Over 400 Burmese prisoners have been languishing in several Bangladesh prisons because Burmese authorities have refused to take them back, an official report said.
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Ministers are coming under increasing pressure to reveal which British companies import goods from Burma amid a growing clamour of protest at the appalling human rights abuses carried out by the country’s military dictatorship.
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Myanmar is making arrangement to open soon an embassy in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East to start carrying out its diplomatic undertakings, the local Weekly Eleven News reported Monday. (more…)

The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), a military-controlled, nominally “transitional” government, has ruled Burma since 1988 (following 26 years of formal military rule under dictator Ne Win). (more…)

A High Level Task Force of senior Association of Southeast Asian Nations bureaucrats has been engaged, since the end of March, in drawing up a draft charter for the regional bloc. (more…)

The country tumbles into chaos while drug traffickers ship their wares to Hawaii, where crystal meth is highly profitable
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The Burmese authorities have reportedly cracked down on visits to political prisoners, increasing restrictions on food and medicine parcels, the families of several detainees told DVB.
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About 80 villagers from three villages in De Maw So Township, Karenni State are being made to undergo forced labour to reconstruct a Burma Army camp in Daw Ta Ma Gyi village.
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A group of 20 villagers from Pwint Phyu township in Magwe division told DVB yesterday that they filed a forced labour complaint with the International Labour Organization.
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Burma’s ruling junta and a private company have confiscated thousands of acres of land from farmers in western Kachin State in the name of a new agricultural project, according to sources in the area.
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The Burmese military junta has banned the use of the popular internet telephony, Mediaring Talk, an online telephone enabled overseas telecommunication system, which was available at cheap rates, sources in Rangoon said.
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A former anti-government Shan ethnic armed group, which returned to the legal fold 13 years ago, has surrendered their weapons to the government, according to Friday’s report of the state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar.
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Burma’s military regime has forced businessmen and merchants in Rangoon to donate cash and commodities to cover the cost of the National Convention, according to business sources in the former capital.
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Myanmar has objected to a proposal to create a regional human rights body under a landmark charter being drafted by Southeast Asian countries, two diplomats said Friday.
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Southeast Asian nations are close to agreeing on their first-ever charter, a landmark move diplomats say could turn the ASEAN bloc into an EU-style rules-based grouping.
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Twenty four Bangladeshi fishermen were abducted and two fishing boats were seized by personnel of the Burmese border security force, the Nasaka on Tuesday, from the mouth of the Naff River near St. Martin Island a fisherman said.
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US sanctions on military-ruled Myanmar have failed and the next American administration may change tactics to bring about reforms in the Southeast Asian state, according to the head of a top US business lobby group in the region. (more…)

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Southeast Asia, Eric John, and the predecessor to his position, Matthew Daley, delivered strikingly divergent views on U.S. policy toward Burma during a panel discussion Thursday in Washington. The current holder of the position remains confident in Washington’s continued hard-line position, with the latter predicting an inevitable change in direction. (more…)

Seven Rohingya refugees from Burma held in a camp on a Pacific island have won a precedent-setting legal battle to have their applications for refugee status in Australia considered by the Canberra government.
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One diplomat, at least, is putting in overtime to break the ice of Burma’s lingering political impasse-Ibrahim Gambari, the UN Secretary General’s special rapporteur on Burma. He deserves special praise for taking his search to Moscow o­n a mission never attempted by any of his predecessors. (more…)