“…Mr. Leno, Mr. O’Brien, Mr. Letterman and their ilk are the water-cooler folly and they are neither removed nor benevolent….  Mr. O’Brien who began on a self-deprecating note, has turned more self-righteous in his monologues, blaming the network and Mr. Leno for taking back the show only seven months after he started. And his sense of betrayal is perhaps fanned by the followers who have held protests outside NBC headquarters at Rockefeller Center, as if the network is Myanmar and Mr. O’Brien the Daw Aung Suu Kyi of late night comedy.”

– New York Times article by Alessandra Stanley reporting on the heated competition between late-night talk shows in the U.S. (January 21)

Yangon – Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be freed when her house arrest ends in November, according to a government minister quoted by witnesses on Monday, but critics said that may be too late for this year’s elections. (more…)

Yangon – Reports that a top Myanmar leader said detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi would be released in November, when her house arrest ends, have only served to lower hopes that she might be freed ahead of this year’s elections, her party said Monday. (more…)

New Delhi – The Thai based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners – Burma  (AAPP-B) has called for the release of poet Saw Wei at the earliest possible date, as his release was set for the 21st of this month. (more…)

The Myanmar authorities have imposed heavy punishment starting this year upon sales of unlicensed local and foreign VCD/DVD/EVD discs with a term of imprisonment ranging from six months to three years instead of just a cash fine previously, according to the Yangon City Development Committee Sunday. (more…)

Bangkok – Thailand will repatriate more than 1,500 displaced Karen villagers from Myanmar along the Thai Myanmar border, a population which who escaped fierce fighting in Myanmar to Thai territory since June 2009, according to Lt-Gen Thanongsak Apirakyothin, the 3rd Army Area Commander. (more…)

Dhaka – Bangladesh and Myanmar have agreed to resolve a maritime boundary dispute that brought their forces face to face in the Bay of Bengal in 2008 after Myanmar began oil and gas exploration, a Bangladeshi official said on Saturday. (more…)

Yangon – Myanmar plans to privatize its state-owned petrol and diesel stations by end of March, according to business community source. (more…)

Ruili, China – The giant red poster staring over China’s Wanding border crossing with Myanmar proclaims that their “brotherly feelings will last forever.” (more…)

Marcel Proust, in his monumental novel “Remembrance of Things Past,” noted that people sometimes unintentionally reproduce their attitudes toward past events when facing new trauma. He added that nations may do the same. (more…)

Although Burma’s leader has pledged to hold the country’s first elections since 1990, there still seems little hope of democracy. (more…)

Sanskrit says that: ‘Education leads to liberation’ – Liberation from ignorance which shrouds the mind, Liberation from superstitions, which paralyze efforts, liberation from prejudice, which blind the vision of truth”. (more…)

Finnish-born Kari Tapiola is the executive director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and has been with the Geneva-based group since 1996. Last week, he paid a visit to Burma’s administrative capital Naypyidaw to renew a one-year agreement which allows the United Nations to monitor complaints of forced labor. (more…)

More than 2000 Karen villagers have been forced to flee their homes in the past week following attacks by the Burma Army, according to the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a relief organization working in the conflict zones of eastern Burma. (more…)

A new report released today by Palaung researchers reveal that opium cultivation in Burma’s northern Shan State has been increasing rapidly over the past three years in areas under the control of the ruling military government. (more…)