The Irrawaddy
Mon armed group seeks talks with prospective investors
Nai Win Hla, an executive committee member of the New Mon State Party, said Mawlamyine Cement Limited inked a deal with the Mon State government in Myanmar to build a cement factory, and then built a coal-fired power plant inside the compound without local residents’ knowledge. ...
Shan community groups denounce European-backed dam projects
Ethnic Shan communities in northern Shan State have called for an end to four planned hydropower dams on the Namtu River, an Irrawaddy tributary, citing irreparable damage to the environment. More than 100 people gathered in Hsipaw Township to hold a prayer service on the bank ...
Report calls for logging moratorium, end to state-run MTE
International and Burmese environmental organizations this week said Burma’s forest reserves are largely exhausted, calling for a moratorium on commercial logging and the dismantling or privatization of the state-owned Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE). Those finding came in an analysis released on 30 March in a report ...
Burma’s Minorities Fear USDP Election Victory
During nearly seven decades the villages of the Karen have been torched, their men summarily executed and their women raped as the ethnic minority battled Burma’s military regime in the world’s longest-running insurgency. Their homeland has been called the “hidden Darfur,” where some 350,000 people ...