Media Coverage

Government and think tank representatives from Myanmar and its neighbors, including India and China, held talks in New Delhi on Tuesday as part of a secretive effort to de-escalate a bloody crisis in the army-run Southeast Asian nation, two sources said. The talks this week were the second in a...

Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged Myanmar’s ruling military to take the initiative in finding a way out of the country’s violent political crisis, including releasing political detainees, after a surprise meeting with the army leader who seized power two years ago. Ban met...

Myanmar’s military government on Monday granted amnesty to more than 3,000 prisoners to mark the traditional lunar New Year holiday, but it wasn’t immediately clear if those released included the thousands of political detainees locked up for opposing army rule. State-run MRTV television reported...

Human rights groups and opposition politicians in Thailand are criticizing the government for forcibly repatriating three men who were reportedly members of an anti-government resistance movement in military-ruled Myanmar. There has been serious fighting for the past two weeks in eastern Myanmar’s...

Afghan religious scholars Saturday criticized a ban on female education, as a key Taliban minister warned clerics not to rebel against the government on the controversial issue. Girls cannot go to school beyond sixth grade in Afghanistan, with the education ban extending to universities. Women are...

Fierce fighting between the Myanmar military and armed ethnic rebels has forced about 5,000 people to flee across the country's border into Thailand this week, officials and media said on Thursday. Myanmar's military government, which overthrew an elected government in a 2021 coup, is grappling with...

UN officials have condemned a Taliban decision to bar Afghan female staffers from working at the agency. Afghan women are already barred from working at national and international non-governmental organizations, disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid, but the ban did not previously cover...

A women-run radio station in Afghanistan’s northeast has been shut down for playing music during the holy month of Ramadan, a Taliban official said Saturday. Sadai Banowan, which means women’s voice in Dari, is Afghanistan’s only women-run station and started 10 years ago. Moezuddin Ahmadi, the...

Myanmar’s military government took another major step in its ongoing campaign to cripple its political opponents on Wednesday, dissolving dozens of opposition parties including that of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to meet a registration deadline ahead of elections. Suu Kyi’s National...

Calls mounted Wednesday for the Taliban to free a girls’ education activist arrested earlier this week in Kabul, as a minister in the Taliban-led government defended the detention. Matiullah Wesa, founder and president of Pen Path—a local nongovernmental group that travels across Afghanistan with a...