Welcome to Northern Rakhine State – but watch out for ISIS

Northern Rakhine State in western Burma has been off-limits to foreign journalists for decades. Since 2011, when President Thein Sein and his avowedly reformist government took power, only a handful of us have ever visited the region. That’s a shame, because it’s hard to understand Rakhine State’s tortured politics and geography without going there. It [...]

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Jailing dissidents is not only a Burmese tradition

Ever heard of Tun Aung? I hadn’t until researching my recent Reuters special report on Myanmar’s year of reforms. Human rights activists claim his plight is proof that the country’s reformist government, like the military junta it replaced, still relies on repressive laws and secretive trials to silence perceived enemies. Tun Aung, a practicing medical [...]

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