Jade is considered auspicious in Chinese culture and high-quality stones can fetch astronomical sums. - Reuters
YANGON: Myanmar's junta and anti-coup guerillas battled over the country's jade mining hub Friday (June 20), a combatant and a local said, displacing desperate civilians as they vied for supplies of the precious stone.
Myanmar has been consumed by a many-sided civil war since a 2021 coup toppled the democratic government, with the myriad of fighting factions plundering the nation's vast natural resources to fill their coffers.
