There is an obvious excitement in Asia today in anticipation of the emerging regional political architecture and the shifting of the centre of gravity from the US and Europe to Asia.
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The generals who run Burma and who resist all threats or encouragement to embark on political reform have been watching the clash in Iraq between the ballot box and the truck bomb with more than common interest.
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Brussels: Attacks on trade unions led to 145 deaths last year, most of them in Colombia, as workers’ rights came under pressure worldwide, a report by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions said Tuesday.
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The Brussels-based international Confederation of Free Trade Unions has said there is “little change” in Burma’s poor labor and human rights record in a report on global working conditions released today.
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London: Sleaze watchdog Transparency International reported Tuesday that Chad, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan and Myanmar were perceived as the most corrupt countries in the world, while Iceland was the cleanest.
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October 15: Dhaka: A protest against Daewoo over its involvement in the exploration and sale of natural gas from Burma to India was held in Dhaka yesterday morning by the Arakanese student organization, All Arakan Students and Youths Congress (AASYC) and the Arakan League for Democracy (exile).
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The Rohingya youth are getting involved in militant activities in the name of Islam. Several militant groups are using them in their activities. The Rohingyas have become a new threat for the country and the government.
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The Padaung, or “long neck,” women in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province have long been a steady tourism draw, but a deal brokered with Burma’s State Peace and Development Council, the Karenni National People’s Liberation Front and the Karuna Foundation in Burma could see the Padaung relocated to Burma’s Karenni State as early as next year, according to a KNPLF official.
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October 16: In a move highly reminiscent to the 1996-98 campaign that had displaced 300,000 people from their ancestral homes and fields, the Burma Army is again launching a new drive that began last month to realign scattered villages in southern Shan State in an effort to isolate the resistance from the local populace, according to latest reports received by S.H.A.N.:

A couple who arrived on the Chiangmai border yesterday told S.H.A.N. two of the villages Wanzan (60 households) and Koonkieng (40 households) where they came from were ordered by the Army on 4 October to move to the tract seat of Wanpong, Laikha township. (Tract in Burma denotes a cluster of villages)

“We lost our paddy fields and corn fields that were waiting ot be harvested, as well as the sesame field that we have just sown,” said Yazing, 40, who brought his wife Nang Li, 30, and three children. “We decided there and then and we had had enough of being pushed around and that we should get out while we still have each other.”

A year after the 1996-98 campaign the Burma Army had either forced or allowed the people in the relocated sites to move back to their former villages. “And now they want us to move again,” he said.

Aid workers in Fang, 160 km north of Chiangmai, say similar reports have been coming from Laikha’s neighboring townships of Mongkerng, Kehsi and Mongnawng. “We expect more refugees to arrive at the border beginning this month,” said one this morning.

The mass exodus had actually started soon after the outbreak of hostilities between the Burma Army and the Shan State Army-South’s former 758th Brigade that had switched allegiance to a new group called Interim Shan Government (ISG) that declared Independence on 17 April. To which Rangoon promptly responded by designating it an ‘unlawful association’ and launching a crackdown.

According to the ISG, Rangoon had dispatched 7 light Infantry battalions: 346, 372, 542, 544, 562, 563 and 566 from the western state of Arakan, in addition to local units for its Four Cuts operation that consists of cutting food, funds, intelligence and recruits by the villagers for the resistance movements.

For details on the 1996-98 campaign, please visit Shanland.org

Bangkok: China knowingly aids trade in illegal timber from northern Myanmar worth around 300 million dollars a year, some of which is sold in developed countries, a new report said Tuesday.
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