Bangladesh’s neighbour to the east, Myanmar, has for a long time been known as a country with which it could promote in a planned manner stepped-up interactions in economic and trade matters. But the potentialities have remained little exploited or explored, not befitting of the mutual interests of both countries. Only in recent years, suggestions have been made for boosting trade and economic relationship with Myanmar. The process was, however, hazarded earlier by the influx of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh and the stand-off between the two countries over demarcation of their sea boundaries, etc. (more…)

On Nov. 13, Aung San Suu Kyi, the world’s most famous political prisoner, walked free from house arrest in Burma. Her crumbling white villa on Rangoon’s Inya Lake had, for most of the past two decades, been her prison. She was first detained in 1989, a year before her National League for Democracy party took 82 per cent of the seats in nationwide elections. Those results were famously tossed out by the military regime that has ruled Burma since 1962 and threw the NLD leadership, Suu Kyi included, behind bars. Late last month, Suu Kyi was reunited with her youngest son, Kim Aris, 33, named for the Rudyard Kipling hero, after a decade-long separation. The 65-year-old Nobel laureate and democratic icon spoke to Maclean’s from Rangoon. (more…)

The authorities have introduced new regulations for internet cafes in Rangoon. Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) correspondent, Daw Thiri Htet San, filed this report about how the internet cafe operators and users are reacting to the new regulations. (more…)

Democratic Karen Buddhist Army’s (DKBA) battalion 902 commander Colonel Kyaw Thet in Hpalu village, where fighting recently broke out with the government, said the group will commence guerrilla warfare in “every township” if the SPDC continues its offensive against the renegade DKBA faction. (more…)

A battalion of regular troops from the rebel Karen National Union (KNU) on Dec. 11 launched a short attack on the Burmese army in Manerplaw, and have remained active in the area. Manerplaw was the headquarters of the KNU from 1948 until it fell into Burmese army hands in 1995. (more…)

A conference on trade between Vietnam and Myanmar, held by the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee in Yagon, Myanmar has successfully ended. (more…)

Indonesia has proposed a new “dynamic equilibrium” for Southeast Asian nations as a part of its agenda after it takes up the chairmanship of the regional association from Jan 1. (more…)

A senior Indian official suspected that the wives of two Burmese generals who accompanied Snr-Gen Than Shwe on a state visit to India in October 2004 were actually being held as hostages, according to a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. A report written by Geoffrey Pyatt, the political counselor at the US embassy in New Delhi, revealed that Mitra Vashishta, a joint secretary of India’s Ministry of External Affairs, “observed that Than Shwe traveled with the wives of two other powerful generals, Thura Shwe Man and Soe Win, who [Vashishta] mused may have been used as ‘hostages’ to ensure tranquility among the generals in Rangoon during Than Shwe’s absence.” The memo also revealed that the Indian government regarded the November 2004 ouster of former Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt as a “coup.”

A 2004 U.S. diplomatic dispatch stated that the ruling military junta in Myanmar indicated it could pursue a nuclear program in order to draw the United States’ attention, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Dec. 13). (more…)

Chiang Mai – The government of Malaysia remains delinquent in meeting the needs of refugees seeking greener pastures, including Burmese, finds the latest study on the status of refugee needs in the Southeast Asian state. (more…)

Diplomatic cables by the US Embassy in Rangoon show that American officials were unrealistically optimistic about dialogue with Burma’s military government, as Democrat Sen. Jim Webb visited ruler Senior-General Than Shwe in August 2009. (more…)

Myanmar has established diplomatic ties with the Sultanate of Oman at ambassadorial level, state-run newspaper the New Light of Myanmar reported Friday. (more…)

Tomorrow will mark exactly 20 years since the United Nations adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICRMW) on Dec 18, 1990. This convention sets out an expansive set of rights for migrant workers and their families during recruitment and when preparing to migrate, when travelling to and whilst staying in destination countries and during return and integration into home states. (more…)

For a government so often associated with the promotion of universal human rights (just think of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Prize last week for his “long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”), it may come as a shock to hear that Norway is complicit in human rights abuses in Burma (Myanmar) — shocking but true. (more…)

Min Ko Naing, a well-known activist and leader of the 88 Generation Student group, is in greater pain due to cold temperatures in Kengtung, where he is serving a 65-year prison sentence in a remote township in eastern Shan State that is one of the coldest places in the country at this time of year. (more…)

Chiang Mai – Burmese Army officers promised better weapons including heavy arms to around 200 junta-led militia leaders in Tangyan Township in Shan State’s north after calling them to a meeting early this week, a militia source said. (more…)

A farmer whose land and property was confiscated and destroyed by Rangoon authorities faces a possible jail term after being charged with trespassing. (more…)

Chiang Mai: Authorities have confiscated more than 3,000 teak logs estimated to be worth more than 200 million baht and believed to have been smuggled into Thailand from Burma. (more…)

Driven by a sell-off of natural resources, the value of Burma’s exports hit US $5.5 billion for the past eight months, while the total value of its international trade was $8.8 billion, according to the junta’s Ministry of Commerce. Burmese economic observers predicted, however, that the import-export revenues would not directly benefit most Burmese people. (more…)

The air was filled with hope and warmth as the five families from Myanmar who are in Japan on the third-country resettlement program met with visiting United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees chief Antonio Guterres last month in Tokyo. (more…)