Myanmar

News Roundup: Navy SEALS under investigation in Special Forces murder, George Washington plaques too triggering for church, nude airsofter arrested with drugs/porn

What happened here???: WASHINGTON — Navy criminal authorities are investigating whether two members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 strangled to death an Army Green Beret on assignment in Mali in June, military officials say. Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar, a 34-year-old veteran of two deployments to Afghanistan, was found dead on June 4 […]

Marginalized Medicine: when you have to carry them out

Imagine carrying a struggling pregnant woman through the bowels of the jungle, pushing your body and straining your spirit just to get her somewhere where she might have a shot at surviving. This kind of thing happens every day. The jungles of Burma (Myanmar) have suffered through a devastating civil war for over 70 years. While […]

Marginalized Medicine: surgery in the sticks

“It’s a lot of make it up as you go.” Dr. Jack Chamberlain has been practicing medicine in rural areas around the world since 1993.  A U. S. based physician turned humanitarian aid worker, he has practiced medicine everywhere from the ER of Detroit to the war-torn jungles of Burma. “Marginalized medicine” is a term […]

The Karen and the Burmese Army: an insider’s perspective

Fighting between the Karen people and the Burmese (Myanmar) government dates back to World War II.  I went for a trip into the jungles of Burma to meet with the Karen people back in 2015, and it was quite the profound experience. The conflict between the Burmese and its surrounding ethnic minorities has been described […]

A stateless people: The difficulties of refugees with no official identification

The Rohingya crisis in the east rages on.  The number of Syrian refugees is still absolutely staggering.  Afghani displacement remains commonplace as the war with the Taliban continues. What do these crises have in common?  Stateless people. It’s true, they may or may not be generally recognized as citizens by their governments, but in a world […]

Myanmar versus Burma: what’s the difference?

Burma and Myanmar are often referred to together, words used interchangeably to describe what sounds like the same country.  And that’s just it–it is the same country.  So why the two names? The government of Myanmar is known for the ongoing conflicts within its borders, dating all the way back to World War II.  It […]

How Bangladeshis are coping with half a million new Rohingya refugees

The sudden arrival of half a million Rohingya Muslims has upended life in this humble village, which is now overshadowed by one of the largest concentrations of refugees in the world. The village’s rundown school and a smattering of rice paddies sit across the road from thousands of acres of bamboo huts covered by black […]

Myanmar government head disputes claims of widespread violence against Muslim minority

Amid the ongoing crisis with Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim population, de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi issued a steadily defiant public address yesterday, effectively dismissing international claims of ethnic cleansing and other crimes on behalf of Myanmar’s military. Over 400,000 Muslims from Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya minority in Rakhine state have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, and […]

US official barred from Myanmar conflict zone

Myanmar said on Friday a visiting US official would not be allowed to go to a region where violence has triggered an exodus of nearly 400,000 Rohingya Muslims that the United Nations has branded a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy will voice Washington’s concerns about the Rohingya and […]