Two defense lawyers who are representing National League for Democracy (NLD) members were sentenced today by the Northern District Court to six month prison terms for “interrupting judicial proceedings”. (more…)

The State Peace and Development Council is said to be planning an all-out offensive against the Karen National Union, according to a source close to the military. (more…)

Local authorities under Burma’s ruling junta have compromised over students’ accommodation for the Distant University Education under Monyein University in Burma’s northern Kachin State, student sources said. (more…)

A U.S.-based human rights group says Burmese authorities have arrested a lawyer who is defending members of Burma’s opposition party. (more…)

Rats destroyed paddy fields in the mountains on the western Burmese border as well as some fields in inner Arakan State recently, reported an official from the agriculture department in Rathidaung. (more…)

A BBC radio report that a daughter of Burmese junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe went shopping for gold worth more than US $80,000 is a hot topic of discussion these days at teashop tables in Mandalay. (more…)

Concerned with growing tensions between the Burmese military government and the ethnic ceasefire groups along the Sino-Burma border, Chinese officials have warned the latter not to force the hands of the former, say sources close to the ceasefire groups. (more…)

The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is now looking to China for shelter following mounting pressure from Myanmar and Bangladesh with the outfit’s top commander Paresh Baruah now believed to be somewhere near the Myanmar-China border scouting for help to relocate its bases, intelligence officials said. (more…)

The world’s gemstone traders have decided to fight back against a new US law banning the sale of Burmese rubies and sapphires. (more…)

Chevron has quietly removed from its website any reference to its operations in Burma, a country where the oil giant has been implicated in allegations of rape and murder connected to a lucrative pipeline project that generates up to $1 billion annually for the country’s brutal military regime, the Amazon Defense Coalition said today. (more…)

Myanmar has reiterated ban on advertisements of cigarette and liquor, warning that such advertisement billboards erected in the Yangon municipal area, will be removed if found, the local Myanmar Newsweek reported Wednesday. (more…)

Veteran politicians Thakin Tin Mya, Thakin Hla Kone and U Shwe Ohn have been invited to attend a seminar in Hong Kong to discuss the current political situation in Burma. (more…)

Activists have accused a symposium on ‘Burma Affairs’ held in Belgium in recognition of ‘Burma Day’ of substantially ignoring human rights violations committed by the Burmese junta. Burma Campaign UK (BCUK) criticized the meeting, held on the 29th of October in Brussels, for almost singularly discussing issues on the current and future humanitarian needs of Burma and neglecting the subject of human rights. (more…)

The UN refugee agency has helped some 200,000 people with essential plastic sheets and mosquito nets in the six months since Cyclone Nargis hit the Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta, but remains concerned about the welfare of many widows and orphans. (more…)