Thailand is understandably exhausted from providing long-running sanctuary to more than 140,000 Burmese refugees, but any attempt by the kingdom to send all of the refugees back to their homeland will create more problems than it solves and endanger thousands of innocent people. (more…)

In a program aired on April 15, Aung San Suu Kyi discusses the appointment by the United States of a Special Envoy for Burma, explains why she will not leave Burma to travel abroad, and shares her views of Burma’s newly elected government. (more…)

Staff working in the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Naypyidaw and Rangoon have been frequently questioned and investigated due to the amount of leaked information from the ministry, according to a source close to the ministry in Naypyidaw. (more…)

A total of 145 criminal case were exposed in Myanmar’s Yangon region during the just-ended four-day Myanmar water festival in the weekend, nabbing illegal sale of liquor with 78 cases five times more than last year, local media reported Thursday. (more…)

Burmese government officials remained absent this week from a major regional conference for migrant-sending nations in Dhaka, despite an estimated 10 percent of Burma’s population travelling abroad to work. (more…)

Ottawa — Canada’s governor general on Wednesday accepted the credentials of Myanmar’s first ambassador to be posted to Ottawa in years, saying Canada looked forward to talks with him on human rights. (more…)

President Barack Obama recently nominated Derek Mitchell as the first U.S. Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma. The appointment of an envoy to Burma, which was called for in U.S. legislation passed three years ago, is a positive step forward in the U.S.’s evolving policy of engagement toward Burma. (more…)

Last week’s gathering of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) heads of government in China looks like another landmark in the Asia-tilted re-balancing of global economic power that has gathered pace since the 2008 banking and financial crisis spread from the United States. (more…)

As the leader of Burma’s democracy movement and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, Aung San Suu Kyi, 65, is an Asian hero and global inspiration. When I was pushing for democratic reforms in China during the 1989 Tiananmen movement, Suu Kyi’s commitment to nonviolent resistance, exemplified just a year before during Burma’s democracy protests, was fresh in my memory. Last November she was released from her latest stint of more than seven years under house arrest.

In March her banned party, the National League for Democracy, called again for talks with Burma’s rulers. Even after spending most of the past two decades in detention, Suu Kyi is determined to return to the front lines of the battle for democracy.

Wang is a Chinese democracy activist.

On April 19, 2011, Governor General David Johnston accepted the credentials of U Kyaw Tin, Burma’s newly-appointed ambassador to Canada.  U Kyaw Tin’s appointment is the first since Burma’s military regime formed a new government based on its revised Constitution of 2008 and subsequent elections in 2010. The immediate question is whether the Burmese Ambassador will have the authority to advocate Canadian viewpoints with regime leaders at home. (more…)

Politicians in Burma are forbidden from communicating with groups deemed by the government to be ‘unlawful’, according to the country’s Union Election Commission. (more…)

During these days, a large number of soldiers from Burma Army troops fighting with the Shan State Progress Party/ Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) in Shan State South, have reportedly been deserting from the battlefields, local sources reported. (more…)

Bangkok/Delhi – Tens of thousands of stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh face abuse, starvation and detention in a “silent crisis” that could lead to a humanitarian emergency if the authorities do not do more to protect them, a report by Refugees International (RI) said. (more…)

Police raids on a factory in the Din Daeng area of Bangkok yesterday ended in the release of more than 60 Burmese migrants who claim they were kept in prison-like conditions and forced to work. (more…)

Burmese refugees in Thailand have told The Irrawaddy that there could be protests if the Thai authorities insist on returning the refugees to their war-torn homeland in eastern Burma. (more…)

Beijing – Chinese support for controversial dam-building schemes around the world risks a backlash from affected communities and even violence due to a lack of transparency and the ignoring of residents’ wishes, activists said on Wednesday. (more…)

Washington—The Obama administration has said it is unwilling to work with the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) with Burma as its chair, given its poor track record on human rights and democracy. (more…)

Manila, Philippines—The Philippines has urged Myanmar to release the military-ruled nation’s political prisoners, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. (more…)

Imagine a 5-year-old child in a far away land running for his life. (more…)

Sanctions don’t work. The time is long overdue to change these failed policies and try a new way to achieve the same goals. (more…)