“We don’t need foreign observers. We have abundant experience in holding elections…. Besides, the election laws enacted are very balanced and easy to understand…. The elections will be held for this country and in accordance with the rules of the country and we do not need to make clarification on the credibility of the election.” – Thein Soe, Union Election Commission, Chairman (AP, AFP, Reuters)

Amid “preparations” by Myanmar’s military government to hold a general election on November 7, the Supreme Court in Yangon, on Monday, reserved judgment on the final appeal by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi against her current phase of house arrest. The court heard final arguments in a context in which the term of house arrest is set to end in less than a month’s time. (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar – International poll monitors and foreign journalists will be barred from Myanmar’s first election in 20 years, its military rulers said on Monday, deepening concern that next month’s poll will be a sham. (more…)

Yangon, Myanmar — Myanmar’s detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi wants to get a Twitter account once she is released from house arrest so she can get in touch with the younger generation after years of isolation, her lawyer said Monday. (more…)

Although junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe controls Burma’s armed forces with an iron fist and has appointed a younger generation to the top slots in the military hierarchy, soldiers are reportedly questioning why the senior general and his deputy, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, have not retired according to regulation. (more…)

The new chief of Burma’s intelligence department has said that a major shake-up will see the unit tightening security and clamping down on flows of information. (more…)

Bangkok – Thailand has increased border security because of fears of ethnic unrest in neighbouring Myanmar, where the junta is preparing for the first election in 20 years, the army said Monday. (more…)

A smear campaign is being undertaken by the Burmese junta to dirty the name of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which is now branded an “insurgent group”, the KIA has said. (more…)

Beijing: Myanmar has started work on a railway line from its planned deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu to south-western China’s Yunnan province, Chinese media reported on Sunday. The line, which will be completed in 2015, will transport Chinese goods for export, and also be used by China to expand its access to Myanmar’s natural resources. The two countries, last year, began work on an oil pipeline from Kyaukphyu to Ruili in Yunnan. The planned railroad will also run from Kyaukphyu, which is in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, to Ruili and Yunnan’s capital Kunming. China’s official Xinhua agency said China also planned to invest in a special industrial zone at Kyaukphyu. (more…)

Opium growth in Burma is eclipsing all other countries in south-east Asia and production is trending ”relentlessly upward”, the head of a UN drugs unit will say today. (more…)

Bangkok – With Burma due to hold its first elections in 20 years, many commentators are already saying the vote will be neither free nor fair. (more…)

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s visit to Naypyidaw, the capital of Burma, on Oct. 11 has marked a new chapter in the Democrat Party’s relations with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). (more…)

On 7 November, Burma will hold its first elections in two decades. Here, the writer Wendy Law-Yone, who grew up under its repressive regime in the 1960s, relives the terrible night her journalist father was seized by the army to be held indefinitely, and how an unlikely romance helped her find freedom. (more…)

Today Min Ko Naing will spend his 48th Birthday imprisoned and cut off from the people of Burma. This will be the 19th year that he has spent a day, meant for celebration, in incarceration. (more…)