Myanmar keeps bar on Suu Kyi's presidency bid

Myanmar's ruling party yesterday released a draft bill on changes to its junta-era constitution that could end an effective army veto on charter amendments, but still bars opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency.

Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party is expected to sweep landmark elections, slated for November, but she is barred from the top job under a constitutional provision excluding those with a foreign spouse or children from the presidency.

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The long-awaited draft bill published in state newspaper The Mirror yesterday kept this provision under clause 59f but, in a slight relaxation, it no longer applies the ban to those whose Myanmar national children have married foreigners.

Suu Kyi's late husband and two sons are British.

Kokang rebels declare ceasefire

An ethnic Chinese rebel group that has been battling the Myanmar military on the border with China has announced a unilateral ceasefire, the group said yesterday, after coming under pressure from Beijing to end four months of intense fighting.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), which is led by ethnic Chinese commander Peng Jiasheng, said in a statement that the ceasefire began on Wednesday.

"The Chinese government's strong calls for restoring peace in the China-Myanmar border region," was one of the reasons for the decision, the statement said. The statement was authenticated by MNDAA spokesman Tun Myint Naing.

The MNDAA was formed from remnants of the Communist Party of Burma, a powerful China-backed guerrilla force that battled the Myanmar government until it splintered in 1989.