The Burmese regime announced its anticipated election laws last week and will definitely hold its promised election this year. (more…)

United Nations – Amid criticism of the election laws propounded by Burmese military leader Than Shwe, at the UN on March 25 the Group of Friends of the Secretary General on Myanmar will meet, Inner City Press has learned. (more…)

So far, March has been a bad month for those countries and so-called Burma experts who advocate for a softer line with Burma’s generals.  First were the admissions by the US that its engagement policy was going nowhere; then came the publication of election laws in Burma that don’t give the slightest concession to calls that elections this year be free and fair; and finally the recommendations by the UN special rapporteur on Burma that there be a UN Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by the dictatorship. The true nature of Than Shwe and the general’s around him has been revealed again. (more…)

United States Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell gave an understated assessment of the Obama administration’s Burma policy last week, characterizing the lack of positive results from engagement with the junta as “not what we hoped for.” His admission came as the junta denied his recent request to visit the country and announced deeply problematic new regulations for upcoming elections. “Smart power,” it seems, has run headlong into the street-wise tactics of the hard men in Naypyidaw. (more…)

The bus from Inle Lake, a popular tourist destination in eastern Myanmar, follows a potholed road – sometimes dirt, sometimes paved – through the mountains on the way to Mandalay. Karaoke music videos with Burmese script play on the TV. Two ladies in front of us spit into plastic bags and periodically heave while a kid behind us sings along with the video. Outside the bus it’s dark, minus the made-in-China florescent lights, powered by small generators, which give the landscape a post-apocalyptic feel. (more…)

Is Senior General Than Shwe gone mad? This question comes forward after the junta headed by Than Shwe announces election laws. Many would agree in the affirmative, “yes.” Than Shwe has gone out his mind. What is wrong with him is the power. Power crazy. He seems exceedingly frightened to loose power, some analysts say. (more…)

Set aside the issue of the Constitution and persuading the Burmese junta to hold a free and fair election and the opposition to participate in the process. (more…)

For those harbouring any hopes that the military regime in Burma was moving towards some kind of real democracy, this week’s announcement of the laws for the forthcoming elections must have come as a rude shock. Under the new rules, no one who is a member of religious order or anyone with a criminal conviction can stand. (more…)

Amid the rash of commemorations celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall last year, it was easy to feel that 1989 was a year in which freedom advanced everywhere. The Soviet empire collapsed. Two years later the Soviet Union itself disintegrated. A few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela was released. The end of the cold war unfroze deadlocked political situations all over the world. (more…)

Since 1996, military abuses have forced 1m villagers to flee their homes, according to UN draft report. (more…)

PRESIDENT OBAMA took office hoping that constructive diplomacy could yield progress on some of the thorniest foreign-policy challenges facing the United States. Among these was Burma, a Southeast Asian nation of 50 million people that has been misruled into poverty, decline and perpetual warfare by a benighted military dictatorship. Mr. Obama did not abandon economic sanctions against the regime, but he did hold out the prospect of warmer relations if Burma’s regime would show some sign of easing up on its people. (more…)

THE junta ruling Myanmar has had 20 years to digest the lessons from the country’s most recent election. It was trounced by the National League for Democracy, even though the opposition’s charismatic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was already under house arrest. This year on an unnamed date (perhaps its astrologers cannot agree) the junta will hold another election. It will not lose this one. (more…)

The Burmese junta’s new electoral laws are designed to give the regime a veneer of democratic respectability. (more…)

If there is one thing all authoritarian systems have in common it’s their desire to eliminate all forms of dissent. The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) of Burma is no exception. (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw – To disrupt the stability of the State, to cause a state of panic among the public and unrest in the country, destructionists have stepped up sabotage acts and spread rumours in the country. (more…)

Amnesty International has urged Myanmar to overturn a new law that bars all political prisoners, including detained Nobel Peace-prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, from belonging to a political party before upcoming national elections. (more…)

Burma’s long awaited election law has been published in state controlled newspapers but failed to create much excitement. Unsurprisingly, no date for the election was set, although the regime has promised to hold it sometime this year. (more…)

The following is the unofficial translation of the Election Commission Law by the Burmese regime dated 8 March 2010. Though the junta published the election commission law in Burmese in state-run newspapers, no English version has been published so far. Mizzima translates it. (more…)

While the military regime in Burma has iterated that it will hold a general election for a new legislature before the end of 2010, government officials have been relentlessly pursuing, intimidating and imprisoning political opponents. In recent weeks the Asian Human Rights Commission has issued appeals on a number of such cases, including the sentencing of a journalist to 13 years in jail for non-existent video footage; the detention, torture and evidence-free trial of 11 people; and the imprisonment of another nine on confessions obtained through use of torture. (more…)

Mandalay – In September 1952, Russian dictator Joseph Stalin and Chinese foreign minister Chou Enlai convened an extraordinary meeting to discuss the future of Southeast Asia. As recorded in the book, Mao: The Unknown Story, Chou talked about the region “as if its fate were to be entirely decided by Peking”. (more…)