Heeding to India’s concerns over northeast insurgents taking shelter in Myanmar [Burma], the military government of the neighbouring country has promised to cooperate in combating the problem. (more…)

The Indian government will repatriate 321 Myanmarese fishermen from Andaman Islands, who have completed their jail term in the remote islands. (more…)

The plight of women in Burma’s conflict areas and of Burmese women migrant workers who suffer exploitation and abuse was highlighted in statements marking Tuesday’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. (more…)

“If I did not laugh I should die,” Abraham Lincoln once remarked. It’s a concept the people of Burma understand well. One of their most famous celebrities is a comedian known for his antiregime jokes who goes by the name Zarganar, or “Tweezers.” (more…)

There are several misinterpretations and failures to contextualise in the article on Burma’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (Not such a hero after all, November 11). We will concentrate on the most glaring. (more…)

The week-long meeting of Tibetan exiles in Dharmsala, India, has inevitably drawn comparisons with the activities of Burma’s own exiled opposition community. (more…)

Question: What does it take to elect women as leaders in the New Mon State Party (NMSP)?

Answer: Party leaders will not elect a woman because most representatives are men. I am the only woman on the Central Committee [CC]. [Note: there are nine members in the Central Executive Committee (CEC), elected from 35 CC members in the party]. Women could only be leaders if men choose us. In the party, the members are majority men and a very few women. Electing women depends on the representatives at the Party Congress [held every three years, due to be held this December] and their opinions. We also have a plan with the Mon Women Organization [MWO] to report to the party leaders in the [CEC] about a potential women quorum in [CC] members in the election as a quota system to promote women participation in a compulsory ways. Will they [the representatives of Congress] follow a quota system? We also consider about it in [MWO] meeting but didn’t propose it yet. Even the [CEC] members have opinion to consider more women number in [CC], but it never achieved after the majority men representatives oppose about it. They did not like this quota system. (more…)

Rural villagers in eastern Burma are actively resisting harsh military rule, says a new report released by the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) on Tuesday. Highlighting local non-violent resistance, KHRG argues, is crucial to ending international perceptions of rural residents as passive, without agency and justifiably excluded from aid administration and political processes. (more…)

Burma’s opposition party Saturday called for the immediate release of thousands of political prisoners to mark Myanmar’s 88th National Day, while the ruling junta called for unity in moving towards democracy with “flourishing discipline.” The National League for Democracy, main opposition group, demanded the release all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi and student activists during celebrations at their headquarters in Rangoon. (more…)

Another 18 political prisoners were transferred from Rangoon’s Insein Prison to remote prisons around Burma on Monday, and family members are struggling to confirm their loved ones’ whereabouts. (more…)

A lone demonstrator staged a silent protest in front of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party headquarters Saturday demanding the military government free all student activists as the country celebrated its National Day. (more…)

The head of Myanmar’s military junta called Saturday for all citizens to back a controversial “road map” to democracy, a day after the regime sentenced the country’s top comedian to 45 years in jail. (more…)

Four people were arrested by police in Kyaukpru, Arakan State, on charges of human trafficking, said a resident of the town. (more…)

A Mon rebel group has detained and ransomed over 100 people from five villages in southern Ye Township, Mon State. Severe travel restrictions have subsequently been put in place by the Burmese army, which also interrogated at least thirteen people, of whom two were tortured. (more…)

Wa supreme leader Bao Youxiang’s elder brother Bao Youri paid a four-day visit to Mongton Township, located opposite Chiangmai, last week, according to border sources. (more…)

Myanmar and India held its 9th round of consultations between foreign offices of the two countries here Sunday, agreeing to cooperate in a wide range of areas of mutual interest and promptly implement the bilateral agreements inked during the April visit to India by Myanmar leader Vice Senior-General Maung Aye. (more…)

Prominent business tycoon Maung Weik – known to be close to the head of Myanmar’s junta – was sentenced to 15 years in prison on drug trafficking charges in a Yangon court last week, legal sources said Monday. Weik, 35, who owns Mg Weik and Family Company – one of the country’s largest real estate and trading firms – was arrested last May during a charity trip to the Irrawaddy Delta to help victims of cyclone Nargis. (more…)

A SENIOR US diplomat will discuss human rights concerns in Myanmar during visits to Japan and Singapore in early December, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday. (more…)

In a just world, the names Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi would be as well known as Steve Biko and Adam Michnik. These two leaders of Burma’s 88 Generation students, now in their forties, have spent almost their entire adult lives in prison for organizing pro-democracy demonstrations. After a short period of freedom, between 2005 and 2007, they and their colleagues were jailed again for staging a long walk around Rangoon, in August of 2007, in protest of soaring transportation prices-a gesture that sparked the so-called Saffron Revolution, the largest demonstrations in Burma since 1988, both times put down in blood. (more…)

BARBARITY IN Burma last week served as a reminder that, with or without President-elect Barack Obama, the global struggle for liberty will rage on long after George W. Bush takes his “freedom agenda” home to Texas. (more…)