Burma

3 August 2007

Burma bans foreign language ads after Danish insert in newspaper calls junta leader a killer

Burma’s Press Scrutiny and Registration Board has prohibited non government newspapers and magazines in the country from carrying advertisements in all foreign languages except English. The ban comes in the aftermath of English-language Myanmar Times carrying an advertisement by a Denmark-based satirical art group with a hidden message calling the country's top military ruler Gen Than Shwe a...

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19 July 2007

Burma: Press kept away from National Convention

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the government’s decision to obstruct foreign and Burmese press coverage of a national convention that has the job of writing a new constitution. No foreign journalist has been given a visa, while Burmese journalists were granted only very limited access to yesterday’s opening session. “This convention is in fact an institutional sham, and the military...

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17 July 2007

Burma: Junta restricts media coverage of convention on new charter

(Mizzima/IFEX) - The Burmese junta has imposed restrictions on media coverage of the National Convention on the drafting of the constitution, to be held on 18 July 2007. Burma has been without a constitution since 1988, when its 1974 charter was suspended following a coup led by a new junta regime. In invitation letters to local media and foreign news agencies in Rangoon, the convening committee...

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3 July 2007

Strict censorship norms choking private print media in Burma

The private print media in Burma is outpacing its public counterpart and registering enormous growth. Yet, instead of encouraging cooperation in the business of informing and entertaining news-thirsty readers, the government is practically choking these independent outlets, says a Mizzima News report. There are unwritten rules that have been practised by the junta since the 1962 coup that ended...

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23 May 2007

Two journalists working for Japanese TV arrested near Rangoon

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association called today for the immediate release of U Aung Shwe Oo and Daw Sint Sint Aung, two Burmese journalists working for the Japanese television news agency, Nippon News Network (NNN), who were arrested on 21 May when they went to a port near Rangoon to confirm the arrival of a North Korean ship. "The arrest of these two Burmese journalists...

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5 May 2007

Free Media Pioneer for Burmese news agency

Mizzima News Agency has been awarded the 2007 Free Media Pioneer Award by the International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists. Managing Editor Sein Win will receive the prize on behalf of Mizzima at an award ceremony on May 15 during the IPI World Congress in Istanbul, Turkey (May 12-15, 2007). Mizzima News was founded in August 1998 by...

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