Two young monks arrested at their Rangoon monastery on Saturday are being held at Insein interrogation center, according to colleagues. (more…)

Famine deaths are still being reported from a region of Burma’s northwestern Chin State, where inhabitants of 45 villages are being forced to forage for food in the jungle because their rice stocks have been lost to a plague of rats. (more…)

Relief efforts by the Free Burma Rangers to help cyclone victims in the Irrawaddy delta are under threat due to funding shortages, according to an FBR official speaking on condition of anonymity. (more…)

Farmers in cyclone-hit Bogalay township in Irrawaddy division have said that local authorities are threatening to confiscate their land if they do not grow any rice this year. (more…)

Sale of fish has dropped considerably in Rangoon given the soaring prices following the flooding of ponds and rivers in Irrawaddy and Pegu last week. (more…)

Eleven Burmese nationals are languishing in prison after finishing their term in Ragamati jail, in Bangladesh because the Burmese junta did not receive them. They are called “released prisoners” in Bangladesh, according to a person who was released recently. (more…)

Burmese Foreign Minister U Nyan Win is expected to attend the foreign minister level Bimstec meeting to be held in New Delhi, India, on Friday, 29 August, said a report. (more…)

Military-run Myanmar announced Wednesday it would hold a mid-year auction of precious gems in Yangon, despite economic sanctions banning their international trade. (more…)

A Cambodian Parliamentarian on Wednesday called on the Secretary Generals of the United Nations and Association of Southeast Asian Nations to fulfill their promise on Burma by initiating a new approach to finding a political solution for the country. (more…)

Influential international and regional leaders should act immediately to help detained Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi get her message out to the world, according to a leading rights group. (more…)

Indonesia considered that the UN mission in Myanmar carried out by its special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has not failed yet, supporting the envoy to continue its mission with the support of the Focus Group, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said. (more…)

The secretary of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament has defended Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for not meeting United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari during his recent visit to Burma. (more…)

The PM adds more salt to the wounds by openly endorsing junta’s planned 2010 elections (more…)

With just less than 3 months away from the 2008 U.S. presidential election, campaigns for the office of a free world leader takes hectic turns: issues ranging from economy to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and lately a reminiscence of cold war confrontation in the former Soviet Republic. (more…)

IT HAS BEEN ALMOST a year since the world was stirred by thousands of Burmese monks and ordinary people taking to the streets to demand freedom — and being bloodily crushed by one of the world’s cruelest regimes. Governments everywhere proclaimed that such violence and repression could not stand, and they insisted that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon do something. Mr. Ban sent his special envoy on a mission with explicit goals: Secure the release of democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, and help the National League for Democracy (NLD) to reopen offices throughout the country. The envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, just finished sixth fruitless mission to Burma, and it is clear now that U.N. diplomacy has become a cover for inaction, not a pathway to reform. (more…)

The burning question is: What was the real meaning and motive behind Aung San Suu Kyi’s refusal to meet UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari last week? (more…)

While the United Nations heaps praise on Myanmar’s ruling junta for its collaborative spirit in dealing with the Cyclone Nargis disaster, the military regime has made it clear that cooperation stops when it comes to UN attempts to mediate a political breakthrough in the country. (more…)