Both countries agree to meet regularly to promote reconciliation for Burmese
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The US State Department has condemned the long prison sentences handed down to eight ethnic Shan politicians in Rangoon.
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Indigenous people in Southeast Asia demand to have their voices heard, The Nation reports. Growing human-rights violations and environmental degradation caused by development projects in Southeast Asia have forced the formation of a regional network among afflicted indigenous people and rights and green groups.
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Bangkok: Thailand’s foreign minister defended his country’s policy of engagement with the junta in Myanmar, saying it is needed to bring the reclusive regime into the battle against bird flu.
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Foreign Affairs Minister Kantathi said he has not been notified by the Burmese authority about the relocation of the capital, but he believed the change of Burmese capital from Yangon to Pyinmana, which is 600 kilometers away, may be a decision made based on internal reason.
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Pol.Maj-Gen Chamnong Kaewsiri, Commander of Chiang Rai Provincial Police Board, told The Irrawaddy that narcotic drug crime cases in the eight provinces of Northern Thailand had fallen, compared to 2004. But in the northeast, Thai agents arrested many more traffickers and seized more drugs.
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Nearly 100 Burmese journalists, reporters, writers, editors and poets from various media organizations, together with foreign correspondents and media consultants, gathered for the 3rd Burma Media Association conference in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand.
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No one knows whether to blame it on the dire predictions of a powerful Burmese soothsayer or recent tough talk from Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State. But today, Rangoon, the capital of Burma, is even more of a backwater than usual because the ruling military junta has abruptly abandoned its British colonial-era headquarters to head for a Burmese-style Brasilia in the hills.
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Suspicious that news was being passed on to the media from an internet cafe in Ye town, Mon state, the Burmese military government cracked down on it, the owner complained.
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The news filtering in of lengthy jail sentences for its leaders has plunged the ceasefire group Shan State Army-North into a bitter war of words, according to sources from northern Shan State.
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Chiang Mai: In a small brothel in northern Thailand, six girls, their bodies covered in bruises and cigarette burns inflicted by drunken customers, cower inside dark, grimy rooms.
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