Mae Sot, Thailand – For one Buddhist monk from Burma, the brutal crackdown of peaceful street protests in the country last September was anything but a victory for the military regime.
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Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party on Tuesday invited ethnic minority groups that support Myanmar’s ruling junta to meet at its headquarters for talks on resolving their differences.
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A free tuition service at Ngway Kyar Yan monastery in South Okkalapa township, Rangoon, that provided extra classes to students from 10 townships in the surrounding area, has been suspended.
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An activist group in Burma today called on the ruling junta to begin a process of tripartite dialogue and warned the people of Burma “to prepare for the worst” if the generals fail to kick-start meaningful dialogue by Burma’s upcoming Union Day.
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The health of a woman member of Burma’s prominent 88 generation students group, Mie Mie, is said to be deteriorating in the notorious Insein prison because jail authorities refuse to provide adequate medical attention, an opposition party official said.
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A blogger who was apparently picked up in an Internet crackdown by the Burma military government has been seen in detention at a government office, an opposition party spokesman said.
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For the Burmese military junta confiscation of land of the people is a by word. The landowners seem to have no rights and all land is up for grabs by the military. Over 1000 acres of farmland on the hill side in Chin state, Burma has been seized for tea plantation.
Farmlands confiscated for tea plantation
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Over 250 mostly Karen villagers from eastern Burma fled recently to the Thai-Burmese border to escape forced relocation, according to a Karen relief team leader.
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The Thai government is being accused of barring so-called “long-necked” Padaung people from emigrating to Finland and New Zealand because they are valuable tourist attractions.
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Four Myanmar migrant workers have been killed execution-style on a rubber plantation in southern Thailand, police said Tuesday.
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A group of senior citizens is sitting and chatting together in a circle, hoping for worshippers to appear at Mandalay’s famed Mahamyatmuni Pagoda in Mandalay so they can beg for money. They are weak, feeble, and entirely dependent on these small offerings from the pious and compassionate. (more…)

Despite Burma being plagued by a steadily deteriorating economy, Ko Kyaw Thura (Ko Pauk), son of the Burmese junta’s northern commander Maj-Gen Ohn Myint proposes to construct a new airport in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, a source said. (more…)

The prevalence of HIV in Burma’s Kachin State has reached such proportions that 90 percent of the 400 prisoners held in jail in Myitkyina, the capital, are HIV positive, according to the Thailand-based Kachin National Organization (KNO). (more…)

As the Beijing Summer Olympic Games 2008 nears its opening ceremony on August 8, human rights activists have launched a campaign to boycott the games; one of the main reasons being China’s support for the Burmese military junta. (more…)

India based Burmese activists today demanded that the Indian government immediately release 34 Burmese ethnic rebels, who on February 8 will complete 10 years in prison in India. (more…)

The United States said Tuesday it was tightening financial sanctions against a network tied to Myanmar’s military junta, citing continuing human rights violations and political repression. (more…)

An annual report on press freedom around the world by a leading watchdog organization concludes that there was no improvement in 2007 in the working conditions of journalists in Burma. In several respects, the report adds, the situation has worsened in the aftermath of last year’s protests and subsequent government response. (more…)

Burma’s junta is in trouble as it faces the future with an ailing general in charge. Senior General Than Shwe is sinking fast, according to sources close to him. “He’s losing his mind – forgetting who has been cashiered in the past, becoming increasingly reclusive and trusting no one around him,” said a senior military source in Naypyitaw, Burma’s new capital – four hundred kilometers north of Rangoon. (more…)

The latest weaseling actions of the ruling Burmese military dictators have been widely condemned, and rightly so. The regime specifically broke a solemn promise to the United Nations by secret arrests of people it considers to be dangerous dissidents, known in most countries as democrats. It further cut off a beaten-down population from the information and cross-border contacts of the internet. It has completely stalled the talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, after promising they would lead to reconciliation. Any of these is a shameful act. Taken together, they show that the Burmese regime has no intention of reform. (more…)

My heart sank last week when I heard the words of pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi: “Let’s hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.” (more…)