Burmese authorities have faced criticism from rights groups after deadly unrest between Muslim Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
One of Burma’s most prominent rebel groups has warned that the ceasefire deal seen as a breakthrough in relations with the regime is ‘fragile’.
Burma has freed at least 200 political prisoners in an amnesty that may embolden the opposition and put pressure on the West to lift sanctions.
Aung San Suu Kyi could be given a job in Burma’s nominally civilian government if she is elected to parliament in the April by-elections.
The personal political adviser of Burma’s President Thein Sein says Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratic party ‘can be the ruling party one day’.
To mark the country’s Independence Day, Burma’s president has commuted death sentences and cut jail terms, stopping well short of a political amnesty.
Burma’s President Thein Sein has signed a bill that will allow citizens to protest peacefully once they have gained permission for their protest.
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/ 19 October 2011
A senior government official says Burma may release more political detainees soon — a week after about 200 prisoners were released.
Burma’s new military-backed government is preparing to grant an amnesty to some prisoners, an official said on Monday.
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.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon headed to south-east Asia on Wednesday on a mission to secure more help for cyclone victims in Burma, whose military rulers have finally granted an aid agency the use of helicopters to deliver supplies. The UN says up to 2,4-million people are struggling to survive.
Burma’s neighbours appeared to have reached a compromise with the regime on Monday that would finally allow significant amounts of international aid to reach the survivors of the deadly cyclone, more than two weeks after it struck. An Asian-led task force will be formed to help funnel relief into the isolated country.
Aid was trickling in on Sunday to an estimated 2,5-million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta as more foreign envoys tried to get the junta to admit large-scale international relief. The junta’s official toll from the disaster stands at 77 738 dead and 55 917 missing.
Burma’s ruling military junta took diplomats on a tour of the storm-ravaged Irrawaddy delta on Saturday as its toll of dead and missing soared above 133 000 people, making Cyclone Nargis one of the most devastating ever to hit Asia. An estimated 2,5-million people are clinging to survival in the delta.
Torrential tropical downpours lashed Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta on Friday, deepening the misery of an estimated 2,5-million destitute survivors of Cyclone Nargis and further hampering aid efforts. Burma state television raised its official death toll on Thursday to 43 328. Independent experts say the figures are probably far higher.
Burma tightened access to its cyclone disaster zone on Wednesday, turning back foreigners and ignoring pleas to accept outside experts who could save countless lives before time runs out. A top European Union humanitarian official said there was now a risk of famine, after the storm destroyed rice stocks in a main farming region.
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.
A cyclone killed more than 350 people in military-ruled Burma, ripping through Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta where it flattened at least two towns, officials and state media said on Sunday. Packing winds of 190km per hour when it hit on Saturday morning, Cyclone Nargis devastated the Burma’s leafy main city, littering the streets with overturned cars.
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/ 12 October 2007
Burma Prime Minister Soe Win, considered one of the hardliners of the isolated military regime, died on Friday after a long illness, state media said. "The Prime Minister, General Soe Win, died this evening" at a military hospital in the country’s main city, Rangoon, state radio said.
United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari may not have met Burma junta supremo Than Shwe at the weekend, but the fact he is still in the country suggests his mission is far from failed. The schedule for Gambari’s mission was threadbare — 24 hours and one meeting with Than Shwe.