A fire broke out this morning at Yadanpon Market in Burma’s second largest city of Mandalay. (more…)

Nearly 3,000 people in Rangoon’s suburban Hlaing Tharyar Township are homeless after a fire broke out this morning at Ye Oat Kaan village near Industrial Zone (4). (more…)

A top official from the International Labor Organization (ILO) is today in Burma to meet with Burmese officials regarding extending an agreement relating to forced labor, according to the ILO office in Rangoon. (more…)

The Burmese regime is one of two governments in the world that is using anti-personnel landmines on an ongoing basis, according to the “Landmine Monitor Report 2007: Toward a Mine-Free World,” published recently in Burmese language by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). (more…)

Burma junta is persuading people to recruit as soldiers or become members of Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) by promising high positions to the public in Nam Kham Township at the Sino-Burma border, reported a local source. (more…)

The state-run Electric Power Corporation has been demanding extra money from residents of Tharawaddy township, Bago division, and withholding electricity from those who do not pay, locals said. (more…)

Residents of Rangoon’s South Dagon township ward 26 were tricked into attending a campaign meeting on the upcoming national referendum, having been told it was a meeting about identity cards. (more…)

The publisher of the weekly Myanmar Times newspaper, Myanmar Consolidated Media Company, is to publish a daily newspaper from May this year, according to one of the company’s employees. (more…)

The Bush administration, seeking to ratchet up pressure on Myanmar over human rights abuses, on Monday announced more economic sanctions against businesses and individuals linked to the country’s military leaders. (more…)

Myanmar is working for the emergence of its second border trade zone of Myawaddy and the formal opening of the trade zone opposite to neighboring Thailand is expected by the end of next month, one of the leading local weekly journals reported Monday. (more…)

The wealth of Burma’s forests is set to go on display next month, when the country’s ruling military regime will hold its third biannual exhibition of teak furniture and other timber products to attract international buyers and shore up its foreign reserves. (more…)

US President George W. Bush on Monday slammed the situation in Myanmar as “deplorable,” and urged international pressure for democratic change and the release of political prisoners. (more…)

NOBEL LAUREATES CALL FOR ACTION ON BURMA — Eight other Nobel laureates joined with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu earlier this month to call for an international arms embargo, supported by the United Nations Security Council, against Burma’s military junta. (more…)

An Irish-born, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Harvard professor who has been known to refer to herself as “the genocide chick” after her reporting from Rwanda and Sudan, has offered a glimpse of the near-evangelical zeal within the campaign team that has pushed Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination. (more…)

This month’s surprise announcement in Myanmar of a planned national referendum on a new constitution in May and multi-party democratic elections by 2010 are all part of Senior General Than Shwe’s game plan to hold onto power and ensure his family’s interests are secured. The question now is whether or not the junta leader’s health will hold out that long. (more…)

The next visit of a special U.N. envoy to military-ruled Burma is in danger of turning into a farce. (more…)

Asia inspired awe horizontally. In the perpendicular West, the great public monuments abased the visitor, compelling an upward gaze. The very name of the Acropolis announced its height; the interior spaces of Gothic cathedrals soared to heaven, leaving worshippers far below in the terrestrial mire. Yet the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat proclaimed their majesty as the focus of a wide vista, to be approached with contemplative languor. A complete transit of the Forbidden City, crossing one vast courtyard after another, takes hours; Confucian architects must have believed that fatigue promotes obedience. (more…)

The high-profile killing of the third-ranking Karen leader Mahn Sha in Mae Sot indicated that the Thai-Burmese border town, once a stronghold of Karen and Burmese pro-democracy forces, is no longer a safe place. (more…)

Calling Citizens around the World to Pressure the Government of China to Withdraw Its Unilateral Support for the Burmese Military Junta and to Boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (more…)

The Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Myanmar wrapped up his visit to Singapore today, meeting with senior officials and expressing his appreciation for the country’s continued support to the efforts of the United Nations to bring about democratic change in its troubled South-East Asian neighbour. (more…)