Long-term efforts will soon begin to rebuild Myanmar after the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis but the country needs almost $700 million to help accomplish the task, a multilateral group set up to coordinate assistance said Monday. (more…)

Buddhist monk U Kelatha from Mandalay, who is currently incarcerated in Irrawaddy division’s Henzada prison, was beaten up by a fellow inmate on the orders of a prison official on 28 January as a punishment. (more…)

A 50-year-old man from Kyauktalone village in Bago division was crushed to death on 6 February when the roof of a pit where he had been forced to work collapsed on him. (more…)

The Burmese foreign minister has agreed in principle to attend a six-partite meeting to solve the problem of Rohingya boat people, the Thai ambassador to Rangoon said Monday. (more…)

The Shan State Army (SSA) – an insurgent group in northeast Myanmar – has opposed the junta’s planned general election next year, joining a growing number of ethnic minority groups determined to upset the polls, media reports and analysts said yesterday. (more…)

Under age boys are being recruited forcibly as soldiers in the Burmese Army in Chin state, western Myanmar. (more…)

China does not want conflict between Bangladesh and Burma over the maritime boundary dispute in the Bay of Bengal. (more…)

Bangladesh’s communications minister said the government will build connecting road and railway from the country’s southeastern bordering part to Myanmar, leading English newspaper The Daily Star reported on Sunday. (more…)

Indian Vice-President Shri M. Hamid Ansari ended his four-day official visit to Myanmar Sunday afternoon after inaugurating the first cross-border optical fiber telephone link between the two countries in Mandalay, Myanmar Radio and Television reported. (more…)

In 2008 there was a sharp spike in the number of people seeking asylum in Japan, and although only 6 percent of those processed were recognized by the government as refugees, they totalled 57 compared with 41 the year before. (more…)

The United States wants Mynamar to stop hounding Rohingya Muslims, a stateless minority from the former Burma’s northwest region, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said on Sunday. (more…)

Burma campaign groups from 13 European countries have urged the European Union to strengthen its policy of sanctions on Burma and to pressure the junta to release all political prisoners. (more…)

Nearly 100 multi-organizations world wide have condemned Burma and urged it to end the systematic persecution of the Rohingya ethnic minority and recognize them as citizens with full rights and protection, according to their joint statement. (more…)

On February 3, UN Special Envoy Gambari concluded his seventh official trip to Burma. He managed to meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and senior members of the NLD, who declared that the release of the over 2,100 political prisoners in Burma must occur before any meaningful political reform is possible. (more…)

Forests in Northern Burma, some of the last frontiers of Asia’s rain forests, are facing a chronic threat. (more…)