Burma’s influential dissident group, the 88 Generation Students group, said on Monday that respect for human rights in Burma by the ruling junta could lead to an end to international economic sanctions. (more…)

The Burmese military intelligence appears to have stepped up surveillance and monitoring of actions by the New Mon State Party (NMSP), according to party members and officials who say they are being increasingly watched and questioned. (more…)

The United Wa State Army will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of its founding on 17 April, regarded by many Asian countries including Burma as the New Year’s Day, according to sources on the Sino-Burma border. (more…)

Some broadcasting stations aired in the last of week of March that a piece of news about Myanmar was broadcast in a Yunnan Province TV programme on 25 March 2009. (more…)

Tata Motors on Tuesday said it will set up in Myanmar a heavy truck manufacturing facility with a capacity of 1,500 units per annum. The plant is being set up following an agreement between Indian and Myanmar governments. (more…)

The number of Japanese tourists who visited Myanmar plunged 55 percent last year, according to the latest available official data. (more…)

Burma’s Ministry of Health has issued a public warning that two brands of traditional medicine contain dangerous levels of arsenic. (more…)

Myanmar Prime Minister General Thein Sein will attend some summits of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with other regional countries as well as the United Nations scheduled to take place in Pattaya, Thailand, an official announcement from Nay Pyi Taw said Tuesday without specifying the date of his attendance. (more…)

A monk looks into a camera at a monastery in Rangoon. His face is bruised and swollen. Troops came during the night, he says. They beat the monks and took dozens of them away. He doesn’t know where they are. (more…)

It is, says Susan Rice, “a good time to be American ambassador to the United Nations.” Rice, a foreign policy veteran at the age of 44, is positioned to be one of the administration’s key national security voices. She has access to the president, a restored Cabinet seat and a place on the National Security Council’s Principal’s Committee. She’s also broadened her Washington presence, with an expanded office at the State Department. (more…)

Almost ignored by the mainstream media, Stephen Blake’s (Director of the State Department’s Mainland Southeast Asia Office) recent visit to Naypyidaw highlights the U.S. foreign policy turnabout under the Obama/Clinton ticket. (more…)