Suu Kyi reaches out to military junta to ease sufferings of Burmese people

October 9th, 2009 LONDON - Detained Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will meet Western diplomats to discuss sanctions imposed against the military-ruled country, junta officials have said. The Nobel Prize winner, who remains under house arrest, was driven to a government guesthouse to meet with diplomats from the United States, Great Britain and Australia, reports The Telegraph.

September 29th, 2009 UNITED NATIONS - In a bid to build better relations with Burma, the Obama administration has vowed to directly engage in with the southeast Asian country's military regime, and increase its humanitarian aid. The Washington Post quoted Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell as saying that the United States will leave in place existing U.S.

September 25th, 2009 Yangon (Myanmar), Sep 25(ANI): Detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has backed the Obama administration's initiative to carry out talks with Burma's rulers. Suu Kyi comments came after indications from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the US is set to engage directly with Burma's military rulers in an effort to push for democratic reforms.

August 31st, 2009 BEIJING - After the settlement of several days of clashes between Burmese ethnic groups and government forces, China has issued a rare rebuke urging Myanmar to "properly handle domestic problems and maintain stability." The violence erupted on Thursday when the Burmese army sent troops to occupy the Kokang territory following the refusal of several ethnic militias to convert into border security forces under the authority of the Burmese military, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The fighting, which abruptly ended this Sunday, sent up to 30,000 refugees into China, some of whom were rebels, who handed over their guns and uniforms to Chinese authorities.

August 29th, 2009 New Myanmar clashes leave 1 dead, dozens injuredBEIJING — Heavy skirmishes resumed Saturday in northeastern Myanmar after days of fighting between government troops and ethnic rebel militia sent thousands of refugees streaming into nearby China. At least one person was killed and dozens injured in a bomb blast near the border.

August 16th, 2009 LONDON/ NAYPYIDAW - U.S. Senator Jim Webb held a private meeting with the head of the Burmese military on Saturday and secured the release of American prisoner John Yettaw.

August 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Jim Webb plans to meet with Burma's top official, Senior General Than Shwe, following his arrival Friday in what would be the first-ever meeting between a U.S.

August 12th, 2009 DHARAMSALA - The spiritual head of the Tibetan community, the Dalai Lama, Wednesday appealed to Myanmar's ruling junta to release human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who received an additional 18 months of imprisonment Tuesday for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest. "I am deeply saddened by the extended detention of Aung San Suu Kyi to a further period of house arrest," an official statement of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said.

August 11th, 2009 RANGOON - Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to three years' jail and hard labour by a court today, but the head of the ruling military junta commuted the punishment to 18 months' house arrest. The court sentenced Suu Kyi on charges of breaching the terms of her house arrest after a bizarre incident in which an American man, John Yettaw, 54, swam to her lakeside house in May this year.

August 11th, 2009 LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday expressed disappointment over the sentencing of Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, saying he was "saddened and angry" about a trail that was a "sham". A court in Rangoon has convicted Burmese pro-democracy leader and sentenced her to an additional 18 months of house arrest.

July 5th, 2009 LONDON - North Korean military workers have been sighted near the Indian border as the military regimes of Myanmar and North Korea forge an increasingly close alliance aimed at busting international sanctions, a British newspaper reported Sunday. The alliance includes barter trade and nuclear cooperation, the Sunday Times reported.

June 20th, 2009 London, June 20 (ANI): British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday made an impassioned appeal to Burmese military junta to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on her 64th birthday, or face tough sanctions. The Prime Minister said it was a "tragedy" that the Nobel Peace Prize winner was spending her 64th birthday behind bars because of the regime's absurd and contemptible show trial.

June 11th, 2009 YANGON - Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, is dissatisfied that her lakeside home is still guarded by authorities despite her house arrest officially ending in May, The Telegraph quoted her lawyer, as saying. The Nobel laureate, currently held in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, said friends had been denied access to her residence despite the fact that police told her in May that the house arrest had been cancelled.

May 17th, 2009 LONDON - The Burmese junta has revoked the license of a prominent activist lawyer in order to bar him from defending opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as international pressure intensifies on the military regime to drop new charges against the Nobel Peace laureate. Aung Thein said the order revoking his licence was issued on Friday, a day after a prison court charged Suu Kyi with breaking the conditions of her nearly six-year house arrest, due to expire on 27 May.

May 14th, 2009 LONDON - Burmese authorities are to charge the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and her two maids over an incident in which an American swam across a lake to visit her at her house, her National League for Democracy party said on Thursday. Police in the military-ruled nation detained John Yettaw, a US national, last week for gaining access to the 63-year-old Nobel laureate's off-limits residence in Yangon and staying there for two days.