An activist whose group played a key role in sparking the September 2007 monk-led uprising in Burma has had his 10-year prison sentence extended by eight years, sources close to his family said. (more…)

Kyukpru: Burmese military authorities have recently seized publicly-owned oil wells that were dug by hand and a refinery on oil-rich Rambree Island in western Burma’s Arakan State for the benefit of Chinese company, reports a local resident. (more…)

New Delhi – For the first time, the Burmese ministry of Education has allowed a school in Rangoon to operate as a private school on November 9, a Deputy Director of the Basic Education Department said. (more…)

The business community is being forced to pay a fixed amount of money by the Burmese military junta in Kachin State in northern Burma as funds for “forming Border Guard Force”. The money will be used to change the Kachin ceasefire group, the New Democratic Army-Kachin to BGF, local sources said. (more…)

Burma is to double its output of natural gas in the next 10 years, the country’s sole operator of oil and gas production told a regional trade fair in Bangkok yesterday. (more…)

Tokyo – Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Thursday called on the U.N. refugee agency to support Japan’s plan to accept Myanmar refugees from fiscal 2010, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said. (more…)

New Delhi – A documentary film on the brutal crackdown on Buddhist monk-led protests in September 2007 by Burma’s ruling military junta, has been shortlisted among the nominations for next year’s Academy Awards. (more…)

The question on many people’s minds in Yangon these days is whether Senior General Than Shwe will meet “the lady”, as Aung San Suu Kyi is known across Myanmar. (more…)

A young blogger, Win Zaw Naing, is facing a possibly 15-year jail sentence just for posting pictures and reports about the September 2007 protests, known as the Saffron Revolution. Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association call for his release and the release of all the other detained bloggers. (more…)

Complaints of forced labour in Burma have risen by nearly 50 percent in the past five months, with more than half of these stemming from the recruitment of youths into the army. (more…)

If a shocking documentary about the fate of Burma’s cyclone orphans wins a prestigious video-journalism award in London tomorrow night, it will be some time before one of the men who shot it gets a chance to celebrate. (more…)

A glaring typo in one of Burma’s leading newspapers has landed a journalist in detention and temporarily delayed the printing run of the publication. (more…)

About 50 traditional hand-dug oil wells and 10 acres of land were confiscated on Nov. 14 by the Burmese authorities in Kyuakphyu Township in Arakan State in western Burma, according to local sources. (more…)

Burma News International (BNI), a network of 11 independent news organizations in exile, yesterday urged the country’s ruling military junta to ensure freedom of information gathering and reporting in the general elections slated for next year. (more…)

Yangon – Myanmar has opened discussions on building a railway link between its north-eastern Shan State and China’s Yunnan province, media reports said Wednesday. (more…)

Yangon — Vietnamese businessmen will invest in Myanmar’s hotel industry for the first time, as part of its engagement in the country, sources with the Myanmar Hoteliers Association said on Wednesday. (more…)

New Delhi – Talks for a gas pipeline from Bengal to Myanmar via Bangladesh are likely to be revived as Dhaka has renewed its interest. (more…)

Ignoring protests, Beijing seeks energy from a pariah state. What will Obama do? (more…)

If the government of Burma is truly serious about staging an election next year, it must seriously consider the words and actions of US President Barack Obama. (more…)

Yangon, Myanmar — Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is ready to cooperate with Myanmar’s ruling junta in lifting foreign sanctions but it remains uncertain if the reconciliation efforts will yield results. (more…)