During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar in early 2020, the two governments signed concession and shareholders’ agreements for the Kyaukphyu SEZ, which is sited along the Arakan State coast and is backed by Beijing. The project is to include a deep-sea port, industrial zone and housing estate, and will use more than 4,200 acres of land. 

“I invite the leaders of ethnic armed organisations [EAOs] to talks. I will see all of you personally,” said junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in a televised address carried by state broadcaster Myanmar Radio and Television on April 22. 

Tinma village was once a so-called “model village,” with a cottage hospital and a basic education high school that neighbouring villages also relied on. Today, the village is anything but a model. Scores of homes in Tinma, as well as the village monastery, were damaged or destroyed in fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army (AA), which plagued much of Arakan State from late 2018 to 2020.

On April 10, 2009, 26 young people took a solemn oath to pursue a daunting dream on Ja Du Kaung Hill near Laiza, Kachin State, close to the Chinese border in northern Myanmar, where the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) ethnic armed group is headquartered. 

Myanmar’s military seized power from a democratically elected government on February 1, 2021, citing electoral fraud in the 2020 general election as the reason for their coup. More than a year after the takeover, people across the country are still resolutely resisting military rule, demanding a return to democracy. 

The Sat Yoe Kya Creek flows south of the Kaladan River to the Minkan River; about eight miles long, and was once a major commercial artery of Sittwe. As the population along the waterway grew over the years, its colour changed, gradually becoming more sullied by household waste and other pollutants, locals say.  

Local products from all over Myanmar are being exported to neighbouring Bangladesh through the Sittwe and Maungdaw border trade camps in Arakan State.

A final proposal seeking to designate Mrauk-U as a UNESCO World Heritage Site was submitted to the World Heritage Committee in Paris on December 30, according to the Department of Archeology and National Museum. The building of squatter homes and other alterations to the landscape, however, are among the activities that may be jeopardising the UNESCO heritage bid, conservationists say. 

The Arakan Army’s stay-at-home announcements were posted in public places and shops in towns and villages across the state, and the ethnic armed organisation’s outreach even included the release of videos by AA chief Maj-Gen Twan Mrat Naing, warning people about the dangers of Covid-19. 

Meanwhile, the regime council on December 30, 2021, announced that it would carry out required security affairs if NCA signatories breach provisions in the agreement. EAOs that signed the NCA responded to the announcement critically, raising questions about just who was guilty of breaching the NCA.

An interfaith football tournament that began last month and concluded on New Year’s Day is being touted as proof-positive that Arakan State’s diverse ethnic and religious communities can live together in harmony, and enjoy a bit of friendly sporting competition too. 

Myanmar is the second largest country in Southeast Asia, with a land area of 261,228 square miles (676,578 sq km). Myanmar’s coast spans about 1,385 miles, from the mouth of the Naf River in western Arakan State to Kawthaung, Tanintharyi Region, in the country’s southeast. 

In Myanmar, sex workers are addressed as “pyae taza” in polite form. The usage is derived from a Pali word, roughly translating to “those who decorate a country.” But they are also called far more demeaning terms, such as “porn girls” and “whores”. 

Over the course of Sai Din’s history, it has been known as Sit Tan Tin, Sein Tin and See Tin. It was renamed Sai Din in its later years. “Sai Din” is believed to have evolved from “Sit Tan Tin”, meaning the water of Sit Creek above the Sai Din Mountains — in other words, a waterfall formed by Sit Creek.

“There were no trash cans at Yan Aung Myay IDP camp. And people discarded their rubbish unsystematically,” said Ko Wai Yan Soe. “So, the environment is polluted with rubbish. We’ve now placed trash cans, and the municipality’s garbage truck comes every Monday to collect rubbish from the camp.” 

There was fierce fighting between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army in Arakan State for about two years, from December 2018 to approximately November 2020, displacing tens of thousands of people from their homes.  

Unfortunately, we humans are turning some of these precious mangroves into charcoal, while some mangrove forests are converted into salt fields. Some mangrove forests are being converted into housing projects. As a result of these changes, mangroves are slowly disappearing in Myanmar. 

More than 10,000 IDPs returned home this way in August alone, said an official from the Rakhine Ethnics Congress, a group that collects lists of IDPs in Arakan State. 

Many cannot afford to buy an entire package of sanitary pads, so they instead buy them individually at K200 per, a price that has risen as has the cost of many goods during the Covid-19 pandemic.