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Tonight at around 9.30pm a fire broke out in Zone B Section 4 and 5 at Mae La Refugee Camp on the Thai Burma Border in Thailand’s Tak Province. A Karen News reporter, at the camp spoke to a camp resident, Saw Hla Win, who was close to the fire when it broke out. “We were asleep. Most people were…

General Baw Kyaw Heh, the Karen National Liberation Army’s vice-chief-of-staff, in an exclusive question and answer interview with Karen News discussed the consequences of mega- development projects, hydro-dams, armed conflict, corruption, the current ceasefire, peace talks and the militarization of Burma. Why are you opposed to a dam? Many reasons – too many dams bring too many problems, costs and…

The government’s Union Peacemaking Working Committee (UPWC) and the ethnic armed groups’, National Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT), agreed during their last meeting to draft a single nationwide ceasefire agreement. After a two-day meeting, held on the 9th and 10th of March, 2014, representatives of UPWC and the NCCT agreed to form a working committee composed of people from both groups…

Thick haze has blanketed the Thai-Burma border district of Mae Sot with local residents claiming it is the worst in living memory. Thick smoke made highways dangerous, caused airline flights in and out of Mae Sot to be cancelled forcing visitors into taking lengthy bus trips. Dense smoke swallowed heavily laden timber trucks as they drove down the Asia Highway…

Mu The village is in a tight spot. Not only is it in Karen National Union-held territory abutting Burmese government-controlled territory, but it is geographically remote as well. Virtually no outside aid made its way in during the long-running civil war that has only compounded the village’s isolation. This situation changed abruptly in August 2012, when a single truck laden…

A new research centre, called the Pyi Duang Su Institute for Peace and Dialogue (PI), opened in Chiang Mai this week with the aim of providing “technical assistance” to stakeholders in the peace process, said PI’s director in an interview with Karen News. Kheun Sai Jaiyen, PI’s director and an editor at the Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N), said…

Migrant workers, millions of whom come from neighboring Burma, are being cast adrift in a chaotic migration system – known as the National Verification Scheme – forcing them to pay as much as 10 times the official cost for their documents in Thailand, according to the Migrant Workers Rights Network (MWRN). “More than 1.7 million Myanmar workers have been cheated…

Migrant schools working in Thailand’s border town of Mae Sot are bringing hopes of a better future for students, many of whom face huge challenges in just trying to survive. “Last Sat…tehr…day! They went to the stay…di…um! To watch the foot…bawl match!” Shwe Sin Win booms, her voice bouncing off the concrete walls of the small classroom – twenty children…

A major dam and highway project in Shan State is destroying the livelihoods of locals, displacing people from dozens of villages, leading to heavy militarization in the area and contaminating water supplies, according to a human rights group. Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) has expressed grave concerns over the impacts on locals of Burma’s first dam project to span the…

In a show of unity and strength, representatives from 17-armed resistance groups met in Karen State in January for five days to discuss a nationwide ceasefire agreement for Burma. The ethnic armed groups met at Law Khee Lar in Karen State and hailed the conference as a success. The ethnic armed group, under its working title, the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination…