Mizzima, based in India, announced: “This ban on www.mizzima.com was quietly lifted by the Burmese authorities recently.” The news group’s editor, Soe Myint, in a phone interview from Delhi, said he didn’t know why the ban had been lifted.

A Rangoon-based online media employee confirmed in a phone call from the Burmese capital that the Mizzima website was accessible there. Other exiled news websites such as The Irrawaddy and Khitpyaing (New Era) were still blocked, she said.

The Mizzima report confirmed that websites of The Irrawaddy (www.irrawaddy.org), Khitpyaing (www.khitpyaing.org) and also the Bangkok Post (www.bangkokpost.com) were still banned.

Burma’s military government strictly monitors Internet and email access throughout the country. The country’s sole Internet and email provider, Bagan Cybertech, founded in 2000, operates under strict government scrutiny.

Despite the lifting of the ban on Mizzima, Internet and email users in Rangoon report that government control of Internet access seems to have increased, with the installation of more firewall software. One user raised the possibility that a technical problem or oversight was responsible for Mizzima again being accessible.