Yangon — The tormentor-in-chief of Myanmar’s heavily censored media will put down his black marker pen for good in a month, signalling the end of one of the world’s most draconian press scrutiny regimes. (more…)

Aung San Suu Kyi’s first trip abroad in more than two decades has attracted intense international interest, but also a certain amount of criticism of her party’s handling of an event that should have been an unmitigated triumph. (more…)

Ruili, China — This remote southwestern Chinese city of about 140,000 nestled in a river valley on the Myanmar border amassed huge wealth over decades of trade and smuggling of drugs, timber and jade. Now, China’s main trading gateway to its long-isolated neighbor is waiting for a new boom that may never come. (more…)

Yangon – Myanmar President Thein Sein has postponed next week’s two-day visit to Thailand, both countries said on Friday, just days after he decided against attending the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok. (more…)

BANGKOK — Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate and leader of Myanmar’s democracy movement, stared down into an audience of corporate executives here on Friday and issued a blistering assessment of her country’s judicial system. (more…)

Bangkok: Myanmar is in urgent need of basic education to ensure continuous reform, said democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday at the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok. (more…)

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is likely to ease its criticisms against Burma on forced labour, despite fresh reports that the military continues to target the stateless Rohingya population in Northern Arakan state with impunity. (more…)

Chiang Mai – Talks between the Myanmar government and ethnic resistance groups have raised hopes of a lasting solution to decades of ethnic strife, but the country’s established history of failed ceasefires threatens to repeat itself with potentially disastrous consequences for new foreign-funded peace and reconciliation initiatives. (more…)

As elections in 2011 (and a bye-election in 2012) have both ratified and subtly altered the consequences of three decades of military rule in Myanmar, formerly (and to many nationalists, still) called Burma, it’s time to take a fresh look at the country which our Prime Minister has just visited. (more…)

For 25 years, India walked a tightrope in Myanmar between the need to build relations with an important neighbour that was also a strategic gateway to South-east and East Asia, and its conscience. Aung San Suu Kyi was the discomfiting reminder of that conscience. In the struggle to keep a balance between the two, New Delhi could neither go full steam ahead with the military regime that had kept Ms Suu Kyi under arrest, nor go all out to support the pro-democracy movement she led. That partly explains why no Indian Prime Minister visited Myanmar after Rajiv Gandhi in 1987. Now that Ms Suu Kyi, who was released in 2010, is participating in the country’s political reforms, India has signalled with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit earlier this week that it wants nothing other than a full normalisation of relations, and quickly. The reasons are no secret. With the western world having suspended sanctions on Myanmar, the country is gradually opening up its resource-rich economy, and as a neighbour, India clearly does not want to be left behind in the race. Equally important, Myanmar borders four states in India’s insurgency-hit Northeast. One reason why India did business with the military regime was to keep it from nurturing rebel groups. Prospects for stability in that region have increased with the Myanmar government’s decision seriously to pursue reconciliation with various armed ethnic rebel groups on its own side. The development of the border areas could help keep both sides stable and peaceful, give an economic leg-up to the Northeast, plus help connect India to the ASEAN countries. (more…)

Recently, the Burmese government’s Union Election Commission rejected the Zomi National Congress (ZNC)’s registration request over a naming row, which effectively prevents the national party for entering the country’s political landscape. (more…)

Forced labour continues to be widely and systematically practiced in northern Arakan State in Burma and little has changed for the Rohingya population, said a report by the Arakan Project titled “Forced Labour Still Prevails: Overview of forced labour practices in North Arakan” released on Friday. (more…)

Amnesty International concluded its first official visit to Burma since 2003, it said in a recent statement. (more…)