Posts Tagged with "Myanmar"

Welcome to Northern Rakhine State – but watch out for ISIS

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

0 Comments

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 [...]

Continue reading...

At Thailand’s mosque for crippled Rohingya

Sunday, February 23, 2014

0 Comments

We found Akram sprawled helplessly on a makeshift wooden bed in a village mosque in southern Thailand. His teenage body was malnourished and covered with fly-blown pressure sores. His breathing was rapid and shallow, and he gasped for breath as he told his story. Akram was one of about 25 Rohingya Muslims rescued from a [...]

Continue reading...

Burma through bilious eyes

Friday, July 19, 2013

0 Comments

In The Fight, his classic account of the “Rumble in the Jungle”, Norman Mailer arrives in Zaire to learn that George Foreman has cut his eye during training and the showdown with Muhammad Ali is postponed. This is just as well, because Mailer is suffering from “some viral disruption” and is in no shape for [...]

Continue reading...

Jailing dissidents is not only a Burmese tradition

Monday, December 31, 2012

0 Comments

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 [...]

Continue reading...

Suu Kyi is in the House

Saturday, October 6, 2012

0 Comments

The worst-kept secret in Naypyitaw, the eerily under-populated capital of Myanmar, is who lives in a new bungalow in its dusty northern suburbs. The house looks unwelcoming, and perhaps it’s meant to. It is painted a penitential shade of beige and ringed by a high fence topped with razor wire. “To protect against enemies,” said [...]

Continue reading...