As the general election in Burma, still scheduled for “sometime this year”, draws ever closer, it is time for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to seriously consider a review of the grouping’s famous policy of non-intervention. Especially after the recently announced election laws. There are few experienced Burma watchers who hold out much hope that the elections will do much to break the military junta’s grip on power or bring about a more hopeful situation for its people. (more…)

Burma might need three or four more elections before it could have a working democracy, but it has to start with the first election, according to leading dissidents. (more…)

Beijing has once again come to the defense of Burma’s ruling junta, using its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to block a move by the UK to raise the issue of the regime’s recently announced electoral laws. (more…)

If the main characteristic of democracy is the elections, we will have to say that political parties that stand for the elections are the main players. In an election, the people elect the persons who on their behalf will exercise the executive and legislative functions. Political parties on their part stand for the election with the promise “We are the most suitable persons to shoulder these duties”. Here, a question arises. “What kind of qualifications should the political parties and politicians to represent the people have?” In the countries where democracy was born and flourished, the definitions for those qualifications have become firmer and firmer in the society throughout the evolution of democracy. They are now like the moral ethics of the societies in those countries. So the said qualifications are not required to be enacted as laws anymore. (more…)

The US rights activist released yesterday from a Burmese prison has described how he was tortured during interrogation by intelligence agents last year. (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw – Originally, Nyi Nyi Aung (a) Kyaw Zaw Lwin was a Myanmar citizen. But the 40-year-old man got naturalized himself in the US. Holding US passport No 711851465, he arrived in Yangon airport from Thailand by Thai Airways TG-305 flight on 3 September 2009. (more…)

Yangon – The head of Myanmar’s largest guerrilla army warned Friday that the risk of armed conflict between powerful ethnic minority groups and the military regime is at its highest level in more than two decades as contentious national elections loom on the horizon. (more…)

Ethnic rebels killed 20 Burmese (Myanmar) troops in an ambush aimed at deterring the military government from launching an offensive against them ahead of elections this year, a rebel spokesman claimed today. (more…)

New Delhi – Dozens of protesters from Myanmar hurled rocks and insults at their country’s embassy in the Indian capital Friday in a show of disdain for upcoming elections called by the nation’s military rulers. (more…)

Bangkok – Members of Free Burma Coalition display posters of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi (R) during a protest in front of Burmese embassy in Manila, 19 Mar 2010 to denounce Burma’s recently announced election law. (more…)

I grew up in military circles in Burma and lived 25 years of my life under the first military rule of the late General Ne Win prior to going to the United States for further studies. I myself would have been a military officer by age 20, if it weren’t for my father, who told me to keep my admission letter to the Officers Training Corps as a souvenir. (more…)

On February 25th 2010, in Pak Nam sub-district, Ranong province, soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division fired on a pickup truck carrying 13 undocumented migrant workers from Burma, resulting in the deaths of three migrant children. Those killed were a three or four year old, six or seven year old girl, and a 16-year-old boy. Five others were also injured during the shooting . (more…)

“Kyaw Zaw Lwin spent seven months in unjust confinement and we are all relieved that his ordeal is now over.  Sadly, while he is coming home, Burma’s junta continues to hold its grip on 2,200 political prisoners. All are jailed for one reason — their efforts to convince the Burmese junta to respect basic human rights and agree to a genuine democratic process.” – John Kerry, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts

Bangkok — A pro-democracy activist from Myanmar who is a naturalized American citizen has been released from prison a month after a court sentenced him to five years of hard labor, the United States Embassy in Yangon said on Thursday. (more…)

Pyapon, Myanmar — In the dried mud of the Irrawaddy Delta, workers are welding together the final pieces of a natural-gas pipeline that the country’s ruling generals say will keep the lights on in Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, after years of debilitating blackouts. (more…)

Yangon, Myanmar – Myanmar opened the registration period Thursday for political parties ahead of elections this year, in what the government bills as a key step toward democracy but which critics suspect will entrench the country’s military rulers. (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw – The meeting (6/ 2010) of the Union Election Commission took place at the meting hall of the UEC office here this morning. (more…)

Chiang Mai – Officials from the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association said the industry, affected by the global economic downturn, is still struggling to achieve its previous position. (more…)

Claims that Thailand’s navy last week pushed 93 Rohingya ‘boat people’ out to sea where they drifted for 45 days have been flatly rejected by the Thai government. (more…)

The Report states that in 2009, the government of Burma “continued its egregious human rights violations and abuses.” (more…)