Chiang Mai – A last-minute official invitation to attend a national-level workshop on economic development was delivered by hand to the home of Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday. President Thein Sein will also attend the workshop to be held in Naypyitaw, the capital. (more…)

Yangon – Myanmar’s new government on Thursday called for peace talks with armed separatists along its borders with Thailand and China, the latest in a series of conciliatory gestures towards long-time opponents of the former military regime. (more…)

Teknaf, Bangladesh: Twelve Arakanese Rohingya were arrested by Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) from Nazirpara Village in the Teknaf border area on August 13, while crossing the border illegally and trying to enter Bangladesh. Later, they were pushed back to Burma, said a local aide of BGB who declined to be named. (more…)

Land confiscations and other human rights violations have been reported in northern Shan State during the last few weeks since the start of the Shwe pipeline project to export gas and oil to China. (more…)

Chiang Mai – The National League for Democracy (NLD), which the new Burmese government has dissolved, has been delayed in presenting its legal-status case to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). (more…)

Most Burmese exile groups were skeptical about an announcement by President Thein Sein on Wednesday that his government would allow dissidents to return to the country, but at least some welcomed the idea as something worth considering. (more…)

Enhanced role for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is a positive development but Asean must remain cautious about the military’s motives (more…)

Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia. By Thant Myint-U. Faber and Faber; 358 pages; £20. To be published in America next month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; $27. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT did not have much time for Burma or the Burmese. The sympathy he felt for Indian demands for independence from Britain did not extend to that other piece of the British Raj now known as Myanmar. In 1942 he wrote to Winston Churchill: “I wish you could put the whole bunch of them into a frying pan with a wall around it and let them stew in their own juice.” (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar – President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar U Thein Sein met officials from economic and social fields, associations and organizations at the Myanmar International Convention Centre in Zabuthiri here this afternoon. (more…)

Sai Seng Wan, Shan academic working with the Restoration Council of Shan State / Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA), presenting his paper at the 4th International Conference on Human Rights and Development at Bangkok’s prestigious Chulalongkorn University today, says without going back to the Panglong Agreement, the pre-independence alliance pact between Burma and the Frontier Areas, the human rights issue in Burma, particularly in Shan State, will never be resolved. (more…)