Myanmar’s main opposition party, led by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, has been dissolved after failing to register to contest the November polls, state television reported on Tuesday. (more…)

Rangoon – Kaung Myint Htut was just 15 years old when he says Burma’s military intelligence dragged him blindfolded from his home in Rangoon for the third time. It was December 1990, six months after the junta had failed to recognize a landslide election victory by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). Like many young students, Kaung Myint Htut had been unable to contain his objections to the political oppression of the military regime, prompting him to become a student leader involved in regular strikes and demonstrations. “They got mad at me,” he says, recalling how his interrogators advised him to abandon politics between beatings. “But I couldn’t quit.” (more…)

An underground Burmese monk activist group has urged would-be voters across the country to boycott the 7 November elections. (more…)

Burma’s military government has imposed tight restrictions on Buddhist monks in Rangoon in an attempt to prevent a recurrence of protests during the anniversary of the monk-led protests that led to a massive pro-democracy uprising in September 2007. (more…)

The Burmese junta has increased its troops deployment near areas controlled by the largest ethnic armed group, the United Wa State Army, following Snr-Gen Than Shwe’s  five-day trip to China, where he discussed border issues with his Chinese counterparts in Beijing. (more…)

In the face of worsening relations between the New Mon State Party (NMSP) and the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), recently displaced Mon villagers who have been living in a site on the Thai-Burma border since May are finding survival increasingly difficult. (more…)

Bangkok – A 10-year-old elephant who stepped on a landmine in Myanmar had to walk part of the way to Thailand for treatment to a badly injured foot, vets said on Tuesday. (more…)

No movement has been made by the UN on an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ruling junta in Burma, a UN spokesperson has said. (more…)

A Tyneside teenager will be addressing a crowd of more than 80,000 people during the Papal visit to the UK. (more…)

Rangoon – Burma’s military rulers won’t be inviting foreign observers to monitor November’s general election – a poll already dismissed as a sham by Western governments – but the country’s network of bloggers and “citizen journalists” is planning to do the job for them. (more…)

As part of the Senior General’s visit to ‘big brother’ China, he paid an impromptu visit to Shenzen, the Chinese city which in 1980 became a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and thus one of the country’s first forays back into commercialism. (more…)

Washington, D.C. –Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, General Secretary of the National League for Democracy and the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, should be released immediately and unconditionally from her illegal house arrest; however, she must, under Burmese law, be released on November 13, 2010. This release will occur after the Burmese junta’s fraudulent elections, scheduled for November 7, 2010. This legal assessment is consistent with the January 2010 announcement by thenBurmese Minister for Home Affairs Major-General Maung Oo that Suu Kyi “will be released this November.” (more…)