News editor tortured, given 13 years

By FRANCIS WADE

 The editor of a Karenni state-based news journal has been given a 13-year prison sentence after being convicted on a raft of media charges.

 

The sentencing of Nyi Nyi Tun, the editor of Kantarawaddy News Journal, has drawn scathing condemnation of the Burmese junta from international media groups. He had already been in detention for a year when the sentence was passed on 14 October, with charges ranging from contact with an exiled news group to using electronic media without permission.

Hanoi Holiday for the Junta

By SIMON ROUGHNEEN
HANOI—Reports coming from the 17th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit in Hanoi say the Burmese representatives have come under pressure from Asean counterparts to add some credibility to the country’s Nov. 7 general election.

However, apart from Indonesia Foreign Minister Marty Natelegawa, his Philippines counterpart Alberto Romulo and President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino III, Asean leaders have kept quiet about the upcoming vote.

Views Differ on UN Commission of Inquiry on Burma: US

By LALIT K JHA
WASHINGTON—A day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reaffirmed America’s support for the UN Commission of Inquiry, the Obama Administration acknowledged on Friday that attitudes towards the commission differ among UN member countries.

At a press briefing on Oct. 29, US State Department spokesman, P J Crowley, told reporters that the US is consulting with countries on how to move forward with regard to establishing the UN Commission of Inquiry against the Burmese military junta.