"Soon after the fall of Ava, a new dynasty rose in Shwebo to challenge the authority of Hanthawaddy."

"Over the next 70 years, the highly militaristic Konbaung dynasty went on to create the largest Burmese empire, second only to the empire of Bayinnaung."

Empires and dynasties galore in the history of Burma, our "History of" country today.

"I’m proud to be the first American president to visit this spectacular country..."

"... and I am very pleased that one of my first stops is to visit with an icon of democracy who has inspired so many people, not just in this country but all around the world."

ADDED: "Obama Repeatedly Mispronounces Aung San Suu Kyi."

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi...

... wins a seat in parliament in Myanmar.

"I feel like crying when I talk about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi... It felt so good to vote for her party — only Daw Aung San Suu Kyi can save us from deep poverty.”

"The basis of democratic freedom is freedom of speech... Democracy is when the people keep a government in check."

"Please do not give up hope. There is no reason to lose heart. Even if you are not political, politics will come to you."

"Those who hated India, those who sought to ruin it, would need to ruin Bombay."

Wrote Salman Rushdie wrote, in The Moor's Last Sigh, Christopher Hitchens tells us:

[H]e was alluding to the Hindu chauvinists who had tried to exert their own monopoly in the city and who had forcibly renamed it—after a Hindu goddess—Mumbai. We all now collude with this, in the same way that most newspapers and TV stations do the Burmese junta's work for it by using the fake name Myanmar. (Bombay's hospital and stock exchange, both targets of terrorists, are still called by their right name by most people, just as Bollywood retains its "B.")

Andrew Sullivan resolves to write "Bombay" from now on.

I'll change my "Mumbai" tag to "Bombay." (My "Burma" tag was always "Burma.")

ADDED: From Hitchens's book "God Is Not Great":

Bombay... used to be considered a pearl of the Orient, with its necklace of lights along the corniche and its magnificent British Raj architecture. It was one of India's most diverse and plural cities, and its many layers of texture have been cleverly explored by Salman Rushdie... and in the films of Mira Nair. It is true that there had been intercommunal fighting there, during the time in 1947-1948 when the grand historic movement for an Indian self-government was being ruined by Muslim demands for a separate state and by the fact that the Congress Party was led by a pious Hindu. But probably as many people took refuge in Bombay during that moment of religious bloodlust as were driven or fled from it. A form of cultural coexistence resumed, as often happens when cities are exposed to the sea and to influences from outside. Parsis -- former Zoroastrians who had been persecuted in Persia -- were a prominent minority, and the city was also host to a historically significant community of Jews. But that was not enough to content Mr. Bal Thackeray and his Shiv Sena Hindu nationalist movement, who in the 1990s decided that Bombay should be run by and for his coreligionists, and who loosed a tide of goons and thugs onto the streets. Just to show he could do it, he ordered the city renamed as "Mumbai"....

Burma's most famous comedian has received a 45-year prison sentence for...

... for what???

Zarganar was arrested with sports writer Zaw Thet Htwe in June after organising deliveries of aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis, which left 138,000 people dead or missing when it pulverised the country the previous month.

Does the U.N. have a duty to undertake a military intervention in Burma?

Matthew Lee explains the "responsibility to protect." Military intervention is the most extreme option, but there is a policy, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly that extends from the obligation to stop genocide.

ADDED: The Australian has an editorial "Tear Down Burma's Bamboo Curtain."

Can we justify invading Burma on humanitarian grounds?

A NYT op-ed from January 17, 1990.

22,500 dead. 41,000 more missing.

Cyclone Nargis. Myanmar.

Shaken by the scope of the disaster, the authorities said they would delay a vote in the worst affected areas on a new constitution that was meant to cement the military’s grip on power....

The postponement of the vote, a centerpiece of government policy, along with an appeal for foreign disaster relief assistance, were difficult concessions by an insular military junta that portrays itself as all-powerful and self-sufficient, analysts said....

The United States, which has led a drive for economic sanctions against Myanmar’s repressive regime, said it would also provide aid, but only if an American disaster team was invited into the country.

The policy was presented by the first lady, Laura Bush, , along with a lecture to the junta about human rights and disaster relief.

"This is a cheap shot," said Aung Nain Oo, a Burmese political analyst who is based in Thailand. "The people are dying. This is no time for a political message to be aired. This is a time for relief. No one is asking for anything like this except the United States."

Burma.

Not Myanmar.