Mr Ban said much more work needed to be done to achieve peace with ethnic minorities, particularly the Kachin people.

BBC: UN's Ban Ki-moon urges Burma to unite on path to change

Burmese president Thein Sein has previously promised that troops will not take the town, but our correspondent says Kachin people are reluctant to believe him.

BBC: Kachin rebels in Burma lose key hilltop

Villages were to be displaced and land flooded to make way for the dam, yet most of the electricity was earmarked to go to China, leaving the local Kachin people little better off than before.

ECONOMIST: Relations with Myanmar

An estimated 75, 000 people have been displaced by fighting in resource-rich Kachin since the conflict re-started in 2011 after the end of a 17-year-old ceasefire between the rebels and the Burmese military.

BBC: Burma admits military airstrikes on Kachin rebels

Yet, as if to illustrate just how hard this will be, fighting has worsened in Kachin state in the north, a result of an army offensive against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) which has displaced 50, 000 people, some fleeing into China.

ECONOMIST: The government moves, and gets its rewards

In the Lords (from 11am) question time covers the position of the Kachin, Shan and Rohingya ethnic national peoples in Burma, assistance for people with dyslexia who're taking apprenticeship qualifications and UK support provided for the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium.

BBC: Week ahead

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army over the last 20 years.

BBC: Top UN official Valerie Amos in Burma Kachin plea

Top UN humanitarian official Valerie Amos has called for urgent access to some 40, 000 people in northern Burma who have been displaced by fighting between troops and Kachin rebels.

BBC: Top UN official Valerie Amos in Burma Kachin plea