Free Burma Rangers

The Free Burma Rangers (FBR) are a mainly Christian pro-active, pro-democracy humanitarian group who work throughout Burma (also known as Myanmar) but concentrate primarily on the heavily forested border region, delivering emergency medical assistance to sick and injured internally displaced people, or IDP's; a consequence of the long running campaign of violence by the military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, against Burma's ethnic minorities.

FBR trains teams of men and women in frontline medical treatment and reconnaissance techniques. In addition to delivering humanitarian relief, a secondary role of the teams is to obtain evidence of military violence and human rights abuse. This information is then published in the form of online reports and / or released to larger international human rights groups, inter-governmental organisations such as the UN, and news agencies.

FBR is one of a number of grass roots organisations (see Mae Tao Clinic & Back Pack Health Worker Team ) which have emerged in response to the growing health needs of Burma’s persecuted ethnic underclass. FBR are not supported by either the Thai or Burmese authorities and their activity inside the Burmese border is clandestine.

Myanmar

Myanmar (myan-MARⁱ/miɑːnˈmɑːr/ mee-ahn-MAR,/miˈɛnmɑːr/ mee-EN-mar or /maɪˈænmɑːr/ my-AN-mar (also with the stress on first syllable); Burmese pronunciation: [mjəmà]), officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. One-third of Myanmar's total perimeter of 1,930 km (1,200 miles) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The country's 2014 census revealed a much lower population than expected, with 51 million people recorded. Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometres (261,227 sq mi) in size. Its capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city is Yangon (Rangoon).

Early civilisations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Burma. In the 9th century, the Bamar people entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Kingdom in the 1050s, the Burmese language, culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. The Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a brief period the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur and Assam as well. The British conquered Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the country became a British colony. Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a democratic nation and then, following a coup d'état in 1962, a military dictatorship. While the military dictatorship formally ended in 2011, most of the party leaders are former military officers.

Burma (film)

Burma is a 2014 Tamil crime thriller directed by DDharani Dharan and produced by Sudharshan Vembutty under the banner Square Stone Films. It features Michael Thangadurai and Reshmi Menon in the lead roles, while Sampath Raj, Atul Kulkarni, Karthik Sabesh and Madhu Raghuram play supporting roles. The music was scored by Sudharshan M Kumar, while cinematography and editing were handled by Yuva and Vivek Harshan. The film released on 12 September 2014.

Cast

Production

World War II postal acronyms

World War II postal acronyms were first used to convey messages between servicemen and their sweethearts back home. They were usually written on the back of the envelope.

The acronyms, possibly including some more recent additions, are: