Honolulu – Myanmar is making real progress toward reforms but much more needs to be done, including the release of political prisoners, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday. (more…)

Pro-democracy activist Thwin Linn Aung, a prominent student leader of the 1988 student protests in Myanmar (Burma), said that while the government is taking a softer approach to the handling of political prisoners, it was too soon to think it has undergone a sea of change. (more…)

Burmese refugees are struggling to adapt to life in Ottawa, five years after the city became their home, but their new sense of freedom makes it worthwhile, they say. (more…)

IN March last year, the National League for Democracy faced probably the toughest decision in its history: whether to contest the country’s first election in two decades or cease to exist as a legal entity. (more…)

Recently, foreign media have stated that there are two groups in Myanmar politics, hard-liners group and soft-liners group. They even named who are hard-liners and who soft-liners. Media usually highlight hard-liner to have incorrect attitude and soft-liner to have correct attitude. (more…)

Members of an activist group born out of the infamous 1988 uprising in Burma say they may look to seek official status as a political or philanthropic organisation. (more…)

Thein Zaw, the second-ranked member of the Burmese government’s Union Peace Committee tasked with pursuing peace with the country’s ethnic minority groups, recently told the leadership of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an ethnic armed group, that ongoing military operations against the ethnic militia were limited and intended to apply pressure that would result in a peace agreement. (more…)

New Delhi – Discussing a Second Panglong Conference with ethnic armed groups is on the agenda of the National League for Democracy (NLD), but it would first have to negotiate with the authorities. (more…)

The Burma Army in Papun Township has arrested two community health workers from the Back Pack Health Worker Team who were giving medical treatment to villagers in the area. (more…)

SEVEN teenagers of Myanmar nationality were cheated into slavery in a textile factory in Yuyao, a city in the eastern Zhejiang Province, and were frequently abused. (more…)

Half of the 50 Burmese traders operating on the No-2, Indo-Burma border trade road have stopped work due to the falling exchange rate between the Kyat and the Indian Rupee. (more…)

THE Green Economy and Green Growth forum and conference marked a significant step towards realising sustainable economic growth in Myanmar, environmental experts said last week. (more…)

Tokyo – Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba and his Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa agreed Thursday to enhance their cooperation in assisting Myanmar’s transition to democracy and in dealing with other regional issues, a Japanese official said. (more…)

New Delhi: Three women from Myanmar were assaulted by their neighbours in west Delhi in the continuing discriminatory attacks against people from the Northeast and southeast Asia in the capital of the world’s largest democracy. (more…)

After revelations that it supplied Syria with Internet spy tools, a U.S. company faces similar allegations about Myanmar. (more…)

You would think that in a country as overwhelmingly agrarian as Burma, the plight of the rural poor would receive far more attention than it does. Agriculture accounts for more than 40 percent of Burma’s GDP and supports around 70 percent of its population. And yet, since President Thein Sein vowed in his inaugural address to Parliament in March to do something about the persistent poverty of those who toil in the fields, precious little has been said about this issue by those in high places. (more…)

Harn Yawnghwe, the executive director of the Brussels-based Euro-Burma Office (EBO) and one of Burma’s most prominent exiles, recently ended his first visit to his native country in nearly half a century. The experience was, he said, eye-opening: Contrary to the misgivings that many exiles still have about recent moves toward political reform in Burma, most people he spoke to in the country said they were overwhelmingly positive about the situation developing under President Thein Sein’s administration. (more…)

Insein Prison authorities have banned family members from visiting the 15 political prisoners who have been on hunger strike since Oct. 26, saying the ban will last at least one month. (more…)

Rangoon Region Chief Minister Myint Swe has warned journalists who cover Rangoon Region assembly news to be careful in reporting on events. (more…)

China is considering sending armed police boats down the Mekong River after pirates attacked Chinese vessels in Thailand’s part of the river, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported, a move that comes amid regional worries over China’s growing influence in the region. (more…)