According to Aung Kyaw Zaw, Burmese military watcher on the Sino-Burmese border, the visit to Kengtung last Saturday, 6 October of Vice Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing to meet Wa and Mongla leaders, might be more about the Burma Army’s military objectives than just drugs.

The Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) , commonly known as SSA North, that is facing an ultimatum to withdraw from another stronghold, will be meeting government representatives from the Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC) soon, according to a highly-placed SSA source.

Leaders of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) held meetings with Burma Army commanders led by Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing on Saturday, 6 October, to discuss cooperation against drugs, according to reports from the Sino-Burmese border.

A Thai court might acquit Golden Triangle Godfather Naw Kham if he had been tried in Thailand and not in China, according to a lawyer in Chiangmai.

Comparing Naw Kham, who is awaiting court decision in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, with a multi-murder suspect in Thailand whose story has captured the headlines for weeks, the lawyer, who asked not to be named, said:

Since June, the new government has regained its full membership in the International Labor Organization (ILO) after promising to eliminate forced labor by 2015 and to put the military under civilian laws concerning forced labor, but rampant use of forced labor by the military is still being reported in several Shan State townships, according to Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) in its September report.

The Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI), better known as the Norwegian Initiative, does not have any plans to return Burmese refugees in Thailand to Burma, according to Charles Petrie, head of the MPSI.

Kachin and Shan states of Burma, with their proximity to China and abundant natural resources, are likely to become hotbeds for international rivalry in the region, according to a Thai academic.

Dulyaphak Preecharach of Thammsat University’s Southeast Asian Studies told the seminar on Asean Community 2015: Opportunities and Challenges, held in Chiangmai yesterday said his reasoning was based on hard facts:

The United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), the alliance of 11 armed movements, presented its alternative 6 point peace roadmap yesterday to President Thein Sein, who is on a visit to the United States, according to the UNFC delegation in New York.