Burma’s South-east Asian neighbours expressed ”grave concern” on Tuesday at the trial of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
EU nations on Monday mulled tighter sanctions against Burma, but many looked for more pressure from India and China.
Allies of Aung San Suu Kyi gathered outside the Rangoon prison on Monday where the Nobel Peace laureate faces trial.
Burma’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health and ready to defend herself against new charges, her lawyer said.
Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi could be jailed for up to five years over uninvited visit by an American man.
The party of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met on Tuesday to decide whether to take part in elections planned for next year.
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/ 22 February 2009
More than a dozen ”prisoners of conscience”, including five Buddhist monks arrested in 2003, have been freed in military-ruled Burma
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/ 2 February 2009
Detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi met United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Monday.
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/ 15 January 2009
A Burma court has jailed a student activist for 104 years, officials said on Thursday.
Burma marked the 61st anniversary of its independence on Sunday with pomp and defiance, as the junta called on citizens to support 2010 elections.
Whenever "women and children" are killed — the phrase has recurred in the coverage of the Israeli strike on Gaza — we’re meant to be horrified.
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/ 6 December 2008
International frustration with Burma’s military government is growing, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday.
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/ 9 September 2008
With a population of more than 50-million, the country has become the world’s biggest prison camp. Pressure is building on the UN to act.
Pro-junta thugs broke up a birthday rally by supporters of Burma democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday.
Burma’s junta said on Wednesday that detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi deserved to be beaten for threatening national security.
Western governments lashed out at the extension of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest, but the outrage at Burma’s generals was tempered by concern over disrupting aid flows to desperate cyclone victims. Burma has been promised millions of dollars in Western aid after Cyclone Nargis, but this cut no ice with the junta regarding the opposition leader.
Burma’s junta extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, a move likely to dismay Western nations who promised millions of dollars in aid after Cyclone Nargis. Officials drove to the Nobel laureate’s lakeside Rangoon home to read out a six-month extension order in person.
Foreign aid workers saddled up for the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy Delta on Monday to see whether army-ruled Burma will honour a promise made by its top general to give them freedom of movement. ”We’re going to head out today and test the boundaries,” said an official from a major Western relief agency.
In an apparent breakthrough for delivering help to millions of Burma’s cyclone survivors, the military government agreed to allow in ”all” aid workers, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said on Friday. The UN Secretary General met junta supremo Than Shwe in his remote new capital of Naypyidaw for more than two hours to ask him to permit more foreign expertise.
With an impassive handshake, BUrma junta supremo Than Shwe greeted Ban Ki-moon in his remote new capital on Friday at the apex of a high-stakes aid mission by the United Nations chief for the victims of Cyclone Nargis. The 75-year-old Senior General’s stony-faced silence gave no clues as to whether he would overcome his deep suspicions of the outside world.
The shady streets of Rangoon, one of Asia’s greenest cities, could have been changed forever by Cyclone Nargis, which knocked down many of its 100-year-old trees. People in Burma’s biggest city fear the storm’s 190 km/h winds not only took lives but also ruined livelihoods, dealing a blow to an already fragile tourism industry.
Aid was trickling in on Wednesday for an estimated one million victims of Cyclone Nargis in military-ruled Burma, with the death toll of more than 22 500 expected to mount. France has suggested invoking a United Nations ”responsibility to protect” clause and delivering aid directly to Burma without waiting for approval from the military in Rangoon.
Burma said on Monday that nearly 4Â 000 people had been killed in the cyclone that tore into the impoverished and secretive Asian nation at the weekend, and that tens of thousands more could also be dead. The announcement on state television increased the death toll from Tropical Cyclone Nargis more than ten-fold.
Burma’s military authorities a foreign aid workers struggled on Monday to assess the damage from a devastating cyclone that killed more than 350 people and left tens of thousands homeless. The death toll is likely to climb as the authorities slowly make contact with islands and villages in the delta, the rice bowl of Burma.
Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was taken to a state guest house in the former capital on Monday for her second meeting in two days with visiting United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari. UN officials gave no details of Gambari’s planned discussions with the Nobel laureate.
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/ 20 February 2008
A group of Nobel laureates called on Wednesday for an arms embargo against Burma, dismissing elections planned for 2010 as flawed if pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from standing. Seven laureates, including Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said the junta should face sanctions for its crackdown on Buddhist monks.
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/ 10 February 2008
Burma’s military junta unveiled a timetable for the country’s first elections in two decades, but it was unclear on Sunday if detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi would be allowed to stand. The surprise weekend announcement of a constitutional referendum in May to set the stage for elections in 2010 appeared to catch her party off guard.
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/ 9 February 2008
Burma’s military government will hold a referendum on a new constitution in May this year followed by multiparty elections in 2010, the first in two decades, state television announced on Saturday. ”We have achieved success in economic, social and other sectors and in restoring peace and stability,” the junta announced.
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/ 21 January 2008
Burma is going ”downhill on all fronts”, a senior United States diplomat said during a visit to Vietnam on Monday, urging regional neighbours to pressure the junta running the country. ”The regime in Burma is absolutely refusing to take any positive steps at all,” said US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scot Marciel.
Military-run Burma put on a show of defiance on Friday on the 60th anniversary of independence from Britain amid global pressure for reform following the junta’s bloody crackdown on dissent. Soldiers raised the national flag at precisely 4.28am local time — the exact moment of freedom from Britain.
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/ 30 November 2007
The Burma junta has shut down a Rangoon monastery which served as a hospice for HIV/Aids patients and expelled its monks, an opposition lawyer said on Friday. United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari criticised the closure of the monastery, that was used as a hospice for for people living with HIV/Aids.
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/ 10 November 2007
Detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi received rare front-page billing on Saturday in Burma’s state-controlled press, which said the ruling junta is ”putting energy” into democratic reforms demanded by the international community. Suu Kyi was allowed to meet leaders of her opposition party on Friday.