MAE SOT, THAILAND — Pity the Burmese dissident in exile.

For more than two decades they were symbols of defiance against Myanmar’s military dictatorship, campaigning tirelessly in foreign countries for regime change. Now that the Myanmar government is earning plaudits for its program of reforms, hundreds of dissidents living abroad may need career counseling.



“It’s becoming difficult to find things to complain about,” said ...

The last year in Burma has been one of quick and dramatic change.

The new government surprised even some of its toughest critics, by releasing hundreds of political prisoners, negotiating cease-fire deals with ehtnic rebels and increasing media freedoms.

But a key test of how serious the government is about reform will come at the begnning of April, when Burma holds a series of by-elections.



It's a sight few people thought was possible in Burma just a year ago - pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi on the campaign trail, running for a seat in parliament.

And everywhere she goes, she draws thousands of adoring supporters.

"There is a lot to be done," she told supporters in Dawei.

"To build a country that we all want and the get ...

TAR PU VILLAGE, Shan State, Myanmar (Reuters) - In Myanmar's new war on drugs, meet the weapon of mass destruction: the weed-whacker.



Its two-stroke engine spins a metal blade, which is more commonly deployed to tame the suburban gardens of wealthy Westerners. But today, in a remote valley in impoverished Shan State, Myanmar police armed with weed-whackers are advancing through fields of thigh-high poppies, leaving a carpet of stems in their wake.

When the police are finished, their uniforms are flecked with a sticky brown sap harvested from these flowers for centuries: opium. Myanmar produced an estimated 610 tonnes in 2011, making it the world's second-biggest opium supplier after Afghanistan, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The area under poppy cultivation has doubled in the past five years.

Now, emerging from half a century of military dictatorship, Myanmar says it wants to buck that trend.

Since taking power a year ago, the nominally civilian ...

The main opposition leader in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, is campaigning for a seat in parliament in her constituency outside Rangoon. It's a scene that seemed impossible only a few months ago, before the military-backed government began a process of change. Host Rachel Martin speaks with NPR's Anthony Kuhn from Rangoon.

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RANGOON, Burma — Like most Burmese journalists, Ye Naing Moe had never trusted the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Information — and with good reason.



His father, a political activist, had been arrested four times, and he himself had been spied on by government agents. His journalism students were followed and interrogated about his lectures. "In the past, well, I wasn't loved by the authorities," he said with a wry grin.

So he was shocked last year when a top official at ...

The recent release of political prisoners has been praised as one of the most significant steps on the road to democracy. However, hundreds of political prisoners still remain behind bars. Additionally, those prisoners released on 13 January 2012 were freed under Article 401(1)[3] of the Code of Criminal Procedure which allows for prisoners’ sentences to be suspended or remitted. Since the prisoners had ...

It may take more than a lifting of sanctions to revive Myanmar's isolated economy.

Yangon, Myanmar

As Myanmar's reform-inclined government undertakes a political opening, Western businesses are watching to see if this leads to an end to Western sanctions imposed during the country's brutal military rule.

But even if sanctions are removed, potential investors would face many hurdles in an economy where opaque rules and edicts have made life tough for ordinary ...

KAREN STATE, Myanmar - A column of porters recently prepared to cross a dirt road in a bamboo forest across a narrow valley of Myanmar's eastern Karen (or Kayin) State. The guerrillas in charge of security from the rebel Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), removed their landmines and cautiously assumed position when a scout suddenly stopped and raised his arm.

"Burmese are coming," he whispered, referring to Myanmar's ruling Burman ethnic group whom the Karen have fought against for autonomy for over six decades. The head of a government army patrol, usually consisting of 50 ...

China has long been the isolated Myanmar’s only foreign ally, but the country is chafing at Beijing’s influence, even though the easing of sanctions and opening to trade with the West will have little immediate effect

When officials first turned up demanding Chen Ching-feng remove the Chinese sign above her clothing shop in Myanmar’s biggest northern city, she ignored them.

“When they came back a few days later and asked why the Chinese was still there, I said I had been busy,” the ethnic Chinese resident of Mandalay said, speaking in Mandarin. “They made me take them down immediately and sign an undertaking not to put them back.”

Other ethnic Chinese shop-owners report similar requests, though enforcement is patchy.

Government officials in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, say there is no official ban on Chinese advertisements, but demands to pull them down in Mandalay, a city dominated by Chinese merchants, illustrate mounting unease over Beijing’s expanding influence.

As Myanmar pursues dramatic reforms, its relationship with ...