Yangon – Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party is expected to announce its return to the official political arena on Friday after years of marginalisation by ruling generals. (more…)

Yangon – London is ready for a “fundamental shift” in relations with military-dominated Myanmar if political reforms continue, a British minister said Thursday after meeting democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. (more…)

Despite the recent relaxation of some of its media restrictions, Burma’s notorious Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD) is flexing its muscles once again, refusing to allow the publication of certain remarks made by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday and rejecting news reports covering separate protests by monks in Mandalay and farmers in Rangoon, according to the managing editor of a Rangoon-based journal. (more…)

Chiang Mai – As the Burmese by-elections draw near, the fate of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP) made up of winning MPs in the 1990 general election is uncertain. (more…)

Bangkok – More than 25,000 people who have fled fighting between the Myanmar army and separatists face a harsh winter with little aid, local charities said. (more…)

At least seven MPs in Burma’s three parliaments have been implicated in the country’s lucrative narcotics industry, according to a recent report that again cast doubts on government pledges that it is stamping out the trade. (more…)

Military-dominated Myanmar will chair Southeast Asia’s regional bloc in 2014, officials said Thursday, a decision that will likely irk the U.S. and others not yet satisfied with the country’s fledgling reforms. (more…)

Nusa Dua, Indonesia (Reuters) – The foreign minister of Thailand encouraged the United States and Europe to relax sanctions on Myanmar to reflect the isolated country’s progress in reforms, offering support to its neighbor under pressure to improve human rights conditions. (more…)

Darwin, Australia – U.S. President Barack Obama has again used a major Asia trip to nudge Burma’s  government toward more rapid reforms.  President Obama’s remarks calling for further concrete progress in Burma came during an address in Australia about regional security, economic and political progress in the region. (more…)

As Burma’s political leaders win the symbolic support of a fast-growing region, the fortunes of the population in the resource-rich country are not looking as bright. (more…)

Since entering Burmese politics in 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi’s choices, like everything else in her life, have been severely restricted. And yet, she has had to make some of the most fateful decisions in her country’s recent history. Tomorrow she will have to do the same again, as her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), decides whether to re-register as a political party. (more…)

Read an edited transcript of a rare interview with Myanmar’s Minister for Information and Culture U Kyaw Hsan. On the first such meeting between Myanmar’s government and a major Western news organization in years, The Wall Street Journal sat for three hours with Mr. Kyaw Hsan on Tuesday morning, in Myanmar’s remote government center of Naypyitaw. (More: Myanmar Calls Its Reforms ‘Irreversible’) (more…)

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should set clear human rights benchmarks for Burma as a condition for its chairmanship of the regional grouping in 2014, Human Rights Watch said today. (more…)

Yangon, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar began transferring some political prisoners from remote jails to facilities closer to their families on Wednesday, according to a security official, but there was no sign when others might be freed. (more…)

Police have detained an activist on charges of breaching Burma’s notorious Video Act after he allegedly filmed a protest by landless farmers in Irrawaddy division two months ago. (more…)

BANGKOK — After more than two decades of persecution by Myanmar’s military, the party of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi says it will decide Friday whether to rejoin the political system, a potential milestone for a country that appears to be gradually emerging from years of dictatorship and oppression. (more…)

Five young Buddhist monks continued their peaceful anti-government protest in Mandalay for the second day on Wednesday, while the Burmese authorities tried to disrupt the event by forcing elderly Buddhist clergy to prohibit the monks from staging the protest in their monasteries. (more…)

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) – Tokyo sees growing investment opportunities in Myanmar as the reclusive state embarks on political and economic reforms, citing its strategic location between India, China and Southeast Asia, a senior Japanese official said on Wednesday. (more…)

Nu Sa Dua, Indonesia — Myanmar on Wednesday won Southeast Asia’s backing to chair the region’s bloc in 2014, despite the United States warning it was too soon to reward the new government for fledgling reforms. (more…)

Hours before US President Barack Obama landed in Australia, a top White House official said there have been positive changes in Burma recently and that the US wants those changes to continue. (more…)