Myanmar has been at war since independence from Britain in 1948. For most of that time, the country was ruled by the military, but a quasi-civilian government took power in 2011, ushering in sweeping political and economic reforms.

For ethnic minorities, however, little has changed. The military is battling an array of ethnic armed groups on Myanmar’s frontiers, where lucrative trades in drugs and natural resources fuel fighting. Can elections and a newly minted ceasefire lay the foundation for peace?

SPECIAL REPORT: http://newirin.irinnews.org/forgotten-conflicts-part-4

Fighting between the Myanmar army and ethnic Chinese rebels has handed the long-feared military a public relations coup, with an explosion of praise on social media and even former political prisoners expressing grudging support.

FULL STORY: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/26/us-myanmar-clashes-idUSKBN0LU0QQ20150226

YANGON, Jan 7 (Reuters) – With abundant mineral wealth from jade and rubies to copper and coal, Myanmar ought to be looking forward to a mining boom as it opens up its economy. But long-running insurgencies and a murky regulatory framework are holding back all but the intrepid.

FULL STORY: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/myanmar-mining-idUSL3N0TZ2AT20150106

U.S. President Barack Obama called on Friday forMyanmar to end discrimination against Rohingya people, urging in his strongest comments on the persecuted Muslim minority that the government grant them equal rights.

FULL STORY: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-myanmar-usa-rohingya-idUSKCN0IY0VN20141114

Myanmar’s national government has drafted a plan that will give around a million members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority a bleak choice: accept ethnic reclassification and the prospect of citizenship, or be detained.

FULL STORY: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/27/us-myanmar-rohingya-exclusive-idUSKCN0HM09520140927

Standing next to Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday that the law barring her from becoming president “doesn’t make much sense”.

FULL STORY: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-myanmar-usa-idUSKCN0IY0HO20141114

Myanmar tycoon Tay Za leans back and fulminates against the U.S. government as a playful pet bear cub scrambles up his alligator-skin chair. “They are world police,” he says, complaining that U.S. sanctions are stifling his businesses and officials are scrutinizing his every transaction.

FULL STORY: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2014/07/23/burmese-tycoon-tay-za-under-scrutiny/

With food stocks dwindling and prices rising by the hour in his camp for displaced Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Hla Maung decided to ask a friend in the neighbouring village for food.

FULL STORY: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/01/us-myanmar-census-idUSBREA300YB20140401

Myanmar will ban the export of raw timber logs from April 1, choking off profits in a sector that provided critical funding to the country’s former military rulers for decades, as a new reformist government steps up efforts to save forests.

FULL STORY: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/20/us-myanmar-forests-idUSBREA2J27K20140320

Security forces in western Myanmar massacred at least 40 Rohingya Muslims last week, including women and children, a human rights group said on Thursday, quoting witness accounts, despite official denials of the killings.

FULL STORY: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/23/us-myanmar-rohingya-idUSBREA0M0P320140123