Burmese New Year is usually a raucous time, with locals setting off fireworks and splashing bucketfuls of water on each other as part of a purification ritual. But this year’s Thingyan festival took on a more sinister tone when mysterious bomb blasts hit the nation’s largest city, Rangoon, on April 15. The explosions, detonated at a lakeside pavilion where residents were celebrating the new year, killed at least eight people. The military junta that has ruled Burma since 1962 quickly blamed “terrorists” and “destructive elements” for the mayhem, without further elaboration. In 2005, a set of bombs killed 23 people in Rangoon. The regime called those deaths the work of armed ethnic minorities that have battled the ethnically Burmese junta for autonomy, a charge these groups have denied. (more…)

With elections being held in Burma later this year the country’s “forgotten people” are appealing to the rest of the world for help. (more…)

Nineteen political parties to date have submitted applications to the Union Election Commission to take part in the Burmese general election later this year. However, most of the leading parties from the previous election, in 1990, have said they will not compete. (more…)

Out of 170 people injured in three bomb explosions on Thursday at a Rangoon pavilion celebrating the Burmese New Year, 115 people remain in intensive care, a state-run newspaper said on Saturday. (more…)

Yangon – A series of bombs exploded at a controversial hydropower project site being jointly built by a Chinese company in northern Myanmar on Saturday, just two days after bombs killed eight in the former capital of Yangon. (more…)

Laiza, Myanmar – Crawling on their bellies, the recruits inch through a field, dragging wooden rifles. A whistle blows, and they scramble to their knees, pulling the pins from imaginary grenades before lobbing them. Dropping flat, they yell “Boom!” (more…)

Tokyo – Japan and Malaysia urged Myanmar on Monday to hold “free, fair and inclusive” general elections, government officials said. (more…)

Kuala Lumpur – Hunched over sewing machines, a group of Myanmar women refugees are stitching together a livelihood after fleeing persecution from the junta back home. (more…)

Every Asean summit for the last decade has been dominated by the Burma issue. Although discussions are usually on the sidelines and in confidential sessions, this year’s meeting in Hanoi was no different. The only exception was that in the chairman’s public statement at the end of the proceedings, Burma seemed to have got away unscathed. But Burma’s hopes to take the Asean chair next year were completely dashed. (more…)

It was Maha Thingyan Akyat Day, a summer afternoon on the 15th of April 2010. Yangon was lively with the beauty of the traditional water festival, the whole city reverberating with the sound of funs, laughs, songs and music of the pandals and merry-makers. (more…)