The Myanmar Taguang Taung Nickel Ore Project Mining System, with joint investment from China Nonferrous Group and Taiyuan Iron and Steel (Group) Co. Ltd. (TISCO), has been put into operation, authorities said Friday. (more…)

Washington — President Barack Obama Thursday nominated defense official Derek Mitchell as his special representative on Myanmar to shape US policy towards the country after its criticized political transition. (more…)

At U.N. headquarters, regime change has long been viewed as a toxic phrase. (more…)

My first introduction to Burma’s crisis came when I sought refuge at the Jesuits in Bangkok. I was just starting out as a young photographer and had little money. The Jesuits kindly offered me a place to stay and it was there that I befriended Burmese students who had fled the Burma army crackdown of 1988. I remember thinking that, had I been born in Burma, I may well have been among them because we were the same generation. But the reasons for our respective exiles couldn’t have been more different; mine was voluntary – theirs was forced. (more…)

So begins Byin Pu, one of the women whose story is featured in the new book, Nowhere to be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime. It’s the seventh book from Voice of Witness, the nonprofit branch of McSweeney’s founded by Dave Eggers and Lola Vollen. (more…)

PRESIDENT U Thein Sein used his inaugural address last week to outline his government’s reform agenda, promising “to open doors” and “catch up” to the outside world. (more…)

Border trade grew by 14.7 per cent to Bt140.72 billion in the first two months this year, with Malaysia, Burma and Laos the major markets. (more…)

THE European Union’s decision to relax certain restrictions on non-military members of Burma’s new, nominally civilian government has prompted a flurry of rebuttals from Burma lobbyists. (more…)

Recent headlines have proclaimed that Thailand plans to close all 9 refugee camps along its border with Burma and send some 140,000 refugees home. No deadline was given, but a top official said it is time for refugees who have been in Thailand for more than two decades, to return to their own country. (more…)

Are western policies failing Burma? And is our veneration of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi partly to blame? These questions struck me at an exhibition in Bangkok by the Toronto-based photographer Anne Bayin. Amnesty International Canada called the show “a striking illustration of [Suu Kyi's] plight.” But it gave me the creeps. (more…)

The latest report from International Crisis Group (ICG), Myanmar’s Post-Election Landscape, is one of the most extraordinary documents I have read in a long time. Rarely have I seen such naïve and ill-considered analysis from an otherwise highly-respected and intelligent organisation.

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Yangon – Myanmar has kicked off its traditional New Year’s celebrations with water fights, live music and tighter security after deadly bombings marred last year’s festival. (more…)

New Delhi – The new Burmese government has issued an order banning traditional Thangyat that could ‘undermine the dignity’ of people during the upcoming Water Festival. (more…)

Thai authorities have sparked an outcry by revealing that they are in talks with Burma over proposals to send more than 140,000 refugees back across the border. The head of the national security council, Tawin Pleansri, said the government planned to close camps established along the border with Burma over the past two decades and make residents return. (more…)

Six Myanmarese men were arrested for illegally entering India from Bangladesh and were sent to 14 days judicial custody Wednesday, police here said. The arrested men said they had crossed over in search of jobs and complained of untold harassment by the Myanmarese authorities. (more…)

Despite spending a majority of the past decade under house arrest, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was recognized as the Voice of the Decade on Tuesday by a Washington D.C.-based organization working for the global empowerment of women. (more…)

As the Internet plays a major role in organizing protests and disseminating information across the Middle East and other parts of the world, a report released Tuesday by the human rights organization, Freedom House, tells how Internet censorship circumvention tools are effective in navigating around censors.  But the report warns about the security implications of such software. (more…)

LAST week saw the culmination of a series of events which, had this not been Myanmar, where attitudes have had plenty of time to harden, would have caused quite a stir. (more…)

According to reports by AFP and other news agencies, Thailand’s National Security Council head, Tawin Pleansri, told reporters after a meeting of the council that Thailand wants to close the refugee camps for over 100,000 Burmese refugees, who have fled the country over the past twenty years. Most of the Burmese refugees live in camps on the western Thailand-Burma border; their housing is basic, but it is better than living in eastern and northeastern Burma, where they are prey to regular campaigns of attacks and even mass rape by the Burmese military, and retribution attacks by armed ethnic militia groups. In one comprehensive report, a group focusing on Chin State in Burma documented the use of rape as a weapon of war by the Burmese military.

Thailand has never really wanted to house the Burmese refugees, but over successive administrations Bangkok has tolerated the refugee presence. Undocumented Burmese also frequently enter Thailand itself, providing a source of cheap and easily exploitable labor for many Thai companies. Now, however, Bangkok appears willing to use the fiction that Burma had a real election last fall to repatriate these refugees, most of whom will return against their will. Though the election last year may improve the quality of governance in Burma marginally, it was hardly a free or fair poll, or suggestive of the kind of dramatic change on human rights that would make it safe to return refugees.

There are other reasons for Thailand’s suddenly harder line. Leading Thai company Ital-Thai is in the process of making the largest-ever Thai investment in Myanmar, at over $13 billion. And overall, the government of PM Abhisit has tried to foster rapprochment with its neighbor. Too bad that over 100,000 refugees are going to be treated as a pawn in this relationship.

Thai authorities use any convenient reason to repatriate those who have fled war and genocide in Burma. (more…)