Chinese President Xi Jinping has said China will never seek to impose its will on other nations, no matter how strong it becomes.  With this speech, China's president had one clear goal: sending a message of reassurance to China's neighbours and other nations further afield watching this nation's rise, who wonder what sort of great power it may turn out to be.

High street giant Gap is to become the first American retailer to source garments made in Myanmar, the US embassy in Yangon said, over a decade after sanctions against the former junta slashed the country's textile industry. 

New investments from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private-sector investment arm, may perpetuate economic inequality rather than alleviate poverty in Myanmar, critics here are warning.  The IFC has proposed five new investment projects for Myanmar (also known as Burma). But the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a rights group here, is calling on the multilateral funder to slow down these projects and analyse their potential social effects.

Myanmar has been opening up slowly since reforms began in 2010, but as constitutional changes gather momentum so the rate of overseas investment appears to be speeding up.

Myanmar, so the popular narrative goes, is a land of pro-democracy peasants bitterly shaking their fists at military overlords. But perhaps the narrative is mistaken. There is no shortage of reasons to despise the military of Myanmar, the troubled Southeast Asian state formerly titled Burma.

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power on Thursday urged the Myanmar government to intervene in Rakhine State to stop violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Silhouetted against the newly risen sun are fishermen in their wide-brimmed, conical hats. They paddle by twisting a leg around their oar and balancing on the end of elegant, hand-carved pirogues, creating a picture postcard of Myanmar, also known as Burma.