Burma’s largest ethnic army marked their founding with dance performances and sporting competitions in the United Wa State Army’s Mongpawk township.

San Khun, deputy director of the UWSA’s External Relations Department said the group was marking 23 years of ‘peace building’ while a military parade is scheduled to take place today. (more…)

Not everyone is happy with impending moves by western powers to ease sanctions against the government of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

An official representative of the country’s Rohingya minority – an ethnic Muslim group that has long suffered in Buddhist-dominated Burma and who have long complained of persecution and abuse by its repressive military – has asked the United States to base a relaxation of sanctions on perceived improvements on human rights issues. (more…)

Recent protests by thousands of migrant workers in Songkla and Kanchanaburi has exposed further evidence of how Thai exporters to giant American, European and Australian food chains have gone unaudited. (more…)

NBC’s Ian Williams reports from Thailand-Myanmar border where the Karen rebels, a Christian minority, are fighting one of the world’s longest running civil wars.

Karen State, Myanmar – At first light, a haze from dry-season fires hung low over the Moie River, which marks the border between Thailand and Myanmar (also known as Burma).
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The Karen National Union (KNU) is sending a peace delegation to Rangoon for union-level peace talks with the government this Friday.

The team, led by KNU General Secretary Naw Zipporah Sein and the Karen National Liberation Army’s (KNLA) Commander General Mutu Saepoe, will focus on conflict resolution and public security. (more…)

About 800 undocumented Burmese migrants in China’s Yunnan province have been arrested this month in what locals claim is the largest crackdown on the population by the police.

Aung Kyaw Zaw, Burmese resident in Ruili and Jiegao townships said the crackdown started during the middle of March following the murder of a Chinese police officer and a local woman who runs a money exchange operation. (more…)

Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN): Myanmar: Refugees and dissidents react to reforms

CHIANG MAI/MAE SOT,– How much does it take to repair trust once it is broken? How welcoming does home need to be to coax someone to return? IRIN met with Burmese exiles, dissidents and refugees living in northern Thailand to discover their reactions to ongoing reforms in Myanmar. (more…)

Caught in the crossfire for decades, thousands of ethnic children in the conflict zones of eastern and southern Burma are forced to live in temporary shelters and refugee camps without the chance of receiving a formal education or going to university. (more…)

Laiza, Kachin State—Maran Tu Ring has a broad but cautious smile and the fixed glare of a tired mind. I met him in Laiza in Kachin State, a place he doesn’t want to be. (more…)

A softly spoken TV presenter with a mop of honey-colored hair welcomes the audience, before reading a news story about a transgender day of remembrance in front of a crude brightly colored background. Don’t let the low-budget appearance belie the significance of this broadcast. The show is a monthly program, broadcast on the internet since November last year, about LGBT rights in Burma, a country where any kind of political self-expression was brutally repressed until very recently. (more…)

Dhaka – Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has thanked Myanmar for resolving the discord over maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal peacefully under the international law. (more…)

Hyderbad: As many as 150 Myanmar nationals have silently made Hyderabad their home over the last four years. Unable to bear the brutal repression in their country, these marginalized Muslims had no choice but to head for a dangerous week-long journey through the mountains that involved crossing the Bangladesh border to reach India for asylum. While they were exploited and even denied citizenship in their own country, here in Hyderabad their identity remains hidden. (more…)

Burma and Thailand have agreed to open a new southern border trade point to promote commerce between the two countries. (more…)

Laiza, Kachin State—With headlights dimmed it is difficult to spot every rubble-strewn crest-and-wave in time, and the surrounding dark enhances the jolts from the bumps and hollows in the coiling road from Laiza to Jeyang camp. (more…)

When Burmese exile Aung Zaw, founder of the newsmagazine the Irrawaddy, went home for the first time in 24 years, he expected attention. Since he fled to Thailand in 1988, the erstwhile student protester has become one of the most admired exiled journalists. What he didn’t expect, though, was adulation from immigration officials. “Inside the airport, a young immigration officer smiled as I gave him my passport,” he writes in an essay about his homecoming. “Meanwhile, the people waiting in line behind me grew impatient as they were made to wait until my friendly interrogation was finally over.” (more…)

Construction of the famed Death Railway linking Thailand to Burma will reportedly begin again after a peace deal was made between the Burmese government and Mon rebels in the country’s east.
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Laja Yang, Kachin State—The dry daytime heat succumbs to a balmy dusk cool, setting the tree-lined valley in a soft yet vivid glow. Aside from the occasional truck or motorcycle, the verdant landscape rings only to the warbles of birds and lowing of cattle in fields on the valley floor. (more…)

Bangkok. As censorship eases in Burma and the press tastes long-suppressed freedom, exiled media groups are weighing up the risks of a return to cover the dramatic changes in their country from within. (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw — As the government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar offered the olive branch and New Mon State Party (NMSP) requested to engage in dialogue, Union-level Peace-making Group comprised of Union Minister for Rail Transportation U Aung Min, Union Minister for Industry U Soe Thein, Union Minister for Electric Power No (1) U Zaw Min, Union Minister for Environmental Conservation and Forestry U Win Tun and Mon State Chief Minister U Ohn Myint arrived at Strand Hotel of Mawlamyine in Mon State on 24 February to sign an initial peace agreement and firstly negotiated with NMSP peace-making group led by U Nai Rawsa. (more…)

Beijing – China has told Myanmar to better secure their joint border across which thousands of refugees have been fleeing to escape fighting since last year between the Myanmar government and ethnic minority rebels. (more…)