TIME has been trying to get a clear view of the political situation in Burma. A local correspondent in Rangoon last week rang the bell* with the following summary of the situation:"Private ...

“By the old Moulmein pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea/There’s a Burma girl a-settin,’ and I know she thinks o’ me.,” go the opening ... the other options being a rickety train ride or ...

VOA's Daniel Schearf Recently visited Burma during U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to the country. While there he took this photographs of Rangoon's Shwedegon Pagoda.

We worked from south northwards, H and F force worked from north southwards. 415km due to meet at 3 Pagoda Pass. There were 60,000 Brits, Aussies and Dutch working of which, 22,000 approximately died.

The view from the pagoda-topped hill above is also much as Rudyard Kipling saw it in 1889 when he came here and wrote his ballad Mandalay, which opens with the lines: “By the old Moulmein Pagoda ...

The pagoda was well-established by the time Bagan dominated Burma in the 11th century. Queen Shinsawpu (1453-1472) is still reveled for giving the pagoda its present shape and form.

Burma is planning to restore a stretch of the infamous Thai-Burma rail line, known as the Death Railway, which was initially built by Japanese-held prisoners of war during World War II.

"By the old Moulmein pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea/There's a Burma girl a-settin,' and I know she thinks o' me.," go the opening lines of "Mandalay," verses imbued with nostalgia for the wind ...

Burma's story has not always been quite as unhappy as recent history suggests. When in 1957 Frank Sinatra recorded "On the Road to Mandalay", his version of Rudyard Kipling's popular poem, the old ...