New Delhi– Six Burmese Army soldiers including a corporal have defected to the Arakan Liberation Army from a battalion based in Sittwe in Arakan State, the separatist militia’s spokesman said yesterday. (more…)

Members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association(USDA) continue to try to co-opt  local volunteer groups who try to distribute water in drought-stricken areas of Burma. (more…)

Yangon – Cyclone Laila at yellow level occurring over Southwest Bay of Bengal is assumed not moving towards Myanmar, an official daily reported Wednesday quoting a forecast of the Myanmar Meteorology and Hydrology Department. (more…)

Burma’s wealthiest tycoon Tay Za and five other businessmen close to the military regime have applied for permits to establish private banks. (more…)

An unknown mining project by the ruling military is being secretly operating in Shan State North’s Kyaukme Township, local sources said. (more…)

Yangon — At least 230 people have died of heat stress in Myanmar’s second largest city of Mandalay during the weekend, as temperature recorded at 45 degree Celsius, the local daily quoted Mandalay municipal authorities as reporting Wednesday. (more…)

A serious shortage in use of contraception by gay and bisexual men in the Asia-Pacific region, coupled with criminalisation of the practice, is causing “alarming” rates of HIV. (more…)

The top U.S. diplomat for Asia said on Wednesday Washington is troubled that Myanmar has not moved on any of the issues standing in the way of better American ties with the military-ruled state. (more…)

A new US law signed this week that will single out governments that restrict press freedom will have little impact on Burma, media workers inside the country have said. (more…)

We, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), have learnt that Ko Kyaw Soe passed away in Myingyan Prison on the morning of 19 May 2010, at age 39. He is the 144th political prisoner to die in prison, in Burma. AAPP expresses its deepest condolences to the family of Kyaw Soe (aka) Kyaw Kyaw Soe (aka) Jeffery. (more…)

While the military rulers of Burma (Myanmar) has prepared its plan for the projected general election some time later this year anticipating international appreciation, millions of poor Burmese are still living in terrible conditions in the Nargis affected areas, with many without pure drinking water and food or proper shelter. Despite the fact that two full years passed since the devastating tropical cyclone Nargis struck Burma on May 2, 2008, the relief from international agencies, originally blocked by the junta, remains sporadic, paltry and tragically late. (more…)

Prolonged drought has dried out nearly all the rainwater pools in Dala township, Yangon Division, forcing residents to rely on supplies brought in by volunteers.
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U HLA Win seems more interested in eating lunch than discussing politics. The 70-year-old from Yay Dwin Gone, a village in Ayeyarwady Division’s Dedaye township, says he has heard almost nothing about the parties that will contest an election due later this year. (more…)

Rangoon– Two residents died and 13 were wounded, some critically, by gunfire and grenade blasts on Sunday when villagers gathered to foil armed robbers who had invaded a home in Kungyankone Township, police and residents said. (more…)

Adopting an aggressive posture on relocation, the junta has ordered the militia and local people to force villagers to shift from near the Irrawaddy Myitsone dam project site as of May 1. (more…)

While reinforcements by the Wa and Burma Army along the front continue, the atmosphere of urgency has perceptibly lightened, and things are returning to “almost normal,” according to a report by an informed source on the Sino-Burma border. (more…)

With world market prices for gold at an all-time high, Chinese traders are rushing to Burma, where the precious metal is cheaper than in neighboring countries, according to sources. (more…)

China and Myanmar reached a memorandum of understanding in Nay Pyi Taw Tuesday on cooperation in development of Ruili-Kyaukphyu China-Myanmar platform road project. (more…)

Essar Projects Ltd. today signed a contract with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India to execute Port and Inland Water Transport components of the Kaladan Multi Modal Transit Transport Project to be executed in Myanmar. (more…)

Mumbai – From being a retail extortionist to being the third most wanted don of the world, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar (54) has indeed come a long, long way in a highly-globalised underworld. Said Munawar Amin, a long-time resident of Bhendi Bazar, in whose mean streets Dawood, son of a constable, grew up: “Along with his brother Shabbir, he used to extort money from the Moplah businessmen who sell smuggled goods in our area. Nobody visualised that he would go up so high in mafiadom.”
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