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Note: Photos included. SNIPPET: "Three explosions have ripped through Burma's former capital Rangoon, killing nine people and injuring dozens others. The blasts in Rangoon are the worst to have hit the city since 2005 The triple blast was reported alongside Kandawgyi Lake, where hundreds of people had gathered for the country's New Year celebrations. A fourth bomb was later found and defused, according to official sources. Witnesses said people fled and ambulances rushed to help casualties. One Red Cross official said: "I saw blood on many people. The rush to help the injured So far it is unclear who is...

Burma: Not My Backyard “The world needs to know about the genocide that is happening today in Burma.” — Patrick Klein, Vision Beyond Borders The Burmese army is carrying out a massive killing campaign against its people, and the world is unaware, Patrick Klein of Vision Beyond Borders told VOM staff.

Myanmar sentences two to death for N.Korea leak 1 hr 25 mins ago YANGON (AFP) – A court in military-ruled Myanmar has sentenced two officials to death for leaking information, sources said Friday, in a case reportedly involving secret ties between the ruling junta and North Korea. The men, along with a third who was jailed for 15 years, were arrested last year after details and photos about a trip to nuclear-armed North Korea by the Myanmar regime's third-in-command were leaked to exiled media, reports said. "Two officials got the death sentence and another one was jailed for 15 years...

Russia has signed a contract to deliver 20 MiG-29 fighter planes to military-run Myanmar, the daily Kommersant reported Wednesday. The contract was signed a few weeks ago and came to nearly 400 million euros (570 million dollars), according to a source close to Russian arms sales company Rosoboronexport quoted by the paper. The Southeast Asian country is under Western sanctions but human-rights campaigners complain that its ruling junta has received a steady supply of arms from neighbours China and India, as well as from Russia. A source close to Rosoboronexport said the Russian offer beat one by China which offered...

According to a Washington Times report, President Obama is preparing to meet with members of the junta military regime currently ruling Burma (known locally as Myanmar), a stark departure from decades of American policy. To say that this a surprising move is sever understatement, not just because of the sea change (after all, it wouldn't be the first sea change of this administration), but this move would have consequences far beyond mere diplomatic ones. To put it simply, beginning a dialogue with this regime may carry with it disastrous national security implications.

Obama To Meet With Myanmar Rulers By Matthew Mosk and Simon Roughneen THE WASHINGTON TIMES SINGAPORE | President Obama on Sunday will become the first American president in more than 40 years to attend a meeting with the repressive rulers of Myanmar, marking a dramatic shift in the U.S. approach to bringing change to a regime that responds brutally to dissent, locks up journalists and political opponents, and has kept itself largely walled off from the Western world. Formerly known as Burma, Myanmar has for years played the role of skunk in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as...

Myanmar Army Routs Ethnic Chinese Rebels in the North By THOMAS FULLER BANGKOK — The Myanmar military has overwhelmed rebels from an ethnic Chinese minority in the northern reaches of the country, the junta’s second victory over armed opponents in three months. The routing over the weekend of the forces of the small, Chinese-speaking Kokang ethnic group gives Myanmar’s governing generals momentum in their campaign to quell armed opposition before elections and the adoption of a new Constitution next year. Several well-armed groups, notably the Wa and Kachin, still stand in the way of the junta’s goal of complete control...

[SNIP] IS THE SITUATION LIKELY TO ESCALATE? There are concerns that if the fighting intensifies, other members of the alliance could enter the fray and provide a serious challenge to the Myanmar army, resulting in fierce fighting and heightening the risk of a refugee crisis for China. The Wa are widely regarded as a formidable fighting force, with at least 15,000 armed members, but they are not involved, yet. The Shan State Army, which is outside of the alliance, might also seek to capitalize on the instability and strengthen its own position in the region. Analysts say a lot is...

BANGKOK — After two decades of relative calm in northern Myanmar, fighting has broken out between the central government and upland ethnic groups, sending tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into China and threatening a fragile patchwork of cease-fire agreements that ended decades of civil war. Skip to next paragraph Related Times Topics: MyanmarThe fighting began between soldiers from the Kokang minority group and government troops, but it broadened to involve at least two more groups, the Wa and the Kachin. All three groups oppose the central government. The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Thursday that refugees were fleeing...

BEIJING, Aug 28 (Reuters) - [SNIP] WHY IS CHINA UNWILLING TO CRITICISE MYANMAR? China has a longstanding policy of non-interference in other countries' affairs, especially over human rights issues, in part because it does not want the United States and Europe criticising Beijing's own record. [ID:nBKK197002] Beyond that, China's overriding concern is a stable Myanmar. Drugs and HIV/AIDS pour across the border into the southwestern province of Yunnan and China is desperate to control that flow. Any action that might place unbearable pressure on the generals and force a government collapse could have dire consequences for China. Ethnic minorities in...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Fresh fighting has erupted between Myanmar forces and an armed ethnic group in the remote northeast, forcing tens of thousands to flee across the border into China, activists and state media said on Friday. China called on Myanmar to maintain stability in the border region, even as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that between 10,000 and 30,000 civilians had fled the conflict. "We also urge Myanmar to protect the security and legal rights of Chinese citizens in Myanmar," said the statement by spokeswoman Jiang Yu, on the ministry's website (www.fmprc.gov.cn) The fighting could raise tension...

Myanmar freed an ailing American whom it had sentenced to seven years of hard labor and handed him to an influential U.S senator on Sunday, a move that could help persuade Washington to soften its hardline policy against the military regime. Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, who secured John Yettaw's freedom, said he believes years of sanctions have failed to move the Southeast Asian country toward democratic reforms or talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

US Senator Jim Webb has said jailed American John Yettaw is to be released by Burma's military leaders and will leave the country with him on Sunday. The announcement came shortly after Mr Webb held talks with Burmese military ruler Than Shwe in Burma. Mr Webb also met pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, days after she was given house arrest for 18 more months. Mr Yettaw's uninvited visit to Ms Suu Kyi's home led to her trial. He was himself given seven years' hard labour. Mr Webb's office said Mr Yettaw would be officially deported on Sunday morning and...

Yangon - US Senator Jim Webb arrived in Myanmar's military capital Naypyitaw Friday for high-level talks with the country's ruling junta that are expected to include a meeting with Senior General Than Shwe, government sources confirmed. Webb, a Democrat from Virginia who is chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, flew direct to Naypyitaw, 350 kilometres north of Yangon, in a chartered plane from Vientiane, Laos. He is scheduled to meet with junta chief Than Shwe at 11 am (0430 GMT) Saturday , a foreign ministry source said. Webb's trip to Myanmar, part of a five-nation tour of...

John William Yettaw thought he was on a mission from God to save Aung San Suu Kyi. But the American ended up inadvertently extending her house arrest. It started with his now infamous swim in May. Overweight, asthmatic and suffering from borderline diabetes, he arrived at the back door of the Nobel Peace laureate's home and lay down exhausted, with cramps in both legs. Suu Kyi's two companions heard him moaning but let him in only after dawn. Then Suu Kyi herself told him to get out, allowing him to stay two nights when he complained of ill health instead...

So you thought Iran was the most frightening nuclear madhouse? With North Korea playing catch-up? You forgot Syria. Its hidden nuke reactor was bombed by Israel in 2007. But nobody knows what else they have. You forgot Libya. Qaddafi got scared by Dubya and gave up nukes in 2003. But it's a big country, and they could be hiding stuff. And today we have Myanmar, which used to be called Burma. It follows the Burmese Way to Socialism, which means that Obama has to be nice to them. They are officially the Wretched of the Earth, even the tyrants who...

N.Korea 'helping Myanmar build nuclear plant': report Sat Aug 1, 11:03 am ET SYDNEY (AFP) – North Korea is helping Myanmar build a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction plant to build an atomic bomb within five years, a report said on Saturday, citing the evidence of defectors. The nuclear complex is hidden inside a mountain at Naung Laing, in Myanmar's north, and runs parallel to a civil reactor being built at another site by Russia, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The revelations come just weeks after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced concerns that Pyongyang was transferring...

BANGKOK – The recent aborted voyage of a North Korean ship, photographs of massive tunnels and a top secret meeting have raised alarm bells that one of the world's poorest nations may be aspiring to join the nuclear club — with help from its friends in Pyongyang. No one expects military-run Myanmar, also known as Burma, to obtain an atomic bomb anytime soon, but experts have the Southeast Asian nation on their radar screen. "There's suspicion that something is going on, and increasingly that cooperation with North Korea may have a nuclear undercurrent. We are very much looking into it,"...

BANGKOK (AP) - The recent aborted voyage of a North Korean ship, photographs of massive tunnels and a top secret meeting have raised alarm bells that one of the world's poorest nations may be aspiring to join the nuclear club—with help from its friends in Pyongyang. No one expects military-run Myanmar, also known as Burma, to obtain an atomic bomb anytime soon, but experts have the Southeast Asian nation on their radar screen. "There's suspicion that something is going on, and increasingly that cooperation with North Korea may have a nuclear undercurrent. We are very much looking into it," says...

N. Korea using Malaysian bank to deal weapons with Myanmar: source By Sam Kim SEOUL, July 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea sought payment through a bank in Malaysia for its suspected shipment of weapons to Myanmar that is being carried on a freighter tracked by the U.S. Navy, a source said Saturday. The visit by a U.S. envoy to Malaysia this weekend will focus on ways to cut off the payment transaction for the cargo from the bank in Malaysia to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the source said. "Kim will have a hard time collecting his money," the high-level...