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The Senate plans to hold an urgent meeting to clarify its stance on the controversial question of Burma taking up the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) next year. Senator Kraisak Choonhavan, chairman of the Senate committee on foreign affairs, told the Senate yesterday the time had come to make it known to the world whether Thailand was also opposed to Burma becoming Asean chairman. Mr Kraisak said Thailand needed to make its stand clear since many Asean nations now publicly oppose Burma being given the post. Moves to block Burma's succession were made during the...

<p>KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A United Nations special envoy said Thursday he will visit Myanmar to determine the accuracy of reports that pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is on a hunger strike protesting her current detention.</p> <p>The U.S. State Department said Sunday that Suu Kyi was on a hunger strike, but Myanmar's ruling junta later dismissed the claim as "groundless."</p>

YANGON, Myanmar - Japan, Myanmar's largest donor, froze all financial aid to the country on Wednesday to punish its military government for detaining pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Japan appears to be rethinking its policy of engaging the junta in a dialogue with promises of aid - unlike the United States, the European Union and Britain, which have already imposed sanctions to press for Suu Kyi's freedom. Also Wednesday, U.N. special envoy Razali Ismail, the only outsider to see Suu Kyi since her arrest more than three weeks ago, said U.N. officials are "increasingly alarmed" about the government's refusal...

Politics silences Delhi on MyanmarBy Ranjit Devraj NEW DELHI - India's uncharacteristically muted response to the renewed incarceration of Myanmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been prompted by India's own problems with insurgent groups that thrive in its northeastern states near Myanmar, say observers here. "India has been bogged down with long-standing insurgency problems in its northeastern states, which it hopes to check with support from the military government in Yangon," said Ganganath Jha, an expert on Myanmar and professor at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Jha said India's earlier policy of vocally supporting democracy in Myanmar...

Last week was Aung San Suu Kyi's 58th birthday. What should have been a day of quiet celebration with family and friends for the Nobel Peace Prize winner was instead spent in detention in a jail outside Rangoon. The Burmese regime's claims that she is in "protective custody" after her supporters clashed with opponents on May 30 lacks credibility. We know from witnesses' accounts that thugs, armed and hired by the regime, ambushed Ms Suu Kyi and her supporters in a premeditated attack. Dozens of civilians were killed and injured, scores were arrested, many more are still in hiding. The...

Myanmar's best known democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi is being held "in a two-room hut" at a jail near Yangon, Britain's junior foreign minister for Asia said. "I am appalled to learn today, on her 58th birthday, Aung San Suu Kyi is being held in the notorious Insein jail on the outskirts of Rangoon (Yangon) in a two-room hut," Mike O'Brien said in a statement. "I understand that she continues to wear the clothes in which she was arrested," he said. Aung San Suu Kyi was taken into "protective custody" after May 30 clashes which broke out during a...

Superficially, the May 30 mob violence and the detention in Burma of Aung San Suu Kyi, Asia's revered champion of democracy, appears to be a case of business-as-usual by one of the world's most reviled military juntas--a group that, for over a decade, has maintained a state of war against its population. However, the site of the incident, which occurred near the historic city of Mandalay, now largely controlled by ethnic Chinese, is symbolic of a larger strategic trend in the region. The military junta has little support among ethnic Burmese and the numerous tribal peoples in the rural areas....

AWEEK HAS PASSED since one of the world's most courageous women, Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, came under attack by goons controlled by the military regime in her Southeast Asian nation of Burma. No credible source has seen her since. She is reported to be injured and in custody at a military facility. Many of her supporters also were attacked, in many cases reportedly killed or seriously injured. A number of members of Congress, including Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John McCain of Arizona, have expressed eloquent outrage, but world leaders have been slow to follow...