The Morning: Front lines of a forgotten war

Plus, the Israel-Hamas war, Stormy Daniels and edible bugs.

View in browser|nytimes.com May 8, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Hannah Beech is covering an overlooked war in Asia. We're also covering the Israel-Hamas war, Stormy Daniels and edible bugs. —David Leonhardt In southern Karenni, Myanmar. Adam Ferguson for The New York Times A hidden war By Hannah Beech I'm a roving Asia correspondent based in Bangkok. A people take to arms and fight for democracy. A military terrorizes civilians with airstrikes and land mines. Tens of thousands are killed. Millions are displaced. Yet it is all happening almost completely out of view. Recently, I spent a week on the front lines of a forgotten war in the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar. Since a military junta overthrew a civilian administration there three years ago, a head-spinning array of pro-democracy forces and ethnic militias have united to fight the generals. The resistance includes poets, doctors and lawyers who traded life in the cities for jungle warfare. It also includes veteran combatants who have known no occupation but soldier. Now, for the first time, the rebels claim control of more than half of Myanmar's territory. In recent weeks they have overrun dozens of towns and Myanmar military bases. Today's newsletter will explain how civil war has engulfed Myanmar — and why the world has ignored a country that less than a decade ago was lauded as a democratic success story. A coup defied In February 2021, a military junta, led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, arrested the nation's civilian leaders and returned the country to full dictatorship. If the generals expected the populace to cower in response to their coup, they were wrong. With military snipers shooting unarmed protesters and bystanders, including dozens of children, an armed resistance coalesced. Tens of thousands of professionals and members of Gen Z decamped to the jungle. Rappers, Buddhist monks and politicians, among others, learned how to shoot guns and arm drones. Their hands grew callused. This unlikely resistance has repelled the junta's forces from wide swaths of the country, including most of Myanmar's borderlands. (Here are several useful charts that explain how the civil war is unfolding.) Source: The map is a simplified version of an effective control map by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar. | By Weiyi Cai A lady tarnished If there is one name from Myanmar that people in the West might recognize it's that of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the long-imprisoned democracy advocate who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent resistance. (Her name is pronounced Daw Ong Sahn Soo Chee.) In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi's political party routed the military's candidates in nationwide elections. With her civilian government sharing power with the army, Myanmar seemed like a rare counterpoint to the Arab Spring and other foiled democracy movements. President Obama visited twice. A portrait of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.  Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters Yet within a year, the military, which still controlled the most important levers of power, had intensified its persecution of Rohingya Muslims, culminating in 2017 with the expulsion of three-quarters of a million people within a few weeks. The United Nations designated the campaign a genocide. Rather than condemn the violence, however, Aung San Suu Kyi went to The Hague and defended the military in an international court. Her refusal to stand up for a persecuted minority knocked off her halo. The United States and other Western governments distanced themselves from her. The tarnishing of this simple morality tale — the lady versus the generals, democracy versus dictatorship — helps answer a question I was asked dozens of times during my week of reporting in Myanmar: Why doesn't the world care about us? Allies in the West feel betrayed by a politician who, it turned out, would not meet her own high moral standard. (Aung San Suu Kyi is again imprisoned by the military.) A fractured reality Even without foreign intervention, or much Western aid at all, the Myanmar resistance has pushed back the junta. Rebels are now within 150 miles of the capital, Naypyidaw. But that may have been the easy part. The resistance is — perhaps hopelessly — splintered. More than a dozen major armed ethnic groups are vying for control over land and valuable natural resources. Source: General Administration Department, Myanmar | The Karenni are also known as the Kayah, the Karen as the Kayin, the Rakhine as the Arakan, and the Ta'ang as the Palaung. | By Weiyi Cai For now, they're fighting a common enemy. But some of these militias are just as likely to battle each other. This month, the rebels captured a key border town, only to relinquish it after one armed group withdrew its full support. Already, much of Myanmar is fractured between different groups, all heavily armed. In other parts of the country, no one is fully in charge. Crime is flourishing. The country is now the world's biggest producer of opium. Jungle factories churn out meth and other synthetic drugs that have found their way to Australia. Cybercriminals have proliferated, targeting Americans, Asians and Europeans with scams. Myanmar's civil war may be overshadowed by other global conflicts. But to the Burmese who live with uncertainty and chaos, the war has never been more urgent or real. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas Negotiations Delegations from Israel and Hamas arrived in Cairo to resume talks about a possible cease-fire. Read about the gaps between them in the negotiations. A Hamas representative said the group's red lines included a "withdrawal from all areas of Gaza and the unconditional return of the displaced." Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Hamas's latest proposal as a move to stop Israeli troops from entering Rafah, a city that Israel has called the last bastion of Hamas control and where more than a million Gazans have taken refuge. Rafah Incursion In Rafah, in southern Gaza. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A doctor at a Rafah medical center said 27 bodies had been brought there since the start of Israel's incursion in the city. The Israeli military said it had killed about 20 Hamas fighters in Rafah. Satellite photos showed fewer aid trucks on both sides of Gaza's border with Egypt on Monday than on Sunday, after Israel ordered an evacuation of areas near the Rafah crossing. Israel reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, a critical entry point for aid that it had closed after a Hamas rocket attack on Sunday. The Israelis told the U.S. that the operation in Rafah was limited and "designed to cut off Hamas's ability to smuggle weapons into Gaza." President Biden paused an arms shipment to Israel last week to prevent U.S. weapons being used in a major assault on Rafah. Netanyahu is trying to reassure his domestic and diplomatic critics. Steven Erlanger explores the Israeli prime minister's competing pressures. Campus Protests University of Chicago police officers removed a pro-Palestinian protest encampment before dawn on Tuesday. Biden decried rising antisemitism in the U.S. and said that too many people had forgotten "that Hamas unleashed this terror" by attacking Israel. The White House press secretary criticized white counterprotesters at the University of Mississippi who taunted a Black pro-Palestinian protester. A consulting firm will investigate why the police allowed an attack on pro-Palestinian demonstrators at U.C.L.A. to continue for hours. More International News Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping. Pool photo by Aurelien Morissard Emmanuel Macron took Xi Jinping to his childhood haunts in the Pyrenees. Officials said the French and Chinese leaders have forged a close relationship over the years. Canada re-criminalized public drug use in British Columbia after a backlash. Ukraine said that it had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate Volodymyr Zelensky and other leaders. Trump on Trial Storm Daniels outside the courthouse. Seth Wenig/Associated Press Stormy Daniels testified at Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial, describing a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump and the hush-money payment she received during the 2016 election. Daniels spoke quickly, saying the encounter traumatized her, and derisively recalled conversations with Trump. Trump, who has long denied her account, shook his head and mouthed an expletive. Trump's lawyers repeatedly objected and moved for a mistrial, accusing prosecutors of trying to embarrass him. The judge declined but scolded Daniels, calling some of her testimony "better left unsaid." Trump's lawyer questioned Daniels's credibility and motives. Daniels denied trying to extort Trump but said yes when asked if she hated him. Trump posted, then deleted, an angry message about Daniels's testimony that could have violated his gag order. The late night hosts joked about Daniels's testimony. More on Politics Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has faced previously undisclosed health issues including hepatitis C, mercury poisoning and a dead worm in his brain. The judge in Trump's classified documents case postponed the trial indefinitely. She cited the large number of unresolved legal issues, which she has allowed to pile up. A pro-Trump nonprofit has paid more than $3 million to corporations linked to its leaders or their relatives, raising concerns about self-dealing. House Republicans will hold a hearing today on antisemitism in K-12 schools. Business TikTok sued the U.S. over a law that would ban the app unless it is sold to another company. TikTok says the law violates users' First Amendment rights. Panera Bread will stop selling its highly caffeinated lemonades, which were the subject of two wrongful-death lawsuits. Customers of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX are poised to recover all of the money they lost when the firm collapsed in 2022, plus interest. Other Big Stories A Missouri man killed his wife because he could not pay her medical bills, he told the police. The Boy Scouts of America will change its name to Scouting America. The group let girls join several years ago. Opinions Manuel Bayo Gisbert After Manuel Bayo Gisbert survived an armed kidnapping in Mexico, he set out to learn the stories of abductees who never returned. Here are columns by Bret Stephens on anti-Zionist protesters and Ross Douthat on change in the Catholic Church. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today. MORNING READS In Times Square.  Lanna Apisukh for The New York Times Spectaculars: They put a 65-foot hot dog in Times Square. Then the wrestling started. Real estate: Houseboats used to be an affordable way to live in London. Not anymore. Mocktails: Fancy nonalcoholic beverages have attracted a new kind of customer: the (way) under-21 set. Lives Lived: The psychologist Lesley Hazleton was a secular Jew, but her curiosity about faith and religion led her to write biographies of Muhammad, Mary and Jezebel. Hazleton died at 78. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Oklahoma City Thunder remained undefeated in the playoffs, taking a 1-0 series advantage with a 117-95 rout of the Dallas Mavericks. Upgrade: W.N.B.A. teams, after years of mostly flying commercial, will travel on charter planes this season. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Joseph Yoon Over the next six weeks, trillions of cicadas will emerge in the Midwest and the Southeast. Joseph Yoon, a chef and edible bug enthusiast, plans to make the most of it. "The romance! The kismet! The synchronicity that this is all occurring in my lifetime!" Yoon told the Times food critic Tejal Rao. Yoon puts the insects in kimchi, fries them to make tempura and folds them into Spanish tortillas alongside potato and onion. "I like to think of cicadas as just another ingredient," he said. "Like lobster or shrimp." More on culture Usher and the D.J. D-Nice at the Times Square Edition. Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times After the Met Gala, Usher, Jeff Bezos and others kept the celebrations going. See images from the after-parties. A security guard was shot outside Drake's Toronto home. The shooting followed a weekend of personal diss tracks between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Sang An for The New York Times Make hearty, flavorful huevos rancheros. Upgrade your kitchen. Take advantage of these Mother's Day deals. GAMES Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was floorboard. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. 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