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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
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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