A boat carrying almost 70 Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing sectarian tensions capsized Sunday off Myanmar's coast, police said, leaving dozens missing in treacherous seas.

The boat was believed to be taking the Rohingya from Myanmar's western state of Rakhine to Malaysia, where thousands of members of the Muslim minority have sought sanctuary since violent clashes with Buddhists erupted last year.

Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with a particularly high rate of blindness. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks in part to an "assembly line" surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions.

Nepalese surgeon Sandut Ruit, who helped pioneer the technique, oversaw nearly 1,300 operations at two massive eye camps in 10 days in October, with dozens of local ophthalmologists looking on and helping.

Ethnic minority Kachin leaders in Myanmar's war-torn far north on Thursday hailed a government decision to allow them to form a political party as a step towards finding elusive peace.

The former junta barred several Kachin parties from taking part in controversial polls in 2010, denying the ethnic group any genuine representation in what was the country's first election in two decades.

Pope Francis called for inter-religious dialogue in Myanmar on Monday at an audience for Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in which the two also discussed her long campaign for democracy.

Francis "expressed his appreciation for the opposition leader's non-violent engagement in the cause of peace and democracy" during the meeting, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

The United Nations has expressed serious concern for hundreds of Myanmar civilians, many of them children, trapped in a conflict zone in northern Kachin state amid renewed clashes between the army and rebels.

It said over a thousand displaced people are thought to be running short of food after being caught in a new bout of fighting between troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Mansi township in recent days, despite ongoing ceasefire negotiations.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday he would help build international pressure on Myanmar to meet the demands of visiting opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for further reforms.

Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi says that changes to the constitution crafted by the former military regime are needed, notably those that would block her from becoming president after 2015 under a clause barring anyone whose spouses or children are foreign nationals.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday finally received the EU's Sakharov rights prize she won in 1990 at the height of a brutal military crackdown, but said her work was not yet done.

Members of the European Parliament gave Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi a standing ovation as she accepted the award from the parliament's president Martin Schulz.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday urged European Union and world leaders to pile pressure on her country's government to complete its reform process.

The Nobel peace laureate told a small group of journalists that the country's democratic future as well as an end to its continuing ethnic conflict depended on quick and sweeping amendments to the constitution.

Three bombs exploded in eastern Myanmar leaving one person dead, police said Thursday, the latest in a series of explosions that the United States denounced as "acts of terror".

"There have been three bomb blasts," a police official told Agence France Presse, adding that the victim was a municipal worker in Namkham in restive eastern Shan state near the Chinese border.

Western governments have warned travelers to exercise extreme caution in Myanmar after a series of minor bomb blasts, including one at an upmarket hotel that injured an American woman.

Britain, France, the United States and Australia all urged their nationals to be vigilant, although they stopped short of advising against travel to the former junta-ruled country.