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The Post-Coup Death Toll Passes 100,000
ACLED has counted the number of conflict deaths since the February 2021 coup and says the total is 100,114, based on media reports from Asia's deadliest active war. Despite the carnage, the military now controls barely 30 percent of the territory it claims. A separate Assistance Association for Political Prisoners count counts child deaths at 1,083 through June, with 400 more cases still being checked. "I am so deeply resentful and very angry. But I don't even know who to be angry at anymore," said Thein Aye Nu, 49, whose husband was killed in a Rakhine air strike last month. The UN counts 3.7 million people internally displaced.
Read more: France 24 (conscription), Modern Ghana (refugees), Mizzima (child deaths)
Starlink Cuts 2,500 Terminals
More than 2,500 Starlink terminals (more than a fifth of the country’s active units) went dark after the company traced hardware routes through northern Shan State to scam compounds in Karen State's Myawaddy Township. Starlink has no license to run in the country. Users pay monthly fees starting at $100 and register terminals under addresses in Malaysia, Indonesia, or the Philippines, three Southeast Asian countries where Starlink is licensed. The downside is that the same workaround that kept scam compounds online has also kept resistance fighters and civilians connected through the junta's 2022 communications blackout. A People's Defence Force member in central Myanmar said backup communications exist, but none match Starlink's reach.
Read more: DVB (Thai seizures), Indo-Pacific Defense Forum (compounds)
Rohingya Mass at the Naf as Rakhine Fighting Reignites
Explosions loud enough to shake homes in Teknaf sent residents into panic as the military started a new offensive against the Arakan Army in Maungdaw and Buthidaung. Those are the Rakhine townships that emptied into Bangladesh in 2017. Hundreds of Rohingya have reportedly collected themselves along the Naf River to wait for a chance to cross, though Teknaf's executive officer says no confirmed crossings have been recorded. Border Guard Bangladesh has reinforced patrols, and Thailand has shut every crossing in Tak province after cross-border gunfire from fighting with the Karen National Liberation Army damaged homes there. Monsoon landslides killed at least eight Rohingya in Cox's Bazar, part of a settlement of 1.2 million where monthly food rations have been cut from $12 to as little as $7.
Read more: TBS News (border pressure), Anadolu Agency (Teknaf panic), DVB (landslide toll), UCA News (Arakan Army tensions)
Junta Blocks ASEAN Envoy From Seeing ASSK
Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro was turned away a second time, (now in her capacity as ASEAN's special envoy), when she asked to see the embattled Aung San Suu Kyi. Junta spokesperson Khaing Khaing Soe said the 81-year-old Nobel laureate, moved from prison to a "designated residence" in May, is "not allowed to meet with international representatives" and might be granted permission "only after her sentence" (that’s about 19 years away). The visitor list is short, with former Thai foreign minister Don Pramudwinai getting in during July 2023 and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in April. Manila welcomed an amnesty for about 4,500 prisoners but repeated its call to free the rest, Suu Kyi included.
Read more: Straits Times (ASEAN envoy), The Diplomat (summit ban), PNA (Philippines stance), DVB (displacement)
Beijing Detains ISP-Myanmar Director, Then Hosts Junta Chief
Min Zin, the American executive director of ISP-Myanmar, disappeared in Kunming on June 3 after Chinese authorities detained him on suspicion of espionage, twelve days before Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Beijing for his first state visit since 2021. The trip resulted in about 70 business MoUs and 18 state-level agreements. Thirty days in detention have now passed, the threshold under Chinese law when formal charges can be filed, but none have yet been announced. An ISP-Myanmar analysis published shortly before his disappearance described the country as "tethered to Beijing's inescapable influence." The Chinese embassy in Washington has not responded to a request for comment.
Read more: Newsweek (wrongfully detained call)
Sky Villa Developer Gets Five Years, Two Below Statutory Minimum
A Mandalay court sentenced Naing Tun Lin, owner of N.T.L. Construction Company, to five years for criminal negligence in the Sky Villa condo collapse during the March 2025 earthquake, which is two years short of the seven-year minimum set by Section 304-A of the penal code. The 11-story building housed more than 400 tenants when it fell; about half survived. N.T.L. paid families of 146 victims 10 million MMK, about $2,500, for units that had sold for up to 650 million MMK, or $160,000. The ruling comes as the World Bank published its estimate of nationwide quake damage at $11 billion, about 14 percent of GDP, with the economy still contracting a year on.
Read more: DVB (survivor outrage), ReliefWeb (nationwide recovery)
Junta and Laos Sign Off on a Mekong Dam Study
The junta chief spent three days in Vientiane and came away with an agreement on a joint feasibility study for a 2,790-megawatt hydropower project on the Mekong border with Laos, signed by Primus Sapphire Power and Laos's Phongsupthavy Group. The study will run for 34 months and covers technical and economic viability only, with no site location, no investment figure, and no discussion of how the power would get divvied up. The Mekong makes up about 240 kilometers of border between eastern Shan State and northern Laos, and Tachileik, cut off from Thai electricity in 2025, now leans on imports from Laos, which calls itself the "Battery of ASEAN." The deal builds on a 2018 electricity MOU that was extended for five more years in 2023.
Read more: Nation Thailand (Win Myint visit), The Star (GMS energy goals), New Day Myanmar (construction not authorized)
Xi Pitches Bangladesh a Kunming-to-Bay of Bengal Corridor
Xi Jinping pitched Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman a 1,700 km trade corridor from Kunming to the Bay of Bengal during Rahman's Beijing visit. The route would run through Mandalay and Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State before finding Chattogram and Mongla ports. The plan revives the old Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor, which was dropped from Belt and Road plans by 2019 as Sino-Indian ties soured. Ambassador Yao Wen says India is welcome back "if they are willing to join." Dhaka is not biting yet. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman said peace in Rakhine needs to come first, and that is a large condition in a state where the junta controls somewhere between a fifth and 30 percent of the territory, depending on who you ask.
Read more: NDTV
Lukashenko Makes Fifth Visit to Naypyitaw
Aleksandr Lukashenko went to the capital for a one-day visit, his fifth sit-down with the junta chief and second trip to the country since 2021, sandwiched between stops in China and Indonesia. The talks were centered on economic, industrial, agricultural, and pharmaceutical cooperation, with Lukashenko saying the relationship is a model for the region. The general thanked Belarus for sending observers to the junta-run elections. A June 2025 Justice for Myanmar report alleged Belarus has supplied air defense technology and training to the military. Neither side has talked about that publicly.
Read more: DVB (air defense supply), Belsat EU (Lukashenka)
Junta Asks Tokyo to Restart Aid, Gets Nowhere
Parliament spokesperson Khin Khin Soe said "ordinary citizens will suffer" from Japan's aid freeze, in place since 2021. Tokyo, which said the junta-run elections held in December 2025 and January 2026 were likely to "invite more resistance," has so far been unmoved. Human Rights Watch wants sanctions tightened instead, and reminded everyone of past junta misdeeds including those of a military-owned conglomerate that profited from Japan's Bago River Bridge project and army misuse of Japan-funded boats to move troops and weapons into Rakhine State in 2022.
Read more: Human Rights Watch
The Matriculation Exam Loses Three-Quarters
Only 255,228 students sat this year's matriculation exam, down from almost a million before the coup. The pass rate rose to about 52 percent, producing a little more than 130,000 graduates. That’s about as many as the old system used to fail.
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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