Soaring land prices push Myanmar's poor into streets

Hard life: A woman feeding her baby in their bamboo house built in the compound of a Buddhist monastery in a suburb of Myanmar’s former capital Yangon. — AFP

YANGON: Soaring rents in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon have seen hundreds of poor families shunted from their homes, forcing them to turn to charity as their last buffer from life on the streets.

Political transformation, which has swept the country since the quasi-civilian government took power in 2011, has seen sanctions lifted from the former pariah state and stoked rising investment interest in the perceived frontier market.