Features

Young skateboarders play at Mya Lay Yone Skate Park in Kamayut township, Yangon. (Pushing Myanmar)

How Yangon’s skateboarding scene is more than just tricks

Support from across the world has helped local skateboarders survive the pandemic.

This photo taken on November 6, 2019 shows Aung Sein Phyo (C), 22, and other crew members operating a human-powered ferris wheel in Taunggyi, Shan state. (Ye Aung Thu / AFP)

Riding high on Taunggyi's human-powered Ferris wheels

Aung careers towards the ground, hanging from one arm on the basket of one of Myanmar's human-powered Ferris wheels, reliant on gravity-defying agility and split-second coordination honed since the age of nine.

This photo taken on October 3, 2019 shows a man driving his motorcycle past the ruins of a mosque in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine state, where Muslim residents have been forced to live in a camp for seven years after the inter-communal unrest tore apart the town. (Ye Aung Thu / AFP)

In a Rakhine town, a glimmer of hope for Muslims enduring 'apartheid'

Htoo Maung sits down to lunch, sharing a bowl of traditional noodle soup with old friends, an ordinary act that has become extraordinary in Myanmar's Rakhine state—because he is Muslim, and they are Buddhist.

Besides oil palm, the concessions have rubber, forest, shrub, bare land and water bodies occupying the land. For instance, oil palm occupies as little as 6 percent of the concessions in Myeik district, pictured. (Go-Myanmar.com via Wikimedia Commons)

Palm oil threat looms over Myanmar's southern forests

Myanmar could be headed down the same path as Indonesia and Malaysia, two other Southeast Asian countries that sacrificed large swaths of natural forest for oil palm plantations.

This photo taken on October 1, 2019 shows Myanmar resident Nu Aye Thar, standing outside the Posco International, formerly Posco Daewoo corporation, a South Korean onshore gas terminal facility in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine State. (Ye Aung Thu / AFP)

Fear stoked by Chinese-funded port and SEZ in Rakhine state

Aung Gyi is forced to fish covertly under the shroud of night in western Myanmar waters as China bids to transform the strategically key region into a shipping and industrial hub, squeezing out locals who fear being left behind in the gold rush.