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Attacks on journalists in Myanmar highlight complications, dangers for the media

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The murder of a Burmese reporter investigating illegal logging and the roadside beating of another, both in Myanmar earlier this week, have raised new fears about media safety in the country.

Soe Moe Tun, a 37 year-old Burmese reporter with Daily Eleven newspaper, was found “severely beaten” to death by the side of a highway near the town of Monywa in Myanmar’s central Sagaing region on Dec. 13. Police are investigating his murder but robbery doesn’t appear to be the motive: his valuables were found at the crime scene.

Another victim of illegal logging and forest crime?

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The killing in Myanmar of a journalist who covered issues related to illegal logging in the country must be investigated thoroughly and all findings made public.

Soe Moe Tun was based in the Sagaing region, working with Eleven Media News in Myanmar. According to initial reports today (December 13), he was found with extensive head and facial injuries; local police have begun an investigation into his death.

Launch of Open Data Portal Brings Environment and Development Data to Myanmar

By Paritta Wangkiat

USAID-supported Mekong Partnership for the Environment (MPE) partners have launched an innovative data portal in Myanmar. Open Development Myanmar is now available to the public and will aggregate and promote key development and environmental data about Myanmar, especially data with potential regional significance. The platform is the Myanmar sub-site of the major regional open data platform, Open Development Mekong, which gathers and contextualizes objective data on development trends in the Mekong region.

Myanmar Rivers Network calls suspensions of mega dam projects including resources

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

Myanmar Rivers Network has called for the suspension of construction on mega dam projects, a special economic zone and extraction of value-added mineral resources until a federal agreement is signed.

At a press conference at the Orchid Hotel on December 7, the network released a statement saying that the respective governments and companies must give full compensations to villagers who had been moved by force because of previous dam construction projects.

“My Spirit is There”: Life in The Shadow of The Mong Ton Dam

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

Before reaching the Keng Kham valley, the bright green Pang river, the Salween’s major tributary running south through central Shan state, splits into three parallel rivers that form myriad channels creating islands and islets, blurring the line between forests and water in a pristine and biodiverse riverscape. Rarely seen by outsiders, these are the famed “thousand islands,” forming a stunning inland delta that gives the “Kunhing” township its name. To the south, the Pang meets the Salween in a cascade of waterfalls. Seen from the air, white water tumbles down through verdant forested islands on an escarpment hundreds of meters long.

Off-grid solar to help Myanmar bring electricity to all by 2030

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

Four feet in length, of aggressive disposition, and deadly poisonous: you don’t want to stand on a Russell’s viper in the dark. Especially if there’s no antivenom for miles around. Yet that’s the daily predicament facing millions of villagers in Myanmar, where snakebites cause about 500 deaths every year.

In Yin Ma Chaung, a rural settlement about nine hours by car from Yangon, villagers can rest easier knowing there are doses of antivenom chilling securely in a new refrigerator in the village’s community centre, powered by solar.

Myanmar director takes his film to Luang Prabang

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The film is a powerful indictment of the country’s rogue crime and drug-infested jade mines, though at its core it is a human story of brothers reuniting and reconnecting, of attempting to define the inexplicable. Shot is Mandalay and Hpakant, Kachin State’s “city of jade”, the movie took two years to complete. Production was steeped in technical and cultural challenges, says Midi Z. The harsh physical environment, as well as cultural factors made production particularly difficult.

Damming the Salween: what next for Southeast Asia’s last great free-flowing river?

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

It’s difficult to encapsulate, as an outsider, how significant the Salween is in the hearts, minds and identities of the ethnic communities who live in its watershed. “From the Land of Green Ghosts,” Pascal Khoo Htwe’s autobiographical account of life in conflict-ridden eastern Myanmar is flecked through with references to the “legendary River Salween,” the river he refers to as “an old friend or a lover.” Meeting with Salween riverine communities in Myanmar today, Pascal Khoo Htwe’s depiction of his relationship with the river burns strong – they still talk about it all the time.