Chiang Mai – Because of  the Burmese junta’s forced military recruitment, about 100 young Kachin sought refuge in a military base of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) this week, according to a KIO officer. (more…)

Yangon, Myanmar — Myanmar’s military government has extended an agreement allowing the International Labor Organization to handle citizens’ complaints of forced labor. (more…)

Yangon – An Australian journalist who co-founded a newspaper in Myanmar was ordered to remain behind bars Thursday on immigration charges after being arrested two weeks ago. (more…)

Powerful Burmese business tycoon Tay Za has been rescued from the mountainous far-north Kachin state where his helicopter was forced to crash land on Monday. (more…)

Burma’s Ministry of Telecommunications, Post and Telegraphs has finally agreed to allow mobile phone users to buy “top-ups” for their phones to replace the existing billing system. (more…)

YANGON — Myanmar absorbed 3.56 billion U.S. dollars of foreign investment in the three months from November 2010 to January 2011, bringing the total to 35.406 billion dollars as of January this year since the country opened to such investment in late 1988, the Popular News reported Wednesday. (more…)

Following rumors that Burma’s No. 2 military general, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, was about to be forcefully retired, bank account holders have rushed to withdraw their savings from Kanbawza Bank, which is owned by Aung Ko Win, a close associate of the regime. (more…)

Human rights violations in Myanmar are burdening other countries in the region, with an influx of refuges fleeing a host of abuses from forced labour and land confiscation to arbitrary detention and sexual violence, a United Nations expert warned today. (more…)

The Mainichi Shimbun resumed Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s column, “Letter from Burma,” this year after a 13-year break. I flew to Myanmar where press restrains were in force late last year and visited Suu Kyi’s residence prior to the publication of the first part of the column on New Year’s Day. (more…)

Myanmar is in the midst of a large-scale privatization drive that promises, for better or worse, to shake up one of Asia’s most moribund economies. However, investors keen get involved in the fire sale would be wise to weigh the experience of media entrepreneur Ross Dunkley, who is languishing on unclear charges in the country’s Insein prison. (more…)