Global Fund – the main multilateral donor for health programs combatting HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – is facing a 4-billion-dollar budget shortfall next year, the fund’s executive director said Monday. “We are facing a financial crisis,” Global Fund executive director Michel Kazatchkine said. “We estimate our funding gap in 2010 to be somewhere around 4 billion.” (more…)

China, saying it wishes to see political stability in Burma, is tantamount to paying lip-service as it does not care for genuine change because its stands to gain with the military junta in the seat of power, a Sino-Burmese observer said.
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Recently, US President Obama has been extending an olive branch to the “axis of evil” and “outposts of tyranny” so loudly condemned by his predecessor, George W. Bush.   (more…)

When President Obama was elected, I was filled with hope that America would regain the moral standing to aid those who are impoverished and oppressed around the world. I have since rejoiced to see him reversing the most obnoxious policies of the Bush administration — by ending torture, announcing the closure of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay and engaging the world on climate change, to name just a few. But there is another issue on which America’s moral leadership is desperately needed, and here, it must be acknowledged, President Bush was on the side of the angels: the struggle for human rights and justice in Burma. (more…)

Next week, the National League for Democracy (NLD), Burma’s leading political party, which has its legitimacy through a landslide victory in the 1990 election, plans to hold a national-level special meeting. The party executive, those NLD members who were successful in the 1990 election, senior members and representatives of the women’s and youth sections of the party from throughout the country have been invited to attend. (more…)

A leader of the New Mon State Party (NMSP), an ethnic armed rebel group that has a ceasefire agreement with Burma’s ruling junta, was assassinated on Saturday by an unidentified gunman, party sources said. (more…)

Myanmar weather officials issued a cyclone warning Friday, urging residents in the western coastal region to stay away from the sea for two days until the storm passed. (more…)

The leader of Burma’s largest armed ethnic group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), vowed to strengthen Wa State as thousands of Wa people celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the coup against the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) on Friday at Panghsang in northeastern Burma. (more…)

The outer edge of Cyclone Bijli began lashing southern Bangladesh on Friday night, officials said, as the government ordered the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents from the country’s low-lying coast. Neighboring Myanmar was also bracing for the storm. (more…)

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met here on Friday with his Myanmar counterpart Thein Sein in south China’s Hainan Province, calling on closer bilateral cooperation in the areas of energy and transportation network construction. (more…)

Military-ruled Burma’s economic growth will be diminished in 2009 because of the weaker performances of the country’s major partners, said the Asia Development Bank (ADB) in its Asian Development Outlook 2009 report that was launched on Friday. (more…)

Oil and gas exploration and production companies in Burma are hoping for a forthcoming easing in restrictions on the current ban related to the selling and transferring of stakes in the country’s natural resources. (more…)

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo called on Myanmar to release detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi at a recent meeting with Prime Minister Thein Sein, the foreign department said Friday. (more…)

The only solace for the almost 200 men living in a squalid refugee camp here is the freedom they now have to pray. (more…)

An autobiography of Zoya Phan, a daughter of Mahn Sha, the respected Karen leader who was assassinated by unknown gunmen in a Thai border town last year, is to be launched next week in London. (more…)

If the ruling generals holed up in Naypyidaw, their garrison city in central Myanmar, wanted to know what riotous fun young Burmese are capable of, they should have come down to watch how their people celebrated the traditional New Year’s “water festival” in this former capital. (more…)

Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), plans to hold a rare special meeting on April 28-29 to discuss what spokesman Han Thar Myint described as “several matters important for the country.” (more…)

Tropical Cyclone Bijli (01B) is gathering strength as it churns through the northern Bay of Bengal. (more…)

Thailand has given guarantees to the United Nations that the Thai military will never again tow Rohingya boatpeople out to sea and abandon them. (more…)

Burmese exiles in Thailand were exceptionally keen observers of the events that shook the country in the overheated days and nights of the country’s Songkran festival. Many saw the way the crisis was handled by the Bangkok government as confirmation that democracy and respect for fundamental human rights were secure in Thailand. (more…)