By Zin Linn

Reporters Without Borders has written an open letter dated 16 July 2013 to Burmese President Thein Sein, who began a two day visit to France on Wednesday, calling for an investigation into the former military government’s crimes against the media since 1962.

Even though the organization was on a blacklist in Burma for more than 20 years, it kept a record of cases of journalists who were killed by the previous junta.  Some journalist-prisoners died as a result of torture they suffered in the junta-run prison system.

Reporters Without Borders says authorities announced the death of Ne Win, a correspondent for the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, at a press conference on 14 May 1991 saying he had died in hospital from cirrhosis of the liver. The army had accused him of being an opposition supporter but he had never been formally charged or tried, the watchdog said.

By Dana MacLean

HIGHLIGHTS

BANGKOK, 16 July 2013 (IRIN) – Influential Buddhist monks in Myanmar have been aggravating longstanding tensions between the country’s Buddhist and Muslim communities since violence erupted between the two groups in 2012, say experts.
 
“The Burmese Buddhist monks may not have initiated the violence but they rode the wave and began to incite more,” said Michael Jerryson, a religious studies professor and co-editor of Buddhist Warfare, a recent 2010 publication examining the violent side of Buddhism in Southeast Asia and how Buddhist organizations there have used religious images and rhetoric to support “military conquest”.

By Charles M. Sennott
Editor-at-Large, The GroundTruth Project

YANGON, Myanmar — A group of 20 top, young journalists — 11 from Myanmar and 9 from the United States — set out on a series of journeys last month through a country undergoing dramatic change.

They formed five teams chosen for a highly competitive reporting fellowship which was put together as a partnership between GlobalPost and the New York City-based Open Hands Initiative.

One team set out to navigate the great capitals of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

They started at the ancient city of Bagan, looking at the politics of renovating sacred space; and then on to the colonial town of Mandalay to look at a rising Buddhist nationalism that seems to be taking root; and finally on to the surreal, empty modern capital of Naypyidaw.

By Patrick McCormick, NM-TLC Reviewer

Michael Aung-Thwin and Maitrii Aung-Thwin, A History of Myanmar Since Ancient Times: Traditions and Transformations

London: Reaktion Books, 2012. Pp. 328; timeline, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

Reviewed by Patrick McCormick.

1.

A few months ago, I found myself sitting in a restaurant in Bangkok, eating with a colleague and mentor. I mentioned to him that I had been given a copy of A History of Myanmar Since Ancient Times to review. He looked grim and shook his head. “I’ve read it. He’s wrong as usual. I hope you’ll say something.” This reaction is typical of much scholarly reaction to Michael Aung-Thwin’s work, resulting from his tendency to propose new interpretations and criticisms, not all of which everyone wants to hear.