Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird: Military Junta

Postmedia News Dept: Baird will be the first Canadian foreign minister to visit the southeast Asian nation. The trip will likely be officially announced Tuesday, according to Vancouver Sun. "We are visiting at a time when we're cautiously optimistic about recent changes," a source told Postmedia News. "While we're not at a point of lifting sanctions, we want to make sure advances made are not reversible." Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird will make a rare visit to Burma, one of Asia's most repressive and dictatorial regimes, amid signs the ruling military junta will allow more democratic freedoms in the country. In response to widespread human-rights abuses and military crackdowns against protesters, Canada imposed diplomatic and economic sanctions against Burma in 1988. These sanctions ban military exports to the country, hinder trade, and deny visas to senior members of the regime. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.