Meiktila, Burma News

An assessment team talks to displaced people in Pauktaw camp in rural Rakhine, Myanmar, where more than 20,000 Rohingya live.

A Burmese Muslim man has been sentenced to 26 years in jail for an attack on a Buddhist woman that led to at least two days of violence in Shan State in May. After the attack, Buddhist youths armed with sticks roamed the streets in the town of Lashio in search of Muslims.

One of the biggest emerging market stories in 2012 was Myanmar. Sanctions were rolled back and outsiders finally had the opportunity to invest in the resource-rich nation.

Right-wing Buddhist: The Venerable Ashin Wirathu, who was jailed for nine years in 2003 for inciting anti-Muslim violence, is leader of Burma's so-called '969' campaign to boycott Islamic businesses and bring an end to inter-marriage with Buddhists The English Defence League might be the last place you would expect a devout Buddhist monk to turn ... (more)

The town of Lashio in Burma's northeastern Shan state has become the latest victim of anti-Muslim violence.

For the third time this year, anti-Muslim rioting has broken out in Myanmar, this time in the northeastern city of Lashio.

A resident watches as black smoke rises from burning houses in riot-hit Meiktila, Burma, on March 21.

Burma has embarked on political reforms after decades of dictatorship, but those changes coincide with a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence in a country where fewer than 6 million of its 60 million people are Muslim.

Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma's Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a 'Buddhist Bin Laden'. So what happened to the mantra of non-violence? Peter is a foreign correspondent and feature writer with The Independent who has done long stretches in Japan, India and Italy.

In March this year, the town of Meiktila in central Myanmar was engulfed in deadly sectarian violence that destroyed whole blocks of housing, shops and mosques.

Six Muslim men have been jailed for their role in religious clashes in the Burmese town of Meiktila in March.

Myanmar on Tuesday sentenced seven people to prison terms ranging from two to 28 years in connection with religious violence in March that left dozens of people dead, a justice official said.