MAE SOT—Aung Khine was 11 years old when his father passed away. His father had worked as a carpenter to provide for his mother and two little sisters. Now without their father’s support, the family was facing serious problems. (more…)

China plans to set up a joint venture with Myanmar to build a new refinery in the Southeastern Asian nation, said an official from the Ministry of Energy of Myanmar, sources reported. The official said that the new refinery, with a planned daily crude oil processing capacity of 56,000 barrels, will refine crude oil from the Middle East. An oil pipeline is under construction to transport the crude oil, added the official. The refinery, whose capacity will exceed the total capacity of the top three refineries in Myanmar, is expected to be completed within three to five years. The report said that China will assume 51% of the construction cost of the refinery, which will be near Mandalay of Myanmar. Early this week, a joint venture between Sinopec Group and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, has discovered a large oil and gas deposit in Northwest Myanmar with a daily capacity of 2.1 million cubic feet, China Knowledge reported earlier.

Over a hundred Burmese troops stationed around opium fields in Burma’s northern Kachin State are offering protection to growers against attempts by the Kachin Independence Organization to eradicate crops, according to local sources. (more…)

Bangkok — Thailand should swiftly investigate the treatment of almost a hundred boat people amid claims the group was set adrift in a vessel without an engine, rights organisations said Friday. (more…)

Aung San Suu Kyi’s father was General Aung San, certainly still considered Burma’s hero of independence. The route he took to gain that honor was not quite so glorious. The Japanese invaded Burma, a British colony, in World War II and Aung San soon became a leading collaborator. The Japanese did not provide the political independence they had originally promised, so Aung San re-defected to the British forces when they fought back from India. The war ended and the Burmese leader soon shifted back to being a rebel. The British departed and General Aung San gained a substantial part of the credit. Of course from his daughter’s standpoint her dad was simply a committed patriot. (more…)

What are the secrets to a dictator’s survival? Why do some authoritarian regimes collapse following popular uprisings while others remain in power? (more…)

Burma remains at the centre of a 15-year-old boycott debate. Since Aung San Suu Kyi called for a tourism boycott in a response to the junta’s ‘Visit Myanmar Year 1996’, human rights groups, politicians, the tourism industry and the media have not ceased to argue whether travelling to Burma can be in any way ethical, or whether it is unethical by definition. But, in an unprecedented move, the Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) last month signalled a policy change on tourism. (more…)

Yangon, Myanmar – A top member of Myanmar’s junta was appointed head of the country’s new Election Commission on Thursday, a lawmaker said, as the military continued to consolidate its grip on power after widely condemned elections. (more…)

A Myanmar Special Economic Zone Law was recently promulgated by the State Peace and Development Council to, in its words, ‘cause further development of the economic momentum of the state’. (more…)

Japan sees a role for itself in Burma’s Dawei Port industrial-estate project, particularly in financing, by joining with Thailand. (more…)

A mass vaccination campaign is underway across Burma after reports surfaced of young children contracting a rare strain of the polio virus. (more…)

New Delhi—When he heard that he was to be forcefully recruited as a porter for the Burmese army for a second time, Awn Khan Pauhe and his family packed a few belonging, said goodbye to their relatives and neighbors, and left their ancestral home of Tedim in Chin State and headed across the border to India and traveled by bus to New Delhi. (more…)

The Southern Bangkok Criminal Court yesterday ordered the Immigration Bureau to immediately release and pay a small sum of damages to an injured Burmese worker held in a locked cell at the Bangkok Police Hospital. (more…)

Well-known human rights activists and members of advocacy groups who gathered on Feb. 12-15 in Prague, Czech Public to discuss issues surrounding Burma called on the EU to use all its power to push the Burmese regime to make real democratic reforms. (more…)

At first glimpse, February has been a month of peaceful, disciplined transition from 22 years of military rule  in Burma to a hybrid civil-military government, with the decentralization of the power structure from the central to regional governments.     (more…)

In the aftermath of the 1988 uprising, neocolonialist countries of West Bloc aided and abetted the aboveground and underground anti-government groups covertly or overtly in their clashes with the then State Law and Order Restoration Council government. At the same time, pressures and economic sanctions were imposed against Myanmar to instigate another unrest and violence by making the people poor. The main aim was to help their stooges gain power through regime change. (more…)

Yangon, Myanmar — A top member of Myanmar’s junta has resigned his seat in parliament, an unexpected and unexplained move less than three weeks after he was sworn in. (more…)

Civilians have been warned against travelling between three towns in eastern Burma by Karen rebels who claim Burmese troops are donning plain clothes to avoid being ambushed. (more…)

Chiang Mai – The Bayda Institute in Tamwe Township in Rangoon Division, an education group associated with the social networking program supported by Aung San San Kyi, is moving to Sanchaung Township, according to principal Myo Yan Naung Thein. (more…)

New Delhi: The Centre is planning to build helicopter bases and enhance road connectivity along the porous Indo-Myanmarese border to enable dispatching of quick reinforcements and other supplies to BSF troops who will now guard the border instead of the paramilitary Assam Rifles. (more…)