Nearly 7,000 students failed the matriculation exam under the old curriculum in the previous academic year in Arakan State, and only 576 of them have registered to sit the matriculation exam or Grade 12 exam under the new curriculum to be held next year, according to the state education office.
 

Myanmar’s military regime is working to turn national identity cards into “smart cards”, and data collection and education is being carried out in Arakan State.
 

Among Chinese wind turbine projects to be implemented in Arakan State, the evaluation stage is reportedly nearing completion for a project in Gwa Township.
 

Myanmar’s military regime said it has committed K742.5 million for the development of agriculture, livestock breeding and small-scale industries in Arakan State.
 

Since October 24, the military regime has once again begun allowing prison visits by family members of prisoners, which had been banned since 2020 due to restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
 

Many acres of ripe rice plants have been destroyed by infestations in Arakan State’s Rathedaung, Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U, Minbya and Pauktaw townships, according to local farmers.
 

The United League of Arakan (ULA), the political wing of the Arakan Army (AA), which runs a parallel administration in Arakan State, said its judiciary department has yet to handle more than 2,500 complaints that it has received since last year.

A total of 687 civilians have been killed nationwide and 458 others were wounded by junta air attacks since its February 2021 coup, according to an October 23 report from Nyan Lin Thit, an independent research group monitoring Myanmar’s political situation.

Arakan State residents have called on the Myanmar military to withdraw its troops from pagodas and temples during the Thadingyut holiday so that Buddhists can freely practise religious activities at those sites.

The Sittwe District Fire Services Department has issued eviction notices to more than 20 shops at a local market in the Arakan State capital’s Mingan Ward, according to shopkeepers.

Four Muslim minors were arrested in Nganchaung Village, part of Arakan State’s Maungdaw Township, for allegedly crossing the border illegally on October 22, according to Rakhine Daily, a mouthpiece of the Arakan State military council.
 

It has been nearly a year since the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA) reached an informal ceasefire in November 2022, but junta soldiers have tightened security checks on locals and travellers at security checkpoints along the Sittwe-Yangon road in recent days, locals said.
 

The Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) has advised residents of northern Arakan State to take precautions as the cyclonic storm Hamoon, originating over the Bay of Bengal, looked to be on an east-northeast trajectory.

Arakanese woman Ma Thandar Soe is representing Myanmar in Miss Cosmopolitan World 2023 international beauty pageant, being held from October 23 to November 9 in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur.
 

Arakanese musicians have called on the Education Ministry to explicitly recognise the composer of a song featured in an Arakanese literature textbook for Grade 2 published by the ministry’s Basic Education Department.

A public park will reportedly be built on the land plot that formerly hosted several eateries along the main stretch of beach in the Arakan State capital Sittwe, which were bulldozed earlier this month.
 

A previously unrecorded species of snake from the Trimeresurus group has been documented in Myanmar for the first time globally, according to the Native Species Conservation and Identification in Myanmar organisation. 

Farmers in Bago Region say they will not be able to repay their agricultural loans this year due to the destruction of ripe paddy fields from flooding and decreasing paddy yields, and the expectation that these conditions will lead to losses.
 

Well-known pagodas and temples damaged by Cyclone Mocha in Arakan State reportedly remain in disrepair due to financial constraints.