YANGON – Aung San Suu Kyi’s pleas are falling on deaf ears these days. Far from heeding the Nobel peace laureate’s cry to stay away from military-ruled Myanmar, tourists are flocking to the mystical, isolated Southeast Asian nation in ever-greater numbers.

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Yangon: At least one person was killed and another injured Tuesday when an xplosion ripped through a restaurant inside a popular Yangon market, itnesses said.

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Central Mon State enjoys a better standard of living due to a thriving economy and an increase in population in sharp contrast to other areas of Burma.

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Akyab, Dec 21: Maj- Gen Kyi Aung, the Culture Minister of the military government recently made an astonishing visit to Arakan State, where he inspected a number of renovated ancient pagodas built by Arakanese kings in several of Arakan’s past dynasties.

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Tachileik and Mae Sai: Informal Burmese networks supply teenaged girls to customers of Thailand’s commercial sex industry.

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Ranong: Why Burmese migrant women risk all to work in Thailand’s brothels.

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December 17: Bangkok: Hailed by activists as a triumph for human rights, Unocal Corp’s decision to settle lawsuits alleging abuses in Myanmar may only be a pyrrhic victory in the wider campaign to force foreign firms out, analysts say. Activists are promising to pile more pressure on Western firms doing business in the military-ruled nation shunned for its human rights record and suppression of political opponents.

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December 16: The European Commission is being pressed to explain whether loopholes in revamped EU sanctions on Burma have been designed to allow the French energy giant Total to continue working with the country’s oil and gas monopoly.

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Lawyers working on behalf of people seeking asylum in Japan filed a criminal accusation Monday against the head of the Higashi-Nihon Immigration Center and its guards, alleging they assaulted and injured detainees.

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Tokyo: A Myanmar woman, detained for illegal entry and separated from her young children, has been released on bail Tuesday from a Tokyo immigration center, according to her supporters.

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Burma’s government needs to act swiftly.

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December 19: Yangon: Myanmar’s military junta has begun the complete dismantling of a military intelligence unit formerly headed by disgraced premier Khin Nyunt, former intelligence officials and diplomats said Sunday.

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December 19: Yangon: Myanmar’s junta recently changed the name of the Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence to the Office of Military Affairs Security in an apparent bid to eliminate both the image and shadow of the scandal-tainted military intelligence unit, diplomatic sources said Sunday.

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December 19: Yangon: Myanmar’s military junta has loosened tight auto import restrictions to put more natural gas-powered cars on the road, officials said Sunday, as petrol prices skyrocketed in the isolated country.

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December 15: Dhaka: The Arakan League for Democracy (in Exile) today issued a statement for Arakan State Day.

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The military authority in Rangoon arrested four NLD members on 19 December for distributing human rights educational leaflets. The four arrested were U Ba Myint, Chairman of the Ahlon Township NLD and South Dagon Township NLD members Ma Theigi, Aung Moe San and U Ba Tint.

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December 17: Burma’s military junta, State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is still using child soldiers for its army.

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Yangon: Myanmar will start implementing a 12.3-million-US-dollar edible oil project next month, funded by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to help upgrade its oil crops production for self-sufficiency, the local Myanmar Times reported Monday.

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Singapore: Southeast Asia edged closer towards European-style economic integration and historic trade deals with its giant neighbours in 2004 as the region’s economies rebounded from last year’s SARS crisis.

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Los Angeles: U.S. corporations could change the way they do business overseas in reaction to the pending settlement of a human rights case that claims oil giant Unocal should be held liable for slave labor, rape and other crimes allegedly committed during the building of a pipeline in Southeast Asia, experts said.

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