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This photo taken on September 12, 2022 shows the members of the Nay Pyi Taw People Defense Force running at the frontline frontline in Mobyae, Southern Shan State, Myanmar.
What We’re Watching: China gets “heavy” in Myanmar, Nigeria violence surges, Bangladesh’s ex-leader approved lethal crackdown
China wields rare earths leverage in Myanmar’s civil war
You might not have heard of Kachin State in Myanmar, but the region, which lies along the Chinese border, supplies nearly half of the world’s “heavy rare earths.” Those minerals are crucial ingredients in high tech manufacturing. Much of Kachin is controlled by rebel groups battling the Myanmar junta, and until now China has bought the minerals directly from the rebels. But Beijing, recently drawing closer to Myanmar’s ruling junta, has now threatened to halt buying minerals from the rebels unless they stand down. If they do, it would be a big win for the ruling junta. But if the rebels stand firm and China follows through with the threat to halt purchases, global high-tech supply chains could face serious disruptions.
Violence in Nigeria has surged in 2025
According to Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, various militant groups killed at least 2,266 people in the first half of 2025 alone, a total higher than the 2,194 deaths for all of last year. For decades, Nigeria has faced violence and terror from the jihadist militants of Boko Haram, but the country’s security problems extend well beyond that to include northern insurgencies, secessionists in the oil-rich southern states, clashes between farmers and herders in central states, and criminal gangs in multiple regions. Nigeria’s military and police are fighting multi-front battles that appear to be getting worse fast.
Leaked audio reveals that ousted Bangladesh leader authorized lethal crackdown
Nearly a year ago, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called for an investigation into who was responsible for killing up to 1,400 people during last summer’s student protests against her rule. Now, the former leader has egg on her face, after a leaked audio revealed that she herself authorized her security forces to “use lethal weapons” against demonstrators. The leak comes as Hasina, who fled to India a year ago, faces trial in absentia for crimes against humanity.Russian Minister of Transport Roman Starovoit attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, Russia January 30, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Fired Russian official found dead, X calls out India, Myanmar clashes drive refugee wave, Liberian president offers apology
$246 million: Ousted Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit was found dead in his car with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on Monday, just hours after being fired by President Vladimir Putin. Starovoit, a former governor of the Kursk region – which was invaded by Ukraine last summer – was potentially implicated in an embezzlement probe focused on $246 million which was earmarked for border defenses. The Kremlin says that it was “shocked” to learn about his death.
2,355: X said the Indian government ordered it to take down 2,355 accounts last week, including two belonging to Reuters. The Indian government, which has come under fire from press freedom watchdogs in recent years, said it had “no intention” of blocking international news orgs. X warned that it was “deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India.”
4,000: Clashes between armed groups in Myanmar have driven around 4,000 refugees across the border into India’s Mizoram state in recent days. While both of the warring groups oppose Myanmar’s military junta, they are also competing for territorial control among themselves.
200,000: Liberian President Joseph Bokai issued a formal state apology to victims of the country’s brutal 14-year civil war, as part of the country’s ongoing reconciliation campaign. The war, which raged from 1989 until 2003, claimed the lives of around 200,000 people and saw widespread abuses including mass killings, rape, and the use of child soldiers.
Rescuers work at the site of a building that collapsed after the strong earthquake in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Sunday, March 30, 2025.
Myanmar struggles to cope with aftermath of quake
The death toll continues to rise in Myanmar after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck near the central city of Mandalay on March 28. Approximately 1,700 people are dead and over 3,400 injured, with the US Geological Service estimating that casualties could top 10,000. The quake caused extensive damage to infrastructure, including bridges, roads, and hospitals, and left thousands homeless. Relief operations are further complicated by Myanmar’s ongoing civil war — the opposition said it would commence a two-week ceasefire in earthquake-affected areas, even as the junta reportedly continued bombing civilian areas.
Who’s helping? The international response has been broad and swift. The United Nations allocated $5 million for immediate relief efforts, the EU pledged $2.7 million in emergency aid, and Australia provided AU$2 million through the Red Cross. China, Russia, India, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore have sent rescue and medical teams, while Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand, and Malaysia are also providing assistance.
What about the US? President Donald Trump has offered help, but former officials with USAID question how cuts to that agency will impact relief efforts. The US pledged $2 million in aid “through Myanmar-based humanitarian assistance organizations” and said in a statement that an emergency response team from USAID is deploying to the country. However, Sarah Charles, a former senior USAID official during the Biden administration, described the agency as “in shambles” and lacking the necessary personnel and resources for disaster relief, such as rescuing survivors trapped in collapsed buildings. We’ll be watching whether America is able to deliver assistance effectively – and how that help is received.A soldier from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) on the outskirts of Myawaddy, the Thailand-Myanmar border town under the control of a coalition of rebel forces led by the Karen National Union, in Myanmar, April 15, 2024.
Myanmar militia retakes symbolic capital from junta forces
In a major symbolic blow to the junta that controls Myanmar, fighters from the Karen National Union’s armed wing retook the eastern town of Manerplaw on Wednesday, nearly 30 years after first losing it.
The background: The junta has held power since a 2021 coup, but has been on its back foot this year, facing losses along its borders with Thailand, China, India, and Bangladesh, as ethnic militias team up with pro-democracy fighters to press government troops from all sides.
The KNU has been fighting for independence since 1949, and has long seen Manerplaw as the eventual seat of its government. The town became an important symbol for many resistance groups after the military crushed major pro-democracy demonstrations in the big cities in 1988, but the junta was able to exploit rivalries between local groups of Buddhists and Christians in order to seize the Manerplaw in 1995. That triggered a deluge of refugees fleeing across the border into Thailand, where thousands remain to this day.
Will the junta be forced to negotiate soon? It’s too early to say. The victory is sure to inspire the KNU and other ethnic militias and pro-democracy groups, but for all their success on the rugged periphery of the country, anti-junta rebels have yet to pose a serious threat to the major population centers in the lowlands at the center of Myanmar. Their success will depend on maintaining unity and a shared vision of a federal, democratic Myanmar.A view of the city of Tehran, Iran, amid pollution.
Hard Numbers: Tehran’s pollution closes schools, Social media swing vote, Militia controls Myanmar-Bangladesh border, Signs of Assad-era torture, Big boost for Ukraine
10 million: Officials in Tehran, a city of more than 10 million people, closed elementary schools and kindergartens on Saturday and Sunday because of dangerous levels of air pollution. On Tuesday, they announced the closure of all governmental offices, universities, and schools on Wednesday and Thursday. Schools will move classes online. In Iran, schools are generally open from Saturday to Wednesday.
45: A new survey found that 45% of “Swing voters” in the US presidential election reported getting most of their news from social media. Just 39% cited local news as their primary source of information, and 38% cited broadcast news.
168: A militia fighting on behalf of the Buddhist Rakhine minority group has driven Myanmar’s army out of its last outpost along the country’s 168-mile border with Bangladesh. This rebel group now claims control of the northern part of Rakhine state, where locals have pushed for independence.
40: The HTS rebels who now control Syria’s government say their search of a hospital morgue has discovered 40 bodies that show signs of torture by former dictator Bashar Assad’s security forces. Human rights groups say more than 100,000 people have disappeared since Assad ordered the 2011 crackdown on protests that ignited the country’s civil war.
20 billion: The US confirmed that it has sent $20 billion to Ukraine from seized Russian assets as part of a $50 billion G7 package to make Russia “bear the costs of its illegal war, instead of taxpayers," in the words of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The US Treasury transferred the $20 billion to a World Bank fund; money handled by the World Bank cannot be used for military purposes. Instead, it is intended to be used for hospitals and emergency services. The move comes weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has said he would cut aid to Ukraine.
FILE PHOTO: At a secret jungle camp in Myanmar's eastern Karen state, a fitness coach and other civilians are training with armed ethnic guerrillas to fight back against the country's military takeover.
Myanmar junta calls for peace talks with minority militias — not pro-democracy fighters
After a year of rebel victories that have left Myanmar’s ruling junta on the defensive, its chairman, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, invited ethnic minority armies to peace talks in a state television broadcast on Tuesday. The junta's invitation likely aims to divide these groups from pro-democracy fighters from the ethnic Burmese majority.
About half of Myanmar’s 21 armed ethnic militias signed onto a cease-fire agreement between 2015 and 2018 during a period of democratic reform, but heavy hitters like the United Wa State Army and Kachin Independence Army stayed in the fight, and former signatories have since returned to combat.
Divide and conquer? Myanmar has experienced civil war since 1948, but the military has historically maintained control of the fertile and densely populated lowlands, even while minorities resisted in the hills and mountains. Only when ethnic Burmese rose up with the backing of the Buddhist clergy in 1988 and 2007 did the generals cede some political power.
But after the military toppled the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, her supporters formed the so-called National Unity Government and set up armed People’s Defense Forces. They’re believed to have up to 100,000 fighters, and the PDF has cooperated with allies from the highlands to wrest approximately 86% of Myanmar’s townships from junta control, including major border crossings.
So far, none of the major militias seem eager to take part, but we’re watching what measures of autonomy the junta might offer them to achieve a cease-fire — and to free up resources to crush the PDF.
FILE PHOTO: Myanmar's army chief General Min Aung Hlaing inspects troops during a parade to mark the 67th anniversary of Armed Forces Day in Myanmar's capital Naypyitaw March 27, 2012. The event commemorates the Burmese army's rising up against Japanese occupiers in 1945.
Myanmar launches census that rebels say will be used against them
On Tuesday, Myanmar’s ruling junta officially launched a census aimed at creating election rolls for a promised vote next year, but the armed opposition tied to the former democratic government of Aung San Suu Kyi, known as the National Unity Government, is urging citizens to comply with caution. They allege the military is using the census to collect information on the whereabouts of potential political dissidents as well as create lists of men eligible for military conscription.
The survey seems virtually impossible to complete accurately. The junta set a deadline of Oct.15 for most of the country but says it will wait until December for areas with intense fighting. They’ve hired just 42,000 employees to process over 56 million people, usually going door-to-door, when over half the country is under the control of hostile militias. If the junta creates voter rolls without a reliable census, it would delegitimize the election but may allow the military to retain power with a veneer of popular mandate.
The junta is hoping to change the dynamic of the war, which has shifted against them over the last year. Ethnic militias have united to seize border areas crucial for trade, and urban rebel groups are bringing violence into the junta’s core areas. A day before the census began, two bombs in the commercial capital Yangon injured 11 people in administrative offices. A guerilla organization known as Mission K claimed responsibility and specifically said it was over the census. We are watching whether the survey attracts more violence.Refugees from the Myanmar civil war near the Thailand-Myanmar border in June 2024.
Hard Numbers: Escalating war crimes in Myanmar, UN climate pact ignores fossil fuels, Waves of people leave New Zealand, Mpox spreads in Africa, US approves big arms deal for Israel
900: UN investigators in a new report on Tuesday warned that the Myanmar military is committing war crimes at an “alarming rate” as a devastating civil war continues to consume the country. The report, based on information collected from over 900 sources, says that thousands have been arrested and many have been “tortured or killed in detention.”
77: Dozens of former world leaders and Nobel Prize winners — 77 in total — signed an open letter protesting the exclusion of any mention of fossil fuels in the draft of a UN Climate Pact. “The extraction and burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of the climate crisis,” the letter states.
131,200: People are leaving New Zealand in droves, according to new government stats. Between June 2023 and June 2024, 131,200 people left the country – roughly a third went to Australia. This comes as New Zealand faces an array of economic problems, including high interest rates and rising unemployment.
15,000: The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday declared an outbreak of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has spread to other countries, a “public health emergency of continental security.” Over 15,000 mpox cases and 461 deaths have been reported in Africa so far this year. Overall, 18 countries have reported cases. The Africa CDC says it needs 10 million doses of the vaccine to deal with the outbreak, yet currently only has 200,000 and plans to secure more.
20 billion: The US has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, the State Department said Tuesday, including dozens of F-15 fighter jets, tactical vehicles, and advanced air-to-air missiles. But it could be years before Israel gets many of the weapons, as the package is designed to increase the Jewish state’s long-term security capabilities, and it takes time to fulfill sales of this size. The announcement of the massive arms deal comes less than a week before the beginning of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which is expected to be met with protests over US support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.