The party of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged Myanmar’s ruling junta on Monday to set up a committee to review the military-backed constitution, saying it was «approved by force» in a referendum earlier this year. The terms of the charter perpetuate the military’s influence over politics and bar Suu Kyi from public office. (more…)

Detained National League for Democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeal against her house arrest is to be submitted to Naypyidaw early this week, the NLD information wing said. (more…)

A resident of Myitkyina said a local ward Peace and Development Council member and three locals were slapped and forced to do squats by an official after they questioned him while on guard duty. (more…)

In military-ruled Burma the jails are filling up with Buddhist monks. Currently, 136 members of the clergy are behind bars, most of them in the notorious Insein Prison in Rangoon, the former capital. That is the largest number of monks jailed at one time by the oppressive regime, say activists living in exile. (more…)

More than 100 Muslim Rohingya people from Burma’s Arakan State were arrested while travelling to Rangoon in search of work and were later sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, according to sources in the Arakan capital, Sittwe. (more…)

World Peace Day was observed in a Burmese refugee camp from 9 am to till noon yesterday. A rally was held in the refugee camp, said a Majee (shed leader) of the camp. (more…)

The Burmese military government has plans to build a trade center in Maungdaw, a western border town, in order to promote trade with Bangladesh, said a businessman. (more…)

Burma is among the countries that have taken action against Chinese-made milk products as the Chinese health ministry announced that nearly 53,000 children had become ill after drinking contaminated milk. (more…)

The United States State Department has accused Burma’s governing junta of being guilty of systematic religious persecution against members of the dominant Buddhist community as well religious minorities throughout the country. (more…)

It is a year since a Burmese soldier shot Japanese photographer Kenji Nagai in the heart while he was covering Burma’s saffron revolution for the Japanese agency APF News. Nagai’s dying moments, spent lying on his back attempting to film his killer, who stood over him taking aim, were captured by another foreign journalist. Reuters photographer Adrees Latif was crouching on a bridge overhead. His image, which subsequently won a Pulitzer Prize, provoked a worldwide furore, exposing the junta’s defence – that Nagai’s death was caused by a stray bullet – as worthless. (more…)

One of the most feared regimes in the world relied on the stars and auspicious numbers before it cracked down on the Monks in September 2007, according to Burma expert and former Le Monde reporter, Jean-Claude Buhrer. (more…)

The Irrawaddy recently spoke with UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari about his meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi, his disappointments and his hopes for the future of Burma. (more…)

Nilar Thein, a woman human rights defender and leading pro-democracy activist was arrested on 10 September 2008 and is currently being held at the Aung Tha Pyay Detention Centre in Rangoon, where she is at risk of torture and ill-treatment. WLB urgently appeals for her release and demands that the SPDC treat her humanely. (more…)