Yangon - A Mandalay court has sentenced a student activist to 104 years in jail for attending a meeting marking the first anniversary of the "saffron revolution" on the Thai-Myanmar border, a prisoner support group said Wednesday.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), Bo Min Yu Ko, in his early 20's, was arrested on September 18, 2008 after attended a meeting on the Thai-Myanmar border to commemorate the first anniversary of the monk-led protests that rocked Yangon and parts of upper Myanmar in August and September of 2007.

Singapore - The Singapore government has explained its decision not to renew the work permit of two Myanmar nationals, saying they had gone beyond the law allowed in staging political protests.

The case involves two Myanmar nationals, Moe Kyaw Thu and Win Kyaw, who were part of a group that held a protest march against their country's ruling junta during the 2007 Asean summit held in Singapore, according to a Tuesday report in Straits Times citing an online posting of one of the Singapore protestor.

Seoul  - Nineteen North Korean defectors, who were arrested on December 2 in Myanmar, are going to be tried this week for illegal entry, local newspaper reported Monday.

The North Korean group, which includes four children, was arrested in Tachilek, a town on the Myanmar-Thai border about 550 kilometres north-east of Yangon after they were forced to shift their boat route from Thailand to Myanmar, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.

Myawaddy, Myanmar  - Go to those places where poor countries meet rich and you will find hope. The poor towns may be unpolished, but there is a nervous energy and relentless hope. These towns have plans.

Yet, there's nothing like this in Myawaddy, Myanmar, the poor town opposite Mae Sot, Thailand.

The towns lie across the Moei River, a sluggish brown border snaking between two of the most disparate countries in Asia. On the one side lies Thailand characterized by prosperity, modernity and openness. Then there is Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, a notoriously corrupt, hermetic and violent country.

Yangon  - Myanmar has released San Dar Win, a daughter of the country's former dictator Ne Win, from six years of house arrest in her lakeside home in Yangon, relatives confirmed Saturday.

"She was visiting her friend's house after her release," a relative told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. She was released on Friday.

Yangon  - The two pivotal events for Myanmar in 2008 - Cyclone Nargis and a national referendum - fell on the same month, highlighting the ruling junta's callousness in pursuing its "discipline flourishing democracy" at all costs.

Myanmar's military this year demonstrated to the international community its extreme indifference to public welfare by pushing through a national referendum on a new constitution to cement its future political powers on May 10 - days after the cyclone slammed the Irrawaddy delta and Yangon, leaving almost 140,000 dead and missing and 2.4 million people in desperate need of assistance.