In the past month, amid the flurry of reports and commentary in international media about the events in Burma , a disturbing theme has emerged among some media commentators. Ranging from the Asia Times and the South China Morning Post to a collection of skeptical Western bloggers, they make the claim that various Washington D.C-based agencies and a few key political actors are actually pulling the strings in the Burmese uprising. The rationale behind this “foreign interference,” as it has been termed by both the Burmese and Chinese governments, has been given as (take your pick): interests in oil and/or gas reserves, heroin, methamphetamines, geopolitical advantage, and power projection by the United States . While I am among the first to question the motives of the American administration when it comes to foreign policy, I find these claims absurdly cynical to the point of being delusional.

Khun Sa aka Zhang Qifu, 73, died at his home in Rangoon Sunday, 28 October, at 06:30, according to his cousin living on the Thai-Burma border. Due to the wish of the military authorities, he was cremated this morning at 10:00 at Aung Mingala Cemetery aka Yeway Cemetery in North Okkalapa township. His funeral was attended by some 20 close relatives and friends including his surviving uncle Khun Hseng aka Zhang Bingyin.

One-time drug warlord Khun Sa, variously described as among the world's most wanted men and a great liberation fighter, has died in Myanmar at the age of 74, an associate said Tuesday. Khuensai Jaiyen, a former secretary of Khun Sa who works with ethnic Shan minority guerrilla groups, said his former boss died in Myanmar's largest city Yangon on Oct. 26, according to his relatives. The cause of death was not immediately known, but Khun Sa had long suffered from diabetes, partial paralysis and high blood pressure.

The news is no more from Burma. The young monks are quiet in their cells, or they are dead. But words have escaped: the defiant, beautiful poetry of Aung Than and Zeya Aung; and we know of the unbroken will of the journalist U Win Tin, who makes ink out of brick powder on the walls of his prison cell and writes with a pen made from a bamboo mat – at the age of 77. These are the bravest of the brave. What honour they bring to humanity with their struggle; and what shame they bring to those whose hypocrisy and silence helps to feed the monster that rules Burma.

As the Burmese junta's brutal crackdown on opposition activists continues, with police still rounding up and defrocking monks and hunting down leaders of the protests, the outside world scrambles to have any impact on the ruling generals. Despite China's reluctance to impose overly tough measures on the generals, the United Nations agreed to a consensus statement condemning the crackdown, and U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari plans to return to Burma in November. Last week, President Bush announced new sanctions on the junta, which adds to two previous rounds of American sanctions.

There are all kinds of leaders in this world, as many as there are different and diverse groups of people.There are dictators, politicians, military leaders, revolutionary leaders, spiritual leaders, leaders in the various fields of commerce, etc.The dictatorial regime should be made a thing of the past and we should all work hard to see the collapse of this evil and monstrous regime.

While the whole world is condemning the Junta after it’s brutal crackdown against peaceful demonstrators in Burma, Chinland Guardian has a chance to interview Harn Yawnghwe one of the most capable strategists and influential leaders among Burma’s pro-democracy movement. Harn Yawnghwe is director of National Reconciliation Program and Brussels based Euro-Burma Office. He is senior advisor to Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC) the council that represent 7 non-Burman ethnic states. Harn Yawnghwe is the son of Sao Shwe Thaike the last prince of Yawnghwe and the first president of the Republic of Union of Burma.

Recently, because the world’s attention has been on the peaceful protests and the bloodbath of monks and supporters in Yangon , the ethnic peoples’ ongoing abhorrent treatment by the regime has been placed in the backseat or just ignored. Before the above event, the Karens had been in the news, in their fight for freedom and the atrocities the Burmese soldiers inflicted on their villages and villagers, and which had received understanding and support from different countries of the world.

A Shan cleric who recently escaped to Thailand has confirmed that more than a hundred Shan monks were among those detained by the ruling military junta during the crackdown launched two weeks earlier. "The Pinnya Ramika temple in (Rangoon's) Botahtaung township where I stayed alone had more than a hundred Shan boarders out of a total of 400 plus," said the 22-year old monk, a native of one of the townships in the Shan State East. "All of us except the abbot and his two deputies (Taik-Ok) were detained. Only 9 escaped arrest by climbing up into the attic."

AAPP has learned that authorities from Kyaukpandawn Township informed the family of Ko Win Shwe yesterday that he died while in interrogation. Ko Win Shwe, a 42 year old NLD member, and other 4 others were arrested on September 26, 2007 because of their active support and participation in the monks' demonstration.

Burma’s brutal dictator, Than Shwe, has proved beyond doubt in the past two weeks that he is a dangerously unbalanced and evil man, determined to cling to power by all the means at his disposal. Brute force, deception, intimidation, lies—his armoury is an arsenal of evil. Such a monster has no place in a civilized world. He must be brought to justice, together with his loyal henchmen, who share with him the responsibility for the barbaric acts they unleashed on the streets of Rangoon and other Burmese cities and in the country’s monasteries.

The United Nations Human Rights Council opened a special session on Myanmar today amid denunciations of the “brutal crack-down” by the authorities and calls for decisive international action to prevent a repeat of the massacres that marked a pro-democracy uprising nearly two decades ago. “The failure of the international community to prevent the massacre following the 1988 people’s uprising causing the death of over 3,000 protesters must not be repeated,” Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro told the session in Geneva.

This report is being sent directly from an FBR relief team in the Shan State and ends with a testimony and interviews taken by Partners Relief & Development (PRAD) who are working alongside FBR teams. We are here training five new Shan FBR relief teams that will give help, hope and love to those in need in Shan State. We are impressed by the organization and generosity of the Shan resistance and villagers. Their earnest smiling faces and can-do attitude inspire us. We are grateful for their help. The Background and stories below bear witness to the brutalities inflicted on these people by the dictators of Burma. At the same time, we want you all to know that there is hope. We see this hope in the actions of the relief teams, the resolve of the resistance, and the dignity and kindness of the villagers.

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed. The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand." Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand. Meanwhile, the United Nations special envoy was in Burma's new capital today seeking meetings with the ruling military junta.

Jarring against a dearth of official news about the turmoil in Burma, the ‘Southern Weekend’ -- one of China’s more liberal official newspapers -- has chosen to run a lengthy feature about an ethnic Chinese entrepreneur striking it rich in the jade business in that neighbouring country. But the feature was curiously apt. Describing the country as the "jade kingdom on earth" where fortune is easily made as long as one is hard-working, the article effectively perpetuated a centuries-old perception here of Burma here as a country of riches from which successive Chinese dynasties commanded a tribute.