Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
A surprise offensive by Myanmar ethnic armed groups has blocked two strategically vital roads to the country's biggest trading partner China, choking cross-border commerce and denying the cash-strapped junta taxes and foreign exchange. Fighting has raged across northern Shan state for two weeks, displacing almost 50,000 people, according to the United Nations, and posing the most serious military challenge to...
A rebel alliance has overrun parts of northern Myanmar, including areas bordering China, with resistance to the military junta notching its most significant win since the 2021 coup, according to a rebel commander, diplomats and analysts. The fiercest fighting has been near Myanmar's border with China in northern Shan state where three powerful ethnic armed groups have combined to lead an...
About 90,000 people have been displaced in Myanmar due to the intensifying conflict between the country’s military rulers and an alliance of ethnic armed groups, the United Nations said. “As of 9 November, almost 50,000 people in northern Shan were forced into displacement,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update on Friday. A further 40,000 people have been...
Several World Bank top economists voiced worries during a discussion at the US Institute of Peace over the deterioration of Afghanistan's dire economic conditions. Some economists added that half of Afghanistan's population currently lives below the poverty line. “We see that in terms of monetary poverty, we still have half of the population that in 2023 is consuming below the...
The attackers descended in the early morning from the steep mountains that tower over Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. Gunfire echoed in the valleys as Pakistani Taliban fighters stormed Pakistani military posts. By the time the fighting stopped hours later, four soldiers and 12 militants were dead. The Sept. 6 attack, described by officials in Pakistan as a cross-border assault from Afghanistan, stunned a Pakistani leadership that had thought...
On October 31, Sri Lankan and Chinese researchers on board the Chinese research vessel Shi Yan 6, which recently docked at Colombo port in Sri Lanka, began two days of “marine scientific” research off the Sri Lankan coast. The docking of the Shi Yan 6 a few days earlier had stirred strong responses from India and the United States. The same thing happened last year when another Chinese ship...
It was a stark admission from Myanmar’s military regime, now nearly three years into a nationwide civil war triggered by its February 2021 putsch of the country’s democratically elected government. On November 1, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun conceded that rebels had taken full control of Chinshwehaw, a key town on the border with the country’s largest trade partner, China. In a statement, he said...
A Chinese official yesterday called on Myanmar’s military administration to “cooperate” with China to maintain stability along their common border, amid continued gains by resistance groups in northern Shan State. The armed offensive launched by the Three Brotherhood Alliance on October 27 has disrupted trade with China and displaced tens of thousands of civilians, some of whom have sought refuge...
Myanmar’s military is facing its biggest military challenge since it seized power in a coup more than two years ago, after an alliance of opponents cut off key trading routes and seized towns and dozens of outposts near the Chinese border. The offensive in northern Shan state, which was launched by an alliance of ethnic armed groups in coordination with newer anti-coup groups, is a significant blow for the military, analysts say, and could be exploited by the...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he's considering a new military strategy to move forward faster in the Ukraine-Russia war. BBC News correspondent Jenny Hill has more on the war, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor joined CBS News to discuss why progress has slowed for the...