President Thein Sein of Myanmar announced a “second wave of reforms” on Tuesday that are aimed at rolling back decades of state control over the country’s sheltered and dysfunctional economy. (more…)

A court in Myanmar has sentenced to death two men in a rape-murder case that triggered a wave of communal violence in western Rakhine state, a government official said on Tuesday.
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UN-verified accounts of child soldiers undermine junta’s assurances on democratic reforms (more…)

Burma’s government is planning to free more political prisoners as early as next month, a minister said in Norway, while democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was on a four-day visit. (more…)

At last five firefights occurred on Monday between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Burma’s armed forces after two government army columns were sent to the area as reinforcements, according to an article on Monday by the Kachin News Group (KNG). (more…)

These are heady days in Myanmar’s newsrooms, many of them staffed by young women like those at Kumudra newspaper nicknamed after “Charlie’s Angels” for their tenacity in holding the military-dominated government to account. (more…)

A recent protest by 2,000 Rohingya Muslims in Kuala Lumpur illustrates how the stateless ethnic group’s plight has become a regional problem rather than just a bilateral issue between Myanmar and Bangladesh. (more…)

Myanmar’s Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday began an emotional visit to Britain, where she left her family 24 years ago and took up her famous struggle against the military dictatorship in her homeland. (more…)

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said the rule of law is an essential prerequisite for democracy in her country as she began her first visit to Britain in more than two decades. (more…)

Burma’s government should ensure full and unfettered humanitarian access to displaced people and conduct an impartial investigation into recent violence in Arakan (Rakhine) State, Amnesty International (AI) said in a statement on Monday. (more…)

The United States on Tuesday praised Myanmar’s response to recent deadly sectarian fighting, despite criticism by rights group Amnesty International that Muslim Rohingyas are still fleeing arbitrary arrest by border forces. (more…)

Now that information travels more freely in and out of the country, news coming out of Myanmar about the violent treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group living in the Rakhine state on the border with Bangladesh, should disturb the conscience of those who love peace and freedom. Even more disturbing however is the silence of most of the world, including Myanmar’s Southeast Asian neighbors, in the face of clear human rights violations perpetrated by the state and its people against the ethnic group. (more…)

Aung San Suu Kyi has returned to the UK 24 years after leaving for Burma, where she joined the pro-democracy movement. BBC world affairs correspondent Mike Woolridge looks at her years in Britain, where she studied and married. (more…)

A tussle is looming between Thein Sein’s courtship of foreign investors and Aung San Suu Kyi’s more cautious approach (more…)

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 19 June 2012, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. (more…)