Articles

A night-time concert in Myanmar seen from behind the stage, with musicians in the foreground and a large crowd beyond

Concerts, checkpoints, and trade bans: how the junta keeps control

Approved concerts and cooperative celebrities, a trade order that stops fourteen goods reaching Mandalay, and a draft that forges IDs for minors. Three fronts of the same strategy.

Hands raised in a crowd holding up red Myanmar passports

The squeeze: how Myanmar's junta is closing every exit

A troop deal in Moscow, a passport rule that pulls people back across the border, and a banking lockdown that traps the money. Three moves in ten days, and the distraction running underneath them.

A long queue of people waiting to withdraw cash at bank ATMs on a street in Myanmar

When a coup empties the banks: life under Myanmar's new economy

Frozen cash withdrawals, money moved through informal agents, and prices ten times what they were. A first-hand account of Myanmar's economy since the coup.

Soldiers in helmets and masks advancing along a city street in Myanmar

Living under watch: checkpoints, two phones, and the draft

What daily life looks like under military checkpoints in Yangon and Mandalay: phone searches, two digital identities, tracked payments, and mandatory service.

A street in Myanmar during the aftermath of the February 2021 military coup

One person's account of the Myanmar coup

A first-hand account of the 1 February 2021 military coup in Myanmar: how it unfolded, the Civil Disobedience Movement it sparked, and the resistance that followed.