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Headlines:
Junta Drops 400 Bombs, Calls It an Election
Ten Neighbors, Zero Legitimacy
Five Years In, Nobody's Winning Myanmar's War
Fifteen Firing Squads, One Message
Tehran's Tankers Keep Junta's Jets Flying
The Hague Weighs the G-Word
Lost Generation Dies Behind Bars
All Is Forgiven, Please Come Back
London's Sanctions Gather Dust
Junta Drops 400 Bombs, Calls It an Election
The junta wrapped up its month-long electoral charade on January 25 having killed at least 170 civilians in 408 airstrikes during the voting period - 2025 is already the deadliest year for bombings-from-the-sky since the coup. The junta was able to muster votes in just 263 of 330 townships, mostly urban areas it controls, even as it barred opposition candidates, excluded the Rohingya entirely, and handed out long prison sentences for things like posting anti-election materials online. More than 100 villagers in Sagaing were detained on January 6 and marched to polling stations in what UN rights chief Volker Türk described as "forcing people to the ballot box" rather than democracy. One January 22 airstrike in Kachin State's Bhamo Township killed as many as 50 civilians in an area with no reported combatants.
Read more: Spacewar (UN airstrike death toll), Myanmar-Now (Civilian airstrike casualties), Straits Times (Regional coverage), Hindustan Times (Junta aerial campaign)
Ten Neighbors, Zero Legitimacy
ASEAN delivered a rare unanimous backhand to the junta by refusing to recognize the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party's claimed sweep of the vote. Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro confirmed the bloc "has not endorsed the three phases of the elections that were held" - a hardening from ASEAN's usual dodge-and-deflect approach to Myanmar's mess. Singapore's Vivian Balakrishnan spelled out the subtext: no ceasefire and inclusive dialogue means no legitimacy. The rejection matters because ASEAN has always been inclined to privilege non-interference over moral clarity, so this could be an inflection point for those betting the bloc will eventually cave to Beijing's softer line. China, predictably, was congratulatory on the "an active turnout,” though 55% of people showing up is hardly a ringing endorsement when they’ve got guns pointed their way.
Read more: Inquirer (ASEAN rejects elections), Yahoo News SG (Blow to military rulers), Mizzima (Resistance condemns military)
Five Years In, Nobody's Winning the War
Min Aung Hlaing's coup bet was simple: crack down hard, the people will fold, business as usual in a year or two. Five years later, he finds himself in control of less than 40% of the land, more than three and a half million people have fled their homes. Half the country's children are out of school, airstrikes hit hospitals and festivals with regularity, and more than 22,000 political prisoners are languishing in detention (Aung San Suu Kyi, mostly famously, among them), with her exact whereabouts unknown even to her family. It’s a grinding stalemate where no side can obviously win, in any real sense of the word.
Read more: Mizzima (Rights groups warn), The Independent (After five years), Mizzima (Resistance unity key), EU Council (EU statement), Sky News (Deepening crisis)
Fifteen Executions Deliver One Message
Beijing just put 15 people in front of the firing squad for running Myanmar scam compounds, including members of the Ming and Bai crime families. Their operations reportedly pulled in $4.2 billion and left at least six Chinese citizens dead. The executions are the sharpest display yet of China's crackdown. The Shenzhen court didn't mince words, calling the crimes "exceptionally heinous" and specifically showing how they combined fraud with kidnapping, extortion, forced prostitution, and drug trafficking.
Read more: Meyka (China Executes 11), Tribune India (China expands executions)
Tehran Tankers Fuel Junta Jets
Birds of a feather flock together? It appears that sanctioned regimes make for reliable business partners as Iran has reportedly shipped about 175,000 tons of jet fuel to Myanmar's military since late 2024. Tehran is also said to be sending in big volumes of urea, a chemical that’s useful for fertilizer also handy as an explosives precursor.
Read more: Modern Diplomacy
The Hague Weighs the G-Word
The International Court of Justice wrapped up three weeks of hearings on whether Myanmar's 2017 military campaign - which sent 730,000 Rohingya scrambling for their lives to Bangladesh - crossed the line into genocide. Myanmar's lawyers are keen to sell a domestic accountability pitch by saying it’s all a misunderstanding: 139 cases have already been identified, soldiers have been court-martialed, and Myanmar has a robust, functioning justice system that needs no international meddling. A ruling is expected in three to six months. A finding of genocide would cement Myanmar's pariah status, so any firm with Myanmar exposure should be tinking about even worse sanctions scenarios.
Read more: Mizzima (Myanmar defense counsel), TBS News (Rohingya survivors expect ruling), Jakarta Post (Genocide finding expected)
Lost Generation Dies Behind Bars
The junta's prisons have become graveyards for the generation that briefly tasted democracy. At least 74 political prisoners aged 18 to 35 have died in detention since the coup. The reports of death jive with UN reports of systematic torture in detention centers, but of course the junta dismisses them as "one-sided and unfounded." Between 300,000 and 500,000 young people have already left the country, taking with them any chance of a quick rebuilding of what the generals have busily been destroying.
Read more: Nation Thailand (March for democracy), SL Guardian (Lost Generation Dies Behind Bars)
All Is Forgiven, Please Come Back
Five years after tens of thousands of civil servants including doctors, administrators, and other government workers walked off the job in protest, things still haven’t returned to normal. The junta's National Defence and Security Council said on Sunday that it's wiping "blacklists" clean for anyone willing to come back, as long as they haven't committed offenses or have already served their sentences. Last week's election delivered a walkover win for the pro-military party, but didn't solve the basic problem of keeping ministries staffed. Whether economic desperation will trump political conviction remains to be seen, but the offer itself is an admission that running the country is hard when anyone competent refuses to show up.
Read more: SCMP
London's Sanctions Gather Dust
Britain has gone 460 days without fresh Myanmar sanctions . The UK once led the charge in coordinating international pressure, but these days seems content to watch from the sidelines while Washington, Brussels, and Canberra do the heavy lifting. Burma Campaign UK is calling out the silence, pointing out that ministers now even dodge questions in parliament with boilerplate about "constant review." No explanation is yet available for why London seems to have abandoned its systematic approach to choking off the military's money and weapons, but sanctions fatigue is real, even if no one wants to say that part out loud.
Read more: Mizzima
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Great compilation of the Myanmar situaiton. The ASEAN rejection carries more weight than people realize because its usually their go-to move to just stay quiet and let things slide. When all ten members actually agree on something critical it means the junta's legitimacy problem just got way more real. I lived in Bangkok for abit and saw how these dynamics play out regionally.