Crackdown on illegal vehicles

Authorities across Burma, including in several ethnic homelands, have launched a crackdown on unlicensed vehicles, with the proceeds from the sale of confiscated vehicles being used to fund a pro-junta party in elections planned for later this year. The Irrawaddy reports authorities in Karen, Mon and Kachin State as well Rangoon Township are confiscating illegal [...]

Refugees facing cut in rations

Food rations for refugees in camps along the Thai-Burma border are to be cut from August because of a funding shortage. The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reports the Thai Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) that runs the border camps is facing a US$2.5 million budget shortfall this year. The shortfall is caused by changes in [...]

Thai police crackdown on migrant workers

Over a thousand people have been arrested across Thailand in the past week after Thai police launched a crackdown on migrant workers reports New Delhi based Mizzma News Agency. The crackdown has left migrant workers afraid to leave their houses – even those with the correct documentation. Mizzma quotes Bangkok Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lieutenant General [...]

Happy Birthday Aung San Suu Kyi

Today is the 65th birthday of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. She will celebrate it as she has for 15 of her last 20 birthdays – alone a prisoner in her house in Rangoon. I pray that this will be the last year she spends seperated from her two sons and the Burmese [...]

Political parties scared off from campaigning in Shan State South

Political parties contesting the national elections Burma’s ruling military government are planning for later this year are being put off from campaigning in southern Shan State after the Shan State Army (SSA), a rebel ethnic group warned it was opposed to the elections. The Shan Herald Agency for News reports the Restoration Council of Shan [...]

Elections unlikely to alter much for refugees

Elections planned for later this year by Burma’s ruling military government are unlikely to pave the way for thousands of refugees in Thailand to return home warns a senior US official. Eric P. Schwartz, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration is due to visit the border camps today. Speaking in Bangkok, [...]

DKBA given August 10 deadline to transform into Border Guard

Burma’s ruling military junta has told the pro-government Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), it has until August 10 to place its troops under the military’s command as part of a new Border Guard Force (BGF). According to The Irrawaddy, the junta has threatened the group that it will resort to armed intervention if they do [...]

El Nino blamed for fall in opium output in Shan State

Opium output in Burma’s northern Shan State is down this year according to researchers, despite an increase in opium poppy cultivation. According to a new report, Shan Drug Watch 2009-2010, to be published by the Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN), El Nino, the warm ocean current in the Pacific has devastated most of the [...]