YANGON — Ten aid workers including some UN staff have been detained in western Myanmar in the wake of deadly communal unrest, the body said Friday, as rights groups warned of mass detentions of Muslims in the restive area. (more…)

Members of a student group that planned to mark the 50th anniversary of the destruction of the University of Rangoon Student Union building were summoned by police in Mandalay Division on Thursday and warned not to “dig up the past.” (more…)

More than 1,500 people staged a peaceful protest in Myitkyina on Friday calling for the release of a detained Kachin refugee, Lahtaw Brang Shawng, who they say has been brutally tortured by security forces for three days and nights. (more…)

RANONG : Hundreds of Thai villagers encroaching on Myanmar territory opposite Ranong’s Kra Buri district have been detained by Myanmar forces, the Fourth Army confirmed yesterday. (more…)

Thailand’s largest construction firm, Italian-Thai Development Pcl, is in talks with new investors to replace Max Myanmar Group in the $50 billion Dawei project in Myanmar, an Italian-Thai unit said on Friday. (more…)

A Thai deputy prime minister said Burmese President Thein Sein will arrive in Thailand for an official visit on July 22-24. (more…)

Since Burma began its political opening last year, the peacock symbol has made something of a comeback. But the “fighting peacock” is not just a figure on the flag of the opposition National League for Democracy—it is also, and more importantly, an emblem of Burma’s student unions, which have historically played a leading role in resisting military rule. (more…)

Aung San Suu Kyi has given the Burmese authorities the cold shoulder after being warned not to refer to the country as “Burma.” (more…)

Sectarian rioting in western Burma has pitted the majority Buddhist population against a small Muslim minority group. Dozens of people on both sides have been killed, and countless homes destroyed. Thousands of refugees have taken flight. (more…)

FEW outside her homeland would dream these days of criticising Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s opposition leader. On her tour of Europe last month, she was swaddled in praise verging on adulation. Her dignity, courage, intelligence and good humour confirmed her many longtime admirers in their good opinion and won her new ones. But at home she is now a politician, not a political prisoner. Flak comes with the territory. Myanmar’s election commission has chided her for not “respecting the constitution”, by repeatedly calling the country not “Myanmar” but “Burma”. Perhaps more worrying for her is that groups representing Myanmar’s ethnic minorities are voicing doubts about her. (more…)

BROUK has received information from sources from Arakan that police and security forces are continuing to make mass arrests in Burma, and that Rohingya people are being tortured and killed in the process of these arrests. (more…)