Several trucks belonging to a military convoy in Kachin state were severely damaged Friday following a series of road side bombs.  The convoy was attacked near the Mali Hka River outside Japu village in Waingmaw township in Kachin State, according to witnesses in the area.

Recent speech made by the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) General Secretary ex-major general Htay Oo will only serve as another fly in the ointment of the ongoing ceasefire talks of Naypyitaw led by U Aung Min and U Aung Thaung, said Hkun Okker, Joint General Secretary of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC).

Thandwe: Widespread use of poison is endangering the scarce lobster or giant prawn population on the coast of western Burma’s Arakan State, said a local environmentalist.

The villagers from Palaypauk (Balipauk) Village in Minbya Township in Arakan State are in fear of arrest after being threatened by the army because they were unwilling to sacrifice their paddy harvests which are charged by the army as rent for their confiscated farmlands.

Establishing peace in ethnic areas will be the most difficult challenge looking ahead in Burmese politics, a high U.S. human rights official said on Tuesday.

Aung San Suu Kyi has postponed her second major campaign trip, this time to Mandalay, after officials said a football stadium would be closed “for government inspection.”

Burma owes more than US$ 11 billion in foreign debt in loans that were made prior to 1988, its finance minister told Parliament this week.

Government officials destroyed the homes of 17 Chin nationals  in the village of Saikhumphai, Champhai District, Mizoram, northeast India, on January 28th.

Ukhiya, Bangladesh: Tropical diseases, including chicken pox, pneumonia, fever and measles, have recently spread among children inside unofficial refugee camps inhabited by Rohingyas at Kutupalong and Lada, in eastern Bangladesh, a refugee elder from Kutupalong said.

The Karen National Union President, Saw Tamla Baw, speaking on the 63rd Anniversary of Karen National Revolution remembered the sacrifice his people had made since the armed resistance had begun in 1949. The KNU president used the occasion to call for national unity among ethnic people and democratic forces, the release of all political prisoners and to remain vigilant during the peace process.

A state level preliminary agreement was signed yesterday between the New Mon State Party (NMSP) and the Burmese government who was represented by the governments Peace Agency. The agreement, similar to the ceasefire agreement of 1995, was sealed at the Strand Hotel in Moulmein early in the morning.