Thousands of civilians have fled their homes in Rakhine state in western Myanmar where rebel group Arakan Army stepped up offensives to wipe out the military junta forces from the region.

In an announcement last Sunday, the rebels urged the people in Maungdaw township, just across the border with Bangladesh, to flee to safer locations as soon as possible. The town is home to an estimated 80,000 people, mostly Muslim-majority ethnic Rohingya people.

Myanmar army soldiers patrol a village in Maungdaw located in Rakhine State in this file image. (AFP)

In Rakhine and other states, the military has been accused of killing civilians by targeting residential houses, religious buildings, schools, hospitals, and clinics to stop advancing rebel forces.

Local sources say the rebels now completely control ten out of 18 townships in Rakhine and Chin states, and they are fighting to capture the rest including the Rakhine state capital Sittwe. Myanmar’s exiled National Unity Government said the military’s indiscriminate aerial bombings, artillery shelling and massacre of civilians amount to crimes against humanity. 

Police in Pakistan have been accused of arresting eight members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim sect and taking away their animals meant for sacrifice during the Islamic feast of Eid-al-Adha celebrated on Monday.

The Ahmadiyya members were arrested by police in the Sialkot and Gujranwala districts of Punjab province a day before the festival. The arrest came after a leader of a radical political party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, threatened to kill Ahmadi people if they engaged in ritual sacrifice in Jhelum city of Punjab province.

A livestock vendor waits for customers at a market in Quetta on June 14, ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. (Photo: Banaras Khan/AFP)

The party also demonstrated in front of the district's Ahmadi place of worship. Ahmadiyya community welfare group termed the police action as “a grave violation of human rights.” Ahmadiyya is a 19th-century Islamic messianic movement that originated in British India.

Islamic hardliners among Sunni Muslims view Ahmadis as heretics as the movement does not recognize Muhammad as Islam’s final prophet. In 1974, Pakistan officially declared them non-Muslims, leading to extremists increasingly abusing and attacking them.

Sri Lanka’s Constitutional Council dismissed a government bid to extend the term of the Attorney General amid protests from civil society. The court’s decision on Tuesday elated opposition lawmakers and rights activists.

They alleged that President Ranil Wickremesinghe was keen on extending the term of the current Attorney General, Sanjay Rajaratnam, who was scheduled to complete his term on June 26.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe (center) waves as he takes part in a rally to mark International Labour Day in Colombo on May 1. (Photo: AFP)

Wickremesinghe is accused of attempts at what they called “a political coup” by creating a favorable environment for his return as president in the election scheduled between Sept. 17 and Oct. 16 this year.

Sri Lanka's top Catholic leader, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, criticized Wickremesinghe last week for linking the Attorney General’s tenure extension to the Catholic Church. The president reportedly said Catholic bishops sought his extension as he played a crucial role in a committee regarding the probe into the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019.

A lay Catholic association in the central Philippines, whose official recognition was recently withdrawn through a suppression order, has expressed disappointment over the decision.

Father Noel Froilan Maravillas, a leader of the Society of San Pedro Calungsod named after Filipino saint Pedro Calungsod, said on Tuesday they would obey the decision made by San Carlos Diocese. Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos City in the central Philippines issued a circular ordering suppression of SSPC on June 10.

A boy kisses the statue of Pedro Calungsod at Saint Gregory the Great parish in Cebu, Philippines on Oct. 20, 2012, just before he was made a saint by Pope Benedict XVI. (Photo: AFP)

Alminaza said the move came as the society was entitled to an opportunity to establish itself and demonstrate its charism and mission, but it failed. The SSPC was founded on Jan. 25, 2012, in the capital region of Manila, with just six members, and grew to 17 members.

Pope Benedict XVI canonized Pedro Calungsod as the second Filipino saint on Oct. 21, 2012. Calungsod, a lay sacristan and missionary catechist, was persecuted and martyred in Guam in 1672 at the age of 17.

Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia and the only third place in the continent after Taiwan and Nepal to legalize same-sex marriage. The upper house of the Senate gave final approval to legalize same-sex marriage on Tuesday.

The approval paves the way for changes to the marriage law allowing same-sex marriage. LGBTQ activists and campaigners have hailed the parliamentary vote as a “victory for people.”

Members of the LGBTQ community celebrate after the Thai parliament passed the final senatorial vote on the same-sex marriage bill, at Government House in Bangkok on June 18. (Photo: AFP)

The new legislation will now go to King Maha Vajiralongkorn for royal assent and come into force 120 days after publication in the official Royal Gazette.

In the central part of the Thai capital Bangkok, a crowd of activists celebrated the news by watching a drag show and decorating the grounds of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre with a giant rainbow flag. More than 30 countries around the world have legalized same-sex marriage since the Netherlands became the first to do so in 2001.

Global rights watchdog Human Rights Watch has slammed the Cambodian government for leveling politically motivated charges against 10 environmental activists and prosecuting them to muzzle criticism of government policies.

In a statement last Sunday, the New York-based group condemned the trial of members of Mother Nature, an award-winning, youth-led Cambodian environmental group.

Activists protest a crackdown on Cambodian environmental activists and block a street to the municipal court in Phnom Penh on June 5. (Photo: AFP)

The group accused Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet of following in the footsteps and policies of his father and former premier Hun Sen. A flurry of charges has been leveled against the activists.

Yim Leanghy, Sun Ratha, and Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson have been charged under the royal defamation law and conspiracy to commit an attack under Articles 437 and 453 of the Cambodian Criminal Code. Seven other activists have also been charged with plotting a crime. The activists can face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. 

A court in Communist-ruled China has sentenced a Uyghur Muslim woman to an additional 14-year prison term for allegedly teaching the Quran to teenagers.

Heyrinisa Memet has recently completed her 10-year jail term for her alleged involvement in a 2014 “terrorist attack” in Xinjiang province that Chinese authorities blamed on separatist Uyghur Muslims. Her latest jailing was pronounced in the second week of June, which the media reported only on Tuesday. She was accused of violating laws by imparting religious instructions to the youths in 2014.

Activists from Amnesty International hold placards to support Uyghurs on the sidelines of the Chinese president's two-day state visit to France, on May 6, 2024. (Photo: AFP)

Local sources said Memet had provided religious instructions to the children at the request of her neighbors. Rights groups have repeatedly slammed China for its brutal and genocidal crackdown in the Xinjiang region in the name of counter-insurgency measures.

Thousands of ethnic Uyghur Muslims are reportedly languishing in de-facto concentration camps across the province where they are subjected to various forms of torture and abuse by government forces. 

South Korea’s Supreme Court has dismissed a request by medical students and doctors to halt a government plan to reform the medical sector by training more physicians.

The court ruling on Wednesday came amid a months-long strike by senior and junior doctors that effectively crippled the nation’s medical sector.

Doctors from the Korean Medical Association attend a candlelight vigil in protest of the government's medical reform plan in Seoul on May 30. (Photo: AFP)

Thousands of trainee doctors stopped working on Feb. 20, protesting against government plans to increase medical school quotas. The ongoing strike has caused disruptions in hospitals and forced delays or cancellations of key treatments.

Last month, the government finalized an admission quota hike of around 1,500 for medical schools for 2025, which it says will tackle shortages of doctors and a rapidly aging population.

Senior doctors at the country's key medical institution, the Seoul National University Hospital, as well as its branches, began an indefinite walkout on Monday, saying the reform plan is unacceptable due to the current medical infrastructure in the country.