Yangon – A United Nations human rights envoy, in Myanmar to evaluate progress on reform, visited political prisoners in a northwestern state, a government official said Wednesday. (more…)

The regime-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and the National Unity Party (NUP), which are preparing to run in the 2010 election, have started campaigning for Rohingya support by issuing them with temporary identity cards (IDs) in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships in Burma’s northwestern Arakan State. (more…)

Bangkok — The perceived divide between the “mainstream” Burmese opposition led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) on the one hand, and groups representing ethnic minorities on the other, is “artificial and contrived,” according to an Amnesty International researcher. (more…)

Two border passes opposite Chiangmai’s Chiangdao district have been ordered closed since February 5 when a Wa soldier, who strayed across the border,  while hunting was killed by a Thai border security force, according to Thai and Shan sources. (more…)

China is overtly anxious of losing its huge investments in neighbouring military-ruled Burma with civil war clouds looming between the regime and ethnic armed groups, said sources close to Chinese officials.Sources close to China’s southwestern Yunnan province government, said China’s current investment in Burma is in the region of over 600 billion dollars. It is the biggest foreign investor in Burma. (more…)

New Delhi – A strike by workers continues in a garment factory in Insein Township with over 200 workers demanding an increase in wages since yesterday. (more…)

The Washington-based organization Freedom Now has asked the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to investigate the case of the Burmese-American Nyi Nyi Aung, who was sentenced by a Rangoon court last week to three years imprisonment. (more…)

The release of a leading dissident in Myanmar over the weekend has intensified questions about whether the military regime will keep its promise to hold free and fair elections this year, and about what form the opposition will take. (more…)

Yangon – Fifteen-year-old Cho Cho Thet knows little about the world outside of the garments factory where she works. (more…)

DVB were one of the first to interview the National League for Democracy (NLD) deputy, Tin Oo after his release from 6-years under house arrest.

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