UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has given an upbeat report on his recent trip to promote democracy in Burma but Western ambassadors voiced doubts about the junta’s will to cooperate with him.
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UNITED NATIONS – UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Tuesday touted “positive steps” taken by Myanmar rulers since he visited the country last week but said they must do more to ensure genuine dialogue with the opposition.
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The United Nations Special Envoy to Myanmar today urged the South-East Asian nation to immediately begin talks between the Government and the opposition, stressing that dialogue was the only way forward to address the country’s ongoing crisis.
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Three Burmese dissidents, including civil rights champion Su Su Nway, were arrested in Rangoon on Tuesday morning, according to reliable sources. Two activist monks who took part in the September demonstrations were also arrested by authorities earlier this month.
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Sayadaw (abbot) U Gambira, a prominent Buddhist clergy, who took a leading role in the August and September peoples’ protest in Burma was arrested by the authorities in Rangoon, after a month in hiding, a source told Mizzima.
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Yangon, Myanmar: A prominent female activist who has been on the run from Myanmar’s military authorities for more than two months was arrested Tuesday, an official said.
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Troops of the Burma Army were conspicuous by their absence in Rangoon on the eve of the arrival of the UN rights expert, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro. The Burmese military junta took pains to see that there is no military presence in the former capital, a source close to the military establishment said.
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The SPDC authorities today ordered the head of the New Mon State Party (NMSP) to make a list of all NMSP soldiers, sources in the Township Development and Peace Council (TPDC) said.
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Seven years ago, in her small Burmese hometown, Tha Zin, 30, a garment factory worker, watched as one of her closest friends-a girl just a few years younger-sickened and finally died of an AIDS-related illness.
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Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh  – Fourteen Bangladeshi fishermen aboard two fishing boats were abducted in the Bay of Bengal by Myanmar border security forces, officials said on Tuesday.
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Thailand’s largest oil exploration firm, PTT Exploration and Production, said Tuesday it would invest at least one billion dollars over the next five years to develop its offshore gas project in Myanmar.
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More than 1,500 people from over 20 countries have registered for a major gems auction in Myanmar opening Wednesday, despite calls from human rights groups to block the purchase of precious stones from the military ruled country.
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Fourteen officials from seven Korean corporations, including a former president of Deawoo International, will be tried on Thursday in Seoul on charges of conspiring to illegally export weapons to the Burmese military regime.
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Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo has met the Indian Minister of External Affairs, Pranab Mukherjee, in New Delhi. (more…)

China had played and would continue to play a constructive role on the Myanmar issue, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao on Tuesday.
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India has again asked Myanmar to initiate inclusive political reforms. It also called upon Myanmar to release political prisoners “as far as is possible” and probe violence against unarmed civilians.
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International donors must use their influence and push Southeast Asia’s Mekong River Commission to speak out against six potentially devastating dams on the vital waterway, environmental groups said Tuesday.
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Myanmar’s military rulers should agree on a timetable for political change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, after his envoy returned from meetings with government and opposition leaders in the Southeast Asian nation.
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New York-based Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on China and Thailand to join the European Union and US in banning imports of gems and jade from Burma, where the state-run trade is allegedly financing military rule and human rights abuses.
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Myanmar’s principal foreign ally China has shown in the wake of the military junta’s recent armed crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators that Beijing is more interested in maintaining stability than pushing for democratic regime change. So then could India, Myanmar’s other key regional ally, be persuaded to use its influence to facilitate political change?
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