WITH THE Asean Economic Community opening up the region, representatives of 30 Thai small and medium-sized enterprises visited Myanmar from Monday to Wednesday to seek out local partners. Kitsana Vachekrilas, treasurer of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and managing director of Bua Thong Thani Management Co, said in an exclusive interview that all the Thai participants were satisfied with their business trip, as they expected to find partners to help them distribute their products in Myanmar.

The five-day market rotating around Shan State's Inle Lake area is famous for its rustic, bustling scenes, as tradespeople of different ethnic backgrounds, including Intha and Pa-O, migrate daily from one site to another to sell their produce and ware. While several lakeside villages such as Indein, Nampan, Thaung Tho and Khaung Daing host the market, the main five places are in Nyaung Shwe , Heho, Taunggyi, Maing Thauk and Shwe Nyaung.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, foreground center, performs yoga with thousands of Indians to mark international yoga day in Lucknow, India, Wednesday, June 21, 2017.

The platform uses 4 4 multiple-input, multiple-output (4 4 noted that Bago, Taunggyi, Mawlamyaine, Monywa and Pathein are set to be covered by the end of July, whilst the number of cities within the coverage area will surpass 20 by the end of August, rising to more than 30 a month later.

Supporters of firebrand nationalist monk U Wirathu launched campaigns to garner signatures in his support in Karen State and Mandalay Region earlier this month. The "We Love Wirathu" campaigns were launched in response to allegations that U Wirathu's sermons were against Buddha's teachings, according to campaign organizers.

Influential figure on Myanmar affairs and executive director of the Brussels-based Euro-Burma Office Harn Yawnghwe was denied a visa this month, allegedly due to his involvement in the country's peace process. Irrawaddy senior reporter Saw Yan Naing spoke to Harn Yawnghwe about allegedly becoming a recent addition to the government's blacklist.

By Amirul Mohd Sajadi KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 -- Not being able to see the ongoing misery of the Rohingya Muslim ethnic group in the country, a former Myanmar university graduate has taken the initiative to teach English to Rohingya refugee children. Having graduated with a Degree in Language Studies from the University of Sittwe, Myanmar, Muhammad Amin Nurul Hoque, a Rohingya refugee, is confident that only with education can their plight be changed.

A sizeable amount of drugs including 100,000 methamphetamine tablets was found in two urban wards in Sagaing Division's Monywa Township on Monday, believed to be the largest-ever drug seizure in the division, according to the Monywa Police Force. "It was the most we've ever confiscated in Sagaing Division.

Some 400 yoga enthusiasts are expected to take part in a yoga practice in Yangon's People's Park on Wednesday morning to celebrate the third International Day of Yoga. "We aim to promote yoga in Myanmar, which can help improve the health of our people," said Daw Kyi Kyi Lwin, an organizer of the event, adding that it will take place between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and is free to attend.

A group of displaced squatters in Yangon's Hlegu Township have opened a fraud case against a 27-member Aung Yadana village development committee that sold them land already owned by the government, one complainant told The Irrawaddy on Monday. Police deputy Maj Maung Maung Oo of Hlegu police station confirmed that the case was filed last week.

Tun Naing previously told reporters he had been possessed by a 'dark spirit' when he attacked the children. YANGON: A self-proclaimed sorcerer was sentenced to death by a Yangon court on Tuesday for killing three children in an exorcism ritual he believed would banish evil spirits that possessed them.

In this Nov. 18, 2016, photo, self-styled exorcist Tun Naing, center, arrives at a district court t in Thanlyin township, south of Yangon, Myanmar. The court has sentenced Tun Naig to death for killing three children during a ritual he carried out after telling their parents their offspring were possessed by evil spirits.

Rohingya men are pictured at a fish market in Sittwe in Rakhine state, Myanmar, on March 2, 2017. Source: Reuters NEARLY half a million people have fled Burma as of 2016, making the Southeast Asian nation the eighth among the top 10 countries of origin for the world's 65 million refugees.

Myanmar residents wait at the border in Muse to cross into China's Yunnan province. Chinese banks have frozen the accounts of more than 100 commodities traders in northeast Myanmar in a bid to clamp down on smuggling.

Two political parties in Chin State-the Chin National Democratic Party and the Chin Progressive Party -agreed to merge last Thursday, almost five years after their first attempts to do so. "Only if we merge, can we represent the desires of the people and our people can rely on us," said general secretary of the CNDP Salai Ceu Bik Thawng, who attended the meeting of executive committee members held on Thursday in Yangon, adding they had established a working committee with three persons from each party to conduct the merger.

Prominent Myanmar women's rights and peace activist Ma May Sabe Phyu received a fellowship to study for a one-year Master in Public Administration program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the US this year. Alumni of the program include the first female president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is also a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"The Kachin Independence Army [KIA] gave the order last night that we all have to leave today," he told reporters over the racket of a heavy downpour. "This is the last day we can stay in the mining areas, but journalists can stay with the KIA fighters at the frontline."