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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The Burmese opposition says military authorities sentenced four activists to prison terms with hard labor on the same day that a U.N. human rights expert began a mission to Burma. (more…)

GENEVA—The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says 500,000 people in Burma are still homeless after a devastating cyclone swept across the southwest of the country nearly two years ago. (more…)

High-ranking Burmese military officials joined a ceremony to mark the 68th birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, according to Burma’s state-run media. (more…)

Chiang Mai – Nyi Nyi Aung, alias Kyaw Zaw Lwin, the American recently sentenced to three years imprisonment, was transferred to Prome prison from Insein prison on the 11th of this month, according to his aunt Suu Suu Kyi. (more…)

The prepared speech commemorating the 63rd anniversary of the Union Day,12 February 2010, the day leaders of Burma, Shan, Chin and Kachin concluded an alliance pact in 1947, pointedly ignore Panglong where the conference took place, and Aung San, the co-author of the agreement and the father of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, according to sources from Shan State North and South. (more…)

It was almost noon when Lae Lae Oo took his medication, donned a face mask and prepared to leave the in-patient unit after undergoing several weeks of tuberculosis treatment at Sangkhla Buri District Hospital. (more…)

Dhaka – A crackdown by Bangladeshi authorities has triggered a “humanitarian catastrophe” for the country’s unregistered population of Rohingya refugees, according to a report released Tuesday. (more…)

Dhaka: A 12-member delegation from the European parliament visited two Burmese Muslim refugee camps in southern Bangladesh on Monday to witness the current situation of refugees in the camps, said an official from UNHCR. (more…)

Chiang Mai – Over 900 Karen refugees from a camp on the Thai- Burma border returned to Burma since early February after Thai authorities proposed to repatriate  Karen refugees from border camps. (more…)

Bangladesh coast guards have arrested eight citizens of Burma on suspicion of spying for the military-ruled country, police said on Saturday. (more…)