The cabinet has approved funding of 472 million baht to provide stateless people with health care and reduce the heavy financial burden on border hospitals. (more…)

Myanmar’s upcoming elections will likely hog the spotlight at the 16th ASEAN Summit in Vietnam in April, as regional leaders try to steer clear of the junta’s poll agenda to avoid further embarrassment. (more…)

The United Nations Security Council will hold consultations on Burma Wednesday to consider how to respond to the military government’s controversial new election laws. (more…)

The election will definitely be held sometime in 2010, but the jury is still out on how we should look at the election: as opportunity or as a rigged process. (more…)

Burma’s detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi opposes her party registering for forthcoming elections, her lawyer has said. (more…)

Yangon, Myanmar — Myanmar’s highest court Tuesday refused to accept a lawsuit by Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party seeking to revoke laws that bar the detained leader and other opposition members from taking part in the country’s first election in two decades. (more…)

The supreme court in Rangoon on Tuesday rejected a lawsuit against military junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe filed by Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), according to a statement released by the NLD. (more…)

Chittagong, Bangladesh: Bangladesh has requested China and sought its cooperation to impress upon Burmese authorities to quickly take back the Arakanese Rohingya refugees living in camps under Cox’s Bazar district, according to United News of Bangladesh (UNB). (more…)

More than 150 Burmese dissident groups, local and in exile, called on the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to hold an “urgent discussion” on Burma and appealed to China not to use its veto. (more…)

The Obama administration’s strategy of engaging with rogue regimes may have paid off in a small way in Myanmar. The release from prison of a pro-democracy activist doesn’t signal that democracy is coming to that oppressed nation, but it does argue for continued contact to keep pressing for desperately needed change. (more…)

The Irrawaddy editor Aung Zaw recently interviewed US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell who in November led the US’s first high-level delegation to Burma in 14 years when he met Aung San Suu Kyi and military junta premier Thein Sein. (more…)

Two political parties—the 88 Generation Students of the Union of Myanmar (GSUM) and the Union of Myanmar National Political Force (UMNPF)—were the first to register on Monday to participate in the planned general election. (more…)

The Mon will officially announce a new political party on March 31 to represent the Mon people in the election, according to Mon sources, who added that the new party was formed last year in Moulmein and has a name and a written constitution. (more…)

Burma’s principal opposition party is to launch a legal challenge against election laws that bar its leader from running for office and require her expulsion if the party is to participate. (more…)

Chiang Mai – Fears are the ranks of the National League for Democracy (NLD) could fracture following a contentious debate within party leadership on whether the party should re-register or not. (more…)

Dhaka: Muslims from Burma who are now living outside refugee camps in Bangladesh have been denied the chance to register as refugees with the UNHCR by the Bangladesh government due to fear of triggering an exodus of Muslims from Burma, according to official reports. (more…)

Panghsang, the central headquarters of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) was told to pull out all of its bases along the Thai-Burma border again and to also move back all the people to their original area on the Sino-Burma border if the group’s decision is still negative to Nyapyitaw’s border guard force (BGF) program, according to sources from the Thai-Burma border said. (more…)

New Delhi –Tata Motors Ltd., India’s biggest auto maker by revenue, said Monday it has signed a pact with Myanmar Automobile & Diesel Industries Ltd. to set up a factory for making heavy trucks in the Southeast Asian country. (more…)

An official at the US embassy in Bangkok has said that Burma’s recently announced election law must be amended, otherwise the scheduled 2010 polls will be “very difficult to judge as free, fair or credible.” (more…)

A naturalized American citizen has returned to the United States after being held by the Burmese government since September. (more…)