U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari arrived in Myanmar’s capital Monday on a five-day mission to promote national reconciliation and political reform in the military-ruled country. (more…)

Burma’s main opposition party – the National League fro Democracy – on Monday said it welcomed another round of visit by the United Nations special envoy to Burma, but pointed out that so far Gambari’s efforts had failed to create any political breakthrough. (more…)

Detained opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed another meeting yesterday with her lawyer, Kyi Win, which lasted for about two hours. (more…)

Five young activists who were arrested in Taunggok township, Arakan state, on 8 August for staging a demonstration have been sentenced to two and a half years in prison. (more…)

The plans of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) may force diversity alongside reconciliation with political minorities in Burma, one of the ethnic ceasefire groups, the New Mon State Party (NMSP) has warned the junta on the 61st Anniversary of Mon Revolution Day. (more…)

When night falls in Rangoon, the city’s spectacular decay-patches of black mold devouring the yellowed walls of colonial buildings, trees growing wildly into crumbling third-story terraces-nearly disappears from view. The tea shops fill up, locals crowd the bookstalls on Pansodan Road, and the city, which seems furtive and depressed by day, becomes a communal stage. In the Chinatown district, two men in an alley crank out schoolbooks with a hand-operated printing press. At a sidewalk fish market, women sell shrimp, scallops, and squid by candlelight, while two teen-agers nearby strum guitars. Further east, along the Rangoon River, in the old residential quarter of Pazundaung, the wooden houses are open to the street, like storefronts, revealing an old woman sitting on a couch, a living-room shrine strewn with votive candles, and two men laughing as they listen to a radio. (more…)

Refugee children from Myanmar who are now in Malaysia awaiting relocation to another country share their plight and hopes for the future in a book titled My Beautiful Myanmar.
(more…)

Junta Silent on Asean Mutual Energy Security Pact

The Burmese government has remained silent about proposals for energy security within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). (more…)

A five-member delegation from the Burmese exiled Members of Parliament Union attended an Indonesian parliamentary function to mark the 63rd anniversary of Indonesian independence on 15 August. (more…)

The United Nations and Myanmar have resolved a problem with distorted official exchange rates that led to U.N. losses of more than $1.5 million in the delivery of aid to survivors of Cyclone Nargis. U.N. officials said on Monday the military government had agreed to let outside donors pay local companies directly and in U.S. dollars, rather than via the official, long-winded system involving foreign exchange certificates. (more…)

The United Nations can be an irreplaceable forum for diplomacy and a provider of humanitarian assistance. But this parliament of Nations has repeatedly failed to live up to its responsibility to protect populations from criminal regimes. Nowhere has that failure been more flagrant than in Burma, where a vicious military junta continues to deceive and defy the world body. (more…)

In a recent interview, Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation Ulla Tørnæs said economic sanctions on Burma and a tourism boycott are counterproductive and suggested the country would benefit from more tourists and trade with the world.
(more…)

(1) Burmese Military regime’s intelligence officials and the authorities had forcibly entered and searched some houses in Rangoon, where members of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) were staying, at night of August 7, 2008. (more…)