Shock and war: Myanmar junta exploits quake

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The Economist.

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Blore. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. For decades, Voice of America has broadcast around the world in multiple languages. Now Donald Trump intends to silence it. Our correspondent considers the consequences. And where are the best places to be a working woman in 2025? Find out from the Economist's annual glass ceiling Index. First up, though, Myanmar's ruling hunter has declared a week of national mourning after the country was hit by a massive earthquake on Friday. But the seismic shock was soon followed by another. Within hours of the quake, the junta launched airstrikes on resistance fighters in areas close to the disaster's epicentre. The National Unity government, whose forces are battling the military regime, declared a unilateral humanitarian ceasefire. Yet the junta merely intensified its bombing. Even in areas where rescue workers are still pulling people out of the rubble. The United nations has appealed for $8 million in aid. Yet if the hunter is determined to exploit the crisis, the challenge the world faces is getting past the regime to the people and places who need it most.

It's day four after a devastating earthquake hit Myanmar and time is rapidly running out to pull any remaining survivors out of the rubble.

Su Lin Wong is an Asia correspondent who recently reported our eight part podcast Scam Inc.

I'm actually in Thailand, not in Myanmar, which in and of itself says a lot. Information is incredibly controlled by the ruling junta, which seized power in a coup in 2021. And it has explicitly come out and banned all foreign journalists from going in. And local journalists are working under extreme conditions. It's very, very dangerous for them. So it's actually impossible right now to even assess the true extent of this deadly catastrophe.

And, Su Lin, do we know how much capacity the ruling junta has to respond to the earthquake?

So Myanmar has never had a particularly strong state, but after the junta seized power, it has really been weakened by a myriad of resistance forces who have risen up and really fought back. So that junta now controls less than half of the country. As a result, all kinds of public services have really, really suffered, not least the hospital system. So many, many doctors and nurses refuse to work in public hospitals in protest against the regime. And the junta will often shut down or suspend private hospitals if it perceives them to be employing doctors and nurses that are supportive of the civil disobedience movement against the junta. All this means that the hospital system is incredibly weak. Not only does it not have enough health workers, it doesn't even have essential medicines, anesthetics, clean water, enough electricity. So foreign aid is absolutely essential right now.

So before we get to international aid, you were talking there about the junta's capacity, but despite all that, it's continuing to bomb resistance forces and strongholds, right?

Yeah. And it's not just bombing resistance forces. It's bombing places that it doesn't control. There were reports that rescue workers in Mandalay were approached by military forces, and effectively, these groups tried to kidnap them and forcibly conscript them into the military after the earthquake while they were conducting rescue efforts. So all of this tells us that the junta really isn't that focused on trying to save its people, while the junta is really obsessed by, is consolidating its power, and it actually views many of its civilians as potential threats to the regime.

How is that affecting conditions for aid workers on the ground?

So, first of all, there's just a real communications blackout. There's a lack of Internet access. A lot of phone lines are down, partially because of the earthquake, but partially because the junta has long cut off Internet access in areas that it doesn't control. And so what that means is that there hasn't really been a full assessment of the scale of devastation from this earthquake. The death toll stands at 1,700 people, but it's expected to rise higher than that, possibly Much higher than that, but we just don't really have much information coming out of the country. Another significant obstacle is there's just been widespread damage to airports, radio roads and bridges. Mandalay, which is the second largest city in Myanmar, was very, very close to the epicenter of the earthquake. And just across the river is the town of Sagine, and the two settlements are connected by two bridges. Both of those bridges were severely destroyed, which means that supplies are now being ferried over by ferry, which is making rescue efforts incredibly slow. There's also very little information coming out of Sagyn town. There's reports that the stench of corpses is overwhelming, which suggest that the death toll is much, much higher than has been reported. And then beyond the communication blackout and the widespread infrastructure damage, the third thing is that it's very, very unlikely that the junta will allow aid teams to access huge areas of the country that have been hit by the earthquake but are not controlled by the junta. So, for example, just north of Saguyn town is a huge region called Saguyn, which is contested by a myriad of resistance forces. And we have almost no information about what's going on there. And aid workers and relief haven't been allowed to access that part of the country.

So, Su Lin, it seems like the civil war is going to have a huge impact on how the country recovers from this earthquake. But what impact is the quake going to have on the future of the war?

So the earthquake's devastation is clearly a huge blow to every single person in Myanmar. But I think it's unfortunately really dealt a massive blow to resistance forces, which depend on support from local communities that are now struggling with basic survival. Of course, this natural disaster has been terrible for the junta as well. It's incredibly superstitious, views natural calamities as bad omens. But the reality is that the junta still has a stranglehold over a lot of weapons in Myanmar, over economic resources, and it's the one that is carrying out the vast majority of airstrikes, as we heard, even after this earthquake. And so it's very unlikely that we're going to see this earthquake become, you know, an existential threat to the junta's grip on power. If anything, the junta will manoeuvre and use the earthquake and use the aid that comes in afterwards to try to consolidate its position and fuel aid only to areas that are loyal to the junta. So as the humanitarian crisis deepens, the world actually faces a really, really crucial test, which is, can it find ways to deliver aid to all the victims in Myanmar, even as the junta continues to exploit human suffering across the country for its own control.

Su Lin, thank you so much for talking to me.

Thank you, Rosie.

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You are tuned to the Voice of America in Washington.

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Anton La Guardia is our diplomatic editor.

And these are instruments of American soft power that the Trump administration has decided to eliminate to the greatest extent possible legally. But in practice, it has just about stifled them entirely.

Anton We've heard a lot about cuts in America recently. Why is this one worth paying particular attention to?

It is in keeping with America, cutting back its sources of soft power and influence in the world. So, for example, it's also radically cut back usaid, which was the biggest provider of development aid. It's cutting back various institutions and think tanks. So I think this talks to an administration that doesn't really care much about preserving primacy and influence around the world.

Anton these sorts of broadcasts have been really important in places that didn't have free media themselves. Presumably they're delighted that these are now being shut.

Well, Chinese state propaganda outlets are gloating openly at the demise of these broadcasters, saying they've been cast aside like dirty rags. One of the Russian ones as well said, look, we've tried for a long time to close down these networks, and now the Americans have done it for us.

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Well, they have slightly different histories, but broadly speaking, they were perceived to have helped to win the Cold War. And when you speak to Eastern European leaders today, they will speak about how they listen to these radio stations, often illicitly, and how they drew strength from them. They both helped to challenge the narratives of then totalitarian governments and Communist governments and reflected news about what was happening in their own countries that they could never get from their own state media. And if you listen to someone like Lech Wasa, who is a former president of Poland, he will say that Poland's freedom was won by the Pope and by Radio Free Europe. And people who remember Radio Liberty will remember that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago was published in full, first on Radio Liberty. At the same time, the history is not unblemished. So it emerged at some point that a lot of these radio stations were funded by the CIA secretly, which was a scandal at the time and tainted it somewhat. And then the federal government stepped in to provide overt funding, as opposed to covert funding. Also, times when they were deemed to have stepped over the line, for example, during the Hungarian Revolution of 56, where it seemed to be going from reporting to incitement. And then there are the perennial questions as to whether the cost of these global broadcasters is worth the money. And it's something that's very difficult to measure. But periodically over the years in the Senate and elsewhere, people have asked whether they were worth preserving.

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I think it's a combination of things. There are people who just want small government, think there should be a lot less federal spending generally. There are people who think that this whole globalism idea, the idea of America as a dominant global power, is passe. And then I think there are people who are waging a culture war, who see federal spending and federal bodies and staff as essentially packed by leftists who use public funding to feather their nest, to give themselves and their friends jobs and to perpetuate a globalist elite.

And how is it possible, after decades of building up that kind of reputation, for Trump to dismantle it all so quickly?

Well, it's part of the same chainsaw attitude to the federal government that we're seeing elsewhere, which is dismantle first, ask questions later, and sometimes go back on yourself. I think part of it is aimed at keeping opponents off balance and preempting the inevitable lawsuits that will follow. These various broadcasters have slightly different organizational structures and different funding structures, which means that some of them are still producing output, albeit in minimal form, and hope to carry on long enough for lawsuits to reverse what has happened or partly reverse what has happened. It's worth remembering the funding for these things comes from Congress. So I think part of the hope is that the courts will put a stay of execution on these bodies, and they hope to reverse some of it. It is possible that in the case of Radio Free Europe, given the number of European countries that feel they owe their independence to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, that there will be European funding for them.

And Anton, you've talked a lot about the history of these sorts of stations, but what about their listeners today who will lose out once these are cut?

I think there are broadly two categories. One is people who want to understand better what is happening in America, told by Americans rather than filtered through their own national media. I think there's a second category of people, and this pertains to the smaller stations like Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, and to some extent Radio Marti broadcasting to Cuba, which is that they act as surrogates for local media, particularly where they are controlled by the state or where there's very little information. Places like North Korea or China, particularly in Xinjiang and Tibet, they not only broadcast in those languages, but also have a great ability to bring out stories from those places because they have staff who have connections to those parts of the world. The radio for Europe, for example, has programs focus in the caucuses. So you reach Dagestan, you reach Siberia in ways that other global broadcasters don't and cannot without that body of staff who are experts in their region. And I think the other thing to say is that they nurture local journalism. In some countries they're allowed to operate, in some countries they're not. So they have to do so surreptitiously. But they have broken a lot of stories about corruption in Central Asia and the Caucasus and the Balkans. The story that will be very familiar to you is, of course, the corralling of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in re education camps in the Xinjiang region of China. So that kind of holding institutions to account will happen less if America no longer cares about those things, then it cares less about stations that try to do that. So I think we're seeing in part a loss of belief that America has a model to export.

Anton, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

If you're a working woman, your lived experience may be dictated by where in the world you're based.

Lizzie Peet is a researcher at the Economist.

Each year the Economist publishes its Glass Ceiling Index. The list compares working conditions for women across 29 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the oecd, which is a group of mostly rich countries. The list reveals the best and worst places to be a working woman. The Glass Ceiling Index is based on 10 measures, including salaries paid, parental leave and political representation. These indicators are then used to make the final rankings in our latest 2025 index. Sweden comes first, ending Iceland's two year winning streak. Turkey finishes last. There are some consistent trends year to year, but that said, you can still track changes within the indicators which show there is some progress being made. The measures that the ranking is based upon look at the pipeline of a woman's career. So starting at university, taking in promotion to management and leadership roles and taking into account the effect of motherhood. So our starting factor is education. Women across the OECD graduate university at higher rates than men. Last year, as every year, more women had a degree than men, 45% versus 37% of adult women. Despite these trends, labour force participation is lower for women in every nation on the list. The rates of working age women with jobs varies a lot by country. In Sweden, 82% of adult women work Iceland, Norway similarly high percentages, but In Italy just 58% do. Lower workforce participation hinders career progression, which then affects the gender pay gap. We measure this as a difference between men's and women's salaries of the median income range, despite many efforts to close it. For example, countries passing pay gap disclosure laws forcing companies to disclose the gender pay gaps across the group this is stuck at 11%. Other indicators track women's progress in business and politics. The share of company board seats held by women was up from just 21% in 2016 to 33% today. A similar number of women and men hold ball positions in New Zealand, France and the uk and women also fill nearly half of managerial positions in Sweden, the US and Latvia. After more than 70 countries held elections last year, there is now a record proportion of women in parliaments across the group at over 34%. Britain finished 14th overall in the index and did well in the business and politics indicators compared to previous years. Their election in July 2024 put 43 more women into parliament, making the female representation 41%. As recently as 1997, that was less than 10%. In Japan, after elections in October, 16% of lawmakers are now female, which sounds small but is a record high in that country. The effects of starting a family have slightly less weighting in the overall ranking as not every woman has children. But it's still important to take into account the so called motherhood penalty, which hurts careers of women who have children. Generous parental leave and affordable childcare can increase female participation in the workforce, as mothers are typically expected to do most of the childcare duties. The US, which comes 19th on the index, is the only country in the group without any federally mandated parental leave. Childcare expenses also exceed a third of average wages. Only New Zealand and Switzerland have higher relative costs. This all makes it much likelier that American women will be forced to drop out of the workforce to care for children. There are much more generous policies elsewhere in the group. For example, mothers receive the equivalent of fully paid leave for 79 weeks in Hungary. In Slovakia it's 69 weeks. And leave for fathers is also important as it encourages parents to share the childcare burden and prevents companies discriminating against women. Spain is a major country that has equalised parental leave, so mothers and fathers can take 16 weeks each. Japan and South Korea, which rank 27th and 28th in the group, have some of the most generous paternity leave policies in the list, though few new fathers stay at home. The Glass Ceiling Index is a broad and imperfect snapshot of the workforce, but it does help to show how different countries perform over time. Although most women are still struggling to break through the glass ceiling and not much changes year to year, most countries are still at least changing for the better.

To read more about the Economist's Glass Ceiling Index, head to the Graphic Details section of the Economist website. You'll find chart galore for each of the indicators used to formulate the list. That's it for this episode of the Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

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