The military regime-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) will receive state-run fuel stations from the Burmese government, according to the Ministry of Energy (MOE). (more…)

New Delhi – Onion farmers are incurring huge losses after an export ban was imposed to cope with supply outstripping domestic demand, traders say. (more…)

New Delhi : Twelve years after they were arrested in the midst of the mysterious “Operation Leech” in Andaman’s Landfall Islands, there is a ray of hope for the early release of 34 Myanmar nationals who are being tried on charges of gun running. (more…)

London — “The government does not want to negotiate, so I think many more people will die,” said “red-shirt” leader Sean Boonpracong in Bangkok on Monday. “This will end as our Tiananmen Square.” Or more precisely, it may end up as Thailand’s “8888″: the massacre by the Burmese army of thousands of civilians demanding democracy on Aug. 8, 1988. (more…)

Corporations have perhaps been the defining unit of human organisation of the last 100 years. Their real birth occurred in a single law passed in London that could be said to have spawned the modern age; the Limited Liability Act of 1855. (more…)

Thailand’s ongoing political crisis is being keenly monitored in neighboring Burma. (more…)

This summer marks three years since the world first saw the smuggled cell phone footage of ferocious attacks by Burmese junta forces on the country’s Buddhist monks. Since 2007, Burma’s monks have faced continuous abuse and tight surveillance by the country’s military rule. (more…)

New Delhi – NLD leader Soe Myint, a veteran freedom fighter, activist, politician and colleague of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, died in his sleep at home in Rangoon at about 1:30 p.m. today, a relative said.   (more…)

Rights activist Kyaw Soe, who was arrested during the September 2007 “Saffron Revolution”, on Wednesday morning became the 144th political prisoner to die in a Burmese jail since 1988, after inadequate treatment at a prison hospital in Mandalay Division, a rights group said on Wednesday. (more…)

The new Burmese flag to be hoisted following elections this year is evidence of the ruling regime’s attempt to wipe out ethnic armies, Burma observers say. (more…)

Beijing – When the military regime in Burma launched a campaign last August to disarm the ethnic rebels in the Kokang region, made up mostly of ethnic Chinese and where a two-decade-long ceasefire had been in place, the push triggered an exodus of more than 37,000 refugees into China’s Yunnan province. (more…)

The Thai government’s announcement of curfew on Wednesday, following unrest and violence by anti-government protesters has put many migrant labourers working in northern Thailand’s Chiangmai province in a spot. They are finding it difficult to move freely and work normally. (more…)

The Burmese junta is preparing to allow major business cronies free reign to open banks, with the new entrants into the sector all industry leaders in other fields. (more…)

A fresh batch of over 300 Chinese dam construction workers arrived in Myitkyina capital of Kachin State in northern Burma today, replacing an earlier lot, who fled to mainland China in the wake of the serial bomb blasts on April 17, said eyewitnesses. (more…)

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who postponed his trip to Southeast Asia in April following the deadly earthquake in northwest China’s Quinghai province, is now expected to visit Burma and meet with Snr-Gen Than Shwe between the end of May and early June, diplomatic sources said. (more…)

As the plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh continues to worsen, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni is insisting on their return to Burma “in the soonest possible time.” (more…)

Three resolutions on the situation in Thailand, the pre-election climate in Burma and religious freedom in Pakistan were adopted by the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday. (more…)

1. The Government of Myanmar has this year issued a raft of laws and rules for the holding of national and regional elections for new parliaments under the army-prepared 2008 Constitution. The elections are expected late in 2010 but no firm announcement has been made and they could be postponed until any time in the future, as have so many other undertakings by the military regime in Myanmar: the preparations for drafting the new constitution alone took over a decade to complete. Anyhow, it is widely acknowledged that the minimum conditions for free and fair elections are absent from Myanmar and whatever takes place this year or thereafter will not constitute an electoral process as understood in most other countries. (more…)

Mae Sot, Thailand — Behind the rusty prison bars, two men lie on the floor in light blue fatigues. A stream of light pours in through a small window near the top of their cell. All is still. (more…)

New Delhi – Heat wave conditions are likely to force changes in timings of Technical Universities in three Divisions, in keeping with a Ministry of Science and Technology directive early this month. (more…)