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…)

People living in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta spent a tense weekend last week, as Cyclone Rashmi brought heavy rains and strong winds to a region that is still recovering from the effects of Cyclone Nargis, which killed at least 85,000 people less than six months ago. (more…)

A first-year student from Sittwe University was detained by police on 8 October on accusations he was connected with a student group in exile, said a close associate of the student from Sittwe. (more…)

Infantry Battalion (IB) No. 31 is forcing residents of southern Mon State to pay a new 10,000 kyat tax. The tax, allegedly to pay for new batteries for army communications equipment, began being levied last week in Yin-ye village, Khawza Sub-Township, Ye Township. (more…)

An International Labour Organization (ILO) team with the cooperation of UNHCR of Bangladesh is carrying out a survey in refugee camps regarding the skills and working conditions of refugees since October 23, a school teacher from a camp said. (more…)

Nine of Burma’s detained student leaders, popularly known as the 88 generation students, have been sentenced to six months of imprisonment today, on charges that they had defied court orders. (more…)

Thousands of Rohingya, Muslim residents from Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State, continue to languish in southern Bangladesh almost two decades after fleeing Myanmar. (more…)

Nasaka authorities have been searching for two young monks who recently traveled to Maungdaw from Sittwe, but they have yet to be located, said an abbot from Maungdaw. (more…)

Signs are evident that Burma and China are stepping up military cooperation after Burma’s top three generals met with Gen Zhang Li, the vice chief-of-staff of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), on Monday in Naypyidaw. (more…)

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said disaster risk reduction and disaster management should be a key component in the process of recovery for victims of Cyclone Nargis in Burma. (more…)

Burma is on the brink of fresh civil strife as many of the young generation have voiced dissatisfaction with nonviolence. The most intolerant citizens have called for a U.S. military invasion or an armed struggle to overthrow the deep-rooted stratocracy in Burma, due to the junta’s insistence on building a military-privileged country. (more…)

It is ironic that just as the much-heralded Asean Charter received its final approval through ratification by Indonesia, two Asean member states faced off across a disputed patch of land and started shooting at each other. It was an inauspicious start to what the Charter’s preamble refers to as ‘a region of lasting peace, security and stability…’ (more…)

Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win met his North Korean counterpart, Pak Ui Chun, in Pyongyang on Monday-a diplomatic event that disguised the different foreign policy directions taken recently by the two countries. (more…)

Zimbabwean opposition MP Trudy Stevenson said in an interview with DVB yesterday that Burmese and Zimbabwean activists could benefit from closer links in their struggles for democracy. (more…)

Six months after Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, key partners in the country’s recovery process gathered in Bangkok to assess how to best strengthen their joint efforts to support inclusive and sustainable recovery there. (more…)