American Buddhist Net

A straw poll taken by The Irrawaddy following the publication of Burma's election law indicates widespread indifference and pessimism about the election planned for this year.

Out of 300 people polled in Rangoon, 232 said they opposed the law because it placed restrictions on political parties. Only eight said they were satisfied with the law, while 60 withheld comment.

A typical reaction came from a Rangoon civil servant, who said: “We are not interested in it because we can do nothing.”

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Burma opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi faces expulsion from her own party and is barred from standing in polls this year under the military junta's new election laws unveiled Wednesday.

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Residents of Mogok, the center of Burma's gems industry, have been in a panic recently. Since last week, earth-movers and other heavy equipment have begun appearing in the town's residential neighborhoods.

This follows an earlier survey of the area carried out by local officials, the Ministry of Mines and two private companies—Htoo Trading Co, Ltd, owned by junta crony Tay Za, and Ruby Dragon Jade & Gems Co, Ltd, which counts a number of high-ranking generals among its shareholders.

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The military authorities in Burma are planning a crackdown on the country's Buddhist monks to "discipline" them ahead of forthcoming elections.

State media reported over the weekend that the senior abbot who heads a government-controlled committee of senior monks is to call a meeting to outline new regulations. While monks are not eligible to vote in the election, analysts believe new restrictions will be imposed to further prevent them becoming involved in anything considered "political".

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A Burmese prison court sentenced a Buddhist abbot to seven years in prison, an opposition source said, as a UN rights envoy wrapped up a visit to the military-ruled nation.

Gaw Thita was arrested in August as he returned from a trip to Taiwan and convicted at Rangoon's notorious Insein Prison on Wednesday on three charges including unlawful association, the source said.

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U Thuzana, abbot of Myaing Gyi Ngu monastery in Karen State and a co-founder of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), is being treated in a Bangkok hospital for an undisclosed lung problem.

The controversial abbot was admitted last Tuesday to the city's Bumrungrad private hospital.

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With permission from the Burmese junta, a Chinese electricity giant is building seven hydro-electric dams in Burma's northern region of Kachin. The biggest of them - the Myitsone Dam - will see the forced displacement of 15,000 people from surrounding villages.

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BANGKOK — U Tin Oo, deputy leader of the Burmese opposition party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was freed from nearly seven years of prison and house arrest over the weekend and immediately declared that he would resume his pro-democracy activities.

The release of Mr. Tin Oo, 82, came at the conclusion of his term of detention Saturday and in advance of a visit to Myanmar by a U.N. envoy.

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BANGKOK — At last count there were more than 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar, according to human rights groups that track the opaque workings of the penal system in the military-run country. Among them is the unusual case of Nyi Nyi Aung, a naturalized U.S. citizen who gave up a 9-to-5 job in the relative comfort of the suburbs of Washington to campaign for democracy in his native Myanmar.

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A large dam being planned in Kachin state will flood an area the size of New York City and displace thousands of local people.

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Burma VJ is a moving and shocking account of the popular protests that broke out across Rangoon in 2007.

It relies entirely on documentary footage shot by undercover reporters which has been pieced together to form a picture of the events that took place over a few months. It covers the initial protests, which broke out in response to a rise in fuel prices, to the brutal crackdown by the authorities in response.

Dharamsala, Jan 27 : An 18-member Burmese monks' delegation, which arrived here on a three-day visit, shared their plight with Tibetan exiles here on Tuesday.

"We have few Burmese who are visiting Dharamsala and also with them they have brought a very powerful documentary called Burma VJ. This (the documentary) is about the Burmese monks protest in 2007 and how people inside Burma are struggling for freedom and democracy," said Tenzin Cheoying, a Tibetan activist.

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Burma's human rights record continued to deteriorate in 2009 ahead of a scheduled elections in 2010, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its 612-page World Report 2010, the New York-based NGO said, "The Burmese military junta systematically denies citizens basic freedoms, including freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

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Beware of all who would do that here. ABN

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Thai government proposes to come down heavily on some Burmese political organizations working in the guise of social outfits.

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YANGON, Jan 20: The singer smashes his guitar to pieces on the stage as thousands of spiky-haired punk fans cheer loudly -- a rare display of countercultural exuberance in military-ruled Myanmar.

At this concert in a land where all song lyrics must be submitted to the regime´s censors, there are no openly anti-establishment messages from either the musicians or the crowd with their dyed blond, blue and red locks.

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New York, January 7, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the harsh sentencing of Hla Hla Win, a broadcast journalist with the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). She was sentenced to 20 years in prison on December 30 for violating the vague and draconian Electronic Act.

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Burmese authorities have ordered that the Burmese language text be removed from billboards in Mon State commemorating the 63rd anniversary of Mon National Day, according to Mon sources.

A senior member of the Mon National Day Committee (MNDC) in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday, “We have been told by the authorities to erase the [Burmese] text because it could cause national unity. They told us the order came from the southeast military command in Moulmein.”

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BANGKOK — A Myanmar court has handed down a 20-year jail term to a video journalist who worked with exiled media, rights groups said Wednesday, as the ruling junta continues its crackdown on dissent.

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General Than Shwe urges country to make 'correct choices', seen by many as warning not to vote for Aung San Suu Kyi

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Tin Tin Htwe, who was arrested during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, died in Insein Prison hospital on Wednesday night, according to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma (AAPP), a Thailand-based organization working for the rights of political prisoners in Burma.

Tin Tin Htwe, 38, from Bahan Township in Rangoon, reportedly died of a heart condition. Her neighborhood, located within a kilometer east of Shwedagon Pagoda, was the scene of the first deadly crackdown during the Saffron Revolution when security forces fired on Buddhist monks.

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Yangon - China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has secured exclusive ownership and management rights over a planned 771-kilometre, overland Myanmar-China crude oil pipeline, industry sources said Tuesday. The contract signing was witnessed by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and Maung Aye, vice chairman of Myanmar's ruling military junta, over the weekend in Naypyitaw, Myanmar's military capital, CNPC said in a statement posted on its website.

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By Brian McCartan

BANGKOK - Joseph Stiglitz, the American Nobel economics laureate, advised Myanmar's military-run regime this week that political reform is necessary if the generals hope to revitalize the country's stagnant, mostly agriculture-based economy. Any reform of the rural sector, which employs 70% of the workforce and accounts for nearly half of gross domestic product (GDP), will run up against the widespread and largely institutionalized corruption of the military.

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SOP RUAK, Thailand — Basket loads of fish, villagers bathing along the banks of the river, a farmer’s market selling jungle delicacies — these are Pornlert Prompanya’s boyhood memories of a wild and pristine Mekong River.

Mr. Pornlert — now 32 and the owner of a company that organizes speedboat outings for tourists in this village in northern Thailand, where Myanmar and Laos converge — peers across the Mekong today at a more modern picture: a newly constructed, gold-domed casino where high-rollers are chauffeured along the riverbanks in a Bentley and a stretch Cadillac limousine.

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Burmese authorities have banned the public display of posters in Mandalay advertising dhamma talks by monks.

The ban was issued through the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, the state-sponsored Buddhist monks’ organization.

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YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's detained opposition leader was allowed out of her home Wednesday to meet three ailing elders of her political party, with whom she discussed a reorganization of its leadership.

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YANGON, Myanmar (AP)— A jailed U.S. citizen, on a protest hunger strike for more than a week in military-ruled Myanmar, was not able to appear in court because of poor health, his lawyers said Saturday.

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I hesitated before putting this one up. ABN

One of Burma's best known monks will give a free public Dhamma talk on "Compassion and Buddhism" tomorrow from 7 to 8 p.m. at Roosevelt High School's auditorium during his first visit to Hawaii.

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Samut Sakhon, Thailand - Soon after Winko joined his fellow captives on a Thai fishing vessel, he witnessed his first killing.

The murdered man was, like Winko, a newly acquired fishing slave unsure how to work the boat’s machinery. But while Winko kept quiet, the new man protested. He was kicked across the deck until he tumbled overboard and disappeared in the turquoise wake.

Life is hell for Thailand’s fishermen slaves, a largely Burmese workforce lured into the Thai fishing industry by brokers. As promised, jobs await these migrants, who pay $350 to be smuggled into Thailand and introduced to a fishing crew. But often, the work doesn’t pay and quitting is not an option.

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A hidden camera has provided a rare glimpse inside Burma's mental health system which is used to incarcerate opposition figures and politically active monks.

At one hospital where activities were filmed by a Burmese video journalist, there are hundreds of patients and not enough supplies to go around.

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The video on the linked page is well-worth viewing. ABN