Legal Matters

U.S. President Joe Biden will visit Phnom Penh next month for two regional summits, according to the White House, which said the trip will underscore America’s “enduring commitment to Southeast Asia” amid a growing rivalry for influence between Beijing and Washington. Biden will join leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, for one of the last summits of Cambodia’s chairmanship of the group, as well as the East Asia Summit, which has historically also included leaders from Russia, China, Japan and India and Australia. The Nov. 12-13 trip comes amid a flurry of summits, with Biden also

The United States on Thursday targeted three Myanmar citizens and a company it said were helping the junta that seized power in the Southeast Asian country early last year to procure weapons, the U.S. Treasury Department said. The military staged a coup in February 2021, detaining democratic leaders including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, then violently suppressed protests, sparking off a spiraling conflict. Western nations have issued sanctions against the military and its businesses. The Treasury said in a statement it was imposing sanctions on Myanmar businessman Aung Moe Myint, the son of a military officer who it said facilitated arms

Uyghur activists and human rights groups expressed outrage on Thursday over the voting down of a U.S. proposal that the United Nations Human Rights Council hold a debate on a recent report by the body’s rights chief on abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. China and its allies on the 47-member Council defeated the proposal in a 19-17 vote, with 11 abstentions. The U.S. filed a motion on Sept. 26 demanding that the Geneva-based council organize the discussion in response to a damning report issued a month earlier by former U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet. Bachelet’s report, released on the final

At least 145 people have died while being interrogated by authorities in Myanmar over the 19 months since the military seized control of the country in a coup, according to an investigation by RFA Burmese. Rights groups and Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) noted that many of the victims found to have died in custody between the Feb. 1, 2021 putsch and the end of September 2022 were members of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) party, and likened their deaths to “war crimes.” The most recent detainees to die during interrogation were NLD MP for Kachin state’s

A morning raid with heavy artillery shelling by the Myanmar junta military injured five people in a village in the war-torn central region of Sagaing, villagers said Monday. Residents said two houses burned down after being struck by shells Sunday morning in Sagaing region’s Wetlet township. A local resident, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that about 40 fully armed junta soldiers arrived at the village early on Sunday morning and shelled Ywar Thar Gyi village. “The village is next to the road, so there are no significant defense forces and only passers-by,” the local said.

Myanmar’s junta has banned domestic and international NGOs operating humanitarian programs, including United Nations relief agencies, from traveling to six townships of Rakhine state, aid workers said Friday. A staffer with an international NGO, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA Burmese that the organization had received a letter from the Rakhine Ministry of Security and Border Affairs on Thursday explaining that it had been immediately barred from traveling to the townships of Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Rathedaung, Mrauk-U, Minbya and Myebon. “The letter said permission to travel to the six townships in Rakhine is restricted, but it didn’t

A court in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region has sentenced 56 ethnic Rohingya to two years in prison.They were arrested on Aug. 21 in Wakema township and the sentences were handed down by the township’s court on Tuesday under Section 6 (3) of the Residents R…

Highlights• Rising tensions between the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and the Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine and southern Chin since June have led to frequent armed clashes, including the use of heavy weapons and airstrikes. The renewed conflict follows a te…