Battered Burma’s unanswered question: when will the fighting end?...

"The horrors of war are all too visible on Myo Myint’s scarred body. The former Burma Army trooper has only one arm and one leg. The fingers of one hand are just stumps, he’s almost blind in one eye and pieces of landmine shrapnel still lodge in his body.

Myo Myint: Crippled and disillusioned by war

Myo Myint is one of countless thousands of men and women maimed for life in Burma’s ongoing civil war, which has been raging for more than half a century—one of Asia’s longest unsolved conflicts...

Summary:
Since 2007, destructive platinum mining has been taking place in the hills north of
Tachilek, eastern Shan State, impacting about 2,000 people from eight Lahu, Akha
and Shan villages. The platinum is being extracted by Burmese mining companies and
exported to China and Thailand.
Five companies are currently operating around the Akha village of Ah Yeh, 13 kilometers
north of Tachilek. They have forced villagers to sell property and land at cheap prices,
and confiscated other lands without compensation. Hundreds of acres of farms and

15 images of landmine victims..."Myanmar, or Burma, is home to one of the world's longest running civil wars. Conflict has occurred since the country gained independence in 1947.
Mine warfare has been a feature of the conflict throughout that time.
Mines are thought to be used by all parties to the conflict. No one knows how many people have been killed or maimed by mines.
This photo exhibit provides a glimpse into the lives of a few of those who survived their mine injury and now live tenuous lives near the border with Thailand..."

Includes Cluster Munition Monitor Report, 2013

Landmines take a heavy toll in lives and livelihoods...

"A dozen or so years ago, Mee Reh was helping to secure a rebel-held area of Burma’s eastern Karenni State with landmines. Today he is helping to secure a new life for landmine victims.

Mee Reh, 38, is one of 11 workers making artificial limbs at a small workshop in a Karenni refugee camp in Thailand’s northern Mae Hong Son province. The enterprise is run by Handicap International, an international organization working to ban the use of landmines and to help landmine victims.

Big companies push small prospectors aside in hunt for Burma’s riches...

"In Alice in Wonderland, the Red Queen tells Alice: “A word means what I want it to mean.” That sums up in one sentence the state of Burma’s statute books—particularly those decrees relating to mining the country’s rich resources.

Robert Moody, in his 1998 “Report on Mining in Burma,” put it more directly. The law on mining passed by the Rangoon regime in 1994, he said, “is not just one, but a parade of farts in a bucket.”

In military-ruled Burma, also known as Myanmar, large-scale natural gas
projects have directly and indirectly led to violations of basic human rights
through the complicity of multinational corporate actors. These abuses are
ongoing and there is an unreasonably high risk they will increase as more gas
projects are developed. This paper assesses the past, present, and future human
rights impacts of large-scale natural gas extraction in Burma, and the
implications these impacts have in terms of corporate accountability. The

... In 2014, Myanmar(Burma)confounded industry analysts by emerging to become the World's third biggest tin producer, experiencing a 5-year tin production increase of ca.4900%. This surprise emergence of Myanmar as a major tin producer is a possible Black Swan event that potentially has significant re-percussions both for the future of global tin production, and for the economic development of Myanmar. This is a disruptive event that has likely contributed to a substantial drop in tin prices in 2015. The

Amidst ongoing conflict between the Tatmadaw and armed groups in eastern Dooplaya and Pa'an districts, civilians, aid workers and soldiers from state and non-state armies continue to report a variety of human rights abuses and security concerns for civilians in areas adjacent to Thailand's Tak Province, including: functionally indiscriminate mortar and small arms fire; landmines; arbitrary arrest and detention; sexual violence; and forced portering.

This report contains the full transcripts of seven interviews conducted between June 1st and June 18th 2010 in Dta Greh Township, Pa'an District by a villager trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The villager interviewed seven villagers from two villages in Wah Mee Gklah village tract, after they had returned to Burma following initial displacement into Thailand during May and June 2009. The interviewees report that they did not wish to return to Burma, but felt they had to do so as the result of pressure and harassment by Thai authorities.

China’s ability to elbow out other contenders for the Shwe gas—from Thailand, Japan and South Korea, as well as India—underlines Beijing’s rising influence within the Burmese regime

In recent months, both China and India have signed agreements with the Burmese military junta
indicating their willingness to buy gas from the proposed Shwe gas project in western Burma,
with Thailand also expressing interest. If built, the Shwe project would be Burma’s largest gas
development project ever. Matthew Smith and Naing Htoo analyse the events surrounding the
recent agreements and the inevitable consequences if the project were to proceed...