By repeating promises to hold a free and fair election in Burma this year, Snr-Gen Than Shwe has been playing a time game by delaying the formation of an election commission in accordance to the 2008 Constitution, the promulgation of an election law and the registration of political parties. (more…)

Ruled by the world’s last military junta, Burma is shunned by both governments and tourists. Yet its people are crying out for contact. So what’s the ethical traveller to do? (more…)

It was a week that made 50-inch snowdrifts in Washington look like a cakewalk. While parts of the U.S. grappled with Mother Nature’s unforgiving hand, citizens elsewhere in the world dealt with far crueler forces. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad triumphantly proclaimed that his country had produced its first batch of highly enriched uranium, and that Iran was now “a nuclear state.” He added: “The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to build nuclear bombs, we would announce it publicly without being afraid of you.” (more…)

Myanmar’s government must halt its repression of ethnic minority activists before forthcoming national and local elections, Amnesty International warned in a major report released on Tuesday. (more…)

UNISON, the UK’s leading public sector trade union, has written to MPs, asking them to support an Early Day Motion calling for a UN Commission of Inquiry to be set up into crimes committed by the Burmese Government, against its own people. (more…)

Yangon – A human rights group and pro-democracy activists urged Myanmar’s military junta to free the 82-year-old deputy leader of Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party when his detention expires Saturday, shortly before a U.N. envoy visits the country. (more…)

Yangon – Myanmar military supremo Senior General Than Shwe confirmed Friday that the junta will hold a general election this year, honouring previous commitments to the international community. (more…)

The International Labour Organisation will begin circulating leaflets on forced labour and child solider recruitment across Burma, but not before it is passed through the regime’s notorious censor board. (more…)

Mae Sot, Thailand — Naw Wah Wah didn’t feel well. Worried that her fever, cough, headache and diarrhea was malaria—common during Karen State’s long monsoon season—she roused herself from her sick bed and trudged through thick, red mud during a pause in a downpour, heading to the local clinic, an hour’s walk away. (more…)

Feb. 12 is Red Hand Day. There are some 250,000 child soldiers according to the UN fighting in armed conflicts. The junta and rebel armies in Myanmar, also known as Burma, are notorious for recruiting child soldiers. (more…)

THIS WEEK in 1947, our ethnic leaders signed the historic Panglong Agreement, which envisioned a free Burma in which our people could live together in peace. Within a year, Burma gained its independence from the British. Yet, half a century later, Burma is still not free. Successive military regimes have, over the past 50 years, attempted to achieve “unity”, not through dialogue, but with the barrel of a gun. This year, while preparing for the 2010 elections, the junta is trying to achieve a sham democracy through force. (more…)

Sixty-three years ago, Burma’s independence leader Gen Aung San and leaders from the country’s main ethnic groups gathered at the city of Panglong in southern Shan State to sign an historic agreement, determining their future by achieving absolute independence from the British. (more…)

Chiang Mai – Today is the 63rd anniversary of the Panlong Agreement, which envisaged a Union of Burma promising equality among all ethnic people in the hills and plains. (more…)

The Burma Campaign UK today welcomed a statement by Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis MP that; “The UK will not support any easing of sanctions in the absence of tangible progress on the ground.” (more…)

Over 70 houses, a mobile health clinic and two schools in eastern Burma have been burnt down by army patrols stepping up the offensive on Karen villagers, according to the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People (CIDKP.) (more…)

Burmese government troops have stepped up their attacks on Karen civilians, burning down dozens of houses and a clinic and forcing schools to close and around 2,000 Karen villagers to flee into the jungle, according to Karen relief groups. (more…)

Several of Burma’s ethnic leaders have dismissed the ruling junta’s plans to mark the 63rd anniversary of Union Day on Friday, saying that the celebration lacks essence and any meaningful spirit. (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw — In line with the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the UN Security Council, the Myanmar Human Rights Committee discussed the regular matters of human rights and the compilation of the Human Rights Report of Myanmar to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, at the committee’s meeting 1/2010 taking place at the Ministry of Home Affairs, here, this afternoon. (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw – MRTV-3 television programmes currently broadcast by Myanma Radio and Television under Ministry of Information will be aired in new form and essence starting from 11 February. The channel named Myanmar International is aimed at letting the international community know true national trends, progress, beauty, nature and prevailing conditions of Myanmar and helping Myanmar nationals abroad ease the pain of homesickness. (more…)

A man has been killed after stepping on a landmine in an area of Burma’s eastern Karen state flogged to foreign observers last week as a ‘safe haven’ to return thousands of Karen refugees to. (more…)