Three men who tried to promote their bar on Facebook by uploading a fun picture of a Buddha wearing headphones get to spend the next two-and-a-half years locked in a Burmese prison, all thanks to their marketing plan.

According to governmental officials, "about 50 people" are believed to have died after a crowded ferry capsized off the western coast of Myanmar Friday night. AFP News reports that the bodies of four men and 29 women have been recovered so far, with at least 12 people still missing.

Yes: 22, to be exact. But now that the military dictatorship is "liberalizing," they're coming back, baby! Their de-facto leader is a young U.S.-educated entrepreneur named Sammy Samuels:

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and icon of resistance against Burma's brutal military dictatorship, was a "V.I.P. guest" of her former captors at a military parade yesterday held in honor of the country's Armed Forces Day—marking the latest in what the Times calls a "fledgling partnership" between Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta that once kept her under house arrest for more than two decades. Her openness to work with the country's president, former general U Sein Thein, may be a shrewd political calculation that recognizes the military's continued hold on power even as the country slowly moves toward democracy, but it leaves many of her former allies troubled, and may end up neutralizing her: "[S]he is essentially making herself irrelevant," Burmese politics expert Josef Silverstein says. Worse, she has largely remained silent as the plight of Burma's ethnic minority Rohingya Muslims worsens. The rise of the 969 group, which exiled dissident Dr. Muang Zarni describes as a "neo-Nazi ‘Buddhist' nationalist movement" has led to brutal violence, genocidal in its intent, against the Rohingya—largely poorer, darker-skinned, and unrecognized by by the state—creating a human rights crisis in the face of which Aung San Suu Kyi's reaction is disappointing at best and infuriating at worst. "When asked if the Rohingyas are Burmese citizens, Aung San Suu Kyi, the moral exemplar of the pro-democracy movement, simply said that she did not know," Min Zin writes at Foreign Policy. "Aung San Suu Kyi has even said that she will refrain from applying any kind of 'moral leadership' by taking sides in the communal unrest. In this respect, her actions reveal quite a bit of continuity with the ruling military." [NYT | Vice | Guardian | FP | image via AFP/Getty]

The Heritage Foundation has released its annual list of the world's freest economies and, wouldn't you know it, the Asia-Pacific region is number one. Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand are all on top while the world's largest economy, America's, barely cracks the top ten.

Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was in Washington today to receive the Congressional Gold Medal she was awarded four years ago will still under house arrest.

President Obama announced from Bali on Friday that he's sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the human rights disaster zone known as Myanmar, aka Burma, saying, "After years of darkness we've seen flickers of progress." It will be the first such visit to the country, which has long isolated itself from diplomacy, in over 50 years.

Burmese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi—under house arrest for over seven years—was freed today, five days after the country's military junta held parliamentary elections. "We must unite!" she told supporters outside her home.

Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is due to be released after spending most of the last two decades under house arrest.

Scientists have found a new species of monkey in northeast Burma, which they have named the Burmese snub-nosed (Rhinopithecus strykeri). Local hunters provided them with skulls and skin, leading to the find. Scientists estimate the population numbers 260-330 monkeys.

A rare white elephant was captured in the jungles of Myanmar and has been transported to the capital, where the 38-year-old animal will live out its days caged in front of a temple. The country's military leadership named her Bhaddavati.

Kim Kardashian, some sort of reality TV star, would like to talk to you about the plight of the Burmese. Also, more importantly, she'd like you to look at her butt.