Articles

For the first time, Karen artists from all over Burma got together in Rangoon and held an art exhibition of painting and sculptures about Karen peoples’ daily lives. The art exhibition will run in Rangoon from March 15 to 21, 2013. The exhibition was organized by the Karen Diary Art Group and brings together 37 Karen artists from around Burma,…

A Karenni environmental group claims that the Burma government blockaded their attempt to join in a protest prayer against the damming of the Salween River last week. Karenni environmentalists from the ‘Love Salween Group’ claim hundreds of Karenni villagers from Pasaung, Loikaw and Ywathit were blocked and denied passage by Burmese authorities to join with other protesters gathering for a…

Burma News International (BNI) launched the book Deciphering Myanmar’s Peace Process: A Reference Guide on Monday 18 March at the Bangkok based, Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. The 184-page book presents key aspects of the country’s 60-year civil war, including the fundamental causes, the Burma’s government’s peace plan and who the key stakeholders are – including ethnic armed groups and…

Earlier this week thousands of Karen people turned out to protest over plans to dam the Salween River. As many as 2,000 internally displaced people and villagers from the Wei Gyi area gathered on the banks of the Salween to mark the International Day of Action for Rivers and Against Dams at Ei Htu Hta Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp.…

Burmese migrant workers from a garment factory in the Thai border town of Mae Sot were threatened and then sacked by their employer earlier this week over a salary dispute. The 18 migrant workers were working at the ‘Two Dragons’ [as known among Burmese migrant worker] garment factory in Mae Sot, Tak Province and were sacked on March 10 by…

Conflicts over land have increase since last year’s ceasefire signed between the Karen National Union and the government as ‘development projects’ multiply. In a recent incident villagers claim that the village chief from Mayan Tapin village, Tontay Township, failed to mediate on land disputes between two villagers – Saw Pa Way and U Mya Thein. U Mya Thein is alleged…

Land prices in the Hpa-an industrial zone have skyrocketed since it was set up in 2011. Today the price has tripled. The industrial zone located along the Hpa-an to Hlaing Bwe Highway has also cause land prices in the nearby villages of Mae Baung, Taung Ka Lay and Htee Poe Klo to soar to triple what it was last year.…

A school bus with dozens of Burmese migrant children was involved in a collision with a truck. A three-month old baby was killed in the incident and 30 people taken to local hospitals. A media statement from the non-government organization Help Without Frontiers, claimed the bus was “hit from behind by a speeding truck as the school bus was on…

Villagers in Tenasserim Division want the local Karen National Union to revoke permission given to a coalmine that villagers claim is polluting their waterways and damaging their plantations. Paw Klo villagers, from east of Tavoy in Southern Burma, demand the Karen National Union (KNU) resolves the conflict between the coal mining company and the villagers and revoke their permission to…

Burma’s parliament, controlled by the military backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, voted against a proposal to form a Ministry to administrate ethnic affairs at a regional level has dismayed ethnic MPs. A proposal to form a Ministry of Ethnic Affair at the union level that was proposed by U Kyaw Din (a) U Htay Reh of Kayah [Karenni] State…