The European Union announced Monday it will send nearly 700 million euros in aid to Myanmar over the next seven years to boost the country's transition from army-led isolation to international player.

The announcement came after U.S. President Barack Obama added his voice last month to concerns that the transition is backsliding in certain areas, including press freedom and human rights.

Two Myanmar migrant workers on Monday pleaded not guilty to murdering a pair of British holidaymakers at a Thai diving resort, their lawyer told Agence France Presse.

Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun are on trial for the murder of 24-year-old David Miller and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on the island of Koh Tao in September.

Police have detained 17 people from Myanmar over a string of gruesome murders in a popular Malaysian tourist destination, and believe the killings are linked to ethnic unrest in their native country, reports said Friday.

Public anxiety has risen in Malaysia's historic state of Penang over the past few months as mutilated corpses or severed body parts have turned up -- with at least 18 mysterious and unexplained murders of Myanmar nationals.

Aung San Suu Kyi's party Wednesday said Myanmar is expected to hold high-level political talks within days aimed at amending a controversial junta-drafted constitution that bars the opposition leader from becoming president.

The summit -- the second and potentially most important meeting of top officials since the end of army rule -- was approved by parliament Tuesday as Myanmar debates charter change ahead of crucial 2015 elections.

The death toll from an explosion in a Malaysian coal mine manned by foreign workers including North Koreans has risen to four, police said Wednesday, while around two dozen others were injured, some with serious burns.

The accident took place on Saturday in Selantik, in the interior of Malaysia's rugged Sarawak state, which is located on Borneo island.

The United Nations on Monday voiced alarm at an upsurge of fighting in Myanmar's northern state of Kachin, as shelling was reported near civilian areas and rebels said clashes could spread.

There has been heavy fighting in Kachin, near the border with China, since the army's surprise artillery attack on a Kachin Independence Army (KIA) training camp last week, which cast doubt over faltering peace talks.

The United Nations adopted a resolution Friday urging Myanmar to grant citizenship to its Rohingya Muslim minority, ramping up pressure on Yangon to scrap a controversial identity plan.

The measure was adopted by consensus in the General Assembly's rights committee following some wrangling with countries from the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which had sought stronger language.

Myanmar's powerful army has admitted a heavy weapons strike in strife-torn northern Kachin state that rebels say killed over 20 people, government-backed media said Friday, as escalation of the fighting cast doubt over faltering peace talks.

The military said its artillery hit a Kachin Independence Army (KIA) training camp by accident in Wednesday's incident, which the KIA said was one of the biggest single attacks it had faced in recent years.

Ethnic minority Kachin rebels in the far north of Myanmar said 22 of their troops were killed in an army heavy artillery attack Wednesday, amid foundering efforts to reach a nationwide peace deal.

The barrage also injured 15 when it hit fighters at a training camp near the rebel stronghold town of Laiza, a spokesman for group said, in the largest attack in recent months in a conflict that has uprooted tens of thousands of people and tempered optimism over political reforms.

Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party admitted Wednesday it cannot win its fight to change a constitutional provision barring her from Myanmar's presidency, as the powerful military signaled strong opposition to such amendments.

In a fresh blow to democracy campaigners after authorities in the former junta-run nation ruled out major constitutional change before crucial 2015 elections, the party said it did not have the power to push through reforms in the face of an effective army veto.