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The 78-year-old is suffering from lung problems with severe asthmatic attacks which prevent him from sleeping and eating properly. A relative who visited him two days ago found him thin and weak.

"It will be exactly 19 years on 4 July since Burma's military arrested Win Tin. The government, which has a responsibility to protect the life of its citizens, should now release him", the worldwide press freedom organisation and the BMA said. "He should be moved to a hospital as quickly as possible".

At least ten journalists and one blogger are currently in prison in Burma.

The military junta has never kept a promise it made to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that Win Tin would benefit from an early release. The director general of prisons and the governor of Insein jail have since 2007 refused to accord him this right under the law, because he had never worked during his imprisonment.

Win Tin had refused on the grounds that as a political prisoner he could not be forced to work during his detention.

Win Tin was sentenced to 20 years in jail, chiefly on a charge of making "anti-government propaganda". He has not been allowed any further visits from ICRC representatives since 2006.

A worker near Rangoon City Hall confirmed that an unidentified woman staged a solo protest in front of the building at about 2 pm on Wednesday.

Dr Win Naing, a member of the National League for Democracy information department, said that about 10 police cars came to the scene and the woman was arrested.

“We do not know who she is and or what kind of slogan she was shouting because she was already taken away when we arrived at the scene,” he said. “We are trying to find information about her, her background and if she belongs to an organization.”

Last year, the government arrested veteran political activist Ohn Than after he staged a lone protest in front of the US embassy on August 23 with a poster calling for the regime to give up power. He was sentenced in April to life in prison.

According to Amnesty International, Ohn Than is now suffering from cerebral malaria, which is said to be at an advanced stage. He has been denied access to special medical attention.

Prison authorities reportedly wrote to Ohn Than’s family in his name, saying that he no longer needed visitors.

Prison authorities routinely refuse to give medication and treatment to political prisoners.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Myo Yan Naung Thein is in need of special medical attention after he was paralyzed following torture around his head and abdomen. His head injuries led to paralysis on the left side of his body, and he can no longer walk without help.

“He (Myo Yan Naung Thein) has been transferred to the prison hospital, but the authorities are still refusing to let him see a neurologist he has requested,” said Tate Naing, a leading AAPP member.

Myo Yan Naung Thein, a member of 88 Generation Students group, played a prominent role at the start of mass protests in Burma last August. He was arrested for his work with other democracy activists and because he gave interviews to exiled media.

Myo Yan Naung Thein was hospitalized for two weeks in May. However, his conditioned failed to improve. He has been punished by being placed in solitary confinement in an "ayutike" cell, which is used to hold prisoners with psychological problems—real or imagined.

After the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma issued a report early this month, the military government delivered a “rebuttal statement” in response to the criticism it leveled at the treatment of political prisoners.

The military government said prisoners all received regular medical check ups by prison doctors, and are allowed to meet with specialist medical practitioners, if prisoners are in serious condition or need special attention.
 
According Tin Yu, a resident of Hlaing Tharyar Township who recently visited Insein Prison to see his son, most political prisoners are sick and depressed, and the authorities do not provide them with proper medical treatment.

``No other story in this category was as difficult or as dangerous to report,'' APME officers and board members said after judging more than a dozen major breaking news stories of the past 11 months. ``The military government was slow to say anything about the cyclone and certainly didn't want outside reporters to reveal the scope of the disaster.''

The team coverage was led by Aye Aye Win, the AP's correspondent in Yangon, who had to use a weak landline and an emergency generator to get out her reports on Cyclone Nargis.

``Neither the danger nor the difficulty stopped Win or her colleagues from telling the world what happened,'' the judges said. ``By phone and in person, they turned up dozens of sources who added piece after piece to build the terrible picture, a scene one U.S. meteorologist said was similar in scale to Hurricane Katrina. They even found people brave enough to criticize the government's failure to warn people about Nargis or to help afterward.''

When Win collapsed from fatigue at one point, her mother listened to the radio and passed along updates.

The association of editors at AP's 1,500 member newspapers in the U.S. and newspapers served by the Canadian Press in Canada annually recognizes outstanding work by the company's journalists. The judges reviewed nominated work published between July 1, 2007, and June 30, and the winners were announced during the summer meeting of the association's governing board of directors that ended this week.

The awards will be presented during the APME annual conference with the Associated Press Photo Managers Sept. 8-11 in Las Vegas.

Veteran correspondent Todd Pitman received the feature writing award for his narrative cataloging the rigors and horrors of war and the death of his friend, a Russian photojournalist killed in Iraq when the group they were on patrol with came under attack.

Best use of video went to a nine-part documentary shot, produced and edited by Raul Gallego Abellan looking at life in the Army and the challenges soldiers face guarding a mountainous area on the front line of the war. ``Displaced Iraqis,'' a project by the AP multimedia team in Washington, reporters and editors in Baghdad and New York, and AP's research team, was honored for best use of multimedia.

Beijing-based photographer Oded Balilty received the news photography award for his dramatic and gripping photographs of the aftermath of the China earthquake. Alexandre Meneghini, a photographer in Mexico City, won the feature award for his compelling package of images on bullfighting.

Receiving the enterprise reporting award was a comprehensive, 50-state project that found America's schools often are the hunting grounds of sexual predators who happen to work in those buildings. National writers Martha Irvine and Robert Tanner led the team, with significant contributions from reporters across the United States and AP's News Research Center.

A body of work earned New York-based Lauren McCullough, domestic coordinator for multimedia and graphics, the John L. Dougherty Award, given to an AP employee with less than three years of experience with AP and less than five years overall.

Ryan Keith, a newsman in Springfield, Illinois, received the Charles Rowe Award for distinguished state bureau reporting for his investigation of troubled bridges in Illinois in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, along with a second package of stories on the state's troubled pension program.

The judges also awarded the following honorable mentions:

_Deadline Reporting: AP team reporting on the death of Benazir Bhutto.

_Feature Writing: national writer Sandra Cohen, for her story looking at life and death at the burn unit at Brooke Army Medical center in San Antonio; and Dakar's Rukmini Callimachi, for her story illustrating the horrid treatment of boys who are forced to beg in the name of Islam.

_Enterprise Writing: national writers Jeff Donn and Martha Mendoza, and Justin Pritchard of the Los Angeles bureau, for their three-part series uncovering the potential threat from medical wastes to our nation's drinking supply; and national writer Todd Lewan's reporting on human chip implants.

_John L. Dougherty: Bolivia correspondent Dan Keane for a variety of work, including an examination of President Evo Morales' campaign to remake the country.

_News Photos: Dhaka's Pavel Rahman for coverage of the Bangladesh cyclone; and Islamabad's B.K. Bangash for coverage of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

_Feature Photos: Alvaro Barrientos in Pamplona, Spain, for a photo of revelers enjoying water thrown from a balcony in a fiesta; and Rodrigo Abd, Guatemala City, for images giving an inside look at Venezuela gangs.

_Best Use of Video: photographers Evan Vucci and Rick Bowmer, for a two-part video essay on the life and death of an American soldier killed in combat in Iraq.

Solomon

New Delhi - A French non-governmental organization, Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF), which had rushed to Burma to help in reconstruction in the wake of the killer cyclone, left the country, as the ruling junta restricted its movement outside Rangoon city. The French team stayed for just 15 days.

Monique Lanne-Petit director of TSF in Pau, France said the team of technicians, who arrived in Rangoon on June 1, had to leave the country as they were not allowed to move outside Rangoon.

"We got visas but have been confined to Rangoon, without being allowed access to the field. Our aim was to help the people. Now we have decided to leave," Monique Lanne-Petit director of TSF told Mizzima.

"We did not want to stay for a long time in Rangoon, so we left," she added.

The TSF team aimed to provide technical assistance and install back up communication solutions in the delta region to establish better communication among the aid agencies as well as to connect cyclone survivors with their relatives outside the country under the coordination of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

"Normally, we provide assistance to people to contact their relatives both inside and outside the country," said Lanne-Petit.

But the six-member TSF team had to go back to their base after fifteen days unable to assess the extent of damage caused on telecommunication by the cyclone in the delta region.

"It was very important for us to go there and establish communication because it is important for all aid agencies to have communication lines functioning," Lanne-Petit added.

In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis lashing Burma's southwest coastal region on May 2 and 3, all communication lines including telephones lines were down along with houses and huts.

For several days information on the extent of devastation was unknown to the outside world, as the communication lines including roads and water ways were severely hit by the cyclone.

Laksmita Noviera, spokesperson of the United Nations Coordination office in Rangoon said, communication support is among the most urgent needs in relief efforts being carried out in the cyclone hit areas.

"Telecommunication facilities are needed to support our relief efforts on the ground," said Noviera.

She added that there are on going difficulties in communicating between the sub-office and central or head office in Rangoon to request for more help for the people on the ground.

However, she said the relief efforts are being carried out even in the current circumstances.

"So far there is no major significant concern from our aid workers on that but of course if there is more support that will be better," Noviera added.

Telecoms Sans Frontieres was founded in 1998 and has offices in France, Nicaragua and Thailand. It became an official partner of the United Nations in 2006.

BANGKOK - A Myanmar editor has been arrested and his magazine closed after he travelled to the cyclone-hit Irrawaddy Delta to help bury people killed in the storm, media rights watchdogs said Thursday.

Aung Kyaw San, editor of the Myanmar Tribune, was arrested on June 15 along with 16 other people who had volunteered to help bury the cyclone dead, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association said in a statement.

His group of volunteers had buried more than 400 bodies, following Red Cross procedures, but were arrested as they returned to the main city of Yangon to collect more burial sacks, the groups said.

Five of them, including Aung Kyaw San, are being held in the notorious Insein Prison north of Yangon, the statement added.

"It is now essential to get the junta to stop preventing civil society, including the press, from participating in the relief effort," the groups said.

At least 10 journalists and a blogger are now detained in Myanmar, they added.

More than 138,000 people are dead or missing after Cyclone Nargis hit the country nearly eight weeks ago. The United Nations estimates 2.4 million people need humanitarian aid.

In a report released Wednesday, experts from the UN and Southeast Asia said that only 45 percent of survivors are receiving humanitarian aid, leaving most to fend for themselves or seek help from local donors.

Wai Moe

More than 20 Burmese journalists were banned from a press conference organized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Rangoon on Tuesday.

Rangoon-based journalists told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that Burmese journalists including correspondents with international news agencies were not allowed to attend a press conference on the Cyclone Nargis disaster that was hosted by Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan.

It was unclear if the ban was the result of a decision by Asean officials or Burmese government officials. An Asean official told the Burmese journalists to get permission from the Burmese Ministry of Information.

Although Burmese journalists were prevented from attending the press conference, four news organizations from Asean countries—Channel News Asia of Singapore, Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama), Indonesia's Kompas newspaper and The Straits  Times of Singapore—were allowed to cover the event, said Rangoon journalists. The four agencies had non-Burmese correspondents.

The press conference, held at the Chatrium Hotel on Rangoon's Natmauk Road, followed a meeting of the Asean Roundtable with the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment for Response, Recovery and Reconstruction team (PONJA). The PONJA group is made up of UN, Asean and Burmese representatives.

"The roundtable [meeting] started at 9 am on Tuesday. When Burmese journalists asked to cover the roundtable, officials there told them the press conference was at 6 pm," said a Burmese journalist who is a correspondent for an international news agency.

"When it was time, [Burmese] journalists returned. But officials told us to leave, but the four news agencies from Asean countries were allowed to attend the press conference."

Rangoon journalists said a woman who said she was Surin's secretary told them only reporters invited by officials could attend the press conference.

The Singapore ambassador to Burma, Robert H K Chua, and Daniel Baker, a UN official, met with a group of Burmese journalists in a separate room in the hotel and discussed the Asean Roundtable briefing.

"It was like a separate press conference for the kicked-out journalists, but not with the secretary-general of Asean," said a Burmese reporter for a Rangoon journal. "I feel it was discrimination between Burmese journalists and media personnel from Asean countries by Surin Pitsuwan."

Surin has strongly advocated greater press freedom and freedom of speech throughout Asean countries. "We can help people understand the importance of human rights, and we should," he said in January.

On June 18, he urged the Thai press to pay more attention to transnational issues that affect Asean citizens and to help promote press freedom and professionalism in Southeast Asia, according to The Nation newspaper in Bangkok.

Debbie Stothard of the Alternative Asean Network (Altsean) said that [the treatment of local journalists] is a serious issue and a challenge for Asean.

"The secretary-general is trying to be relevant," she said. "But it [Asean] has to follow that principle. They make a general principle, and then when they arrived in Rangoon, they forgot the principle. They undermined their own credibility."

At the Asean Roundtable press conference, Surin said the basic needs of the cyclone refugees are being met, but there is a need for more humanitarian work to sustain a medium and long-term recovery, according to the Asean Web site.

Stothard said Asean is trying to build "a relationship" between the military junta and the international community.

Asean must be mindful of the needs of the Burmese people and not just helping the military junta during the humanitarian crisis, she said.

According to an interim report released by the PONJA team, only 45 percent of survivors are getting food from international aid agencies.

"The international community, including the United Nations, has succeeded in persuading the military government to open the country to humanitarian aid," the two organisations said. "It is now essential to get the junta to stop preventing civil society, including the press, from participating in the relief effort."

They added: "By preventing journalists from working, the junta is trying to make people forget its disastrous management of the crisis. It has partially succeeded, as international public opinion has lost interest in the fate of the hundreds of thousands of Burmese who were hit by the cyclone because of the lack of TV footage and news reports."

Myanmar Tribune editor Aung Kyaw San has been arrested and his magazine closed because of his humanitarian work in cyclone-hit areas. He was arrested on 15 June along with sixteen other people for burying the bodies of victims near Bogale. According to friends, this team of volunteers buried more than 400 bodies in accordance with Red Cross procedures.

They were arrested while returning to Rangoon to pick up new sacks for burying victims. Five of them, including Aung Kyaw San, are still being held in Insein prison. Journalist Zaw Thet Htwe and a blogger known as Zarganar are also being held for helping Cyclone Nargis victims. Zarganar was arrested after giving an interview to a BBC reporter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-txhu7N8A58).

Ma Ein Khine Oo, a 23-year-old journalist working for Ecovision Journal, was arrested on 10 June while covering a demonstration by cyclone victims outside the UNDP compound in Rangoon. She is still being held at the Tamwe police station pending trial. She was charged today under article 505 (b), which makes "comments that mislead the public" punishable by  imprisonment.

At least 10 journalists and a blogger are currently detained in Burma - three of them for providing assistance to cyclone victims.

South Korean journalist Lee Yu Kyong was deported on 22 June after going to the headquarters of the National League for Democracy, the opposition  party led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Lee told the Burmese exile website Mizzima that police officers came to her hotel and told her she had to leave the country at once. The police confiscated CDs containing photos of cyclone-hit areas. Officials at the airport stamped "Deported" in her passport.

Nem Davies

A reporter of a Rangoon-based weekly journal—'Ecovision', has been charged with 'committing crimes against public tranquility' and 'inciting hatred against the government'.

Ma Eint Khaing Oo, of Ecovision was produced before the Tamwe Township Court in Rangoon Division for the first time today and charged under Section 505(b) and 124(a) of the Criminal Code.

"She was brought from Tamwe police station, produced before the Court and charged her under section 505(b) and 124(a) of the Criminal Code. After which, she was taken back to Insein prison in the evening," her relative who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal by the authority told Mizzima after visiting her in Court today.

Eint Khaing Oo, a law graduate was employed by the Rangoon-based weekly journal only two months ago. She was arrested, while she was covering the plight of the cyclone victims, who had approached Rangoon-based INGOs for more aid. Initially, she was kept in police custody at Tamwe police station and then produced before the Court. Her family is still looking for a lawyer to defend her.

Two teams of foreign aid workers dedicated to delivering emergency telecoms in disaster areas have been forced to leave cyclone-hit Burma.

The members of Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF) left the country after attempts to reach affected areas were blocked.

The charity, which described the situation as "unprecedented", said it had no other choice but to leave.

TSF finally reached Burma on 1 June after waiting nearly a month to be granted visas to enter the country.

"The frustration is that we were allowed into the country but not allowed to deploy," TSF spokesman Oisin Walton told BBC News.

Many international charities were allowed into Burma following a visit to the area by UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon.

But repeated attempts to get the necessary authorisation to visit affected areas such as the Irrawaddy Delta, were met with a wall of silence.

"We got no reply at all," said Mr Walton.

Time lags

TSF is a specialist agency which works with the UN to provide communication support to aid agencies and local people. Its presence was requested by UNICEF following Cyclone Nargis

But despite being granted visas to enter the country - one month after the event - the teams were held in Rangoon.

In the meantime other charities were given the go ahead to deploy to the worst affected regions.

Mr Walton believes that TSF was blocked because of the nature of its work.

"They obviously didn't want us in the affected areas with telecommunications equipment," said Mr Walton.

Some charities have had communications equipment held at the border, he said.

"Aid agencies are doing a wonderful job but the government is not helping," he said.

Had the charity reached the disaster, teams would have set up communications centres for other charities and organisations.

These contain all the telecoms and IT equipment found in a normal office - including printers, scanners, laptops and phones - housed in a tent or temporary shelter.

Connections are made via satellite links.

In addition, it offers "welfare" calls to affected people, allowing them to make contact with friends and family.

The charity has a commitment to the UN to deploy within 48 hours but is generally in the field within just 24 hours.

Phanida

Chiang Mai – Famous poet Ko Saw Wai, who had jeered at ageing SPDC Chairman Snr. Gen.Than Shwe calling him 'power crazy' was remanded for the third time by the Bahan Township court yesterday.

His poem 'February 14' disguised as a 'St. Valentine's Day poem' had appeared in January this year in the Rangoon-based weekly journal 'Ah Chit' (Love). The sentence 'power crazy Senior General Than Shwe' appeared when the first word of each stanza in his poem was pieced together.

This information circulated among the people and finally the authorities got to hear of it. Then the government, which is over-sensitive regarding any criticism, arrested the poet immediately.

The prosecutor charged him in court under section 505(b) of the Criminal Code which says 'with intent to cause harm to any section of the public to commit an offence against the State or against the public tranquility'. Although the government allowed him a lawyer to defend him, the court delayed permission for his lawyer to appear and defend him in court, until today.

"Ko Saw Wai has been produced before the court three times, the last time was yesterday. The court has examined two witnesses, one from the Censor Board and another from the 'Love' weekly journal. His lawyer could not represent him as the court delayed granting him a defence lawyer to represent Ko Saw Wai's case. Ko Saw Wai had to represent himself in his case," his wife Daw Nan San San Aye, who visited the court, told Mizzima.

Eint Khaing Oo, 24, a journalist with the weekly journal "Ecovision", was arrested on 10 June 2008 as she covered the story of cyclone victims approaching NGOs for aid, according to an executive from the journal who wished not to be named. A group of cyclone victims, mostly from South Dagon Township, were on their way to seek aid from Rangoon-based international NGOs. Some were arrested on their way; some were reportedly released a few days later. News of the journalist's arrest emerged only on 24 June.

According to sources in the former capital, Eint Khaing Oo was arrested in front of the UNDP office at Natmauk Road, in Tamwe Township. She is now in custody at the Tamwe police station and was expected to be brought before the Tamwe Township Court on 25 June.

The police accuse her of taking photographs of cyclone victims with the intention of selling these to foreign-based Burmese media organizations, according to sources from her workplace.

"The police accusation is fabricated. She has no contact with foreign media and she had no intention of selling the pictures. She was arrested while she was performing her work as a journalist," a senior executive of "Ecovision" said.

"She joined our weekly journal only two months ago. She was very energetic and active. Like other journalists, she wanted to get a scoop and couldn't envisage danger," he added.

The 48-page "Ecovision" was first published in tabloid format in September 2006. Initially, it covered mainly economic issues. However, the journal evolved into a magazine-style publication and came to cover not only business but also domestic and international news, and to carry the occasional health and opinion article.

The Myanmar embassy refused to admit a group of about 10 protesters, including the sister of Kenji Nagai, who was killed in September while filming a crackdown by Myanmar's junta on demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

"I am disappointed to see this insincere attitude after we came here to bring the voices of many people who offered us support," said Nagai's sister Noriko Ogawa, 48, who was holding a photograph of the late journalist.

Television footage showed Nagai apparently being shot at close range by security forces, although nobody has been charged in relation to his death.

"Mr Nagai's videotape must show facts about the unrest in Myanmar that everyone has the right to watch," said Ryosai Kishino, one of the protesters.

"We also demand the Myanmar government conduct a sincere investigation into the case," he said.

The protesters were forced to drop some of the signatures in a post box and slip the rest under the embassy gate after trying in vain to persuade officials to take them.

Some 10,000 signatures were already submitted last year, organisers said.

"We made a telephone call and sent a fax to you yesterday about this. Please bring someone here who is responsible for the matter," Kishino said at the embassy gate.

Nem Davies

New Delhi - A woman journalist covering Cyclone Nargis victims asking for aid from international NGOs in Rangoon has been detained by for over two weeks, according to her publication.

Eint Khin Oo (24) from 'Ecovision' weekly journal was arrested on 10 June while she was covering cyclone victims going to INGOs and asking for aid, an official from 'Ecovision' who wished not to be named said.

Eint Khin Oo joined the publication two months ago. She is in custody at Tamwe police station and will be produced before the Tamwe Township court on Wednesday.

The police accused her of taking photographs of cyclone victims with the intention of selling these to foreign based Burmese media organizations, according to her office.

"The police accusation is fabricated. She has no contact with foreign media and she had no intention of selling the pictures. She was arrested while she was performing her work as a journalist," a senior official of Ecovision said.

"She was inducted to our weekly journal only two months ago. She was very energetic and active. Like other journalists, she wanted to get a scoop and couldn't envisage danger," he added.

The 48-page 'Ecovision' was first brought out in a tabloid format on September 2006. It covered mainly economic

issues initially. However, the journal changed to a magazine style layout and covered not only business reports but also domestic and international news. Health and opinion articles also appeared.

A group of cyclone victims, mostly from South Dagon Township, were about to ask for aid from Rangoon based international NGOs, but some victims were arrested on their way. But the news of the arrest of the journalist appeared only today.

According to journalist sources in the former capital, Eint Khin Oo was arrested in front of the UNDP office at Natmauk Road, Tamwe Township.

Nargis cyclone lashed Burma on May 2 and 3. Irrawaddy and Rangoon divisions were the worst hit.

Burma's Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu told reporters on 23 June that the updated official figure was now 84,537 people killed and 53,836 missing.

On June 10, about 30 cyclone victims, mostly from a Rangoon suburb South Dagon township were looking for aid from NGOs including the UNDP. Refugees claimed that little aid reached from the government.

Zarni

Bangkok – A Korean journalist was deported from Burma by the ruling military junta on Sunday for visiting the office of opposition political party – the National League for Democracy.

Ms. Lee Yu Kyong, a freelance journalist from Korea, was expelled to Thailand after police searched for her at a guest house on Sunday morning for visiting the NLD office.

She was staying in Okinawa Guest Hose in 32nd Street in Kyauktadar Township in downtown Rangoon from since June 16.

"At about 7 am [Sunday], five guys from [police] Special Branch arrived. They asked me, 'where I was on the 18th and 19th'," said Lee.

"[They] said you came here on a tourist visa. So it's illegal. And you shouldn't have gone there with a tourist visa," Lee quoted the Burmese officers as saying.

She insisted on meeting officers in the Korean embassy but the police officers said, "No, you just have to leave this country," and an officer arranged the air-ticket for her in the Thai Airways that left Burma at 10 am on Sunday.

However, Lee was able to contact the counselor of the Korean embassy in Rangoon before leaving the country.

The Burmese officers took away four CDs that had pictures of the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis from her bag but her laptop and cameras were untouched.

Lee said, the police team that included a plainclothes officer from the Special Branch, three others and one in a police uniform did not offer any reason for asking her to leave the country.

"He [the officer] just repeated that I shouldn't have gone to the NLD office. He did not give me any reason or notice or an explanation," said Lee.

The Korean counselor later told her that the Burmese officers had assumed that she was trying to meet detained NLD leader Daw Aung San Su Kyi.

"I was [later] taken to the immigration office at the airport and on my passport they stamped "Deportee" and a big star. And the special branch guy, took a lot of photographs of me from various directions," Lee said.

Lee had tried to get an entry visa into Burma soon after Cyclone Nargis lashed Burma but could not get permission as she applied with her old passport that had journalistic visas to many countries she had visited.

Finally, she was able to get a new passport and was given permission to enter Burma as a tourist.

She was trying to go to the Irrawaddy delta, which was the worst affected to cover the devastation by the killer cyclone.

Lee said she had gone to the NLD office in Bahan Township in Rangoon on June 18 to get information regarding cyclone victims.  And on June 19, she attended the birthday celebration of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and witnessed the arrest of several members of the NLD.

"I took some photographs of the incident and may be they [authorities] noticed me at that time," Lee said.

Burma's military junta for the second time has deported foreign journalists from the country since Cyclone Nargis struck.

Earlier in May, a British Broadcasting Corporation reporter was deported from the Rangoon international airport when the journalist tried to enter the country.

Yet another solitary birthday for Aung San Suu Kyi; Yet another stain on world conscience

Aung San Suu Kyi is today celebrating her 63rd birthday alone, without a phone call, visit, or letter.

It will be her 4,618th day under house arrest.

Her crimes: being democratically elected by the Burmese people, and wanting for her people to be free from fear and free from want.

One year ago, on the same sad occasion, I had asked why and how have we, the world community, failed so miserably to bring an end to the dictatorship and restore human rights protection in Burma.

I thought then that we could not really witness further indifference, complicity, or lethargy, all of which had allowed the regime to continue its oppression of the people of Burma and the unrelenting detention of Aung San Suu Kyi. I was wrong.

Then came these last 12 months, when our powerlessness, coupled with the complicity of some - too many - resulted in countless sufferings and countless deaths.

In September 2007, the Burmese military authorities, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), violently cracked down on popular unrest, killing possibly hundreds of protesters, including Buddhist monks, arrested thousands, imprisoned democracy activists, journalists, bloggers and artists, and further tightened the flow of information to and from the country.

Repression continued throughout the following months, in spite of various international attempts to promote democracy and "dialogue".

In May 2008, as if the people had not been battered enough by repression and poverty, a devastating cyclone hit the country, resulting in the estimated death of at least 100,000 people. Many more have seen their homes and livelihoods destroyed. Yet Myanmar's military government provided little assistance to the estimated 2.4 million survivors of the cyclone. It rejected international assistance for several weeks, blocked access to the Ayeyarwady delta at the time when survivors most needed emergency relief, and imposed an information black-out.

For the last two months, the authorities have sought to maintain the cloak of secrecy and fear over the country at all cost. How many people will have died or are yet to die as a result of the Burmese authorities' criminal obstruction of aid and deliberate censorship and concealment of the extent of the deaths, wounded, damages, displacements, and sufferings?

In the midst of this cruel disaster and cruel "response", Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest was further extended by 6 months. We all have in memory her photo, back in March of this year, a tiny person standing by UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari. She looked like the ghost of her old self - painfully thin, sad, seemingly emptied and broken - maybe the true reflection of her country and her people, after years of "country" arrest, and decades of solitary confinement from democracy.

Yes, the Burmese authorities, should, one day, account for their criminal treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi, all democracy activists, ethnic minorities and the people of Burma.

But what about our response to their sufferings? How will we ever be accountable to the countless victims in Burma, for our complicity, or our indifference, or indeed our presumed powerlessness?

We are all made the lesser by Aung San Suu Kyi's continued detention and by the continued denial of freedom to the people of Burma.

The continued repression in Burma is a stain on the world's conscience. It has sullied us all.

Nam Davies

New Delhi – The 'Myanmar Tribune' journal chief editor Aung Kyaw San and at least six of his colleagues who had buried cyclone victims in devastated areas were arrested on June 14 by the authorities.

The volunteer grave diggers of 'Myanmar Tribune', CEO Aung Kyaw San (45) and six of his colleagues buried the remains of a number of cyclone victims in Bogale Township, Irrawaddy Division. They were detained last Saturday.

"Aung Kyaw San has not yet been released. We heard that he was arrested in Bogale but is now transferred to Rangoon. His wife is worrying about him since she does not know his whereabouts. She is asking many people about her husband unaware where he has been kept," a person close to the family said.

"He made frequent visits to Bogale. He made about three trips. He was arrested during his last visit. We heard that his colleagues arrested along with him were released yesterday," he added.

Though the reason behind the arrest is not known, literary and journalist circles criticized the authorities for hindering relief operations by volunteers, questioning and arresting volunteers.

"It's good to see the volunteers helping cyclone victims where the authorities have not done much. They are complementing the government's job on their own. Hindering and banning relief operations being conducted by the volunteers will worsen the suffering of cyclone victims," the editor of a weekly journal said.

LABUTTA, Myanmar  _ Bloggers may find their messages blocked by Myanmar's military regime, but that hasn't stopped blogger Nyi Lynn Seck from raising tens of thousands of dollars for cyclone survivors through his Web site.

The 29-year-old IT specialist and his friends are getting their hands dirty and putting the donations to work by helping to build ``Budget Huts'' in the Irrawaddy delta, a region still reeling from the May 2-3 killer storm.

Days after Cyclone Nargis hit, Nyi Lynn Seck traveled from Yangon to the delta to document the survivors' stories. He posted their accounts and his photographs on his Web journal.

``I have been blogging for quite a long time and many overseas Myanmar citizens read it. They wanted me to go to the delta and help out,'' he said.

Nyi Lynn Seck quit his job as a manager at a software solutions company to lead six volunteers, including four other bloggers, on a mission to aid villages around Labutta. They have been here since May 9.

He is just one example of a grass-roots movement that has emerged in Myanmar. Many of those doing private relief work are highly critical of the government effort that followed the storm.

Private efforts have filled a lot of gaps in the relief effort, especially in the early weeks after the storm, when the junta turned back most foreign relief workers. After pleas from the U.N., the junta agreed to international aid, but it still limits foreigners' activities.

Nyi Lynn Seck said most of the US$30,000 received by the group came from Myanmar expatriates in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, but that money had come in from as far away as Europe.

Myanmar's military government, which strictly controls all media including the Internet, blocks most blogging sites. However, they are sometimes accessible by using a server that masks the site's true origin.

Bloggers played a major role in ensuring the free flow of information during anti-government protests in Myanmar last fall and the violent crackdown that followed. At least one blogger, Nay Phone Latt, remains in prison.

Nyi Lynn Seck's blog has in the past included personal observations, advice for would-be bloggers and news items. It has not been seen as anti-government.