U Win Tin, NLD's venerated and aging chief strategist and for a while, Burma's longest serving political detainee, undergoes heart surgery, according to the Democratic Voice of Burma.
(We will return to this later and explain why this is seismic).

John Yettaw stumbles to hospital in Bangkok days before he was due to begin his seven-year sentence of hard labor after a deux ex machina in the form of US Sen. Webb swooped in to release him, singlehandedly unleashing a global tempest here, here, here, here, here, or here vs. here about the relative merits of Western sanctions and whether Webb's lone dog mission should or could signal a change in US policy toward Burma. All of which more or less bring us full circle back to that thoughtful Foreign Affairs piece from Nov/Dec 2007 in post below.

Also much ink now pouring forth from Webb's statements, based on his short meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, on how sanctions might have allowed the blossoming of love between Burma and China.
[For a worm's eye vision of such, start out at Mandalay University, cycle or moped through surrounding grid of streets, be careful not to topple over in stampede of mopeds headed at you from directions as part of unhinged local traffic rules that involve telepathy and serious lack of red lights, or -- this being my main illustrative point -- because you inadvertently keep catching your gloriously sunburned reflection in the mirrored windows of Chinese-designed McMansions, complete with their blue lego-land rooftops. At this point, if you're alive, you have in fact stumbled on the square lot of vast empty villas belonging to a handful of generals (in a section of town that aptly translates to the "Generals' Village"). Actually, you probably shouldn't be cycling here. Hire a cabbie, and drive at sluggishly calm pace through backstreets that appears to be empty because all its inhabitants have been forced to relocate to the soulless weird-scape of Naypyidaw several hours drive away. The villas have changed hands repeatedly between wealthy Chinese merchants and wealthy Burmese high brass. Small secret to many a city resident.

As a friend put it to me there, it's not that the Burmese nurture widespread xenophobia to the ethnic Chinese in their midst, many of whom have been in the country for generations and have happily assimilated in a society that (sometimes, depending on which bit of society) prides itself on its rich ethnic diversity. But there's precious little room for nascent Burmese entrepreuneurship if the junta keeps cutting deals with savvier Chinese construction companies. And thus many a Mandalay businessman express bitterness about the flood of Chinese purveyors, monopolizing everything from, say, the gem trade in the city's Dickensian jade market to constructinon of colossal malls with names that smack of Sino-homesickness.
Although, in fairness, you can't fault the "Great Wall" supermart for its fabulous air conditioning.