Burmese people have the right not to vote in the upcoming election, detained Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi told her lawyer on Friday. She also commented on US Sen. Jim Webb’s support of the election. (more…)

Yangon – Myanmar has no ambition to become a nuclear power and reports that it is developing a nuclear programme with North Korean help are groundless, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement read on state television on Friday. (more…)

With the general elections in Burma round the corner, the Burmese military junta is going all out to woo the electorate. It is now increasingly getting involved in development work, which it has been ignoring for years. The regime is now constructing bridges, building drains and other public utility services in Hakha town, Chin state western Burma. (more…)

Eighty-nine refugees in Mae La Refugee Camp have been infected with cholera in two weeks and the number of cases is increasing, a source in Mae La Refugee Camp said on Friday. No deaths have been reported. (more…)

Teknaf: The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) is currently compiling a list of illegal Burmese nationals living in the country’s eastern border township to determine their number, said a local source. (more…)

Chiang Mai – All Mon Region Democracy Party chairman Nai Ngwe Thein said that in parliament it would demand a free-market economy and industrial development with foreign investment. (more…)

President Obama has yet to appoint a special envoy for Myanmar, whose military-ruled regime reportedly is trying to build a nuclear weapon and plans to hold what U.S. lawmakers see as a flawed election this year. (more…)

The world has a new nuclear threat on its hands; the first ever in Southeast Asia. (more…)

US Sen. Jim Webb is back in the news again, after he abruptly called off a planned visit to Burma last week when he learned about reports that appeared to confirm that Southeast Asia’s most reclusive regime was pursuing an advanced weapons program with North Korean assistance. (more…)

One evening in late November 2006, workers at a port south of Rangoon were greeted by the sight of a North Korean cargo vessel approaching; several hours earlier the boat had put in a distress call to Rangoon claiming it had encountered technical problems, and was allowed to drop anchor. An inspection by Burmese authorities “found no suspicious material or military equipment” on board, and the boat was patched up and sent back out to sea. The incident was kept under wraps and garnered little attention in the media, for the two pariahs had only just resolved a 23-year feud that saw them freeze diplomatic ties, and relations were still icy; it was a tentative first toast to the renewed friendship, a courtesy act by Burma. (more…)

RUMOURS that Myanmar is the next recruit to a shady nuclear and missile network that seems to link North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Syria and possibly others swirl intermittently. The missile link is clearest: in all these cases, including Myanmar’s, North Korea has either sold missiles or helped them build their own. But aside from an agreement in principle in 2007 for Russia to build a small research reactor for Myanmar, there has been little hard evidence of its junta’s nuclear ambitions. The recent defection of a former major in the Burmese army, Sai Thein Win, however, and the documents and photographs he brought with him, appear to confirm Myanmar’s intent, if not yet capacity, to enrich uranium and eventually build a bomb. (more…)

The rogue state next door may be trying to buy North Korean technology and expertise; the idea isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. (more…)