The people of Burma should work together to help prevent an “Arab spring” that could damage the interests of the nation, Shwe Mann, the speaker of the Lower House of Burma’s Parliament, said at a meeting on Friday. (more…)

Democratic Party (Myanmar) General-Secretary Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein said on Friday, after losing her case before the Electoral Commission (EC), that the electoral laws are a ‘worry’, following a ruling in favour of her rival Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) candidate. (more…)

Yangon — When Myanmar’s junta leader ordered the creation of a new football league two years ago — apparently after ruling out a bid for Manchester United — he harked back to the country’s glory days. (more…)

Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexey N. Borodavkin, who is also  the country’s nuclear envoy to North Korea, led a delegation to Naypyidaw on Wednesday to meet Burmese counterparts. (more…)

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The University of Johannesburg in South Africa will honour Burmese Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for contributions to democracy and human rights in Burma. (more…)

Tokyo – Parliamentary Vice Foreign Minister Makiko Kikuta said Friday she will travel to Myanmar next Monday for talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the Southeast Asian nation’s Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin. (more…)

Sydney – Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd will visit Myanmar next week and meet democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, a statement said Friday, in the first such visit in nine years to the military-dominated country. (more…)

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna has returned from a three-day official visit to Myanmar without meeting Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and international democracy icon who was freed in late 2010 by that country’s military regime after several years under house arrest. He left that chore to Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao. The Minister’s visit was billed as India’s first high-level interaction with the “new civilian government.” It would be best to drop the pretence. The Myanmar government is not civilian by any standards. It is run by the Union Solidarity and Development Party, a military proxy that unsurprisingly won a sham election in October 2010. Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy boycotted the election as the junta introduced new rules to keep the Nobel Laureate out of the process. The newly elected Parliament, dominated by the military and its proxies, chose USDP leader Thein Sein as the new “civilian” President in March 2011 after he was handpicked by Senior General Than Shwe, the head of the junta’s outgoing State Peace and Development Council. President Sein was a serving general until last year and the Prime Minister in the SPDC regime. A junta loyalist, he is expected to maintain continuity with the junta’s policies. Thanks to WikiLeaks, we know that the Indian foreign policy establishment thinks Ms Suu Kyi’s “day has come and gone,” and that India’s engagement with the Myanmarese military is based on security considerations in the North-East and its fears of losing influence to China. But if this is India’s state policy, it should say this openly instead of projecting its dance with the generals as “engagement” with civilians. (more…)

She’s directed Britain’s biggest summer festival, won applause from a Canadian conference and delivered a ringing human rights message to the U.S. Congress. (more…)

The breakdown in the ceasefire of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) with the central government represents a major failure in national politics and threatens a serious humanitarian crisis if not immediately addressed. (more…)

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi’s two lectures were secretly filmed in Burma. (more…)

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) is ready to stop fighting, but first it wants guarantees that any ceasefire proposal offered on behalf of the government will be respected by Burmese military commanders, according to officials from the group’s political wing. (more…)

Chiang Mai – The speaker of Burma’s Lower House of Parliament, Thura Shwe Mahn, will meet with MPs from the Rangoon Region Legislative Assembly on Friday. The purpose of the meeting was not announced. (more…)

Burmese refugees living in camps along the Thai border say they have been receiving less food and housing material since the EU reduced border aid earlier this year, triggering concerns about the extent to which already difficult conditions in the camps will be exacerbated. (more…)

Dhaka – The stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are subjected to systematic and severe violations of human rights. The Rohingya are among many stateless populations throughout the world – people who have no nationality. (more…)

Bangkok – Global production of opium fell 38 percent in 2010 as plant disease hit crops in top producer Afghanistan, but output in second-largest producer Myanmar jumped after a big increase in land under cultivation, the United Nations said on Thursday. (more…)

Kangar — Two children were among 21 Myanmar nationals detained by the Anti-Smuggling Unit (ASU) at a sugarcane plantation in Chuping here on Wednesday night. (more…)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A company’s multimillion-dollar lawsuit against a rights lawyer who complained about how it treated migrant workers in Malaysia could scare activists across the country into silence, an international rights group warned Thursday. (more…)

Chiang Mai – The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday unanimously agreed to reappoint Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to a second five-year term, even as his office has yet to make serious inroads toward solving Burma’s ills. (more…)

A high-ranking delegation from the European Union wrapped up a fact-finding mission to Burma on Wednesday saying that the new government’s promises of reform must be matched by actions. (more…)