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Myanmar soldiers have been accused of rounding up 11 people in a village in a central area of the strife-torn country before shooting them and setting fire to their bodies, according to residents in the area and media reports.

The charred remains were found in a village in Sagaing, an area which has seen fierce fighting between security forces and militia set up by opponents of military rule since a Feb. 1 coup, said residents, who said some of the victims were still alive when burned.

Video footage purporting to show the burned bodies was circulated on social media and images were published by some media including the Myanmar Now news portal.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage or claims over how the 11 died and a spokesman for the junta did not answer calls seeking comment.

A volunteer aid worker in the area, who asked not to be identified, said by telephone troops had entered Don Taw village early on Tuesday and the victims were killed at around 11 a.m. that day.

"The troops were just brutally killing anyone they could find," the volunteer said, citing witness accounts. The volunteer has assisted people who have fled Don Taw and other nearby villages.

The volunteer said it was unclear if the victims were militia members or ordinary civilians.

Myanmar has been in chaos since the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's democratically elected government, with widespread protests and the formation of militia, known as People's Defence Forces (PDF), to take on the well-equipped army.

Kyaw Wunna, a member of a PDF in the region, said by telephone he was informed that troops had arrived firing weapons and those detained were taken to a field near the village before being killed.

Kyaw Wunna declined to disclose the source of the information.

Another volunteer aid worker said they had spoken to witnesses among some of the 3,000 people who had fled from five villages in the area and had gone into hiding, fearful of more arrests and killings.

A relative of one of the victims told Reuters the dead man, Htet Ko, was a 22-year-old university student and not a member of any militia and not armed.

"This is inhumane. I feel deep pain in my heart," said the relative, who said the man had tried to flee, but had been wounded by gun fire.

Dr Sasa, a spokesperson for Myanmar's shadow civilian government set up following the coup, alleged the victims had been "lashed together, tortured, and ultimately burned alive".

In a post on social media, he listed what he said were the names of the 11, all male and including a boy of 14.

"These horrific attacks show that the military have no regard for the sanctity of human life," he said.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a monitoring group cited by the United Nations, says more than 10,700 civilians have been detained and 1,300 killed by security forces since the military seized power.

The military says AAPP is biased and uses exaggerated data and that hundreds of soldiers have also been killed. (Reuters)

 Japan will deny some tax breaks to big companies that do not hike wages while boosting deductions for those that do, as it moves to boost domestic salaries, a final draft of the ruling party's annual tax reform plan showed on Wednesday.

Wages in Japan have stayed largely flat over the past 30 years, OECD data shows, causing "lost decades" and grinding deflation, while the ruling LDP and its coalition ally Komeito are expected to endorse the plan on Friday.

The carrot-and-stick approach underscores Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's focus on distributing wealth to households, with steps such as urging pay hikes of 3% or more by firms whose profits have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

"The move shows the government has no choice but to intervene in private-sector wages to stoke a positive cycle of broad wage hikes and sustainable inflation in the long run," said analyst Yoshimasa Maruyama.

But it was doubtful the measures would immediately prompt firms to raise wages as they had recently lifted pay, added Maruyama, the chief market economist at SMBC Nikko Securities.

Lawmakers of Kishida's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have also agreed on tweaks to tax breaks on mortgages in another major reform for the next fiscal year, a senior lawmaker told Reuters.

Such tax breaks, adopted to cushion the pain of a hike in sales tax in Oct. 2019, now permit a deduction of 1% of outstanding housing loans at the end of each year, for up to a decade.

LDP lawmakers agreed on Tuesday to cut that deduction to 0.7% instead of 1%, as the exemptions outstrip the interest rates paid by homebuyers on such loans, while extending the term to 13 years from 10, to keep the amount of tax breaks steady.

UNDER PRESSURE

Since it swept to power in late 2012, the LDP-led government has piled pressure on cautious Japanese firms to spend their record cash piles to boost wages. But many have resisted, in the face of economic uncertainties.

Large companies that raise wages by 4% from the previous year will get deductions of up to 30% of taxable income, up from the maximum of 20% now, according to the plan for next fiscal year's tax reform obtained by Reuters.

Small firms that raise wages by 2.5% will qualify for a tax deduction of up to 40% from the current maximum of 25%.

However, companies that do not raise wages will not be able to claim tax deductions for spending on areas such as research and development, promoting investment, 5G, digital transformation and carbon neutrality, the draft showed.

Wage increases of 4% would represent a significant hike for Japanese firms, compared with offers of about 2% at annual wage talks with unions in recent years. (Reuters)

A senior Myanmar junta official said on Tuesday the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi showed that no one was above the law and the army chief had commuted her sentence on "grounds of humanity".

Information Minister Maung Maung Ohn also told a virtual briefing that Myanmar's judicial system was impartial and Monday's sentencing of the Nobel laureate and former leader was according to the law.

Suu Kyi, 76, was sentenced to four years in prison for incitement and breaching coronavirus regulations but the military junta leaders reduced it to a two-year term of detention in her current location.

“There is no one above the law,” Maung Maung Ohn said on Tuesday, adding that Myanmar's judicial system "has no partiality".

He was speaking at a rare media briefing on the economy during which he and the junta’s investment minister said the situation in the country was stabilising.

They said preparations for elections to be held before August 2023 were under way but would not confirm whether Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, would be allowed to compete.

The party is under investigation by the election commission, which Maung Maung Ohn said was due to report back early next year.

Myanmar has been in crisis since the military seized power in a Feb.1 coup, arresting Suu Kyi and most of her government.

Security forces seeking to crush opposition have since killed more than 1,200 people, according to monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, and armed rebellions have sprung up across the country.

On Sunday, security forces in a truck rammed into a flash mob protest in the commercial capital of Yangon, killing at least five people, the news website Myanmar Now reported.

Maung Maung Ohn said the protest was the result of pressure from anti-coup groups “so that young people get emotional” but that crowd management by authorities “is sometimes handled unintentionally”.

“Such kind of protests should be prevented according to the law,” he said.(Reuters)

Myanmar's military-appointed foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, held talks in Cambodia on Tuesday, a day after the junta drew global condemnation for sentencing deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to jail for incitement and breaching COVID-19 rules.

Wunna Maung Lwin met Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh, with the men tapping elbows in a greeting before talks, government handout pictures showed.

Cambodia will chair the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) next year, a bloc that has seen divisions over member Myanmar since Suu Kyi's government was overthrown in a Feb. 1 coup.

With some ASEAN members angered by the Myanmar military's unwillingness to deliver on its commitment to end hostilities and start dialogue, its leader Min Aung Hlaing, was not invited to a virtual summit of ASEAN leaders in October, in an unprecedented snub.

But Hun Sen, who has over the years faced criticism from rights groups and Western governments over what they see as his suppression of democracy, said on Monday junta officials should be invited to the bloc's meetings.

Hun Sen and Wunna Maung Lwin discussed bilateral relations, ASEAN issues and ways to re-establish good relationships within the bloc, said Eang Sophalleth, an assistant to the prime minister.

The foreign minister also handed Hun Sen an invitation for a visit to Myanmar on Jan. 7-8, which Hun Sen accepted, Eang Sophalleth said. Hun Sen would be the first government leader to visit Myanmar since the coup.

Cambodia's Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn also met Wunna Maung Lwin and said Cambodia and other ASEAN member states would help Myanmar achieve "a win-win solution".

He did not elaborate on what that might entail and no mention of the Suu Kyi verdict was made in official statements on the Myanmar minister's visit.

The international spotlight focused on Myanmar again on Monday when a court found Suu Kyi guilty of charges of incitement and breaching coronavirus restrictions, drawing condemnation of what critics said was a "sham" trial.

She will serve two years in detention at an undisclosed location, after her sentence was halved in a partial pardon from Myanmar's military chief.

Suu Kyi's supporters say the cases against her are groundless. Her conviction had been widely expected in Myanmar.(Reuters)