 people left during 2017, a figure Dhaka also disputes.

Read more: New Age (Rohingya response), DVB (Malaysia asylum deal), Anadolu (fleeing figures), New Age (Bangladesh response), New Age (population dispute)

EU Adds €10.5 Million as Monsoon Floods Hit Sagaing

The EU is adding €10.5 million in humanitarian aid, bringing its 2026 total to €49.1 million. The UN now says 16.2 million people need help and 12.4 million are going hungry. Monsoon flooding since July has hit an estimated 390,000 people in Sagaing, Rakhine, Ayeyarwady, and Kachin. Sagaing makes up 230,000 of the number as villages have been submerged and rice seedlings washed out in Wetlet Township.

Read more: AP (cholera), Straits Times (flood relocation), ReliefWeb (EU aid), ReliefWeb (WFP biscuits)

Food Prices Up a Fifth, Biggest Increase in A-P

Five months into the Red Sea shipping disruption, the country's food basket is costing a fifth more than it did before. It’s the biggest increase the WFP tracks in Asia-Pacific. A strong El Nino forecast and stubbornly high fertilizer prices are hitting rice and maize farmers as crops come into critical growth stages. High input costs are also limiting spending on irrigation and crop protection, which is grim math for desperate families watching prices climb out of reach.

Read more: ReliefWeb

Air Force Bombs Village, Stray Rounds Hit Mae Sot (Again)

A junta jet bombed Auk Zee Kaing village in Rathedaung Township. Two hundred miles east, fighting between junta troops and the Karen National Liberation Army around Min La Pan sent stray rounds back into Ban Huai Maha Wong in Thailand's Mae Sot district, hitting the same homes that were already damaged in previous exchanges. No injuries were reported in Mae Sot. Junta forces are now flying supplies in to frontline troops to try and prevent ambushes on overland convoys, a change in strategy that appears to be increasing the frequency of airstrikes.

Read more: Khaosod English (Myawaddy clashes), Narinjara (Thandwe deaths), DVB (Rakhine toll)

Bangkok-Naypyidaw Pollution Pact Misses Wa State Mines

Ambitiously, Bangkok and Naypyidaw's cross-border river pollution pact covers waterways the junta doesn’t even control. The rare earth mines poisoning them are in United Wa State Army territory in eastern Shan State, beyond the reach of Min Aung Hlaing's administrative authority. The Shan Human Rights Foundation says that not only that, but the deal also has no enforcement mechanism. Myanmar has earned $3.6 billion from rare earth exports to China since 2021.

Read more: Shan Herald

Ex-Ambassador Goes on Trial for London Residence

Kyaw Zwar Minn has gone on trial in London for trespassing at the ambassador's residence in northwest London, where he’s lived since being locked out of the embassy in 2021. After declaring loyalty to Aung San Suu Kyi, he spent a night in his car outside the embassy before moving into the residence, but prosecutors say he was told to vacate by both Naypyidaw and the UK Foreign Office. His lawyer, David Perry, argues Min Aung Hlaing's government can’t lawfully terminate his license at the address.

Read more: The Guardian

Resistance Alliance Names Ten-Seat Military Command

SCEF's Military Affairs Coordinating Body now has (some) names at the top. NUG Defense Minister Yee Mon is secretary, and two unnamed Chin National Front representatives are joint secretaries. The 10-seat panel is pulling senior commanders from member organizations including the KIO and KNU. Zaw Wai Soe, the SCEF Coordinator who also serves as NUG Minister for Health and Education, confirmed the body's creation in a recent Diplomat piece but declined to name the other seven seat-holders.

Read more: DVB

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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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.

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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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Junta Tells ASEAN to Drop the Envoy

The foreign ministry used the weekend to tell ASEAN that it no longer needs a special envoy, saying that the arrangement should lapse when Singapore takes the chair on January 1, 2027. The ministry said it will keep working with the current envoy, Philippine Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro, through the rest of her term, but sounded rather pleased with itself as it described the role as obsolete now that a post-election government has "assumed state responsibility." It also rejected ASEAN's renewed demand for Aung San Suu Kyi's "complete and unconditional release," saying that language interferes with a sovereign judicial process, and warned of unspecified "countermeasures" against "discriminatory treatment." The pushback comes after an ICRC representative met the 81-year-old Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw, her first known contact with an outside independent humanitarian organization in five years. Singapore has not commented.

Read more: AP News (Min Aung Hlaing), Nation Thailand (death toll), Straits Times, Mizzima (ICRC rep), Khabarhub (sentence commutation history)

Six Deals, No Royal Audience in Bangkok

Min Aung Hlaing returned home with a joint statement, a $12 billion trade target, and agreements for migrant labor, Kok and Sai river water quality, space technology, a security dialogue and the reopening of the second Friendship Bridge, as well as renewed backing for the India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway and a Ranong port link. His delegation of business cronies came to cash in on his "invest with confidence" pitch in energy, agriculture, manufacturing, health care and technology. He did not get was a royal audience, a press conference, or recognition of his government from anyone new. Unfortunately, neither the United Wa State Army territory where the mines poisoning the Kok sit nor the Myawaddy scam compounds run by a Karen Border Guard Force answer to Naypyidaw, so of the deals touted, it seems like only the labor MOU looks bilateral and administrative enough to possibly happen.

Read more: AP News (civilian death toll), BBC (red-carpet ceremony), DVB (territory control gap), Myanmar Now (cronies), NDTV (highway route detail)

Ayeyarwady Embankment Breach Floods Rice Country

The Ngawun River embankment gave way in Lemyethna township, allowing floodwater to pour into 16 villages in Ayeyarwady, the country's biggest rice region, where farmers had already planted 3.7 million acres of paddy this season. A Red Cross assessment found about 20,000 people affected; other reports put the figure above 40,000. Paddy can survive under water for about a week before dying, so there may be hope still, but it’s not looking god. Fighting between the military and the Arakan Army had left the aging embankment unmaintained.

Read more: CNA (government repair pledge), Qazinform (relief funds allocated), ReliefWeb (household breakdown)

Karenni Sends Civilians Home Through Minefields

The Karenni Interim Executive Council is sending civilians back into townships like Demoso and Loikaw without waiting for the war to end, or for the demining standards that come with peacetime. IEC Secretary Banya Khung Aung says the military plants about 1,000 mines a day. Karenni armed groups are laying mines of their own, including improvised devices and munitions captured from the military. "We are so far from the international standard," Banya Khung Aung said. "We are in the war zone."

Read more: Karen News

Rakhine's Cash Runs on Rupees

Withdrawal fees through KBZPay agents in Arakan Army territory rose to a high of 9,000 MMK on every 100,000 withdrawn this month, which is a fee of 9%, up from 5% in July, as monsoon rains cut off the couriers who normally ferry banknotes in from India's Mizoram State. The AA's emergency order barring men aged 18 to 45 and women aged 18 to 25 from leaving the state has also reduced the supply of informal money runners who kept the system liquid. With commercial banking shut in the 14 townships it controls, the ULA, the AA's political wing, is preparing a state-owned bank in three townships. Merchants say it may start accepting the Indian rupee along with the kyat, routed through Paletwa on the India border. Military-run banking is still limping along in Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung.

Read more: DVB

Malaysia Screens 4,000 Before Repatriation

Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail says screening is underway for more than 4,000 Myanmar nationals in immigration depots, sorting refugees from those flagged for immigration or criminal offenses before any repatriation ship sails. Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan says Naypyidaw has agreed to take 5,000 back after his meeting with counterpart Tin Maung Swe, but no departure date has been set. Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil says none of the 5,000 will be sent back if their lives are at risk.

Read more: The Diplomat (UNHCR count), Voi ID (refugees since 2017), Asian News Network, The Sun

US Court Clears TPS Cutoff for 4,000

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled Friday that the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status for about 4,000 Myanmar nationals. The ruling leans on the Supreme Court's June decision that limits lower courts' authority to block TPS terminations, a precedent DHS has already applied to nine other TPS-designated countries. DHS revoked Myanmar's designation last November when they claimed that the junta's planned elections were evidence of "clear progress in governance and stability." Many of the 4,000 have lived in the U.S. since escaping the 2021 coup, and some are raising American-born children.

Read more: The Diplomat

RSF and Mizzima Launch Shortwave Broadcasts

After four years of junta censorship, RSF and Mizzima have gone live on 17665 kHz (a frequency the junta cannot easily jam), from 7 to 8 a.m. every Sunday. The "Voice of Independent Myanmar" broadcast is trying to reach at least 500,000 and as many as 2 million regular weekly listeners, but as many as 4 million during major crises. The show will feature news, analysis, and segments on human rights and disinformation. The audio will also be shared on Mizzima's digital accounts, which have 21 million Facebook followers and 3 million YouTube subscribers. RSF is modeling the project on a similar shortwave launch in Iran.

Read more: Mizzima

Sweden Shuts Yangon Office, Runs from Bangkok

The government of Sweden has closed its Yangon section office, and will now fold its Myanmar affairs into the Bangkok embassy. Finland closed its Yangon embassy a few months ago; Denmark and the Netherlands have announced similar plans.

Read more: DVB

Junta-Connected Body Bids for Regional Chair

The MNHRC lost its GANHRI accreditation in December 2024 and its membership in March 2025 because of its ties to the junta, but nonetheless is now angling for the 2027 chairship of SEANF, the regional rights forum. The effort has prompted 146 civil society groups to demand that SEANF members block the bid and reconsider MNHRC's seat altogether.

Read more: Mizzima

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Red Cross Breaks Suu Kyi's Five-Year Silence

Arnaud de Baecque, the ICRC's resident representative in Myanmar, met Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw, the first publicized contact any foreign official has had with the 81-year-old since the coup in 2021. The junta's photo release shows her shaking de Baecque's hand and cutting a pink cake marked "Happy Birthday Aunty Suu, 19.6.2026," which means the images were probably taken a few weeks ago. The ICRC confirmed that the visit included private conversation, but said, as it always does, that observations go "exclusively and confidentially" to the detaining authorities. Kim Aris, from London, called it "the first positive development" concerning his mother in more than five years, then added that he still has no independent confirmation of her condition or well-being. The news comes three days before the general arrives in Bangkok for his first Thailand trip since becoming president in April.

Read more: Bloomberg, Firstpost, Mizzima, DVB, Mizzima

Mandalay Gives Nine Activists 323 Years

Two courts in Mandalay sentenced eight members of an anti-junta group, including prominent activist Htet Myat Aung, to 37 years each for a flash protest against the (at the time, planned) election, using the 2025 election law and a counterterrorism statute. A ninth activist got 27 years under the counterterrorism law, bringing the group's combined sentence to 323 years. The protest called on voters to boycott the election, reject conscription, and demanded the freeing of political prisoners. None of them plan to appeal because they believe the verdicts won't be overturned. Spokesperson May Hnin wanted to use the sentences as proof that a government "born from a sham election" will be unable to build a federal democracy.

Read more: AP News (sentences), Al Jazeera (junta silence)

Min Aung Hlaing Rejects Five-Point Consensus

Five years after signing ASEAN's Five-Point Consensus in Jakarta, the junta chief told parliament that the peace plan was never a bloc position at all, only a 2021 statement from Brunei, that year's chair. His pro-military parliament had already passed a motion rejecting the Consensus as “interference in Myanmar's internal affairs,” and the Foreign Ministry says the government is now "obliged to respect" that vote. The argument is being put forward while Thailand is pushing to normalize his standing in a bloc that still bars his political appointees from summits and foreign ministers' meetings. His speech (on the occasion of 100 days in office) also confirmed that the conscription law will stay in force, promised federalism talks and 2027 by-elections in conflict-hit areas. He also admitted that young people leaving the country are hurting the economy.

Read more: Myanmar Now (critic reaction), Mizzima (social media backlash), The Diplomat (by-election constituencies)

Bungalows Flattened, Luxury Hotels Standing

Three fighter jets and a Y-12 transport plane hit Ngapali's Jittau (9) ward, dropping close to 60 bombs on the beach resort town in Thandwe Township. The area has been under Arakan Army control since 2024. The AA says about 20 houses and bungalows were destroyed or damaged, but the attacks seem to have skipped luxury hotels owned by regime-linked families, even though they are currently occupied by AA forces.

Read more: DVB (airstrike details), Narinjara (AA statement)

Arakan Army Closes in on Kyaukphyu

Artillery shells have landed near the fuel storage tanks at Kyaukphyu, and clashes between the junta and the Arakan Army were reported to be as close as three kilometers from the Chinese-funded power plant serving the SEZ. The AA holds about 90 percent of Rakhine State, including the 270-kilometer Bangladesh border, leaving the junta clinging to three coastal towns. Workers began trying to take an SEZ power plant apart for relocation earlier this year, reportedly "as quickly as they can to avoid it getting damaged in the fighting."

Read more: The Diplomat

Malaysia Says 5,000 Rohingya Will Go Back

Myanmar has agreed to take back 5,000 Rohingya from Malaysia, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, a fraction of the more than 126,000 Rohingya Kuala Lumpur is currently host to. Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and doesn’t formally recognize refugee status, but that hasn’t stopped the population from growing since the 2017 military crackdown. No timeline or mechanism for verifying who goes back has been shared, and there is no word on where in Rakhine State they should expect to be sent.

Read more: Myanmar Now

Kyaw Moe Tun Asks Guterres to Back Coalition

Myanmar's UN ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun wrote to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asking him to endorse the SCEF resistance coalition and invoke Responsibility to Protect, repeating an earlier request as the nine-member Credentials Committee gets ready to meet during the General Assembly session. The letter refers to more than 100,000 conflict deaths since the coup, in addition to 483 massacres that have killed at least 5,065 civilians. It comes after the NUG, CRPH and allied federal units from Sagaing and Mandalay signed the first draft of a Common Political Agreement, an agreement intended to counter the junta chief's 100-day peace push that is bringing together about a dozen armed groups, including China-backed militias, under a reconciliation banner.

Read more: Karen News (CPA signatories), DVB (SCEF letter)

Scam Compounds Move Into Mulayit's Foothills

At least six zhapian (illegal cross-border telecom scam operation) compounds are running around “sacred” Mount Mulayit, three of them near the DKBA's headquarters at Warmeehta Village. Shwe Kokko's neon-lit casino towers are gone from this iteration of the enterprise. Operators are working out of air-conditioned shipping containers and tents that can be packed up quickly when rivals or raids get close, but nonetheless, nearby villages have sprouted salons, pharmacies, and restaurants to serve Chinese staff. The DKBA is currently sharing a ceasefire pact with the junta.

Read more: Karen News

Bangladesh Pitches Gas Pipeline to Chattogram

Bangladesh Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood pitched a cross-border gas pipeline to Chattogram during a meeting with Myanmar's ambassador U Kyaw Soe Moe, suggesting it could be a fix for dropping domestic gas output that has pushed Dhaka toward LNG imports. The ambassador welcomed the idea and floated interim LNG shipments while the pipeline plan works its way through the Bangladesh-Myanmar Joint Technical Committee. Both sides connected the proposal to a China-Myanmar-Bangladesh economic corridor that was brought up during Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's recent visit to Beijing.

Read more: Pipeline Journal

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.

New Commander's Air War

ACLED has reported more than a dozen mass killings and more than 450 civilian deaths in the first half of 2026, and says that the brutal toll is partly the result of a March command reshuffle that put loyalist Ye Win Oo, a former spymaster, in charge of the armed forces. Apparently, his signature is sending two to five fighter jets to work over a single target for hours instead of scattered raids. The result is fewer strikes, but each is deadlier and more damaging to infrastructure. ACLED expects the bombing to ease up somewhat during the monsoon season, then thinks it will pick up again in October as the army tries to (once again) regain lost territory. In other reports,

Read more: Straits Times (visit), Anadolu (death toll), Devdiscourse (ASEAN), Mezha (looting), Impact Policies (AAPP), Mizzima (airstrikes), Mizzima (health system), The Guardian (doctors)

Fuel Quotas Halved, Yangon Fish Markets Slump

The cost of the national food basket was MMK 51,187 in June, up a fifth since late February, as diesel has stayed stubbornly up 45 percent above pre-crisis levels. The squeeze was made worse when Min Aung Hlaing told his cabinet to cut foreign currency spending, causing the Ministry of Energy to reduce weekly fuel purchase quotas for retailers by more than half. Yangon taxi drivers now make six days of fuel last a week. At Shwe Padauk fish market, home to almost 500 vendors, a supervisor says business has been down for five months as young workers have been leaving for Malaysia and Rakhine's seafood supply lines are broken.

Read more: ReliefWeb (food basket), DVB (fuel), Mizzima (market)

ASEAN Makes Suu Kyi the Price of Readmission

ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Manila agreed to make "positive developments" concerning Aung San Suu Kyi part of the price for letting Myanmar back into bloc-level meetings. Senior officials are supposed to give recommendations to leaders before the summit in November. Philippine Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro, the bloc's chair, told reporters the return remains "still far off" and admitted she does not know whether she will be allowed to see Suu Kyi during a humanitarian visit planned later this year. At an informal sit-down in Bangkok, junta foreign minister Tin Maung Swe told Lazaro that Suu Kyi was being cared for "like a sister," then slapped down a request for an in-person wellness check. Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, has been running a "Proof of Life" campaign since April; analysts believe the photo released by the regime is not recent, and in fact was taken some time around 2022. Showing that the issue is still a sore one, a Yangon court sentenced former NLD lawmaker Saw Naing to three years for donating alms to monks and calling for Suu Kyi's release on her 81st birthday, one of at least 32 arrests tied to this year's "Flower Strike."

Read more: Philippine Inquirer (ASEAN), Nikkei Asia (Lazaro), Nikkei Asia (Proof of Life), DVB (sentencing)

India Chases Rare Earths Into Kachin

State-owned Indian Rare Earths and private firm Midwest Advanced Materials sent reps to Myanmar in late 2024 and early this year in a push New Delhi hopes will put a wedge in China's grip on heavy rare earths. Ambassador Abhay Thakur told a Mandalay mining forum that cooperation had won "momentum," as junta chief Min Aung Hlaing had brought up the issue during his trip to India. The prize is in Kachin State, where dysprosium and terbium deposits provided $3.6 billion of rare earths to China between 2021 and 2024. That supply made up almost three-quarters of Beijing's rare earth imports between 2017 and 2024.

Read more: Firstpost

Little Bagan Torched, Naypyidaw Highway Checkpoint Overrun

More than 200 troops burned more than 100 homes and an unconfirmed number of the 81 Bagan-era religious buildings in Pakhannge, Chauk Township, forcing at least 20 civilians abducted from neighboring Aikyi and Thatyatkone to march with the column as shields. Two days later, PDF fighters hit the Shwepan checkpoint on the Naypyidaw-Magway highway in Myothit Township, killing nine of the roughly 30 regime troops and police stationed there as 21 escaped. No resistance casualties were reported. The junta answered with more road blockades and an increased troop presence in Myothit. More than 10,000 residents have so far fled 20 villages in Chauk since early June.

Read more: DVB (Pakhannge), DVB (checkpoint)

Troops Turn Monastery Into a Holding Cell

Nearly 300 junta soldiers occupied Kyaukhnget and Hsinhsarpyar villages in Ywangan Township after fighting with the Danu People's Liberation Army, rounding up residents and locking them inside a monastery in Kyaukhnget. Villagers said that soldiers beat everyone they caught, women included, and searched house to house in Hsinhsarpyar. Young men from Kyaukhnget and Oktwin have reportedly been abducted to porter for frontline troops and serve as human shields. Every young man in Kyaukhnget has now reportedly fled.

Read more: BNI Online

Laos and Myanmar Plan 2,790 MW Mekong Dam

Min Aung Hlaing's visit to Vientiane resulted in the signing of a feasibility-study agreement for a 2,790 MW dam on their shared stretch of the Mekong above the Golden Triangle. Laos' Phongsupthavy Group and Myanmar's Primus Sapphire Power have 34 months to come up with a design for a project that would be larger than any dam either country has ever built. Myanmar is only an observer to the Mekong River Commission; its four members, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, are supposed to review mainstream projects before construction. Laos is restricted by the Commission's 1995 flow rules, which push the design toward a run-of-river scheme like the one in Xayaburi. Cambodia's comparably sized Sambor Dam has been under moratorium for years over damage to the Tonle Sap fishery.

Read more: Bangkok Post (MRC participation call), Stimson Center (Chinese contractor likely)

SCEF Gets the Arakan Army on the Line

The Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union spent more than an hour on a video call with Arakan Army chief Twan Mrat Naing, the first formal meeting between the main resistance coalition and the group that now runs 14 of Rakhine State's 17 townships in addition to Paletwa in Chin State. NUG Prime Minister Mahn Win Khaing Than joined SCEF rotating chairman Khu Oo Reh on the call. No joint political statement was shared after the call. Before the talks, the NUG sent 150,000 yuan, about $21,000, to the AA for flood relief, and the AA replied with a formal letter of thanks.

Read more: DVB (AA territory), Narinjara (SCEF)

Eggs to 700 Kyat

A single egg that cost 100 kyat before the coup will now cost a buyer nearly 700, (that’s about $0.33), and it’s a price that most households can’t stop checking and talking about. The Junta has put limits on the import of breeding hens, feed, and veterinary vaccines, in an attempt to save foreign currency, but that’s caused production costs to rise. In Yangon, an authority-pressured scheme sells eggs at a discounted 550 kyat, but Facebook posts show long lines and many shoppers going home empty-handed. The World Bank clocked annual inflation at almost a quarter in April, with food prices among the fastest-rising goods.

Read more: Mizzima

Min Aung Hlaing Visits India, Then Beijing

Min Aung Hlaing's debut trip abroad as president was supposed to be a wildlife summit. When India's International Big Cat Alliance conference was canceled, New Delhi changed the invitation into a full Official Visit ahead of Beijing's calendar, which stayed booked with Trump and Putin. China got him next, but with the higher-status format of a State Visit, the protocol that confers full sovereign recognition, against India's working-level Official Visit. Naypyidaw did not ask Beijing to move up the queue.

Read more: Stimson Center

Two Phones a Year

Travelers coming into Myanmar by way of Yangon, Naypyidaw or Mandalay may bring in only two mobile phones a year. Unregistered devices need to be declared at customs with their IMEI numbers, and any phone that’s used in-country for more than 30 days will trigger a CEIR registration, result in a tax bill and a fine.

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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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.

ASEAN Breaks Junta Ban and Wins Backlash

Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro, as ASEAN Chair's Special Envoy on Myanmar, held an informal meeting with junta Foreign Minister Tin Maung Swe in Bangkok on July 12, the first high-level engagement since the bloc suspended “senior” contact in 2021. Lazaro didn’t ask for any break from hostilities as a condition for the talks. Former foreign ministers Saifuddin Abdullah of Malaysia and Kasit Piromya of Thailand, as well as three former UN experts from the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, said on July 18 that the Philippines' chairmanship was in a "tailspin." The DFA fired back the next day by saying the criticism was "malicious and misleading" and reaffirming the 2021 Five-Point Consensus as ASEAN's framework. On July 13, the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union, which groups the KNU, KIO, KNPP and CNF, met Thai officials and ASEAN's envoy in a closed-door session, refusing any table with junta representatives and telling diplomats that Naypyidaw no longer controls the territory it claims. ASEAN foreign ministers will hold their informal Myanmar consultation in Manila tomorrow.

Read more: Bangkok Post (Suu Kyi), Mizzima (UN rights council), Gmanetwork (DFA rebuttal), BNI Online (SCEF sincerity doubts), DVB (Starlink appeal)

Starlink Axes 13 Million

More than one in five Starlink terminals in Myanmar have gone dark since the beginning of the month, cutting service to more than 13 million people and nearly 800,000 students who use it to log into virtual schools run by the National Unity Government in Kachin, Karenni, Sagaing and Mandalay. SpaceX has told users the terminals aren't licensed to operate in the country and some now need government-issued ID to reconnect, a tightening that follows the company's disabling of more than 2,500 terminals last year after US lawmakers connected smuggled dishes to border scam compounds. On July 17, a coalition of 255 civil society groups wrote to Elon Musk asking him to keep the service running. SpaceX has not yet made a public reply.

Read more: DVB

Two Boats Vanish Off Rakhine, 500 Feared Dead

More than 500 people, most of them Rohingya, are thought to be dead after two boats vanished off the Rakhine coast. One boat, carrying about 250 passengers, lost contact shortly after leaving Rakhine State in late June, and the other, with about 280 aboard, is believed to have sunk off the Ayeyarwady coast on July 8. IOM and UNHCR announced the losses on July 16. The figures, if confirmed, would add to nearly 300 deaths or disappearances already recorded this year in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. That would put this year on pace to exceed the nearly 900 lives lost in 2025, the deadliest year on record.

Read more: Khaosod English, Iom, DVB, CNN, France 24

Three Bombs Fall on Ma-Ei

A military jet dropped three 500-pound bombs on Ma-Ei town in Rakhine's Taungup Township on July 19, killing five residents of Ward No. 2 and wounding 14. The Ma-Ei strike was one of a wave in Rakhine, Mandalay, and Sagaing over the weekend that killed at least six civilians and destroyed more than 25 homes, the latest in what resistance media says are near-daily strikes as Min Aung Hlaing's July 31 deadline for peace talks with ethnic armies and resistance groups gets nearer. The Arakan Army, which controls 14 of Rakhine's 17 townships, says it will continue to respond to every assault on territory under its administration.

Read more: DVB (cumulative death toll), BNI Online (victim identities), Narinjara (prior Gwa airstrikes)

TNLA Asks for Ta'ang State

TNLA delegates met the regime's peace committee in Naypyidaw on Sunday to ask for a recognized "Ta'ang State," promising it would stay part of the Union. No boundaries were specified in the request. The ask comes after a punishing run of losses. The group gave up Mogok and Momeik to the regime last November under a China-brokered ceasefire, lost Kutkai to former ally MNDAA in March, and was ordered to give up Namhkam, Namtu, Mongngawt and Monglon during talks on May 12 in Kunming.

Read more: DVB

PDF Blast Blacks Out Four Townships

Junta media says that insurgents from the People's Defense Force planted and detonated a mine at Tower No. 338 of the 132 kV main line near Paung Laung Kan village in Pakokku Township around 7:30 PM on July 19. The blast cut power to Pakokku, Yesagyo, Myaing, and Kamma townships and destabilized the Magway grid, causing voltage drops and outages in villages that are well outside the immediate blackout zone.

Read more: Myanmaritv

Suu Kyi Barred From Martyrs' Day, Again

Under a cellular blackout, Min Aung Hlaing laid down several wreaths at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in Yangon on July 19. Aung San Suu Kyi, 81, was barred from the ceremony for the fifth straight year. Her estranged older brother Aung San Oo sent a wreath; both of the junta's vice presidents skipped the event. Myanmar's ousted NLD demanded (again) this week that Suu Kyi be included in any political process. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights has written to Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and José Ramos-Horta in the Philippines (ASEAN chair) demanding proof she is alive, as foreign ministers gather in Manila this week for the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting.

Read more: BNI Online (sentence reduction), Aseanmp (proof-of-life demand), Mizzima (family representative)

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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