UN special envoy Julie Bishop makes trip to war-torn Myanmar after devastating earthquake

BANGKOK (AP) — The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar has made a visit to the military-ruled nation, meeting Wednesday with the foreign minister as the country recovers from an earthquake that killed more than 3,600 people.

It is the second visit the envoy, Australia’s Julie Bishop, has made since her U.N appointment last year. She previously made a low-key visit that was made public only when she reported to the United Nations in October last year that she had met with the head of Myanamr's military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, in the capital Naypyitaw.

On Wednesday, Bishop met with Foreign Minister Than Swe and other officials at a temporary tented area outside of the ministry’s damaged building in the capital Naypyitaw, which was hard hit by the 7.7 magnitude quake on March 28, Myanmar's MRTV state television said.

The earthquake caused significant damage to six regions and states, leaving many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaging roads and bridges, exacerbating hardships caused by the Southeast Asian nation's continuing civil war.

Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesperson for the military government, said late Wednesday that the quake’s death toll has reached 3,649, with 5,018 injured and 145 missing.

The earthquake destroyed 48,834 houses, 3,094 Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, 2,045 schools, 2,171 departmental offices and buildings, 148 bridges and 5,275 pagodas, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported, citing Vice Senior Gen. Soe Win, the vice chairman of the ruling military council.

Wednesday night’s MRTV report said Bishop and Myanmar officials discussed coordination between Myanmar and the United Nations on aid for quake-affected people, but did not detail further plans.

Bishop, a former Australian foreign minister and current chancellor of the Australian National University, was appointed as Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ envoy to Myanmar in April last year.

Her appointment drew flak last month when a group opposed to military rule in Myanmar alleged that she had business links with Chinese companies with interests in Myanmar, amounting to a conflict of interest. She denied any wrongdoing. China, along with Russia, is one of the ruling military’s major backers, while much of the Western world shuns and sanctions the generals for toppling democracy and serious human rights abuses, including the brutal use of force in its war against the pro-democracy resistance and ethnic minority guerrillas.

Guterres said ahead of Bishop’s visit that it would “reinforce the UN’s commitment to peace and dialogue.”

Although the military government and its armed opponents have declared unilateral ceasefires for a temporary period to facilitate relief and rehabilitation efforts in the wake of the earthquake, continued fighting is widespread, according to independent Myanmar media and witnesses.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since February 2021, when Myanmar’s army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government and then violently cracked down on widespread protests against its actions. After security forces unleashed lethal force on peaceful demonstrators, some opponents of military rule took up arms.

The office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General on Monday announced that Bishop had visited Malaysia, a key partner of the United Nations in efforts to support a Myanmar-led political solution to the crisis and to respond to humanitarian needs following the earthquake.

The quake worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis, with more than 3 million people displaced from their homes by the war and nearly 20 million in need even before it hit, according to the United Nations.

A situation report issued late Monday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said more than 17.2 million people are living in affected areas, and urgently need food, drinking water, health care, cash assistance and emergency shelter.

It was not immediately known if Bishop would meet military chief Min Aung Hlaing, or the country’s ousted civilian leader, Suu Kyi, who is imprisoned in Naypyitaw.

Suu Kyi, 79, is serving prison sentences totaling 27 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions. The military government has refused to allow her to meet with any outsiders, including a special envoy from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to which Myanmar belongs.

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This story has been corrected to show that Bishop's visit to Myanmar was her second, not her first, since being appointed U.N. envoy in April last year.

A car makes its way through a road damaged in the aftermath of the March 28 earthquake in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo)

People walk near a building of the labour ministry damaged in the aftermath of the March 28 earthquake in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo)

Rescuers clean debris from damaged roads in the aftermath of the March 28 earthquake in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo)

FILE - Australian Member of Parliament Julie Bishop talks at the opening panel of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)

The head of PBS said Friday that President Donald Trump's executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR was blatantly unlawful.

Public Broadcasting Service CEO Paula Kerger said the Republican president's order “threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years."

"We are currently exploring all options to allow PBS to continue to serve our member stations and all Americans,” Kerger said.

Trump signed the order late Thursday, alleging “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.

The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies to “cease Federal funding” for PBS and National Public Radio and further requires that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funnels public funding to the two services, said that it is not a federal executive agency subject to Trump's orders. The president earlier this week said he was firing three of the five remaining CPB board members — threatening its ability to do any work — and was immediately sued by the CPB to stop it.

The vast majority of public money for the services goes directly to its hundreds of local stations, which operate on a combination of government funding, donations and philanthropic grants. Stations in smaller markets are particularly dependent on the public money and most threatened by the cuts of the sort Trump is proposing.

Public broadcasting has been threatened frequently by Republican leaders in the past, but the local ties have largely enabled them to escape cutbacks — legislators don't want to be seen as responsible for shutting down stations in their districts. But the current threat is seen as the most serious in the system's history.

It's also the latest move by Trump and his administration to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with.

Since taking office in January for a second term, Trump has ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to artists, libraries, museums, theaters and others, through takeovers of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Trump has also pushed to withhold federal research and education funds from universities and punish law firms unless they agree to eliminate diversity programs and other measures he has found objectionable.

Just two weeks ago, the White House said it would be asking Congress to rescind funding for the CPB as part of a $9.1 billion package of cuts. That package, however, which budget director Russell Vought said would likely be the first of several, has not yet been sent to Capitol Hill.

The move against PBS and NPR comes as Trump's administration has been working to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which were designed to model independent news gathering globally in societies that restrict the press.

Those efforts have faced pushback from federal courts, which have ruled in some cases that the Trump administration may have overstepped its authority in holding back funds appropriated to the outlets by Congress.

AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order establishing the Religious Liberty Commission, during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

FILE - The headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) is seen in Washington, April 15, 2013. AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

FILE - Paula Kerger, President and CEO at PBS, speaks at the executive session during the PBS Winter 2020 TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena, Jan. 10, 2020, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)