Mark Snowiss
When 16 Burmese newspapers are granted operating licenses on April 1, they will become the first independent dailies allowed to publish in nearly 50 years.

While journalists have described the move as a major step toward media freedom in Burma, they have also voiced outrage at the country's draft media law, released earlier this month, which critics say could roll back government promises to loosen its grip on a long tightly controlled industry.

That bill bans reporting on several topics, including the Burmese military's battles with ethnic rebels and any coverage critical of the 2008 military-drafted constitution. It also permits six-month jail terms for failing to register news publications with the government.

by Andrew Drummond

Just what is going on in Arakan State?

The abuse of the Rohingya in Burma continues. At the same time foreign companies and tourists are flooding in to the newly reformed country. Well just how reformed is it? Where are the forces in Burma defending this minority, whose very right to existence seems to be denied? This report was issued today by Human Rights Watch.
The Burmese government is systematically restricting humanitarian aid and imposing discriminatory policies on Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should permit unfettered access to humanitarian agencies to provide assistance to Muslim populations, end segregated areas, and put forward a plan for those displaced to return to their homes.

“Burmese government restrictions on aid to Rohingya Muslims are creating a humanitarian crisis that will become a disaster when the rainy season arrives,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of addressing the problem, Burma’s leaders seem intent on keeping the Rohingya segregated in camps rather than planning for them to return to their homes.”

Tim Marshall - Foreign Affairs Editor (Sky News HD)
Amid the cries for freedom, justice, democracy, few activists lauded by visiting journalists bother with minority rights.
This week's outbreak of sectarian racist violence in Burma is a reminder that the cliched view of the Burmese as a freedom loving, peaceful people living under the yoke of a fascist dictatorship is not entirely accurate.
 Yes, the democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi has been mostly peaceful. Yes, we did see thousands of smiling, calm, saffron-robed Buddhist monks taking to the streets, and no, most ordinary Burmese do not set about their neighbours with knifes, and their neighbours' homes with petrol bombs.

But some do. Some of them even wear saffron robes while they do it.

The most recent attempt at cleansing an ethnic group began in Meiktila, 340 miles north of Rangoon. They then spread south as close as 125 miles from the country's biggest city, where Muslim-owned shops are beginning to close in case of violence.

By Steven Hsieh
Human Rights Watch says Burma's discriminatory policies against Rohingya Muslims could lead to a permanent, segregated state.
The Burmese government is potentially paving the way for long-term segregation through discriminatory policies against a Muslim minority, Human Rights Watch reports. The New York-based NGO says state officials created a humanitarian crisis by blocking aid from getting to Rohingya and Kaman Muslims displaced in squalid refuges camps.
In June 2012, sectarian violence in the coastal Arakan State forced more than 125,000 Burmese Muslims to take refuge in sordid displacement camps. Since then, the Burmese government has restricted international aid organizations from providing food and medical assistance to the hungry, sick and dying. Additionally, security forces guard the displaced from leaving the camps, further exacerbating the crisis. HRW fears the wet season could turn the already dire situation into a disaster, pointing to heavy rain risks that could “overflow already inadequate and overused latrines, spreading otherwise preventable waterborne diseases throughout the displaced population.”