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..."

Gas and oil companies are using offshore tax havens to disguise their investments in Burma...

"BANGKOK — GAS and oil companies are using British offshore tax havens in the Caribbean and Bermuda to disguise their investments in Burma, avoiding international sanctions and public attention.

Enlarge Image
Despite US and EU sanctions, intended to isolate the military regime and force democratic change, Burma’s natural gas industry in particular is booming.

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted in February 2011 in Dweh Loh Township, Papun District, by a villager trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The villager interviewed Maung Y---, a 32 year-old married hill field farmer, who described an incident that occurred on February 5th 2011, in which he and eight other villagers were arrested at gunpoint by Tatmadaw Border Guard Battalion #1013 soldiers and arbitrarily detained.

This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in May 2012, by a community member describing events occurring in Pa'an District during the period between September 2011 and April 2012. It describes the planting of landmines by Border Guard soldiers near Y--- and P--- villages, resulting in villagers from B---, N--- and T--- being injured, and some villagers committed suicide after sustaining injuries.

The deployment of anti-personnel landmines increased by the SPDC and its forces Burma during 2005. This increase has transpired despite widespread international condemnation over the use of landmines due to the extensive indiscriminate humanitarian consequences of the devices.

Includes Cluster Munition Monitor Report, 2013

Aquatic Resources - 6 files...
Energy - 20 files...
Environment and Biodiversity - 42 files...
Forest Management - 52 files
Governance and Sector Development/Assessment - 5 files ...
Mining.

.....To access some files, users may have to take out a (free) subscription to MYLAFF at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mylaff

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.

... 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

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.”