Some 14 people trafficked from Myanmar were rescued from their locked custody in central Thailand during a police crackdown on human trafficking on Thursday.
Fourteen people of Myanmar nationality, 11 men and three women, were found locked inside a house in the central province of Suphanburi, the state-run Thai News Agency reported on Friday.
A military officer, Maj Tint Swe, has become director of Burma’s Press Scrutiny and Registration Board, according to media sources in Rangoon.
May 17: Police distributed leaflets Tuesday at major road junctions and other public places offering the reward for information on recent bombings in Rangoon, which killed 19 people and injured 160 others. “Anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest of the bombers will be given a reward of 10 million kyats (US $10,500),” says the leaflet. Police has previously offered 5 million kyats reward and the Police Chief Brig-Gen Khin Yi told reporters at the press conference on late Sunday that the reward would be doubled “to give a greater incentive to the public” to help.
Thailand is planning to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) this month with Myanmar (Burma) to jointly develop the Salween River which partly defines the two countries’ border, a Thai minister said on Thursday.
Nations skirting Asia’s Mekong River on Thursday pledged refreshed efforts to tackle mushrooming illicit drugs in their region as their ministers met in northwestern Cambodia.
There is no denying that opium output in the north has soared high again after a 3-consecutive forced abstinence imposed by the ousted spy chief Gen Khin Nyunt, reports Hawkeye from Northern Shan State:
Myanmar’s international airport will be nearly tripled in size as part of a major expansion in preparation for next year’s ASEAN summit, a Singaporean company that won the revamp contract said Thursday.
Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, hoping to save the group from embarrassment, now say there is an increasing chance that Myanmar will voluntarily withdraw from its scheduled chairmanship of the organization next year.
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May 18: An Indian non-government organisation, advocating refugee rights, has condemned the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), New Delhi for failing to provide Burmese refugees their rights to live with dignity and honour.
Over the last five years, Guy Horton has been secretly entering Myanmar to gather evidence of human rights abuses that he hopes will open the door to international action against the nation’s military rulers.
The US and Canada have stepped up pressure on Burma’s ruling military junta. In the last few days, both nations have made clear their disapproval of the dictatorship and have taken stern actions against it.
Burma has turned serious terrorist attacks against cities into both farce and confusion with its ridiculous charge that the murderous violence was a plot by Thailand and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Such a risible conspiracy theory is better suited to the outer limits of outlandish internet chatrooms than international security and diplomacy. The generals of the Burmese junta have actually made it more difficult to determine who is behind an escalating terrorist campaign aimed at killing innocent women and children, and to stop them. The breathtakingly bizarre conspiracy invented by Rangoon illustrates just how out of touch the generals have become over 43 years of unbroken military rule.
May 18: The Canadian House of Commons has passed the Burma Motion by a vote 158 to 123 on 18 May 2005 calling on the Canadian Government to condemn more forcefully the repeated and systematic human rights violations committed by the military junta in power in Burma.
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