By: Claire Salisbury

For decades, one of Southeast Asia’s largest countries has also been its most mysterious. Now, emerging from years of political and economic isolation, its shift towards democracy means that Myanmar is opening up to the rest of the world. Myanmar forms part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, and some of the largest tracts of intact habitat in the hotspot can be found here. With changes afoot, conservationists are looking to Myanmar as the best hope for protecting biodiversity in the region.

By ROBIN McDOWELL

THANDWE, Myanmar (AP) — Even as the president came to western Myanmar to urge an end to sectarian violence last week, security forces could not prevent Buddhist mobs from torching the homes of minority Muslims or hacking them to death, at times, unwittingly, even encouraging them.

That has raised questions about the government’s ability to quench a virulent strain of religious hatred blamed for the deaths of more than 240 people in the last 18 months.

Five Muslims were killed in the attack Tuesday in Thandwe township, just hours before President Thein Sein touched down for a scheduled visit.

By MARK INKEY/ THE IRRAWADDY

Britain is finalizing the details of military assistance that will see 30 high-ranking officers in the Burma Army receive specially tailored training, including instruction on how to operate within the rule of law, the head of a UK training center said.

During an official visit to London by President Thein Sein in July, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the country would begin engaging with the Burma Army. The aim of cooperation, Hague said at the time, was to try to foster accountability and respect for human rights in the Burmese military, which only handed power to a quasi-civilian government in 2011 but remains influential.

The 30 officers of the Burma Army, known as the Tatmadaw, are set to attend a course in January. The training is jointly run by Cranfield University and the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, and will take place in Burma.

By AP / Robin McDowell

(THABYUCHAING, Myanmar) — Buddhist mobs carrying swords and knives swarmed Zaw Lay Khar’s village again and again, clashing with Muslims and burning their homes. When she saw about 40 attackers approaching her home, she fled with her daughter but had to leave behind her 94-year-old mother.

“They set the house on fire. There was nothing we could do but run. We didn’t have time to help her,” she said Thursday near her charred home, in the village of Thabyuchaing in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The attack had been two days earlier, but smoke still rose from the ruined buildings.

Reuters By Jared Ferrie

THANDWE, Myanmar (Reuters) – The Buddhist mob mutilated and burned Khin Naing so severely his son couldn’t recognise the body, one of series of attacks that suggest a resurgence of a monk-led movement in Myanmar accused of stoking violence against Muslims.

Flies were buzzing around the bloodied patch of earth outside a ransacked mosque in Tha Phyu Chai village where police removed Khin Naing’s body after he was hacked to death by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

“He couldn’t run fast enough from the Rakhine people,” said his son, Tun Tun Naing, 17, who emerged from hiding to identify his father’s corpse from what remained of his charred clothing.