In the latest escalation of labor tensions in Burma, around 4,000 factory workers at an industrial estate on the outskirts of Rangoon staged a sit-in on Saturday to demand better pay, according to sources in the area.

' Burma VJ ,' a documentary about the September 2007 mass uprising in Rangoon that was nominated for an Academy Award, missed out on Sunday as a Japanese film about the secret slaughter of dolphins in a Japanese town titled ' The Cove ' took the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature of 2009.

Myanmara s elections scheduled for this year must include detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi , United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

Laws will set out rules on how Burma's 1st parliamentary elections in 20 years will be carried out later this year.

MYANMAR'S military government announced on Monday the enactment of long-awaited laws for forthcoming elections this year but gave no immediate date for the polls, state media said.

A Cameroon football player who sought refuge at the French Embassy in Myanmar's main city has been sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of forging U.S. currency, a newspaper said Monday.

An animal-influenza-related workshop is being held in Myanmar's Yangon to discuss plans for animal disease surveillance, China's Xinhua news agency citedthe state newspaper New Light of Myanmar as saying Thursday.

Via iStockAnalyst.com: More bird flu H5N1 cases reported in Myanmar northwestern division .

An international organisation "Save the Children" has vowed to help Myanmar reduce the death rate of under-five children caused by curable diseases by stepping up healtcare activities across the country in cooperation with organisations concerned.

Prosecutors are investigating the deaths of three Burmese - including two young children - who were killed when a pick-up truck they were being smuggled in was sprayed with bullets by Thai soldiers in Ranong on Thursday.

Burma is in the grip of election fever, even though a date for the polls has yet to be announced.

Bangkok a ' While Aung San Suu Kyi remains the most widely-known woman suppressed for her political views in Burma, the jails in that military-ruled country continue to be filled by lesser-known women dissidents being held on a range of questionable charges.

Three persons were killed and five were wounded after being shot by Thailand's security forces in the southern part of the country.

Three women political activists sentenced to jail terms during the recent visit of UN Human Rights Envoy to Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, were transferred from Rangoon's Insein Prison to remote upcountry prisons at the weekend, according to a source close to the prison.

The news from Burma, my home country, seems to only go from bad to worse. Last week, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was denied yet another appeal and will remain under house arrest.

Over the next few days we're going to be hearing a lot about big blue aliens and George Clooney and bomb-disposal experts in the Iraq war.

The US has been a leading critic of the Burmese regime's appalling human rights violations and repression of the country's opposition and ethnic minorities.

Ignoring its stated commitments to social responsibility in foreign investment projects, the Chinese government has failed to reply to numerous public appeals from affected peoples and petitions submitted by overseas Kachin to Chinese embassies in five countries to stop the Irrawaddy-Myitsone dam project in Kachin State, Burma.

Around 70 percent of property in Burma auctioned off to private enterprise in recent months has ended up in the hands of cronies of the ruling junta.

The documentary ' Burma VJ ' is in the running for an Oscar for best feature-documentary at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards show which will be broadcast worldwide on Sunday night in the United States.