<p>Myanmar LGBT Rights Network seriously condemns the Mandalay Region Parliamentary discussion on cracking down on transgender women and gay people in their 13th Parliamentary session on August, 2015, as it can cause more arbitrary arrests of transgender women and gay people in Mandalay.</p>

<p>As the Lower House of Parliament convenes after the dramatic purge of speaker Shwe Mann, it has wasted no time&nbsp;<a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=72826759&amp;msgid=907202&amp;act=98NZ&amp;c=348258&amp;destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irrawaddy.org%2Felection%2Fnews%2Fburma-parliament-approves-contentious-race-and-religion-bills">passing two laws</a>&nbsp;that form the package of discriminatory protection of race and religion bills.</p>

<p>President Thein Sein of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrw.org/asia/burma" target="_blank">Burma</a>&nbsp;should refuse to sign into law two pieces of legislation that violate fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. On August 21, 2015, the joint parliament approved the Religious Conversion Bill and the Monogamy Bill, two of four contentious so-called “race and religion” laws that will entrench discrimination based on religion, and also violate internationally protected rights to privacy and religious belief.&nbsp;<br /></p>

<p>Burmese authorities should immediately stop using abusive laws on association and expression to halt the activities of land rights activists, Human Rights Watch said today. The recent arbitrary arrest of a prominent land rights advocate in Karen State exemplifies the government’s persecution of vocal opponents of land grabs by officials and their business associates.&nbsp;<br /></p>

<p>Eleven States and Regions of Myanmar are encountering inundation and deluges with millions of people facing flooding distress. The floods, that began two weeks ago, have affected hundreds of thousands of people in Sagaing, Bago and Ayeyarwaddy Divisions as well as in Kachin, Chin and Arakan States, and these areas are urgently in need of emergency relief and aid. Dozens of people have perished in the floods and more than eight hundred thousand acres of farmland are submerged, according to numerous reports.<br /></p>

<p><em>This Kind of Love, </em>a documentary about the life of a human rights activist, Aung Myo Min, portrays the “struggle within a struggle” of a LGBT Burmese, who continues to fight not only for democracy, but for LGBT rights and all other marginalised people in Myanmar.</p> <p></p>

<p>UNHCR has devised a plan to send refugees from camps in Thailand back to their homes in Myanmar on a voluntary basis while some refugee representatives said that they were not involved in the plan.</p>

<p>A top official of the UN refugee agency responsible for protection has called for more concerted support to resolve the plight of displaced people in Myanmar and those with undetermined citizenship.</p> <p>UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Volker Türk, made his remarks at the end of a five-day mission to Myanmar on Monday during which he visited Yangon and the capital Nay Pyi Taw, as well as Sittwe and Maungdaw in Rakhine state.</p>

<p>Shan Community Based Organizations (CBOs) have issued a statement concerning plans to build the Upper Salween (Mong Ton) dam in Shan State, demanding cancellation of the dam.</p> <p>On 9 June at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) in central Bangkok, Sai Khur Hseng, the coordinator of the Shan Sapawa Environmental Organization, presented the statement to about twenty media agencies, stating that the Burmese authorities must stop their plans to build the Mong Ton dam, as well as all other dams on the Salween River.</p>

<div>The brutal crackdown on a student led protest against the provisions of the new National Education Law was just the latest attempt by the government of Myanmar to keep control of the political reform process and the pre-election agenda that threatens to escape their iron grip. Students are protesting against the establishment of an Education Council which would control the curriculum without any consultation with or participation by students.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The response of the international community, and in particular the EU, has been extremely weak. </div>

<div>JAKARTA, 27 May 2015 – The Myanmar government’s passage of a controversial new “population control” law is yet another in a long line of restrictive and illegal measures as part of a policy of persecution and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population, ASEAN lawmakers said today.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Rooted in Myanmar’s rising Buddhist-nationalist extremism, the Population Control Act will likely &nbsp;be used to enforce targeted reproductive restrictions against vulnerable minorities. </div>

<div> <div><img alt="" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8705/17385126835_83a51ba342_z.jpg" /></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>In the morning of May 5, 2015 more than 5,000 people from Ye Township and other areas in Mon State came to Andin Village to protest the coal-fired power plant proposed by TTCL (previously named, Toyo-Thai Corporation)</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between TTCL and Department of Hydropower Plan </div></div>