Myanmar

July 18 (Reuters) - For a week, 21-year-old student Phoe Thar has been out by dawn to gather oxygen cylinders from the homes of coronavirus sufferers in Myanmar's second city of Mandalay.

He and fellow volunteers line the tanks up outside charities for filling and returning, trying to save lives in a country whose health system has largely collapsed since a Feb. 1 coup and which now faces its worst surge of COVID-19 infections.

July 13 (Reuters) - When Ma Yati felt weak and feverish and lost her sense of smell, she had no doubt she had COVID-19.

But even with up to 30 people a day dying of the coronavirus in her home town of Kale in western Myanmar, she decided it was better to hole up in a room at home than get an official test or enter a quarantine centre.

“My trust in this junta healthcare system is 0%,” the 23-year-old told Reuters by telephone from her home, where she is now recovering and trying not to infect others.

July 12 (Reuters) - Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi is "gravely concerned" about the country's worsening coronavirus situation, her lawyer said on Monday.

Khin Maung Zaw said Suu Kyi voiced her concern during a meeting of her legal team before a court appearance on Monday. Suu Kyi has been detained since a Feb. 1 coup and is on trial charged with multiple offences, which her legal team reject.

BANGKOK (AP) — Soe Win stood in line at a plant to buy oxygen for his grandmother, who is struggling with COVID-19 symptoms.

“I have been waiting since 5 in the morning until 12 noon but I’m still in line. Oxygen is scarcer than money,” said the resident of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon.

July 4 (Reuters) - Myanmar security forces killed at least 25 people on Friday in a confrontation with opponents of the military junta at a town in the centre of the Southeast Asian nation, a resident and Myanmar-language media said on Sunday.

A spokesman for the military did not respond to calls requesting comment on the violence at Depayin in the Sagaing region, about 300 km (200 miles) north of the capital, Naypyidaw.

July 1 (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Myanmar's biggest city Yangon on Thursday, setting fire to an army uniform and chanting calls for democracy five months after a military coup ousted elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The protest was one of the biggest in Yangon in recent weeks, although demonstrations against the army take place daily in many parts of the Southeast Asian country.

"What do we want? Democracy! Democracy!" protesters chanted as they ran through the streets with colourful smoke flares.

June 27 (Reuters) - Myanmar security forces punched, slapped and beat a U.S. journalist and kept him blindfolded for more than a week of interrogation, he said after being deported to the United States following over three months in detention.

Nathan Maung, 44, editor-in-chief of the online news platform Kamayut Media, was detained on March 9 in a raid and freed on June 15. He said his colleague Hanthar Nyein, who remains in detention, had been tortured more harshly, as had other people he met in prison.

June 22 (Reuters) - Myanmar security forces backed by armoured vehicles clashed on Tuesday with a newly formed militia group in the second-biggest city of Mandalay resulting in at least two casualties, according to members of the group and media reports.

Since the army seized power on Feb. 1 and removed the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the security forces have put down protests opposing military rule. In response, groups of opponents of the coup known as people's defence forces have sprung up across Myanmar.

(Reuters) --- A militia group in Myanmar's conflict-torn Kayah State announced a halt to attacks on military targets on Tuesday, after appeals from local communities to cease fighting that had damaged homes and displaced more than 100,000 people.

The Karenni National Defense Force (KNDF), one of the largest of several civilian militias formed in recent weeks to oppose a Feb. 1 military coup, said it had temporarily suspended offensives but remained opposed to the military takeover.

Naypyitaw (Myanmar), Jun 8 (AP-PTI) Myanmar's military junta will begin presenting its case against deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi in court next Monday, her lawyers said.

The military arrested Suu Kyi in February when it overthrew her elected government. Public resistance to the coup remains strong and in recent months has taken the form of a low-level armed insurrection.