Soldiers have been sent to northern Burma to protect an enormous jade boulder that could weigh up to 50 tons.

THE news from Burma these days is relentlessly positive.

Recent battles between Burmese government troops and Kachin ethnic rebels have killed 31 people, a state-run newspaper said, as the ongoing fighting threatens the country’s reform and reconciliation process.

Burma’s government has blamed ethnic Kachin rebels for starting a week of fighting along the country’s north eastern border with China.