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Announcement of New Website: Rohingya Today (RohingyaToday.Com) Dear Readers, From 1st January 2019 onward, the Rohingya News Portal 'Rohingya Blogger' will be renamed and upgraded as 'Rohingya Today'. Due to this transition to a new name, our website will be available at www.rohing...

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Maung Zarni, leader of the Free Rohingya Coalition, speaks at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday. | CHISATO TANAKA By Chisato Tanaka, Published by The Japan Times on October 25, 2018 A leader of a global network of activists for Rohingya Mu...

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By Sena Güler | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 1, 2018 Maung Zarni says he will boycott Beijing-sponsored events until the country reverses its 'troubling path' ANKARA -- A human rights activist and intellectual said he withdrew from a Beijing-sponsored forum in London to pro...

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Oskar Butcher RB Article October 6, 2018 Every night in an unassuming shop space located in Mandalay’s 39thStreet, Lu Maw and Lu Zaw – the remaining members of the Burma’s most famous comedy trio, the Moustache Brothers – present their show: a curious combination of comedy, political sa...

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A demonstration over identity cards at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in April, 2018. Image: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. By Natalie Brinham | Published by Open Democracy on October 21, 2018 Wary of the past, Rohingya have frustrated the UN’s attempts to provide them with documenta...

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By M.S. Anwar | Opinion & Analysis The Burmese (Myanmar) quasi-civilian government unleashed a large-scale violence against the minority Rohingya in the western Myanmar state of Arakan in 2012. The violence, which some wrongly frame as ‘Communal’, was carried out by the Burmese armed forces...

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By Maung Zarni, Natalie Brinham | Published by Middle East Institute on November 20, 2018 “It is an ongoing genocide (in Myanmar),” said Mr. Marzuki Darusman, the head of the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission at the official briefing at ...

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Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar wait to be let through by Bangladeshi border guards after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj MS Anwar RB Opinion November 12, 2018 Some may differ. But I believe the government of Bangladesh is ...

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By Maung Zarni | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 15, 2018 US will not intercede, and Myanmar's neighbors see it through economic lens, so international coalition for Rohingya needed LONDON -- The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution ca...

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Aman Ullah  RB History August 25, 2016 The ethnic Rohingya is one of the many nationalities of the union of Burma. And they are one of the two major communities of Arakan; the other is Rakhine and Buddhist. The Muslims (Rohingyas) and Buddhists (Rakhines) peacefully co-existed in the A...

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Dr. Maung Zarni's Remark: The best research on Rohingya history: British Orientalism which created the pseudo-scientific biological notion of "Taiyinthar" or "real natives" of #Myanmar caused that country's post-colonial cancer of official & popular genocidal Racism.  This co...

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(Photo: Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters) RB News  October 5, 2013  Thandwe, Arakan – Rakhinese mob in Thandwe started attacking Kaman Muslims on September 28, 2013. As a result, 5 Kaman Muslims were mercilessly killed and 1 was died in heart attack while escaping the attack. 781 Kaman Mus...

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Ex-Dictator’s Son-in-Law Hand-Picked as Military MP for New Parliament

Military appointees stand during a regular session of Parliament in the capital Naypyidaw in 2012. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)

By San Yamin Aung
January 20, 2016

RANGOON — New military representatives to Burma’s next Parliament, which will convene in less than two weeks, were named in Tuesday’s state-run newspapers, including among appointees the son-in-law of former military strongman Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

High-ranking members of the armed forces are included in the new slate of unelected lawmakers, including three major-generals appointed to the national legislature, according to the Union Election Commission (UEC) announcements. Maj-Gens Tauk Tun and Than Htut Thein will take up seats in the Lower House of the Union Parliament, while Maj-Gen Than Soe will sit in the Upper House.

Among the appointees also of note is Brig-Gen Thein Naing, the son-in-law of former junta leader Than Shwe. Thein Naing, the husband of Than Shwe’s daughter Khin Pyone Shwe, will take a seat in the Rangoon Division legislature.

Political analyst Yan Myo Thein pointed out that Thein Naing was the highest-ranking military appointee to the Rangoon regional legislature, speculating that he might be a candidate for chief minister of the division, Burma’s most populace.

In a Facebook post, Yan Myo Thein said observers should keep an eye on Thein Naing’s political trajectory, and that his potential chief minister candidacy might be part of an agreement reached between National League for Democracy (NLD) chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi, Than Shwe and Burma Army commander-in-chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing.

The Constitution requires that state and divisional chief ministers be selected by the president from among respective regional legislatures’ parliamentarians.

The NLD will hold commanding majorities in all but the legislatures of Shan and Arakan states, following its landslide victory in Burma’s Nov. 8 general election. While Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from the presidency, she has stated publically that she will be “above the president” in an executive that her party has the required majorities to form.

The new Parliament convenes on Feb. 1.

Under Burma’s military-drafted 2008 Constitution, 25 percent of seats in both houses of the Union Parliament and state and regional legislatures are reserved for active members of the military.

Though the UEC cancelled elections for about 20 seats nationwide due to security concerns in some townships, the commission’s announcements revealed that the military took its full allotment of reserved seats: 110 in the Lower House, 56 in the Upper House and 220 in regional legislatures, giving the institution representation that exceeds 25 percent of sitting lawmakers in the Shan and Kachin states’ legislatures, as well as the Union Parliament’s Lower House.

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