What's Happening in Myanmar – Details, episodes & analysis

Frontier Myanmar has a new podcast! Tune in for this first episode of What's Happening in Myanmar, the weekly show keeping you on top of the country's complex developments. In this episode, our guests discuss the pressure being brought to bear on Operation 10/27 and the MNDAA's control of Lashio, as well as the Arakan Army's encirclement of the Western RMC in Ann Township, the UN Special Envoy's trip to Nay Pyi Taw, and more. With guests Jason Tower, Country Director of the Burma program at the United States Institute for Peace; Ko Ye Mon, senior reporter with Frontier; and Ben Dunant, Editor-in-Chief at Frontier. Email the show with your questions and comments at podcast@whimyanmar.com and please like, subscribe, and review us on your favourite podcast platforms. 

With Ramona Drosner, Swiss journalist who completed a fellowship at Frontier, and Su Mon, Senior Analyst for the Asia-Pacific at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. This week on What's Happening in Myanmar, the Western Regional Military Command has fallen to the Arakan Army, mental health and addiction are being managed by communities on the Thailand border, and we do a review of conflict in the country for the year 2024.

Email the show at whimyanmar@proton.me

Timecodes—

1m11s :: Weekly news digest
3m55s :: Mental health & addiction
17m26s :: Conflict in 2024
30m50s :: Close

Our guests—

Ramona Drosner, Swiss journalist who completed a fellowship at Frontier:

The damage done: Fighting drug addiction inside Thailand's largest refugee camp
Healing wounds: How communities are tackling trauma in post-coup Myanmar

Su Mon, Senior Analyst for the Asia Pacific at the Armed Location and Event Data Project.

And here is a list of Burmese language mental health resources—

စိတ်လွင်ပြင်, a podcast where Myanmar celebrities in exile receive call-ins and provide advice to people going through hard times

Counselling Corner, an organisation providing counselling, family and group therapy

MHPSS Working Group, a network aiming to facilitate sustainable coordination between support services in Myanmar

With Zaw Win, Human Rights Specialist at Fortify Rights, and Hafsar Tameesuddin, Rohingya Activist and Co-Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network. This week on What's Happening in Myanmar, Maungdaw falls under Arakan Army control and we discuss what happens to the increasing number of Rohingya people who take desperate and dangerous boat journeys south from Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Email the show at whimyanmar@proton.me

Timecodes:

1m24s :: Weekly news digest
3m00s :: Fall of Maungdaw
21m28s :: Rohingya sea journeys
36m20s :: Trump Redux panel highlights
49m13s :: Close

Our guests—

Zaw Win, Human Rights Specialist at Fortify Rights:

Myanmar's Rohingya: From genocide to forced conscription
My Tears Could Make a Sea

Hafsar Tameesuddin, Co-Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network:

LinkedIn

With R. Lakher, independent Chin analyst. This week on What's Happening in Myanmar, the MNDAA makes a (genuine?) sue for peace, and we discuss armed resistance politics in Chin and Rakhine states.

Email the show at whimyanmar@proton.me

Timecodes:

1m07s :: Weekly news digest
4m42s :: The lack of support for refugees in India
21m28s :: Chin and Rakhine state resistance dynamics
36m28s :: Close

Our guest—

R. Lakher, independent Chin analyst:

India must do more for Myanmar refugees in Mizoram

R. Lakher is happy to be contacted for matters related to this discussion: +918731065896 (WhatsApp, Signal), peterjune20@gmail.com. 

For listeners interested in supporting the Mizoram refugee community, he recommends the organisation Lakher Social Welfare Foundation.

With Zarni, Senior Producer of Doh Athan, and Joe Freeman, Myanmar Researcher at Amnesty International.

This week on What's Happening in Myanmar, the ICC applies for an arrest warrant for Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, traumatized Rohingya arrive in Bangladesh, and we get a behind-the-scenes peek at Doh Athan, the sister podcast in the Frontier Myanmar family.

Email the show at whimyanmar@proton.me

Timecodes:

1m04s :: Weekly news digest

4m42s :: Arrest warrant requested for Min Aung Hlaing

18m06s :: Behind the scenes at Doh Athan

32m10s :: IDPs suffering malnutrition as aid declines

44m20s :: Close

Our guests—

Joe Freeman, Myanmar researcher at Amnesty International:

Amnesty International Myanmar: New attacks against Rohingya a disturbing echo of 2017 mass violence

A Future Myanmar Must Include the Rohingya

Zarni, Senior Producer at Doh Athan:

Doh Athan on YouTube

Doh Athan on Soundcloud

And on Facebook, the best way to contact the show

With Ko Maung, labor rights activist, and Matthew Brunwasser, independent journalist. This week in What's Happening in Myanmar we discuss the ongoing Charis strike in Hlaingtharya and Myanmar army attacks on Bangladesh fisherman on the Naf river. 

Timecodes:

1m07s :: Weekly news digest

2m10s :: Charis strikes and post-coup industrial relations

22m03s :: Life and Death on the Bangladesh Border

34m20s :: Close

Our guests—

Matthew Brunwasser, independent journalist:

Matthew Brunwasser's website and articles

Ko Maung, labor activist, organizer, researcher:

Workers' self-organisation under military rule: challenges and opportunities in post-coup Myanmar

Support the Charis strikers

This week in Myanmar: Air strikes kill dozens of civilians and combatants, the Kachin Independence Army and Organisation stand to negotiate with civil society and China on their recent rare earth acquisitions, and Trump's 2025 Secretary of State bucks the isolationist trend.

Email the show at: whimyanmar@proton.me and visit http://www.frontiermyanmar.net/

Timecodes:

1m08s :: Weekly news digest
3m41s :: Trump administration's effects on Burmese
13m06s :: The Lucky Men Hotel
23m46s :: Kachin's Special Region 1 & rare earths
39m42s :: Correspondence

Our guests:

Michael Haack, activist and key organizer for passing the Burma Act in the United States, who wrote about it for Frontier:

How the BURMA Act passed congress
What happened to the BURMA Act?

Emily Fishbein, independent journalist with over 50 articles published on Frontier, and many more elsewhere:

Emily's list of Frontier articles.

Jaw Tu Hkawng, independent journalist and activist, who with Emily and others published the Lucky Men feature discussed in this podcast:

'The negotiation failed': Hpakant's deadly standoff
He also writes with Al Jazeera.

In this episode, Jaw also referred to Global Witness reports on rare earths and Hpakant in Myanmar:

Myanmar's poisoned mountains
Jade and Conflict: Myanmar's Vicious Circle

This week in Myanmar: Min Aung Hlaing visits China for the first time since his 2021 coup, the Republican party wins elections in the United States of America, shaking up that country's foreign policy, and teachers continue to get shafted by the enfeebled Department of Education under the military regime's State Administration Council. 

Email the show at: whimyanmar@proton.me and visit https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/ 

Timecodes:

1m12s :: Weekly news digest
5m06s :: Changing U.S. policy under Trump elect
9m37s :: Min Aung Hlaing in China
15m46s :: Regime teachers getting shafted
23m16s :: Correspondence updates

Our guests:

Hunter Marston, PhD Candidate at the Australian National University, with publications:

Values over Interests: Variations in US–Myanmar Policy since 1988
The Pendulum of Non-Alignment: Charting Myanmar's Great Power Diplomacy (2011–2021)

Ya Nwe, Frontier Myanmar journalist, with reporting that includes: 

Unpaid and abandoned: Myanmar junta fails displaced civil servants (discussed today)
Losing count: Chaotic census kicks off
Down and out in the delta: Rakhine IDPs struggle in Ayeyarwady
Anyar rising: Myanmar's Dry Zone PDFs up the ante

With Laetitia van den Assum, former Dutch ambassador to Myanmar and member of the 2016-2017 Advisory Commission on Rakhine State. This fortnight on What's Happening in Myanmar, the military loses more towns in Rakhine and Chin states, internet and motion picture laws are tightened by the State Administration Council, and we discuss Bangladesh's hopes for a conference on the Rohingya crisis and Rakhine State under Arakan Army rule from an international perspective.

Email the show at whimyanmar@proton.me

Timecodes—

1m15s :: Weekly news digest

6m02s :: With Laetitia, the Rakhine Commission 
11m18s :: Firm Arakan Army control in Rakhine State
16m50s :: The new Bangladesh UN conference
26m10s :: Future of Rakhine State

33m10s :: Close

Our guests—

Laetitia van den Assum, former Dutch ambassador first posted to Southeast Asia in 1995, then accredited as ambassador to Myanmar from Bangkok, and member of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State in 2016:

Bangladesh, the Rohingya and the new reality in Rakhine

And as a bonus link, given cinema censorship is in the news again this week, check out the short film Ban That Scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gckHgn2a7fg

With Vox, a Digital Security Trainer from the Myanmar Internet Project (MIP) and Spring Revolution Security (SRS). This week on What's Happening in Myanmar, the MNDAA signs a ceasefire, nearly everyone talks scam centres, the Arakan Army pushes further towards the beach resort town of Chaungtha, and we discuss the new Cybersecurity Law enacted on January 1. 

Email the show at whimyanmar@proton.me

Timecodes—

1m26s :: Weekly news digest
10m32s :: With Vox, the development of the Cybersecurity Law
14m57s :: Origins of law with NLD & experts
17m37s :: The law's problems
21m23s :: Influence on the economy and business
31m53s :: Close

Our guests—

Vox, a Digital Security Trainer from the Myanmar Internet Project and Spring Revolution Security.