Pro-democracy activists in Myanmar are trying to turn the latest military crackdown to their advantage, hoping that a signature campaign calling for political dialogue will mobilize the public without exceeding what the junta can tolerate.
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The leader of an ethnic delegation at the junta-sponsored National Convention complained on Friday most of the proposals put forward by ethnic participants were being ignored.
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The “White expression” campaign for the release of five detained student leaders began in Arakan State on October 11 in Taungup town, with an estimated 60 percent of townspeople wearing white clothes in a show of solidarity.
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The victims of recent flooding in central Burma have complained of insufficient relief assistance, according to relief officials and local residents.
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Naw Yuzana yearns for what most people take for granted. The 20-year-old ethnic Karen hopes to someday go outside her refugee camp in Thailand and get a job.
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Myanmar will receive US$99.5 million (euro79 million) in foreign aid to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the three leading causes of death in the country, replacing funds withdrawn by a U.N.-formed international fund, state-run media reported Friday.
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The UN Office of Drugs and Crime on Friday hailed a 34 percent drop in Burmese opium production, but statistics revealed an apparent drastic improvement in farming methods that led to a slight increase in production.
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Thailand: Suspected Islamic militants beheaded a Myanmar migrant worker in front of his teenage daughter in the most gruesome of a spate of attacks in Thailand’s troubled south, police said Friday.
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Thirty four Arakanese freedom fighters, arrested by Indian authorities in 1998, were transferred on Tuesday to Port Blair Central Jail from a special detention centre that had been opened for them, according to reports.
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Burma is among six countries with the worst human rights records, according to the British government on Thursday.
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October 12: The recruitment of child soldiers is one of the most heinous war crimes, and among the most forgotten. Perhaps a quarter-million children – most in their teens but some as young as 7 – are forced to serve in government or insurgent armies in 20 countries around the world. Not only are they ordered to kill and torture, they often become victims of physical and sexual abuse. When they do return to civilian life, they are walking ghosts – damaged, uneducated pariahs.
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