US President Barack Obama joined nine leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in calling on Burma to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and to hold credible elections during a summit meeting in Singapore.
A delegation of senior US officials held talks Wednesday with Burma's military junta leader as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (pictured), who was allowed a rare break from detention.
After more than a decade of using the stick in relations with Burma's military junta, the administration of US President Barack Obama has shown signs it also intends to use the carrot - at the risk of upsetting exiled Burmese opposition groups.
Burma's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with Western diplomats in Yangon, following a letter that she sent to the secretive military junta proposing ways to get sanctions lifted.
A Burmese court has rejected opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeal against her extended house arrest following her August conviction over a bizarre incident in which an American man swam to her house uninvited.
Freed in September 2008 after 19 years in the prisons of the Burmese junta, U Win Tin, aged 80, is a veteran of the struggle for democracy and above all a political mentor to d'Aung San Suu Kyi. Interview.
The United States have said it will reopen dialogue with the Myanmar military junta as the "leadership has shown an interest" according to Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for Asia.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (pictured) says the US hopes to engage directly with Burma’s ruling military junta in an effort to encourage the country to adopt democratic reforms, but insists that current sanctions will continue.
Myanmar's ruling military junta on Friday freed two journalists who helped victims of 2008's Cyclone Nargis reach a UN aid office, and released several opposition activists as part of an amnesty granted to more than 7,000 prisoners.
