Yangon, Myanmar — Myanmar’s officially defunct opposition party the National League for Democracy (NLD) on Monday defied security laws to mark Martyrs’ Day, an anniversary of particular significance for its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. (more…)

Burma’s press censorship board, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, has censored all articles in tribute to Martyrs’ Day heroes, say Rangoon journalists. (more…)

Property and funds belonging to the recently-disbanded Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) will be transferred to the party headed by Burma’s prime minister. (more…)

Chiang Mai – Farmers in the northern Burmese state of Kachin are preparing to sue a company with close ties to Burma’s ruling military junta for confiscating family-owned land, the farmers said. (more…)

Bangkok – Labour rights groups on Monday petitioned the Thai government to investigate reports that deported Burmese migrant labourers were being subject to extortion rackets on the Thai-Myanmar border. (more…)

New Delhi – A month and a half after Chinese premier Wen Jiabao travelled to Myanmar to meet the military leadership and reaffirm traditional “pauk phaw” (friendship), that country’s top general, Than Shwe is visiting India from July 25-29. (more…)

The Swiss government’s sanctions unit deputy chief has told Mizzima that Swiss-American firm Transocean did not violate Switzerland’s Burma sanctions last year when the firm did exploratory drilling work for a group that includes a company controlled by accused drug lord, money launderer and junta crony businessman Stephen Law. (more…)

The federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and leading Thai businessmen on Saturday met with the Union of Myanmar Federation Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) at a hotel in Mae Sod to strengthen trade and investment ties between the two countries, reports said. (more…)

Hanoi — Asia’s largest security forum, which includes the United States and Europe, wants free and fair elections in Myanmar, according to a draft chairman’s statement obtained on Monday. (more…)

Hanoi – Tension on the Korean peninsula, elections in military-ruled Myanmar and the question of whether the former Burma is developing nuclear arms will top the agenda of meetings of Asian foreign ministers this week in Vietnam. (more…)

Bangkok – Britain will regard a general election due later this year in Myanmar as illegitimate if the military government denies a role to thousands of political opponents now in prison, a junior minister said on Sunday. (more…)

For decades, Burma’s ruling regime has been regarded primarily as a menace to its own people. But with recent reports confirming long-held suspicions that the junta aspires to establish Burma as Southeast Asia’s first nuclear-armed state, there is now a very real danger that it is emerging as a threat to the rest of the region. (more…)

Readers of this website should need no convincing of the seriousness of ongoing human rights violations against minority ethnic groups in Burma. Medicins Sans Frontieres has described Burma’s ethnic Rohingya minority has one of the world populations “most in danger of extinction” and leading scholars, including William Schabas, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, have suggested that the Muslim group may be victims of crimes against humanity, a sentiment that has been echoed by multiple other bodies. (more…)

Southeast Asian nations should press the Myanmar government to protect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association throughout the elections period and beyond, Amnesty International said today on the eve of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Ha Noi. (more…)