YANGON, Myanmar and BANGKOK , Jan 6 2026 (IPS)* –With thousands of civilians killed in years of civil war and over 22,000 political prisoners still behind bars, no one was surprised that early results from Myanmar’s first but tightly controlled elections since the 2021 coup show the military’s proxy party speeding to victory.
A man walks past a campaign poster for the military’s proxy party USDP ahead of strictly controlled elections in Myanmar. Credit: Guy Dinmore/IPS
“How can you hold elections and bomb civilians at the same time?” asked Khin Ohmar, a civil rights activist outside Myanmar who is monitoring what the resistance forces and a shadow government reject as “sham” polls.
(UN News)* — A sweeping UN human rights report released on Wednesday [] concludes that in the occupied West Bank, Israel is violating international law prohibiting racial segregation and apartheid, warning that the discriminatory practices have accelerated dramatically since late 2022 amid growing violence, repression and impunity.
The report by the UN human rights office, OHCHR, documents what it describes as a decades-long system of discrimination that has sharply intensified since at least December 2022.
‘Systematic asphyxiation’ of rights
Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, saidthe findings reveal “a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank.”
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 