YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar could get broad duty-free access to the U.S. market by year's end as the United States tries to deepen trade and military ties with the former military dictatorship. Acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis said Friday that the U.S. could waive import duties on thousands of goods from Myanmar, including agricultural products, handicrafts, and some garments, by the end of this year under a program designed to help poor countries. "It's a great opportunity for both sides," he said.

It is Aung San Suu Kyi's mantra for embedding democratic reform, but for many who endured Myanmar's authoritarian and deeply corrupt former junta the "rule of law" remains a distant hope. Flashpoint issues such as land grabbing have intensified fears that the country's anaemic legal structures are failing to protect the poor and vulnerable despite sweeping reforms.

A protest by villagers evicted from land near a Chinese-backed mine was violently quelled by police Thursday, activists said, in an echo of a crackdown at the flashpoint site last year. Farmers attempting to plough land seized to make way for the mine clashed with police protecting the site, according to Ba Htoo, an environmental activist speaking to AFP from the scene in Monywa, central Myanmar. "About 200 police asked the villagers -- who went to farmland in the copper mine area -- to stop... police said the area was restricted.

By Aung Hla Tun YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's president announced an amnesty on Tuesday for about 100 prisoners, a senior official said, 56 of whom were confirmed as political detainees by a group monitoring activists held in the country's jails. The release is the latest in a series of amnesties decided by reformist President Thein Sein and came a day after the European Union lifted all sanctions on Myanmar excluding an arms embargo.