Myanmar releases hundreds of post-coup prisoners

Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to jail for inciting unrest and breaching Covid-19 rules, a verdict condemned by human rights groups and governments around the world as a travesty of justice. Since February's coup, the ruling junta has consolidated its power, not only through the arrests of Suu Kyi's party members, but also with a deadly crackdown on opponents. We take a closer look.

Over 30 people have been killed near the Myanmar village of Mo So, with activists and local media blaming the massacre on junta troops. Two people from Save the Children remain missing.

Charity Save the Children confirmed that its two missing staff were caught up in an attack that killed at least 35. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewed calls for the UN to impose an arms embargo in Myanmar.

2021 began with the promise of vaccines to the rescue. But as one variant begets another, rich nations talk of boosters and jabs for kids while much of the developing world still waits for first doses.

According to the United Nations, 82 million people had been displaced by wars and civil unrest at the end of 2020. Among them are stateless Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh facing constant setbacks in returning to their homeland Myanmar.

Sunday's resignation of the Sudanese civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok deprives coup leaders of their face of being the natural continuity between the revolution that toppled longtime strongman Omar el-Bachir in 2019 and a junta that's since scrapped power sharing and jailed key architects of the transition to democracy.

Hun Sen's trip marked the first official visit by a country's leader to Myanmar since last year's coup. It has angered local and international human rights campaigners.

Myanmar military apparently used civilians as 'target practice' – HRW's Phil Robertson

Myanmar says it's released more than 5,000 political prisoners as part of an amnesty for people arrested during pro-democracy protests in recent months. But critics of the ruling military junta say it is just a way to ease tensions with ASEAN.

A year after the military seized control of the country, Myanmar is facing a "multidimensional humanitarian crisis," the International Labour Organization has warned.

Is there no stopping all-out civil war in Myanmar? On the first anniversary of the coup that ended power sharing between Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and a military whose candidates had just been trounced in a general election, a silent strike took place to protest the brutal crackdown against calls to return to civilian rule. Can peaceful protest still work?

Colonel Assimi Goïta, who took power in Mali in an August 2020 coup, has been slow to put in place a promised transition to civilian rule. Now under international sanctions, the country has been gripped by nationalist and pan-African fever for several weeks. Relations with former colonial power France, which has deployed thousands of soldiers as part of an anti-jihadist force for nearly a decade, are strained to the point that Mali recently expelled the French ambassador. Meanwhile, the ruling junta in Bamako is welcoming new allies: members of the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group. Their presence has already been reported in certain areas of the country.