ဦးတင္ေအာင္ျမင့္ဥိးဟာ စကၤာပူက ျပန္ လာျပီးေနာက္ က်န္းမာေရးမေကာင္းဘူးဆိုတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္နဲ႔ ေမလ (၃) ရက္ေန႔ကတည္းက ႏွဳတ္ထြက္ စာတင္ခဲ့တာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ျပည္တြင္းသတင္းမီဒီယာေတြကို ကိုးကားျပိး Asian News International သတင္းမွာ ေရးသားထားပါတယ္။
ဒီဗီြဘီ
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Myanmar is set for economic take-off and faces an historic opportunity to launch growth that would lift living standards – if it pursues the right policy mix, the IMF said on Monday.
The former Burma, taking tentative steps towards democracy after decades of harsh military rule, has seen the publication of its annual IMF Article IV economic consultation report for the first time under its new reformist leadership.
The IMF mission chief for Myanmar, Meral Karasulu, said the Southeast Asian nation had already made progress and could see GDP growth of 5.5 percent to 6 percent over the next two years.
“There is very strong momentum. I have been working with the country since 2009 … and I think over the last couple of years the progress is really very, very tangible.”
“Myanmar could see strong growth if it pursues the necessary reforms to take advantage of its rich natural resources, young labour force, and proximity to some of the world’s most dynamic economies, including China and India.”
The mission chief said Myanmar had prioritised the reform of its complex exchange rate system with many restrictions that gave rise to multiple exchange rates that drove up costs, discouraged foreign direct investment and caused Myanmar’s currency, the kyat, to appreciate.
The central bank had introduced a managed exchange rate system in March after the Article IV team had left. Upon its launch, Myanmar’s central bank set a reference exchange rate of 818 kyat per dollar, On Monday, it was quoted at 824, versus the old official rate of around 6 to the dollar.
“Myanmar plans to complete the process of exchange rate unification, including removing all exchange rate restrictions and eliminating multiple currency practices before their target date of end-2013 when the Southeast Asian Games are due to be held,” she said.
Asked in a telephone news conference if that timetable was sustainable, she said: “I don’t find it is necessarily unrealistic.” She noted that the IMF’s experience in other countries suggested that eliminating informal markets for currency exchange was a task that would typically take about one to two years.
Currency reform could also not be rushed, given pent-up demand from importers for foreign exchange. Myanmar has about $9 billion in foreign currency reserves, the IMF notes, about nine months of imports.
“International reserves of the country remain quite comfortable and if anything we do expect them to get better because there are significant new natural gas projects that would increase the foreign reserves.”
Most of Myanmar’s foreign reserves were managed by three state-owned banks, in addition to the central bank, an unusual arrangement. She said the IMF has recommended to Myanmar that the central bank take over sole responsibility.
She voiced confidence that the reserves, once a tightly held state secret, actually existed.
“I do not see that in any way the reported numbers are not there in the banks where they are being kept,” she said.
The Article IV report said unleashing Myanmar’s high growth potential would require cross-cutting reforms and substantial technical assistance to modernise the financial sector with a stronger regulatory and supervisory framework.
“Currently, Myanmar’s financial sector is small and repressed, with controls on financial intermediation. Modernisation of the financial sector is essential to facilitate development and prepare the sector for membership of the ASEAN Economic Community,” the IMF said.
It further noted that Myanmar’s economic growth was narrowly based on energy and agriculture, which was hindered by poor access to credit, lack of private land ownership, and inadequate infrastructure and inputs.
“Lifting agricultural productivity will be essential for rural development and inclusive growth. The IMF believes that the planned land reform could provide an opportunity to jump- start this process of development.”
Industrialisation was a priority in the country’s economic plan. “Despite its low wage advantage, the manufacturing sector has been stifled by poor infrastructure and know-how, low investment, and extensive administrative controls limiting private sector development,” the IMF said
“Cross-cutting reforms would be needed to support private sector development. A key priority is to reduce the cost of doing business and policy ambiguity by improving transparency, and improving infrastructure,” it said.
But business confidence had improved, investment was higher, credit growth was more robust and growth was being driven by commodity exports, the IMF said.
Inflation is projected at 4.2 percent in fiscal year 2011/2012, picking up to 5.8 percent the following year, but the IMF also said the current interest rate policy “appears to be appropriate in light of the economic outlook”.
The IMF estimated Myanmar’s GDP at just over $50 billion for a population of around 55 million. In contrast, neighbouring Thailand, with a population of about 67 million, has a GDP of $348 billion.
(Reporting by Stella Dawson and Mark Bendeich; Editing by Eric Meijer)
Transcript
EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: With the easing of sanctions on Burma comes concern that the unique built heritage of the country, in effect preserved by years of isolation, will be lost if something's not done to protect it.
In particular, historians, architects and planners are working together to develop a plan to preserve the unique street scape of the city of Rangoon, once said to be the wealthiest city in Asia.
For the moment, many of the grand buildings of the era of the British are still standing, but they're at risk of being bulldozed by developers.
South-East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel reports.
ZOE DANIEL, REPORTER: Desperately poor and crumbling it may be, but there's no hiding Rangoon's former glory. Boom-time buildings from the early 1900s still stand, frozen out of global progress by repression.
In their shadow, I take a walk with Burma's leading historian and driver of the new Yangon Heritage Trust. He leads me on a journey back in time to the days when Burma was a global trading hub under British control.
THANT MYINT-U, HISTORIAN: I think it would've looked very much like an Indian city of the time because the population would've been overwhelmingly Indian and then you would've had a sizeable both European, mainly British, mainly Scottish population. And also a lot of people of mixed descent. And the Burmese would've been a very clear minority, perhaps only about 10 per cent of the population.
ZOE DANIEL: Burma's population remains extraordinarily diverse and in Rangoon the cityscape hasn't changed much either with a style reminiscent of Victorian Glasgow. It's one of the few positive side effects of years of isolation and lack of development and there's a real push on to preserve it.
THANT MYINT-U: Well this area used to be the commercial and the financial heart of British Burma. It's right in the middle of Rangoon. You have Chinatown and the Muslim quarter off to one side and then you have the docks area off to the other.
It was a very, very cosmopolitan place in the early 20th Century and it's a place that to some extent has been almost perfectly preserved for over 50 years.
ZOE DANIEL: While there's plenty left that's worth keeping, it's estimated that about half of the city's heritage buildings have already been lost to the wrecking ball. With sanctions now being eased, there's only a short window of opportunity to draft preservation guidelines before an influx of money leads to insensitive development.
UN Habitat, newly set up in one of Rangoon's classic buildings, is supporting the local push.
MICHAEL SLINGSBY, UN HABITAT: Yes, indeed. No, it's a wonderful opportunity. The chances are here to preserve what is here before ad hoc development has taken place and to avoid the sort of mistakes that Singapore did and let all the shop houses be demolished and then just end up with a few streets that are preserved in a rather artificial way. There's a chance here to keep the whole fabric of the inner city preserved.
ZOE DANIEL: Many of the city buildings are former administrative offices, effectively abandoned when the Government built a new capital in Napidor and moved. But they're not all necessarily empty. Many buildings are being used by the poor, who call them home.
MICHAEL SLINGSBY: It's also important to take into account the fact that many poor people live in old buildings and they need to be dealt with very sensitively when it comes to renovation and provided with adequate accommodation in the same building or alternative accommodation which is acceptable to them.
ZOE DANIEL: The building styles are diverse, and while many were built not colonial era, a highly fraught period of Burmese history, the country's architects say it's a time that should be remembered.
CHAW KALYAR, MYANMAR ARCHITECTS ASSOCIATION: It is part of our history. We cannot erase them. We all have to accept that it is part of our history and it is the link between our past and our future. So these buildings are important in our history as well because we've been a colony for a hundred years.
ZOE DANIEL: Burma's president has agreed to a temporary moratorium on the demolition of buildings while the Yangon Heritage Trust puts together a plan which it'll present to the government in June.
New guidelines will aim to regulate renovation as well as sales so that private houses like this one are saved as well as government landmarks.
You find houses like this all over the city: doing it hard, clearly, but just waiting for a future, much like the country itself.
THANT MYINT-U: What would be great is if we could keep the overall sort of cityscape. I mean, the fact that you have people from so many different cultural backgrounds and religions living within a square mile and you have so many other aspects of the old city that are still around.
So rather than just sort of keeping a few big buildings as tourist attractions, if we can preserve as much of this cosmopolitan part of the city as possible, I think that would be a very useful - not just useful thing economically and perhaps in terms of tourist - drawing in tourists in the future, but also an important thing for this country as a multi-ethnic country going forward as well.
ZOE DANIEL: It's hard to fathom what these buildings have seen as they've stood through a century of war, dictatorship and sheer neglect. Those fighting for them now want to make sure they see progress and a place in the country's future.
Zoe Daniel, Lateline.
In particular, historians, architects and planners are working together to develop a plan to preserve the unique street scape of the city of Rangoon, once said to be the wealthiest city in Asia.
For the moment, many of the grand buildings of the era of the British are still standing, but they're at risk of being bulldozed by developers.
South-East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel reports.
ZOE DANIEL, REPORTER: Desperately poor and crumbling it may be, but there's no hiding Rangoon's former glory. Boom-time buildings from the early 1900s still stand, frozen out of global progress by repression.
In their shadow, I take a walk with Burma's leading historian and driver of the new Yangon Heritage Trust. He leads me on a journey back in time to the days when Burma was a global trading hub under British control.
THANT MYINT-U, HISTORIAN: I think it would've looked very much like an Indian city of the time because the population would've been overwhelmingly Indian and then you would've had a sizeable both European, mainly British, mainly Scottish population. And also a lot of people of mixed descent. And the Burmese would've been a very clear minority, perhaps only about 10 per cent of the population.
ZOE DANIEL: Burma's population remains extraordinarily diverse and in Rangoon the cityscape hasn't changed much either with a style reminiscent of Victorian Glasgow. It's one of the few positive side effects of years of isolation and lack of development and there's a real push on to preserve it.
THANT MYINT-U: Well this area used to be the commercial and the financial heart of British Burma. It's right in the middle of Rangoon. You have Chinatown and the Muslim quarter off to one side and then you have the docks area off to the other.
It was a very, very cosmopolitan place in the early 20th Century and it's a place that to some extent has been almost perfectly preserved for over 50 years.
ZOE DANIEL: While there's plenty left that's worth keeping, it's estimated that about half of the city's heritage buildings have already been lost to the wrecking ball. With sanctions now being eased, there's only a short window of opportunity to draft preservation guidelines before an influx of money leads to insensitive development.
UN Habitat, newly set up in one of Rangoon's classic buildings, is supporting the local push.
MICHAEL SLINGSBY, UN HABITAT: Yes, indeed. No, it's a wonderful opportunity. The chances are here to preserve what is here before ad hoc development has taken place and to avoid the sort of mistakes that Singapore did and let all the shop houses be demolished and then just end up with a few streets that are preserved in a rather artificial way. There's a chance here to keep the whole fabric of the inner city preserved.
ZOE DANIEL: Many of the city buildings are former administrative offices, effectively abandoned when the Government built a new capital in Napidor and moved. But they're not all necessarily empty. Many buildings are being used by the poor, who call them home.
MICHAEL SLINGSBY: It's also important to take into account the fact that many poor people live in old buildings and they need to be dealt with very sensitively when it comes to renovation and provided with adequate accommodation in the same building or alternative accommodation which is acceptable to them.
ZOE DANIEL: The building styles are diverse, and while many were built not colonial era, a highly fraught period of Burmese history, the country's architects say it's a time that should be remembered.
CHAW KALYAR, MYANMAR ARCHITECTS ASSOCIATION: It is part of our history. We cannot erase them. We all have to accept that it is part of our history and it is the link between our past and our future. So these buildings are important in our history as well because we've been a colony for a hundred years.
ZOE DANIEL: Burma's president has agreed to a temporary moratorium on the demolition of buildings while the Yangon Heritage Trust puts together a plan which it'll present to the government in June.
New guidelines will aim to regulate renovation as well as sales so that private houses like this one are saved as well as government landmarks.
You find houses like this all over the city: doing it hard, clearly, but just waiting for a future, much like the country itself.
THANT MYINT-U: What would be great is if we could keep the overall sort of cityscape. I mean, the fact that you have people from so many different cultural backgrounds and religions living within a square mile and you have so many other aspects of the old city that are still around.
So rather than just sort of keeping a few big buildings as tourist attractions, if we can preserve as much of this cosmopolitan part of the city as possible, I think that would be a very useful - not just useful thing economically and perhaps in terms of tourist - drawing in tourists in the future, but also an important thing for this country as a multi-ethnic country going forward as well.
ZOE DANIEL: It's hard to fathom what these buildings have seen as they've stood through a century of war, dictatorship and sheer neglect. Those fighting for them now want to make sure they see progress and a place in the country's future.
Zoe Daniel, Lateline.
(Mizzima) – Burma will issue visas-on-arrival and business visas starting June 1 to accommodate businessmen and foreign travelers, local media reported on Friday.
Rangoon International Airport Photo: MizzimaThe visa-on-arrival was withdran in September 2010 ahead of Burma’s general election in November 2011.
Business visa priority will be given to citizens of countries which do business with Myanmar while the visa-on-arrival will be provided to travelers from member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), said the Yangon Times.
According to official statistics, the number of tourists arrival at Burma’s Yangon International Airport alone reached 359,359 in 2011. The figure is expected to reach 1.5 million in 2012 for the gateway.
Other statistics by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism showed that arrivals at all entry points totaled over 800,000 in 2011, up more than 24,000 or 3 per cent from over 790,000 in 2010.
The figures for the two months of January and February 2012 represented 98,486, according to the Myanmar Tourism Promotion Board.
Meanwhile, as of February 2012, hotels in Burma numbered 739 including 22 foreign-invested hotels, four joint-venture hotels, six government hotels and 707 privatelyowned hotels.
Burma earned US$ 319 million in 2011 from the hotel and tourism sector, up 26 per cent from $254 million in 2010.
The tourism sector is expected to increase rapidly as sanctions are being withdrawn by most nations.
Rangoon International Airport Photo: MizzimaThe visa-on-arrival was withdran in September 2010 ahead of Burma’s general election in November 2011.
Business visa priority will be given to citizens of countries which do business with Myanmar while the visa-on-arrival will be provided to travelers from member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), said the Yangon Times.
According to official statistics, the number of tourists arrival at Burma’s Yangon International Airport alone reached 359,359 in 2011. The figure is expected to reach 1.5 million in 2012 for the gateway.
Other statistics by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism showed that arrivals at all entry points totaled over 800,000 in 2011, up more than 24,000 or 3 per cent from over 790,000 in 2010.
The figures for the two months of January and February 2012 represented 98,486, according to the Myanmar Tourism Promotion Board.
Meanwhile, as of February 2012, hotels in Burma numbered 739 including 22 foreign-invested hotels, four joint-venture hotels, six government hotels and 707 privatelyowned hotels.
Burma earned US$ 319 million in 2011 from the hotel and tourism sector, up 26 per cent from $254 million in 2010.
The tourism sector is expected to increase rapidly as sanctions are being withdrawn by most nations.
By Gwen Robinson in Bangkok
Tin Aung Myint Oo built substantial personal wealth and connections that included Chinese interests and tycoons
Reports of the resignation of one of Myanmar’s two vice-presidents, influential conservative Tin Aung Myint Oo, have heightened speculation about an imminent cabinet reshuffle.
Myanmar media and the local language service of Voice of America reported on Sunday that Tin Aung Myint Oo, a former, a general and protégé of retired dictator Than Shwe, resigned as vice-president on May 3 for health reasons after receiving medical treatment in Singapore.
High quality global journalism requires investment.
Government officials could not be contacted on Sunday night but Yangon-based diplomats said rumours of Tin Aung Myint Oo’s impending departure had intensified last week. The vice-president – known as an abrasive figure and critic of some of the president’s reforms – has dropped from public view in recent weeks.
His exit would be “very significant” said one diplomat, not only because of his opposition to political and some economic reforms, but also because of his support for the old-style “crony capitalist” model of business.
Tin Aung Myint Oo’s departure, however, would not necessarily signify a triumph for reformers. Under Myanmar’s political system, any replacement for the vice-president must be nominated by the parliamentary bloc that voted him in – in this case the 160 or so military representatives who are allocated 25 per cent of seats in the combined houses of parliament.
As a former chief of the Trade Council, which oversaw export and import licenses, Tin Aung Myint Oo built up substantial personal wealth and connections that included Chinese interests and tycoons such as Zaw Zaw, owner of the Max Myanmar group of companies.
He was also known to be heavily involved in negotiations with China for some big natural resources and infrastructure projects in Myanmar. These included the controversial $3.6bn Myitsone Dam in the country’s north, which was abruptly suspended last September by Thein Sein, the president, amid growing public outcry over the dam’s environmental impact.
News of his resignation comes as Mr Thein Sein prepares to overhaul his cabinet, according to people close to the government. About five or six so-called “hardliners” in the 37-member cabinet – including Kyaw Hsan, minister for information and culture; Zaw Min, one of two ministers for electric power; and Myint Hlaing, minister for agriculture – could be moved or see responsibilities downgraded, the sources said.
The shift highlights growing political confidence on the part of the president to tackle conservatives in his administration after western governments moved to ease sanctions following the April 1 by-elections. The polls delivered a sweeping victory for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy, which won 43 of 45 seats contested, and was a stinging blow for the government-backed USDP party.
In a move seen as a response to the entry of Ms Suu Kyi and 42 other NLD MPs to parliament last week, the military on April 23 replaced 59 of its parliamentary representatives with more senior officers. Some analysts say they could take a more conservative stance towards the opposition and the reform process than their predecessors.
Others, however, noted that armed forces commander-in-chief General Min Aung Hlaing – who selects the military’s parliamentary representatives – had been supportive of the president’s reforms. “Senior representatives are more likely, not less so, to think independently and vote on an individual basis,” said Richard Horsey, an independent Myanmar analyst.
“Tin Aung Myint Oo is regarded by many as a hardliner who was not really comfortable with the recent reforms,” said Mr Horsey “His replacement could lead to greater cohesion at the top of the administration but it remains to be seen who will be chosen as his successor.”
Tin Aung Myint Oo built substantial personal wealth and connections that included Chinese interests and tycoonsReports of the resignation of one of Myanmar’s two vice-presidents, influential conservative Tin Aung Myint Oo, have heightened speculation about an imminent cabinet reshuffle.
Myanmar media and the local language service of Voice of America reported on Sunday that Tin Aung Myint Oo, a former, a general and protégé of retired dictator Than Shwe, resigned as vice-president on May 3 for health reasons after receiving medical treatment in Singapore.
High quality global journalism requires investment.
Government officials could not be contacted on Sunday night but Yangon-based diplomats said rumours of Tin Aung Myint Oo’s impending departure had intensified last week. The vice-president – known as an abrasive figure and critic of some of the president’s reforms – has dropped from public view in recent weeks.
His exit would be “very significant” said one diplomat, not only because of his opposition to political and some economic reforms, but also because of his support for the old-style “crony capitalist” model of business.
Tin Aung Myint Oo’s departure, however, would not necessarily signify a triumph for reformers. Under Myanmar’s political system, any replacement for the vice-president must be nominated by the parliamentary bloc that voted him in – in this case the 160 or so military representatives who are allocated 25 per cent of seats in the combined houses of parliament.
As a former chief of the Trade Council, which oversaw export and import licenses, Tin Aung Myint Oo built up substantial personal wealth and connections that included Chinese interests and tycoons such as Zaw Zaw, owner of the Max Myanmar group of companies.
He was also known to be heavily involved in negotiations with China for some big natural resources and infrastructure projects in Myanmar. These included the controversial $3.6bn Myitsone Dam in the country’s north, which was abruptly suspended last September by Thein Sein, the president, amid growing public outcry over the dam’s environmental impact.
News of his resignation comes as Mr Thein Sein prepares to overhaul his cabinet, according to people close to the government. About five or six so-called “hardliners” in the 37-member cabinet – including Kyaw Hsan, minister for information and culture; Zaw Min, one of two ministers for electric power; and Myint Hlaing, minister for agriculture – could be moved or see responsibilities downgraded, the sources said.
The shift highlights growing political confidence on the part of the president to tackle conservatives in his administration after western governments moved to ease sanctions following the April 1 by-elections. The polls delivered a sweeping victory for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy, which won 43 of 45 seats contested, and was a stinging blow for the government-backed USDP party.
In a move seen as a response to the entry of Ms Suu Kyi and 42 other NLD MPs to parliament last week, the military on April 23 replaced 59 of its parliamentary representatives with more senior officers. Some analysts say they could take a more conservative stance towards the opposition and the reform process than their predecessors.
Others, however, noted that armed forces commander-in-chief General Min Aung Hlaing – who selects the military’s parliamentary representatives – had been supportive of the president’s reforms. “Senior representatives are more likely, not less so, to think independently and vote on an individual basis,” said Richard Horsey, an independent Myanmar analyst.
“Tin Aung Myint Oo is regarded by many as a hardliner who was not really comfortable with the recent reforms,” said Mr Horsey “His replacement could lead to greater cohesion at the top of the administration but it remains to be seen who will be chosen as his successor.”
Sources:
A former top general close to Burma's retired dictator Than Shwe has resigned as vice-president, Burmese media reported, ending the hardliner's role in the reformist government.
The Telegraph
Burmese general resigns ending Than Shwe's influence
A former top general close to Burma's retired dictator Than Shwe has resigned as vice-president, Burmese media reported, ending the hardliner's role in the reformist government.
Tin Aung Myint Oo, 61, submitted his resignation on May 3 for health reasons after returning from Singapore for medical treatment, the Burma language service of Voice of America reported on Sunday.
The report could not be immediately confirmed.
Tin Aung Myint Oo, a former four-star general, was one of two vice-presidents and considered a leader among hardliners in the year-old military-backed government that replaced the often-brutal junta who ruled for half a century.
Tin Aung Myint Oo graduated from the Defence Services Academy in 1970, becoming northeastern military commander near the Chinese border late 1990s.
He was promoted to Secretary-1 of the former junta in 1997, a year when the army rounded up hundreds of pro-democracy activists in Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy to prevent them from attending a party congress.
Suu Kyi and 42 other members of her party took their seats in parliament last week following a historic by-election in a year of dramatic reforms in the former British colony also known as Burma.
In 2009, Tin Aung Myint Oo was appointed military adviser to then-Senior General Than Shwe. He was elected to the lower house a year later as a candidate for the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, and was quickly nominated as vice president by military delegates.
Source: Reuters
In 2009, Tin Aung Myint Oo was appointed military adviser to then-Senior General Than Shwe. He was elected to the lower house a year later as a candidate for the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, and was quickly nominated as vice president by military delegates.
Source: Reuters
ဒုတိယ သမၼတ တစ္ဦးဦး ႏႈတ္ထြက္ျခင္းႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ အေျခခံဥပေဒပါ ျပ႒ာန္းခ်က္
ဒုတိယ သမၼတ ႏုတ္ထြက္စာတင္ျပီလား
ျမန္မာအစုိးရ လက္ရွိ ဒုတိယ သမၼတ သီဟသူရ ဦးတင္ေအာင္ျမင့္ဦးဟာ သမၼတ ဦးသိန္းစိန္ထံ ႏုတ္ထြက္စာ တင္ထားတယ္လို႔ သတင္းေတြ ထြက္ေနပါတယ္။ျမန္မာအစိုးရက ဒီသတင္းကို အတည္မျပဳေသးေပမယ့္ ေနျပည္ေတာ္က ထိပ္တန္းအရာရွိ တစ္ဦးကေတာ့ သမၼတ ဦးသိန္းစိန္္ဟာ က်န္းမာေရး အေၾကာင္းျပခဲ့တဲ့ ဒု သမၼတ ဦးတင္ေအာင္ျမင့္ဦးရဲ႕ ႏႈတ္ထြက္စာကို လက္ခံဖို႔ စဥ္းစားေနေၾကာင္း၊ လက္ရွိ ဖြဲ႕စည္းပံုဥပေဒအရ ႏႈတ္ထြက္စာကို လက္ခံမယ္ဆိုရင္ ၂၁ ရက္အတြင္း လႊတ္ေတာ္ေခၚယူကာ တျခားပုဂိၢဳလ္တစ္ဦးကို ဒုတိယသမၼတအျဖစ္ ခန္႔အပ္ တာ၀န္ေပးရမွာ ျဖစ္တဲ့အတြက္ လာမယ့္ ဇူလိုင္လဆန္း လႊတ္ေတာ္ ျပန္လည္ မက်င္းပခင္အတြင္း ဒီသတင္းကို ေၾကညာမွာမဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း RFA ကိုေျပာပါတယ္။
ဒါ့အျပင္ ၀န္ႀကီးတခ်ိဳ႕ကို ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့ ဧၿပီလ ၁၆ ရက္ ေနာက္ပိုင္းမွာ ရာထူးတာ၀န္ ေျပာင္းလဲဖို႔ အစီအစဥ္ ရွိခဲ့ေပမယ့္ NLD ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေတြ လႊတ္ေတာ္တက္ဖို႔ ျငင္းဆန္တဲ့ ျပႆနာေၾကာင့္ ေရႊ႔ဆိုင္းခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ အဲဒီ၀န္ႀကီးေတြ ရာထူးတာ၀န္ ေျပာင္းလဲမယ့္ ကိစၥကိုလည္း ဇူလိုင္လ လႊတ္ေတာ္ျပန္စၿပီးမွ ေၾကညာဖို႔ရွိေၾကာင္း သိရပါတယ္။
အဲဒီလုိ ရာထူးတာဝန္ေတြ ေျပာင္းလဲတဲ့အခါ လက္ရွိ ျပန္ၾကားေရးနဲ႔ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ၀န္ႀကီး ဦးေက်ာ္ဆန္းဟာ ျပန္ၾကားေရးဝန္ၾကီး တာဝန္ကုိ ဆက္လက္ထမ္းေဆာင္ေတာ့မွာ မဟုတ္ဘဲ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ၀န္ႀကီးဌာန တစ္ခုကိုပဲ ဆက္လက္တာ၀န္ယူမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔လည္း ေနျပည္ေတာ္ရွိ အမည္မေဖာ္လိုတဲ့ အရာရွိတစ္ဦးက RFA ကိုေျပာပါတယ္။
RFA
ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရး အျငင္းပြားမွဳ ေၾကာင့္ ဒုသမၼတႏုတ္ထြက္
လက္ရွိအစုိးရအဖြဲ႔ထဲမွာ သေဘာထားတင္းမာသူလို႔ နံမယ္ျကီးတဲ့ ဒုသမၼတ ဦးတင္ေအာင္ျမင့္ဦး ရာထူးကေန နွဳတ္ထြက္သြားေၾကာင္း ေမလ (၇) ရက္ေန႔ ရန္ကုန္ကေပးပို႔တဲ့ Asian News International သတင္းမွာ ေရး သားထားပါတယ္။ အသက္ ၆၁ နွစ္အရြယ္ရွိ ဥိးတင္ေအာင္ျမင့္ဥိးဟာ သမၼတဥိးသိန္းစိန္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္တဲ့ လက္ရွိ အစုိးရအဖြဲ႔အတြင္း ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးလုပ္လိုသူေတြနဲ႔ သေဘာထားတင္းမာသူေတြအျကား အျငင္းပြားမွဳ ေၾကာင့္ အခုလို နွဳတ္ထြက္သြားတာလို႔ သတင္းမွာ ေရးထားပါတယ္။
ဦးတင္ေအာင္ျမင့္ဥိးဟာ စကၤာပူက ျပန္ လာျပီးေနာက္ က်န္းမာေရးမေကာင္းဘူးဆိုတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္နဲ႔ ေမလ (၃) ရက္ေန႔ကတည္းက ႏွဳတ္ထြက္ စာတင္ခဲ့တာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ျပည္တြင္းသတင္းမီဒီယာေတြကို ကိုးကားျပိး Asian News International သတင္းမွာ ေရးသားထားပါတယ္။
ဒီဗီြဘီ
ဒါ့အျပင္ ၀န္ႀကီးတခ်ိဳ႕ကို ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့ ဧၿပီလ ၁၆ ရက္ ေနာက္ပိုင္းမွာ ရာထူးတာ၀န္ ေျပာင္းလဲဖို႔ အစီအစဥ္ ရွိခဲ့ေပမယ့္ NLD ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေတြ လႊတ္ေတာ္တက္ဖို႔ ျငင္းဆန္တဲ့ ျပႆနာေၾကာင့္ ေရႊ႔ဆိုင္းခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ အဲဒီ၀န္ႀကီးေတြ ရာထူးတာ၀န္ ေျပာင္းလဲမယ့္ ကိစၥကိုလည္း ဇူလိုင္လ လႊတ္ေတာ္ျပန္စၿပီးမွ ေၾကညာဖို႔ရွိေၾကာင္း သိရပါတယ္။
အဲဒီလုိ ရာထူးတာဝန္ေတြ ေျပာင္းလဲတဲ့အခါ လက္ရွိ ျပန္ၾကားေရးနဲ႔ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ၀န္ႀကီး ဦးေက်ာ္ဆန္းဟာ ျပန္ၾကားေရးဝန္ၾကီး တာဝန္ကုိ ဆက္လက္ထမ္းေဆာင္ေတာ့မွာ မဟုတ္ဘဲ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ၀န္ႀကီးဌာန တစ္ခုကိုပဲ ဆက္လက္တာ၀န္ယူမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔လည္း ေနျပည္ေတာ္ရွိ အမည္မေဖာ္လိုတဲ့ အရာရွိတစ္ဦးက RFA ကိုေျပာပါတယ္။
RFA
ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရး အျငင္းပြားမွဳ ေၾကာင့္ ဒုသမၼတႏုတ္ထြက္
ဦးတင္ေအာင္ျမင့္ဥိးဟာ စကၤာပူက ျပန္ လာျပီးေနာက္ က်န္းမာေရးမေကာင္းဘူးဆိုတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္နဲ႔ ေမလ (၃) ရက္ေန႔ကတည္းက ႏွဳတ္ထြက္ စာတင္ခဲ့တာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ျပည္တြင္းသတင္းမီဒီယာေတြကို ကိုးကားျပိး Asian News International သတင္းမွာ ေရးသားထားပါတယ္။
ဒီဗီြဘီ
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ သံအမတ္ႀကီး Melanne Verveer ကို ေမလ ၆ ရက္ေန႔က ေတြ႔ရစဥ္(ဓါတ္ပုံ-Eleven Media Group)
ကမၻာလံုးဆိုင္ရာ အမ်ိဳးသမီးေရးရာအဖြဲ႔၏ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ သံအမတ္ႀကီး Melanne Verveer က သူမ၏ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ ခရီးစဥ္အတြင္း ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမႇ အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ားႏႇင့္ မိန္းကေလးငယ္မ်ား ရင္ဆိုင္ေနရေသာ စိန္ေခၚမႈမ်ားႏႇင့္ အခြင့္အလမ္းမ်ားကို ၾကည့္႐ႈသြားမည္ဟု ေျပာၾကားခဲ့သည္။
၄င္းက အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ဥကၠဌ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ေနအိမ္တြင္ သတင္းေထာက္မ်ားႏႇင့္ ေတြ႔ဆံုစဥ္တြင္ ေျပာၾကားသြားခဲ့ျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။
''ကမၻာလံုးဆိုင္ရာ အမ်ိဳးသမီးေရးရာအဖြဲ႔၏ အေမရိကန္ဆိုင္ရာ သံအမတ္ႀကီးတစ္ေယာက္အေနနဲ႔ ကြၽန္မဒီမႇာ ရက္အနည္းငယ္ဆက္ေနၿပီး အမ်ိဳးသမီးေတြနဲ႔ မိန္းကေလးငယ္ေတြ ၾကံဳေတြ႔ေနရတဲ့ စိန္ေခၚမႈေတြ အခြင့္အလမ္းေတြကို ၾကည့္႐ႈသြားပါမယ္။ လူမႈအဖြဲ႔အစည္းေတြမႇာ ရႇိသမွ် လူေတြအားလံုးမႇာ ပါ၀င္စရာ အခန္းက႑ ရႇိရပါမယ္''ဟု ၄င္းက ေျပာၾကားသြားခဲ့သည္။
Melanne Verveer သည္ အဆိုပါအဖြဲ႔အစည္း၏ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ သံတမန္တစ္ဦးျဖစ္ၿပီး ေမလ ၆ ရက္မႇ ၁၁ ရက္အတြင္း ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံႏႇင့္ ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံေျမာက္ပိုင္းတို႔သို႔ လာေရာက္ကာ အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ားႏႇင့္ မိန္းကေလးငယ္မ်ား၏အေျခအေနမ်ားအ ေၾကာင္း ေဆြးေႏြးမည္ျဖစ္သည္။၄င္းသည္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသို႔ ေရာက္ ရႇိေနစဥ္ကာလအတြင္း အရပ္ဘက္လူမႈအဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ားမႇအမ်ိဳးသမီး ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ဥကၠဌ ေဒၚေအာင္ ဆန္းစုၾကည္တို႔ႏႇင့္ ေတြ႔ဆံုခဲ့သည္။
''အေမရိကန္ အစိုးရမႇာ National Action Plan on Women Peace and Security ဆိုတဲ့ အစီအစဥ္တစ္ရပ္ ရႇိပါတယ္။ အဲဒီအစီအစဥ္အရ ပဋိပကၡေဒသေတြက လူမႈအဖြဲ႔အစည္းေတြနဲ႔ လက္တြဲၿပီး အလုပ္လုပ္သြားဖို႔ ရႇိပါတယ္။ ေနာက္ၿပီး ႏိုင္ငံေရး လုပ္ပိုင္ခြင့္ေတြ အပ္ႏႇင္းတဲ့ကိစၥေတြမႇာ အမ်ိဳးသမီးေတြ အျပည့္အ၀ ပူးေပါင္းပါ၀င္ခြင့္ရႇိေစဖို႔ကြၽန္မတို႔အစိုးရကလုပ္ေဆာင္သြားမႇာပါ''ဟု၄င္းက ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ေနအိမ္ တြင္ျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့ေသာ သတင္းစာရႇင္းလင္းပြဲတြင္ သတင္းေထာက္မ်ားကို ေျပာၾကားသြားခဲ့သည္။
၄င္းသည္ ေနျပည္ေတာ္သို႔ သြားေရာက္ကာ အစိုးရအဆင့္ျမင့္ အရာရႇိႀကီးမ်ားႏႇင့္ ေတြ႔ဆံုၿပီး အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ား၏ ပညာေရး၊ က်န္းမာေရး၊ စီးပြားေရး အခြင့္အလမ္းမ်ားႏႇင့္ အျခားအမ်ိဳးသမီးအခြင့္အေရး ကိစၥရပ္မ်ားအပါအ၀င္ အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ား၏ဘ၀ ျမင့္မားေရးႏႇင့္ ပတ္သတ္၍ ေဆြးေႏြးမည္ ျဖစ္သည္။
Large for Global Women's Issue (ကမၻာလံုးဆိုင္ရာ အမ်ိဳးသမီးေရးရာအဖြဲ႔)သည္ တကမၻာလံုးရႇိ အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ားကို ႏိုင္ငံေရး၊စီးပြားေရး၊လူမႈေရးလုပ္ငန္းမ်ားတြင္စြမ္းရည္ျမႇင့္တင္ေပးျခင္းျဖင့္ ေအးခ်မ္းတည္ၿငိမ္ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးမႈကို ျမႇင့္တင္ေပးေသာ အဖြဲ႔အစည္း ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း
Eleven Media Group အင္တာနက္စာမ်က္ႏွာမွာေရးသားေဖာ္ျပထားပါသည္။
Photo from AP
The plan of Myanmar President Thein Sein to continue his political carrier after the end of his term is not yet definite. The general election will be held by 2015. His top political adviser Ko Ko Hlaing said that he may be successful in this present governance but he will give the opportunity for other excellent leaders to lead the country.
This soon to be election will be a deciding factor for the group of military generals who had been ruling the country for almost 5o years if they are willing to give up their power with dignity, principle and honour, Bloomberg news reported.
Shwe Mann who now holds the lower house parliament speakership is most likely the chosen qualified candidate among all the military members of the junta to replace President Thein Sein in the 2015 election, that’s according to Hans Vriens, managing partner of Vriens & Partners, a Singapore-based firm.
The President is not seeking for another period in the political arena for he is also concerned about his deteriorating health. But things are still possible for him to reconsider this coming election in due time. As a man, he was described as a very private person spending and enjoying his leisure time by reading. He is a man of principle and dedicated to achieve his vision of implementing reforms to make Myanmar a better place to live in, the report said.
Suu Kyi’s father is known as the Father of Independence. She is very hopeful and confident that President Thein Sein is true to his words in the next phase of democratizing for the country. As many were caught by surprise with the reforms on the run, David Steinberg, a well renowned professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. said that no one ever expected that the reforms initiated by the president would drastically change the image of Burma positively.
In being a member of the parliament, democratic icon Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein can now have better chances of dealing freely and legally important matters regarding the country and expressing their points of view for the betterment of the nation. What is highly regarded now will be the real essence of democracy which is governed by the statement “the government of the people, by the people and for the people”, Ko Ko Hlaing said.
While the West lauds Myanmar for its steps towards democracy and starts to roll back sanctions, hundreds of political prisoners languishing in prison are still waiting to hear their fate.
Thaung Sein (R), seen here holding a picture of his son Aye Aung, a political prisoner detained at Kalay prison in northwest Sagaing Division, at their family home in Yangon, on May 4 While the West lauds Myanmar for its steps towards democracy and starts to roll back sanctions, hundreds of political prisoners languishing in prison are still waiting to hear their fate.
Their families hope they will not become the forgotten victims of decades of authoritarian rule in the rush to reward the new quasi-civilian government for its sweeping political reforms.
Freedom has not yet come for Aye Aung, who was arrested in 1998 and sentenced to 59 years in jail on charges including violating the emergency act as well as illegally printing and distributing leaflets.
His sentence has since been reduced to 29 years, but he was not among those to walk free in a major prisoner amnesty in January, to the dismay of his elderly parents.
"We truly expected his release," his father Thaung Sein told AFP at his Rangoon home, where a photo of a laughing Aye Aung playing a guitar hangs alongside another of him receiving an essay prize from opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"It was really painful. His mother almost collapsed when she heard, and she wept. As you know, so many people were released in the January amnesty. They didn't give any reason for not including him. My son also said he had no idea why he was not released yet, the 60-year-old said.
"I felt so sad," added his mother San Myint, her eyes filling with tears.
Amnesty International considers Aye Aung, now 36, to be a "prisoner of conscience" who was detained because of peaceful activities such as distributing leaflets and organising student demonstrations.
His parents last visited him in March at Kalay prison in northwest Sagaing Division.
"He has hemorrhoids and a gastric problem. We had to buy medicines for him. Because it is a malaria area, he sometimes feels sick," his father said.
According to Burma Campaign UK, after his arrest Aye Aung was detained for more than four months for interrogation during which he was "tortured brutally".
Myanmar said it freed more than 300 political prisoners in an amnesty in January, a move which prompted the United States to pledge it would restore full diplomatic ties.
About 200 others were let out in October 2011, and estimates of the number still behind bars vary.
The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says that more than 900 political prisoners remain locked up in Myanmar, while Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party estimates their number at about 330.
The 88 Generation Students Group, a pro-democracy movement whose key members were at the forefront of a 1988 uprising, believes there are still more than 600 political detainees, said one of their leaders.
"We have asked the home affairs ministry to release the remaining political prisoners," Thet Zaw, who was released from prison in January, told AFP.
He said even those who were accused of contact with armed rebel groups or linked to bombings should be freed because their acts were politically related.
"So we will also ask for their release as soon as possible for national reconciliation," Thet Zaw added.
Myanmar, which languished for decades under a repressive junta, has announced a series of reforms since a controversial 2010 election brought a civilian government to power -- albeit one with close links to the military.
The regime has welcomed Suu Kyi's NLD party to return to mainstream politics, leading to her election to parliament for the first time in April 1 by-elections.
The European Union has responded to what it said were "historic changes" by suspending for one year a wide range of sanctions, although it left intact an arms embargo.
At the same time the West continues to press for the release of remaining political prisoners.
The European Union's top diplomat Catherine Ashton, who visited Myanmar this week, said she had discussed the issue with President Thein Sein.
"When I asked him about political prisoners, he said they will continue to look further at who should be released and how quickly," Ashton said in a statement.
Aye Aung's parents are hopeful that the changes under way in Myanmar will lead to their son's freedom in the near future.
"The government said it is walking a path to democracy. My son also struggled for democracy. So they now have the same stance. And if they are really implementing democracy, they must release him," said his mother.
Did you know?
Their families hope they will not become the forgotten victims of decades of authoritarian rule in the rush to reward the new quasi-civilian government for its sweeping political reforms.
Freedom has not yet come for Aye Aung, who was arrested in 1998 and sentenced to 59 years in jail on charges including violating the emergency act as well as illegally printing and distributing leaflets.
His sentence has since been reduced to 29 years, but he was not among those to walk free in a major prisoner amnesty in January, to the dismay of his elderly parents.
"We truly expected his release," his father Thaung Sein told AFP at his Rangoon home, where a photo of a laughing Aye Aung playing a guitar hangs alongside another of him receiving an essay prize from opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"It was really painful. His mother almost collapsed when she heard, and she wept. As you know, so many people were released in the January amnesty. They didn't give any reason for not including him. My son also said he had no idea why he was not released yet, the 60-year-old said.
"I felt so sad," added his mother San Myint, her eyes filling with tears.
Amnesty International considers Aye Aung, now 36, to be a "prisoner of conscience" who was detained because of peaceful activities such as distributing leaflets and organising student demonstrations.
His parents last visited him in March at Kalay prison in northwest Sagaing Division.
"He has hemorrhoids and a gastric problem. We had to buy medicines for him. Because it is a malaria area, he sometimes feels sick," his father said.
According to Burma Campaign UK, after his arrest Aye Aung was detained for more than four months for interrogation during which he was "tortured brutally".
Myanmar said it freed more than 300 political prisoners in an amnesty in January, a move which prompted the United States to pledge it would restore full diplomatic ties.
About 200 others were let out in October 2011, and estimates of the number still behind bars vary.
The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says that more than 900 political prisoners remain locked up in Myanmar, while Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party estimates their number at about 330.
The 88 Generation Students Group, a pro-democracy movement whose key members were at the forefront of a 1988 uprising, believes there are still more than 600 political detainees, said one of their leaders.
"We have asked the home affairs ministry to release the remaining political prisoners," Thet Zaw, who was released from prison in January, told AFP.
He said even those who were accused of contact with armed rebel groups or linked to bombings should be freed because their acts were politically related.
"So we will also ask for their release as soon as possible for national reconciliation," Thet Zaw added.
Myanmar, which languished for decades under a repressive junta, has announced a series of reforms since a controversial 2010 election brought a civilian government to power -- albeit one with close links to the military.
The regime has welcomed Suu Kyi's NLD party to return to mainstream politics, leading to her election to parliament for the first time in April 1 by-elections.
The European Union has responded to what it said were "historic changes" by suspending for one year a wide range of sanctions, although it left intact an arms embargo.
At the same time the West continues to press for the release of remaining political prisoners.
The European Union's top diplomat Catherine Ashton, who visited Myanmar this week, said she had discussed the issue with President Thein Sein.
"When I asked him about political prisoners, he said they will continue to look further at who should be released and how quickly," Ashton said in a statement.
Aye Aung's parents are hopeful that the changes under way in Myanmar will lead to their son's freedom in the near future.
"The government said it is walking a path to democracy. My son also struggled for democracy. So they now have the same stance. And if they are really implementing democracy, they must release him," said his mother.
Did you know?
Burma is ranked 187 out of 197 countries in Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press 2012 report. (Photo: Freedom House)
Press freedom has improved markedly in Burma over the course of the last year although the country still remains one of the world’s worst for media censorship, according to two new reports.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named Burma as the seventh worst country in the world for press censorship on Wednesday—after Uzbekistan, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea—but the military-dominated nation has climbed up from second place in 2011.
Similarly, Burma is ranked 187 out of 197 countries in the world—38 out of 40 Asian-Pacific nations—in this week’s Freedom of the Press 2012 report by Freedom House, but was still praised for tangible reforms over the course of the last year.
“Burma has moved from second on CPJ’s previous list to seventh on this analysis because it, too, released a number of imprisoned journalists and informally loosened, at least temporarily, restrictions on reporting for locals and foreigners alike,” said the CPJ report, released to mark World Press Freedom Day on Thursday.
“Burma’s military-backed government allowed foreign journalists into the country to cover a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December and a landmark by-election in April.”
However, it was not all positive reading with one Southeast Asia-based reporter for an international news outlet telling CPJ on condition of anonymity: “But between those two events, with limited exceptions, the government ignored visa requests from major international news organizations, making it impossible for them to visit the country unless they did so undercover as tourists.
“Also, visas to cover the April 1 election were valid for five days only, after which all officially approved foreign reporters had to leave en masse.”
Government attempts to use the courts to censor the Burmese media come under the spotlight when the Ministry of Construction launched a defamation action against Modern Weekly journal earlier this year after an article criticized the state of Mandalay’s roads, prompting accusations that this was a new tactic to silence dissenters.
Although this lawsuit has now been dropped, a similar one by the Ministry of Mining remains against The Voice Weekly after the journal printed allegations of graft revealed in a government audit report.
The CPJ also cited the case of a commentary by journalist Ludu Sein Win regarding proposals by Ministry of Information officials concerning the new media law which were discussed during a Rangoon conference. Ludu Sein Win wrote that those who attended the event were “helping to make the rope to hang themselves” and his article was subsequently banned, only to be later published in exile by The Irrawaddy.
The Freedom House report also documented a series of general improvements over the course of last year with Burma among three of nations with major gains—along with Libya and Tunisia—which for many years had endured media environments that were among the world’s most oppressive.
Freedom House listed eight nations as the “worst of the worst” for press freedom—Belarus, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—with Burma conspicuously absent this year.
“During 2011, significant improvements in Burma and Libya allowed them to emerge from this cohort, reducing the number of states where free media remain overwhelmingly circumscribed to its lowest point in the past five years,” said the Freedom of the Press 2012 report.
“On a positive note, the region’s second worst performer in 2010, [Burma,] experienced a significant opening in 2011. The press freedom score for Burma improved from 94 to 85 points as the regime tentatively implemented political reforms.
“Positive developments included the release of imprisoned bloggers, a softening of official censorship, fewer reports of harassment and attacks against journalists, and an increase in the number of private media outlets, which led to somewhat more diversity of content and less self-censorship. In addition, a number of exiled journalists were able to return to the country.”
Of 197 countries surveyed on a wide variety of freedom of press issues, Freedom House rated 66 nations as “free,” 72 “partly free” and 59 “not free.”
Burmese Information Minister Kyaw Hsan ensured that all media outlets in the country would soon enjoy “100 percent press freedom” but would have to abide by the law, during an exclusive interview with The Irrawaddy founder Aung Zaw in March.
“We learned about media law from different countries including Asean nations, America and India—which is a flourish democracy,” he said.
“There are many things learned from the history of our country and we can take a lot of experience from this. We have written our new law combining our experiences of the past, present events and the law of international community which is appropriate for us.”
But despite such assurances from Naypyidaw, all privately run news publications in Burma are currently subject to stifling prepublication requirements including a complete blackout on reporting of the armed conflict with ethnic Kachin rebels in the remote north, says CPJ.
Prison sentences have been used to punish reporters working for exile-run media groups, regulations imposed in 2011 banned the use of flash drives and web phones in internet cafés and local reporters with international agencies are subject to constant police surveillance, claims the New York-based committee.
However, previously banned exiled news organizations—including The Irrawaddy and Democratic Voice of Burma—are now accessible inside the country with staff members granted temporary visas to report of major events including the historic April 1 by-elections.
Sources Here :
YANGON (Reuters) - European firms seeking to invest in Myanmar are unlikely to rush into business deals until more concrete reforms are put in place, despite a suspension of economic sanctions by the EU, its foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Saturday.
The European Union and other powers have moved in recent weeks to ease sanctions on Myanmar, as the once pariah nation embarks on landmark reforms and seeks engagement with the world.
Speaking on her first visit to the former British colony, Ashton said punitive measures could be lifted fully before their next scheduled review in a year's time but only if all 27 EU members were convinced Myanmar's overhaul "cannot go backwards".
"There's a lot of delegations that have been here with business leaders very interested in what can be done here but they'll make their judgments like us," Ashton told Reuters in an interview during the EU's most high-profile visit to Myanmar since the military ceded power a year ago.
"The suspension is important for them, but they'll make their business decisions based on what they see on the ground. Companies need the rule of law to exist. They need to know that if they invest in this economy, it will be well looked after and secured. They want stability and a workforce that is trained."
European companies have lobbied aggressively as they seek to tap one of Asia's last frontier markets. Firms from Asian powers like Japan, China, India, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand are already preparing to enter Myanmar's mining, energy, tourism, telecoms and manufacturing sectors.
Ashton said key targets to be met for a full lifting of sanctions would include freeing all remaining political prisoners, an inclusive political climate and permanent solutions to conflicts with ethnic minority rebels.
"They need to keep up the momentum and look at releasing all political prisoners. It's about trying to makes sure that after ceasefires, people can go home, that there's a role for them in the economy ... they can feel their own identity but also part of the country," she said. Continued...
(Reuters) - Myanmar will overhaul its peace negotiating teams in a bid to settle festering armed rebellions with ethnic rebel militias following its failure to end a stubborn conflict in the country's strategic Kachin State, sources said on Sunday.
President Thein Sein is planning to restructure the teams after a failure to make a breakthrough in six rounds of talks with Kachin rebels and their political leaders. Fighting between troops and militias has displaced more than 50,000 people since last June, two sources close to the peace effort told Reuters.
The reformist president, who appealed to dozens of ethnic groups in August to start talks, would bring in a vice president, parliamentarians, and top military figures as part of his three-stage plan for "everlasting peace" in a country plagued by decades of ethnic unrest.
"The two teams set up last year will be combined into one and the new team will comprise many members including senior army officers, parliamentary law makers and state chief ministers and will be led a vice president," one source said, requesting anonymity because the issue was highly sensitive.
The need for permanent political deals with the rebels has been pushed by Western powers as a priority for stability and economic development. Preliminary ceasefires have already been agreed with about a dozen political organisations or armies.
One of the biggest groups, the Karen National Union (KNU), which waged one of the world's longest-running insurgencies until recently, began talks towards a political agreement earlier this month.
The substance of those talks is expected to be granting a degree of autonomy if they agree to form political parties.
It was not known exactly who would be brought in or replaced, the sources said. The two teams are led by Rail Transportation Minister Aung Min and Aung Thaung, a heavyweight in the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and former Industry Minister.
Analysts and diplomats say Aung Min's group has managed to win the trust of sceptical rebel groups and enjoyed far more success than the team led by Aung Thaung, who is considered a hardliner from the authoritarian military regime that ruled Myanmar until last year.
Aung Thaung's team has been in talks with the Kachin Independence Army and its political wing, the Kachin Independence Organisation, but the dialogue towards a ceasefire in the murky conflict has been fruitless.
The international community has repeatedly called for restraint on both sides, while rights groups say the military, which President Thein Sein has instructed not to attack the KIA, has committed a litany of rights abuses, including rape, forced labour and extrajudicial killings.
The KIA is one of the most powerful ethnic armies. The Kachin State is also crucial to Myanmar's economic interests, home to hydropower plants and from next year, twin gas and oil pipelines from the Bay of Bengal being built to feed China's growing energy needs.
(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
President Thein Sein is planning to restructure the teams after a failure to make a breakthrough in six rounds of talks with Kachin rebels and their political leaders. Fighting between troops and militias has displaced more than 50,000 people since last June, two sources close to the peace effort told Reuters.
The reformist president, who appealed to dozens of ethnic groups in August to start talks, would bring in a vice president, parliamentarians, and top military figures as part of his three-stage plan for "everlasting peace" in a country plagued by decades of ethnic unrest.
"The two teams set up last year will be combined into one and the new team will comprise many members including senior army officers, parliamentary law makers and state chief ministers and will be led a vice president," one source said, requesting anonymity because the issue was highly sensitive.
The need for permanent political deals with the rebels has been pushed by Western powers as a priority for stability and economic development. Preliminary ceasefires have already been agreed with about a dozen political organisations or armies.
One of the biggest groups, the Karen National Union (KNU), which waged one of the world's longest-running insurgencies until recently, began talks towards a political agreement earlier this month.
The substance of those talks is expected to be granting a degree of autonomy if they agree to form political parties.
It was not known exactly who would be brought in or replaced, the sources said. The two teams are led by Rail Transportation Minister Aung Min and Aung Thaung, a heavyweight in the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and former Industry Minister.
Analysts and diplomats say Aung Min's group has managed to win the trust of sceptical rebel groups and enjoyed far more success than the team led by Aung Thaung, who is considered a hardliner from the authoritarian military regime that ruled Myanmar until last year.
Aung Thaung's team has been in talks with the Kachin Independence Army and its political wing, the Kachin Independence Organisation, but the dialogue towards a ceasefire in the murky conflict has been fruitless.
The international community has repeatedly called for restraint on both sides, while rights groups say the military, which President Thein Sein has instructed not to attack the KIA, has committed a litany of rights abuses, including rape, forced labour and extrajudicial killings.
The KIA is one of the most powerful ethnic armies. The Kachin State is also crucial to Myanmar's economic interests, home to hydropower plants and from next year, twin gas and oil pipelines from the Bay of Bengal being built to feed China's growing energy needs.
(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
A Myanmar boy walks past a pile of wooden logs in Yangon on April 19, 2012. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Friday it was prepared to resume giving financial aid to Myanmar after a 24-year suspension, but only once the government repaid nearly US$500 million (S$620 million) in debt. -- PHOTO: AFP
MANILA (AFP) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Friday it was prepared to resume giving financial aid to Myanmar after a 24-year suspension, but only once the government repaid nearly US$500 million (S$620 million) in debt.
ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda said the Manila-based multilateral institution was ready to help the formerly junta-ruled country emerge from decades of economic quagmire, following recent significant political reforms.
But Mr Kuroda said Myanmar owed the ADB US$490 million, and the newly appointed quasi-civilian government must repay the money before any new financial assistance could be extended.
'At this stage, that is one big hurdle... to restart financial assistance to Myanmar because the government has accumulated arrears vis-a-vis ADB, the World Bank and other bilateral donors,' Mr Kuroda told reporters.
'And that must be cleared before we can start financial assistance.'
Mr Kuroda said that unlike bilateral donors, multilateral lending agencies had little wiggle room to waive off debts.
'I would like to emphasise that as far as multilaterals are concerned, we have not much flexibility,' Mr Kuroda said.
But he stressed the Manila-based bank was prepared for 'constructive engagement' with the government in Myanmar, and help it revive its economy as it slowly transitions into democracy.
Mr Kuroda noted that Myanmar was the fourth most populous country in South-east Asia, and this had a huge potential labour pool that presented opportunities for investment.
The country also has big reserves of untapped natural resources, Mr Kuroda said, without giving specific figures.
'The potential for the Myanmar economy is really huge,' Mr Kuroda said.
'We are hopeful that with the engagement by the international community, including ADB, the Myanmar economy can be developed rapidly and the living standards of its people can be substantially improved,' he said.
Myanmar was an original member of the ADB, which has been providing soft loans and grants to the region's developing countries since its founding in 1966 in a bid to help improve the lives of the poor.
The ADB cut off Myanmar from aid in 1988, when the military regime violently crushed a public uprising led by students and activists.
The World Bank announced on Thursday that it would open an office in Myanmar in June. Mr Kuroda said the ADB had no plans yet to do the same, although it could happen.
WASHINGTON — The European Union’s suspension of economic sanctions against Myanmar has riled exiled activists, who are urging the United States to press for further reforms by the dominant military before following suit.
The activists’ opposition has exposed differences with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose cause they have championed for more than two decades, which helped drive the sanctions in the first place.
uu Kyi endorsed the EU move during a visit by British Prime Minister David Cameron to Yangon this month, but the activists are skeptical that sanctions could be re-imposed if Myanmar, also known as Burma, should backslide on the reforms. They say despite Suu Kyi winning a seat in parliament and the government reaching cease-fires with several ethnic armed insurgencies, the changes have yet to affect the lives of most citizens and rampant rights abuses continue.
“The EU has suspended sanctions knowing that its own benchmarks on Burma have not been met: the unconditional release of all political prisoners and a cessation of attacks against ethnic minorities,” Soe Aung of the Forum for Democracy in Burma said by e-mail from Thailand. He accused the bloc of rushing to reward “murky reforms.”
“It’s illogical and a little hypocritical,” Aung said.
While the influence of Myanmar activists who escaped the country in the years following a 1988 crackdown on democracy protesters is waning as the country opens up, they remain players in the debate. Last week, a group of them were lobbying opinion-makers in Washington, including at the State Department and the World Bank.
They say foreign investment before rule of law is established in the impoverished country would do more harm than good and benefit only the military and its cronies, who dominate the most lucrative sectors of the economy, such as timber, gemstones, oil and gas. Most of those resources are in, and need to be transported through, remote, ethnic-minority regions where hundreds of thousands of villagers have been displaced by fighting and where military abuses have been worst.
The Obama administration has taken those concerns on board. While the U.S. has led the charge in engaging Myanmar, it is moving more slowly than the EU in lifting sanctions. It is upgrading diplomatic ties and plans to allow U.S. investment in some sectors, but only in areas it judges would benefit the broader population.
Congressional committees that oversee U.S. policy toward Asia will take up the issue this week, hearing testimony by senior officials from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Treasury Department.
Khin Ohmar, coordinator of Burma Partnership, a coalition of pro-democracy activists based in several Asian countries, said despite relaxation of restrictions on media and peaceful protests in Myanmar, the military still can act with impunity.
“People talk about President Thein Sein being reform-minded. That may be true. There’s always been reform-minded people, even under the repressive system. But what we need in Burma is institutional changes, not changes based on personalities,” she said in Washington.
The activists’ opposition has exposed differences with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose cause they have championed for more than two decades, which helped drive the sanctions in the first place.
uu Kyi endorsed the EU move during a visit by British Prime Minister David Cameron to Yangon this month, but the activists are skeptical that sanctions could be re-imposed if Myanmar, also known as Burma, should backslide on the reforms. They say despite Suu Kyi winning a seat in parliament and the government reaching cease-fires with several ethnic armed insurgencies, the changes have yet to affect the lives of most citizens and rampant rights abuses continue.
“The EU has suspended sanctions knowing that its own benchmarks on Burma have not been met: the unconditional release of all political prisoners and a cessation of attacks against ethnic minorities,” Soe Aung of the Forum for Democracy in Burma said by e-mail from Thailand. He accused the bloc of rushing to reward “murky reforms.”
“It’s illogical and a little hypocritical,” Aung said.
While the influence of Myanmar activists who escaped the country in the years following a 1988 crackdown on democracy protesters is waning as the country opens up, they remain players in the debate. Last week, a group of them were lobbying opinion-makers in Washington, including at the State Department and the World Bank.
They say foreign investment before rule of law is established in the impoverished country would do more harm than good and benefit only the military and its cronies, who dominate the most lucrative sectors of the economy, such as timber, gemstones, oil and gas. Most of those resources are in, and need to be transported through, remote, ethnic-minority regions where hundreds of thousands of villagers have been displaced by fighting and where military abuses have been worst.
The Obama administration has taken those concerns on board. While the U.S. has led the charge in engaging Myanmar, it is moving more slowly than the EU in lifting sanctions. It is upgrading diplomatic ties and plans to allow U.S. investment in some sectors, but only in areas it judges would benefit the broader population.
Congressional committees that oversee U.S. policy toward Asia will take up the issue this week, hearing testimony by senior officials from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Treasury Department.
Khin Ohmar, coordinator of Burma Partnership, a coalition of pro-democracy activists based in several Asian countries, said despite relaxation of restrictions on media and peaceful protests in Myanmar, the military still can act with impunity.
“People talk about President Thein Sein being reform-minded. That may be true. There’s always been reform-minded people, even under the repressive system. But what we need in Burma is institutional changes, not changes based on personalities,” she said in Washington.
By ,
By Gwen Robinson in Bangkok
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Myanmar’s president is contemplating cabinet changes that could reduce the power of some anti-reform ministers in the wake of his party’s crushing election defeat earlier this month.
Several people close to the government said Mr Thein Sein was also considering the move – which could see some “hardliners” moved to different roles or have their responsibilities reduced – because of concerns about how far western countries will go in lifting sanctions.
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Mr Thein Sein, who launched the reform process that has sparked a new attitude towards Myanmar around the world, has discussed possible changes with his reformist allies, say people close to the government, who added that the overhaul of the 37-member cabinet could come within weeks
Some of Mr Thein Sein’s allies have warned that mixed signals from the west – highlighted by calls by UK prime minister David Cameron to suspend and not lift sanctions – could strengthen reactionary elements and lead them to obstruct reform. In a worrying sign for the reformers, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose support for lifting sanctions is seen as key, supported Mr Cameron.
This is adding to the pressure on Mr Thein Sein who, having convinced conservatives to go along with his radical reforms, is now expected to deliver the economic benefits of democratisation, which one adviser describes as the “removal of sanctions, not some half-baked measures”.
Vice-president Tin Aung Myint Oo is among those in the hardline camp, which includes the leaders of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development party, Aung Thaung and U Htay Oo. It also includes Kyaw San, the information minister, and Zaw Min, the electric power minister.
The opposition NLD won 43 of the 45 seats in last month’s by-election, which far exceeded even its own expectations. The orderly conduct of the polls and Ms Suu Kyi’s endorsement of the process were seen as vital to any easing of western sanctions.
But suspension rather than removal of restrictions amounts to highly qualified support that could still deter western business from substantial investment, in the view of local and foreign analysts.
Fresh doubts among hardliners about the value of the reform process underline reports of an intensifying power struggle within government and parliament.
Officials recently denied such suggestions in local media. But as the USDP assesses its electoral rout, analysts are watching for signs that hardliners would use the defeat to curb the president’s reforms.
“After the recent developments, it’s a very good time to make changes,” says one person close to the government. “it has become much clearer where the new challenges are, where they need stronger, more competent people – although it is still not decided if people get dropped or just if there is a reshuffle of responsibilities”.
The cabinet, he noted, is a “complete mix, of some holdovers from the old government, under the previous regime, and people personally selected by the president”.
Some advisers argue, however, that the USDP’s defeat and international plaudits for the polls have strengthened the president’s hand, proving he is “on the right path”.
“At a personal level they [conservatives] know if we don’t reform ourselves, then we will hand the NLD or others a sweeping victory in 2015,” says one government adviser, referring to the national elections expected to take place in three years.
With Ms Suu Kyi and her team of MPs to enter parliament when it reconvenes next week, one adviser said the relationship between Mr Thein Sein, Shwe Mann, the influential house speaker and USDP head, and Ms Suu Kyi was providing a “new equilibrium” that was the emerging driver of reform.
The military, which is allocated 25 per cent of parliamentary seats, remains a pervasive force. But so far it has supported major reforms both in parliament and cabinet.
“The biggest challenge in our society is how to establish this new equilibrium … these three power centres [president, speaker and opposition leader] must be strong enough to offset attacks from hardliners on the legislative and executive sides,” said the adviser. “It must be a workable mechanism.”
As the USDP looks to revamp its party machine to compete in the 2015 national poll, people close to the government say the president and his parliamentary allies could use the “reform or die” lesson of the by-election to move against opponents.
One government member was recently quoted as saying that about 20 per cent of the cabinet were reformers, 20 per cent hardliners and the other 60 per cent were “fence-sitting, waiting to see who would win”. He later backtracked, privately saying the quote had provoked a backlash within cabinet.
The opposition party of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi says it may boycott parliament over a dispute regarding the constitutional oath of office, just weeks after winning a landslide victory in the country's by-elections.
Officials with the National League for Democracy say its newly elected members are unlikely to attend the opening session of parliament on Monday.
The announcement comes after the Burmese government reportedly rejected the NLD's request to change the phrasing of the oath of office from “safeguarding” the country's constitution to “respecting” it.
The Nobel laureate, who won her first ever seat in parliament during the April 1 polls, has long promised to amend the 2008 constitution, which was drawn up by Burma's former military leaders.
Party officials say the issue is unlikely to be resolved in time for Monday's swearing-in ceremony, during which members were set to formally become the main opposition force in a parliament that is dominated by military-backed parties.
The NLD boycotted the 2010 elections that ended decades of military rule in Burma.
Since taking office a year ago, President Thein Sein has enacted a series of democratic reforms, including greater press freedom and the release of many political prisoners.President Thein Sein travelled Friday to Japan, becoming the first Burmese head of state to visit the country in nearly three decades.
Sources: VOA
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Australia is lifting some of its sanctions on Myanmar, as politicians in Canberra join the growing group of leaders looking for ways to encourage the south-east Asian nation’s move towards democracy.
The decision comes two weeks after elections in Myanmar that saw significant victories for the opposition, led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
The US lifted some of its financial and travel restrictions on the country’s leaders a few days after that vote. The US sanctions are the most comprehensive ones restricting trade and investment in Myanmar, although observers caution that loosening them will be complicated as the move must be approved by Congress, where support for lifting sanctions is not guaranteed.
Australia will remove financial sanctions and travel restrictions imposed on Myanmar’s civilian leaders, but will keep those in place against military figures and “individuals of human rights concerns”, the foreign ministry said. Australia will maintain its embargo on the sale of arms to Myanmar.
Bob Carr, Australia’s foreign minister, said that “reducing our sanctions and encouraging trade recognise the far-reaching political, economic and social reforms we are witnessing in Burma [Myanmar] in recent times”.
Removing sanctions could create new opportunities for Australian companies. The country’s trade minister said Australia would also discontinue its former policy of “neither encouraging nor discouraging” investment in Myanmar, which had meant that Australia did not block trade with Burma but did not offer companies assistance or advice on their work there.
“I welcome the opportunities that normalised trade ties will present for the Burmese people and Australian companies,” said the minister, Craig Emerson.
Australian sanctions had discouraged business but were not as comprehensive as US or European Union measures against Myanmar, said Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar. Energy groups, including Twinza Oil, had operated in the country, and Qantas’ low-cost subsidiary Jetstar flew into Yangon.
Mr Wilson said he expected mining, tourism and schools offering Burmese students the chance to study in Australia would be the first to expand their work in Myanmar.
British prime minister David Cameron hinted last week during a visit to Myanmar that the UK is also likely to support the easing of sanctions on the country.
Since by-elections in Myanmar on April 1, which gave 43 seats to the opposition National League for Democracy, some European nations have called for the removal of sanctions. The EU will make a formal decision on whether to renew its sanctions on the country by April 23, and the EU’s foreign affairs chief will visit the country on April 28.
The decision comes two weeks after elections in Myanmar that saw significant victories for the opposition, led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
The US lifted some of its financial and travel restrictions on the country’s leaders a few days after that vote. The US sanctions are the most comprehensive ones restricting trade and investment in Myanmar, although observers caution that loosening them will be complicated as the move must be approved by Congress, where support for lifting sanctions is not guaranteed.
Australia will remove financial sanctions and travel restrictions imposed on Myanmar’s civilian leaders, but will keep those in place against military figures and “individuals of human rights concerns”, the foreign ministry said. Australia will maintain its embargo on the sale of arms to Myanmar.
Bob Carr, Australia’s foreign minister, said that “reducing our sanctions and encouraging trade recognise the far-reaching political, economic and social reforms we are witnessing in Burma [Myanmar] in recent times”.
Removing sanctions could create new opportunities for Australian companies. The country’s trade minister said Australia would also discontinue its former policy of “neither encouraging nor discouraging” investment in Myanmar, which had meant that Australia did not block trade with Burma but did not offer companies assistance or advice on their work there.
“I welcome the opportunities that normalised trade ties will present for the Burmese people and Australian companies,” said the minister, Craig Emerson.
Australian sanctions had discouraged business but were not as comprehensive as US or European Union measures against Myanmar, said Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar. Energy groups, including Twinza Oil, had operated in the country, and Qantas’ low-cost subsidiary Jetstar flew into Yangon.
Mr Wilson said he expected mining, tourism and schools offering Burmese students the chance to study in Australia would be the first to expand their work in Myanmar.
British prime minister David Cameron hinted last week during a visit to Myanmar that the UK is also likely to support the easing of sanctions on the country.
Since by-elections in Myanmar on April 1, which gave 43 seats to the opposition National League for Democracy, some European nations have called for the removal of sanctions. The EU will make a formal decision on whether to renew its sanctions on the country by April 23, and the EU’s foreign affairs chief will visit the country on April 28.
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The hacking of Bangladeshi websites including its largest online news site bdnews24.com has triggered the war, which is expected to again speed in days to come.
The maritime dispute between Myanmar and Bangladesh was settled last month through the delivery of a landmark verdict by United Nations International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on March 14. It provided Bangladesh with its claims to a full 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone in the Bay of Bengal along with a substantial share of the outer continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles. Some experts later reasoned that through the verdict, both nations have been facilitated.
However, building up on the verdict's outcome, among other reasons, a war in the cyberscape may soon gain speed between hackers of both countries, following an onslaught by Myanmar hackers, this past week.
The fact was noted on the night of April 11, when the largest online news site in Bangladesh, bdnews24.com, was allegedly hacked. The site could not be accessed by readers for almost 15 minutes till early minutes of April 12. The home page of the site mentioned the name of the hacker and his occupation, while implying that he is from Myanmar.
According to the web information company Alexa, bdnews24.com is the eighth most popular site in Bangladesh and holds a global rank of 2,030. While talking to rediff.com on April 12, Yasir Riad, a software engineer of bdnews24.com tried to downplay the allegations of hacking, when he reasoned that there was probably a virus in the server.
Bangladesh cyber army sources alleged that along with bdnews24.com, at least 40 Bangladeshi sites were hacked by a group of hackers who hail from Myanmar. "There were at least three Bangladesh government websites in this list," claimed a BCA representative to rediff.com on April 12.
Some of the hacked Bangladeshi sites include digitalinnovationfair.info, nondonfood.com, islamictv.com.bd, insourcebd.com, krishibidgroup.org.bd, bist.edu.bd, tcb.gov.bd, visionbd.com, kutirnirman.com, voreralo.org, acc.edu.bd and more. A few of these sites had a post mentioned that these were hacked by Myanmar Hackers Uni Team.
The BCA representative explained that such form of mass hacking or hacktivism occurs when a group of hackers want to press home a certain cause. "The Myanmar hackers basically tried to warn Bangladesh about the maritime dispute win and other issues that still has not been resolved between the two countries," he said.
Following the attacks, BCA claimed to have attacked a number of Myanmar sites from April 13. "We did not hack any of the government sites. We targeted a few sites including three hosting sites and some forums of Myanmar hackers," said the BCA representative.
He added, "Hacker communities of Pakistan, India [ Images ], Bangladesh, Sri Lanka [ Images ] and others are in communication with each other. So when there is such mass attack on a particular country or organisations websites, hackers of these countries usually are abreast of the causes behind it. But as Myanmar is fairly new, they are not in contact with the global hacking community."
The Myanmar-Bangladesh conflict once again brings to fore the efficiency of hackers in the South Asian region.
While India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka has had Internet over the past two decades, Bangladesh is a fairly late bloomer in the sector. Myanmar, on the other hand, is just growing.
According to the report 'State of Internet Usage in Myanmar' by Wai-Yan Phyo Oo and Saw Pyayzon published in July 2010, Myanmar has over 4,00,000 Internet users, which is 0.8 per cent of the total population. The majority of these users are based in Yangon and Mandalay.
"Hence it came as a surprise to us to see that hackers from Myanmar are doing all this," said the BCA representative.
BCA was itself a part of the cyber war between groups of hackers of Bangladesh and India in February, that saw the hacking of as many as over 25,000 websites on both sides of the border, in a matter of just four days.
The cyber war was initiated when Indian hacker groups, Indishell, Hindustan cyber army and Indian cyber army hacked four Bangladesh government ministries and the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh's websites on February 11, triggering a wave of cyber attacks from Bangladeshi counterparts: Bangladesh Black Hat Hackers, 3xp1r3 cyber army and BCA.
From February 11 till February 14, international media who covered the war claimed that over 400 Bangladeshi sites were hacked by Indian hackers and over 20,000 Indian websites including government sites like the Border Security Force's and numerous private websites were attacked by Bangladeshi hackers.
Although there was no significant destruction of data or financial loss reported on either side. Indishell, ICA and the HCA posted ominous messages to Bangladeshi hackers on the Bangladeshi sites, while, Bangladeshi hackers posted messages and images protesting the killings and torture of Bangladeshi nationals at the hands of BSF personnel at the 4,165-kilometer long India-Bangladesh border and India's construction of the Tipaimukh dam that is likely to have severe environmental affects on Bangladesh and adjoining areas of India.
Indian hackers stopped hacking Bangladeshi sites by February 14, driving some Indian media to dub Bangladeshi hackers the "victor". On February 27, BBHH declared "an end to their cyber attacks on India" on their Facebook page, taking the outcome of the two-day long talks between Home Minister P Chidambaram [ Images ] and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sahara Khatun at New Delhi [ Images ], as a positive sign.
At the home-ministerial level talks that concluded on February 25, Delhi assured Dhaka to bring border killings "down to zero".
A number of other hacking incidents in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries of South Asia over the past few years have led most to identify a number of points behind the growing trend of hacking incidents in the region.
A BCA representative pointed out to this correspondent that hacking has become convenient in South Asia due to lack of proper security measures. "Of all the South Asian countries, India's web security is at considerably better standard, with Pakistan coming at second and Bangladesh's being minimal," he said.
He explained that as hackers use various proxy servers and, after each attack, the hacked server logs are cleared, "when cyber crime authorities check, they find that the server was accessed from various parts of the world," he said.
Such form of hacktivism has been popularised by Anonymous, an international hacking community infamous for the hacking of Ontario association of chief of police's website, high profile United States government websites, Sony, PBS, Vatican's website and others this year, while protesting various issues.
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As business opportunities explode after the relaxing of domestic and international restrictions, many doubt whether Burma's poor will benefit
Russian tourists at the Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon. Tourism in the country has doubled since 2010. Photograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
The sweetly acrid smell of incense filled the hotel lobby, where a group of Chinese businessmen had converged to do a deal. Passing a small piece of wood around their semicircle of red leather armchairs, they lit it, sniffed it, analysed the perfume of its smoke, and argued loudly about its value. A traditional Chinese remedy for various health complaints, agarwood – or, more specifically, its incense – is worth more today than its weight in gold, and Burma is being touted as a potential exporter.
Thanks to Aung San Suu Kyi's landslide victory in Burma's recent parliamentary elections, in which her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won 43 out of 45 available seats, such business deals are increasingly visible around the country.
From hotel lobbies to street corners, where hawkers sell engraved silverware, jewellery and teapots dating back to when the British ruled this country of 50 million people, everyone is eager to tap into what many have called the last frontier.
"Here in Burma, anything and everything can and will happen," said Stephen Lee, a Chinese-born businessman who made his wealth in Australian property before moving to Rangoon in 2010 to start a chain of businesses. "This is the last untapped country, the last frontier, so everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, in every industry that you can dream of."
Lee's own investments range from property and overseas trading to travel agencies, English-language schools and business consulting – and next, possibly the sale of agarwood, he said.
Rangoon's few business-oriented hotels – bastions of modernity in a city of crumbling buildings streaked with mould and the black stains of diesel fumes – have seen a continual turnover of international business people since President Thein Sein took office in 2011 and implemented unprecedented reforms, from the release of political prisoners to the relaxation of censorship and business ownership laws.
Now that the 1 April byelections have been widely assessed as a positive first step on Burma's apparent road to democracy, economic opportunities are expected to grow, with the US relaxing sanctions, the EU expected to follow suit, and Burma chairing the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) in 2014.
Property prices, as well as hotel rates, have rocketed, and tourism – once considered an activity of only the most determined traveller – has doubled since 2010 and is expected to increase by 30% annually, according to official figures.
Catering for the new visitors, English-language business magazines have popped up, such as the soon-to-be-launched MZ+, directed at diplomats and corporate investors. The brainchild of editors at the Burmese news agency Mizzima, MZ+ will charge $19 (£12) a month for its weekly 40-page content, ranging from politics and lifestyle to investment and tourism. It will be far too pricey for the average local buyer, but "it's not for locals" anyway, says its editor-in-chief, Sein Win. "This is for international businessmen who are looking to invest in things like mining, tourism and real estate, and need information catered to them in English."
Burma is also having a cultural awakening. At a recent international evening of jazz at the colonial-era Strand hotel in Rangoon, locals in longyis toe-tapped along to classical Burmese renditions of John Coltrane's Afro Blue and Miles Davis's So What, played by twentysomething musicians in jeans from the Myanmar National Orchestra and other local ensembles.
The Myanmar Meets Europe evening was sponsored by the German embassy – German musicians had gone to Rangoon to hold a workshop with Burmese students, many of whom will play in Germany in May.
"The crowd tonight is good," said the double bass player Kyaw Zin Htet, 20. "People here don't really like jazz, but that's changing. It's hard [for us] to get used to the improvisation involved. It took me two years to like it myself."
In art galleries downtown, change is also afoot. Up a dusty staircase at Pansodan art gallery, the influx of visitors to Burma has seen painting sales increase by 300% in four years, said the gallery's founder, Aung Soe Min. This in turn has inspired local Burmese buyers to reinvest in an art form that was used less for culture and more for propaganda purposes under the military regime.
With Thein Sein's recent relaxation of unionisation regulations, local artists have been able to create an independent artists' alliance, and plan to form an art colony and museum of contemporary works in the coming months.
"For me, the opening up [of Burma] is really good for our culture and our community," said Aung Soe Min. "But I'm also afraid how healthy our culture can remain, because as we become industrialised … we find ourselves facing two things: social and political freedom, and the forces of capitalism and materialism."
Aung Soe Min pointed to the gallery's crowded walls, where images of gilded monks hang next to expressionist themes of liberty and censorship, many of them featuring Aung San Suu Kyi.
"The tourist market is interested in beautiful paintings of markets and monks, and most galleries, four years ago, were aimed at this market," he said. "But that's craft, not art. With the alliance, we want to give a space for artists to explore their own creativity, to explore their true feelings."
For the 25-year-old rapper Nay Zaw, who sprang to fame for his NLD campaign rap Wake Up Myanmar, Burma's reintroduction to the world is a double-edged sword. "If you look at places where there is so much change already, like Mandalay, you see that all of these businesses opening up, all of this change, is from one group: the wealthy," he said.
"The rest of Myanmar is still so poor. The money doesn't spread."
The full effect of such an economic awakening is unknown. Numbers here are wildly elastic (even the exact population is unclear). Critics warn that Burma stands to lose not only huge swaths of natural resources – from timber to gems and oil and gas – but also its culture and peace of mind as it opens up borders that had been heavily restricted for 50 years.
Like Nay Zaw, they say many changes will not benefit most of the population, 70% of whom live in the countryside and work in agriculture.
Davie Channon of the Rangoon-based British Council – which will this year spearhead the first teacher-training programme with the Burmese ministry of education since sanctions were first imposed in 1988 – sounded a note of caution over the motives behind this opening up.
"We need to ask, is this a genuine commitment to change, to democracy, to human rights?" he said. "Or is it an attempt to get the sanctions lifted so that more business, more investment will flow in, and certain people who are already in a position of advantage and privilege will gain even more?"
Those who stand to gain directly from Burma's open borders say the wealth will trickle down as businesses hire local staff and more Burmese move from the countryside to work in industries in the cities.
In a nation known for being shy but sweet and gentle to visitors, however, there are fears that once the Burmese see just how much foreign investors are reaping from their country, they may not stay nice for too long. "Well," Lee said, "I guess that's the price you pay for progress."
Election's hip-hop hero
Unlike many other hip-hop artists, Nay Zaw TH-Z does not call himself a gangster. The word he chooses instead is rebel – for it is his voice, his lyrics and his beats that helped galvanise Burma to "wake up, wake up" and believe that "we are the vote, and we will win" the byelection that saw Aung San Suu Kyi's party win 43 seats on 1 April.
With its rollicking beats and galvanising vocals, Nay Zaw's campaign song, Wake Up Myanmar, could be heard nationwide in the days leading up to the vote. In Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), blasted the song through loudspeakers on campaign trucks that barrelled through the colonial city, enticing people to come out on to the pavement and sing and dance along in the streets.
The song propelled the 25-year-old self-taught musician to national stardom nearly overnight and has been credited with helping get thousands of Burmese to the polling booths in the election, which many consider a milestone after nearly 50 years of military oppression.
Despite his newfound popularity, however, Nay Zaw has found that many of his long-time collaborators have cut their ties with him – fearing political repercussions.
"Most everyone is happy [Aung San Suu Kyi's party] won, but in the music world, people can't believe I wrote a song about the NLD," he says. "No one wants to get involved with politics because they run a risk, especially if they have the government's support as a musician."
Nay Zaw's uncertain future is representative of the changing climate in Burma itself, where new freedoms may not be so free after all. Zayar Thaw, one of Burma's best-known rappers, who spent three years as a political prisoner and has just been elected to parliament, says only time will tell what lies ahead: "Burma is changing, and it's changing very fast. I am very surprised and a little bit nervous, to be honest."
Esmer Golluoglu is a pseudonym for a journalist working in Rangoon
Russian tourists at the Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon. Tourism in the country has doubled since 2010. Photograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
The sweetly acrid smell of incense filled the hotel lobby, where a group of Chinese businessmen had converged to do a deal. Passing a small piece of wood around their semicircle of red leather armchairs, they lit it, sniffed it, analysed the perfume of its smoke, and argued loudly about its value. A traditional Chinese remedy for various health complaints, agarwood – or, more specifically, its incense – is worth more today than its weight in gold, and Burma is being touted as a potential exporter.
Thanks to Aung San Suu Kyi's landslide victory in Burma's recent parliamentary elections, in which her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won 43 out of 45 available seats, such business deals are increasingly visible around the country.
From hotel lobbies to street corners, where hawkers sell engraved silverware, jewellery and teapots dating back to when the British ruled this country of 50 million people, everyone is eager to tap into what many have called the last frontier.
"Here in Burma, anything and everything can and will happen," said Stephen Lee, a Chinese-born businessman who made his wealth in Australian property before moving to Rangoon in 2010 to start a chain of businesses. "This is the last untapped country, the last frontier, so everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, in every industry that you can dream of."
Lee's own investments range from property and overseas trading to travel agencies, English-language schools and business consulting – and next, possibly the sale of agarwood, he said.
Rangoon's few business-oriented hotels – bastions of modernity in a city of crumbling buildings streaked with mould and the black stains of diesel fumes – have seen a continual turnover of international business people since President Thein Sein took office in 2011 and implemented unprecedented reforms, from the release of political prisoners to the relaxation of censorship and business ownership laws.
Now that the 1 April byelections have been widely assessed as a positive first step on Burma's apparent road to democracy, economic opportunities are expected to grow, with the US relaxing sanctions, the EU expected to follow suit, and Burma chairing the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) in 2014.
Property prices, as well as hotel rates, have rocketed, and tourism – once considered an activity of only the most determined traveller – has doubled since 2010 and is expected to increase by 30% annually, according to official figures.
Catering for the new visitors, English-language business magazines have popped up, such as the soon-to-be-launched MZ+, directed at diplomats and corporate investors. The brainchild of editors at the Burmese news agency Mizzima, MZ+ will charge $19 (£12) a month for its weekly 40-page content, ranging from politics and lifestyle to investment and tourism. It will be far too pricey for the average local buyer, but "it's not for locals" anyway, says its editor-in-chief, Sein Win. "This is for international businessmen who are looking to invest in things like mining, tourism and real estate, and need information catered to them in English."
Burma is also having a cultural awakening. At a recent international evening of jazz at the colonial-era Strand hotel in Rangoon, locals in longyis toe-tapped along to classical Burmese renditions of John Coltrane's Afro Blue and Miles Davis's So What, played by twentysomething musicians in jeans from the Myanmar National Orchestra and other local ensembles.
The Myanmar Meets Europe evening was sponsored by the German embassy – German musicians had gone to Rangoon to hold a workshop with Burmese students, many of whom will play in Germany in May.
"The crowd tonight is good," said the double bass player Kyaw Zin Htet, 20. "People here don't really like jazz, but that's changing. It's hard [for us] to get used to the improvisation involved. It took me two years to like it myself."
In art galleries downtown, change is also afoot. Up a dusty staircase at Pansodan art gallery, the influx of visitors to Burma has seen painting sales increase by 300% in four years, said the gallery's founder, Aung Soe Min. This in turn has inspired local Burmese buyers to reinvest in an art form that was used less for culture and more for propaganda purposes under the military regime.
With Thein Sein's recent relaxation of unionisation regulations, local artists have been able to create an independent artists' alliance, and plan to form an art colony and museum of contemporary works in the coming months.
"For me, the opening up [of Burma] is really good for our culture and our community," said Aung Soe Min. "But I'm also afraid how healthy our culture can remain, because as we become industrialised … we find ourselves facing two things: social and political freedom, and the forces of capitalism and materialism."
Aung Soe Min pointed to the gallery's crowded walls, where images of gilded monks hang next to expressionist themes of liberty and censorship, many of them featuring Aung San Suu Kyi.
"The tourist market is interested in beautiful paintings of markets and monks, and most galleries, four years ago, were aimed at this market," he said. "But that's craft, not art. With the alliance, we want to give a space for artists to explore their own creativity, to explore their true feelings."
For the 25-year-old rapper Nay Zaw, who sprang to fame for his NLD campaign rap Wake Up Myanmar, Burma's reintroduction to the world is a double-edged sword. "If you look at places where there is so much change already, like Mandalay, you see that all of these businesses opening up, all of this change, is from one group: the wealthy," he said.
"The rest of Myanmar is still so poor. The money doesn't spread."
The full effect of such an economic awakening is unknown. Numbers here are wildly elastic (even the exact population is unclear). Critics warn that Burma stands to lose not only huge swaths of natural resources – from timber to gems and oil and gas – but also its culture and peace of mind as it opens up borders that had been heavily restricted for 50 years.
Like Nay Zaw, they say many changes will not benefit most of the population, 70% of whom live in the countryside and work in agriculture.
Davie Channon of the Rangoon-based British Council – which will this year spearhead the first teacher-training programme with the Burmese ministry of education since sanctions were first imposed in 1988 – sounded a note of caution over the motives behind this opening up.
"We need to ask, is this a genuine commitment to change, to democracy, to human rights?" he said. "Or is it an attempt to get the sanctions lifted so that more business, more investment will flow in, and certain people who are already in a position of advantage and privilege will gain even more?"
Those who stand to gain directly from Burma's open borders say the wealth will trickle down as businesses hire local staff and more Burmese move from the countryside to work in industries in the cities.
In a nation known for being shy but sweet and gentle to visitors, however, there are fears that once the Burmese see just how much foreign investors are reaping from their country, they may not stay nice for too long. "Well," Lee said, "I guess that's the price you pay for progress."
Election's hip-hop hero
Unlike many other hip-hop artists, Nay Zaw TH-Z does not call himself a gangster. The word he chooses instead is rebel – for it is his voice, his lyrics and his beats that helped galvanise Burma to "wake up, wake up" and believe that "we are the vote, and we will win" the byelection that saw Aung San Suu Kyi's party win 43 seats on 1 April.
With its rollicking beats and galvanising vocals, Nay Zaw's campaign song, Wake Up Myanmar, could be heard nationwide in the days leading up to the vote. In Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), blasted the song through loudspeakers on campaign trucks that barrelled through the colonial city, enticing people to come out on to the pavement and sing and dance along in the streets.
The song propelled the 25-year-old self-taught musician to national stardom nearly overnight and has been credited with helping get thousands of Burmese to the polling booths in the election, which many consider a milestone after nearly 50 years of military oppression.
Despite his newfound popularity, however, Nay Zaw has found that many of his long-time collaborators have cut their ties with him – fearing political repercussions.
"Most everyone is happy [Aung San Suu Kyi's party] won, but in the music world, people can't believe I wrote a song about the NLD," he says. "No one wants to get involved with politics because they run a risk, especially if they have the government's support as a musician."
Nay Zaw's uncertain future is representative of the changing climate in Burma itself, where new freedoms may not be so free after all. Zayar Thaw, one of Burma's best-known rappers, who spent three years as a political prisoner and has just been elected to parliament, says only time will tell what lies ahead: "Burma is changing, and it's changing very fast. I am very surprised and a little bit nervous, to be honest."
Esmer Golluoglu is a pseudonym for a journalist working in Rangoon
Credit Here :
BURMESE opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will meet President Thein Sein today for what a spokesman describes as a very important meeting before she takes her seat in Parliament.
National League for Democracy spokesman Nyan Win said Suu Kyi would fly to the capital Naypyitaw to talk at Thein Sein's invitation.
He said they may discuss democratisation and the peace process with ethnic rebels, as well as parliamentary affairs.
The parliamentary session opens April 23.
A meeting between them last August paved the way for the NLD to rejoin electoral politics and collaborate in promoting political reconciliation.
The NLD had boycotted a November 2010 general election as unfair and undemocratic.
However, when Thein Sein took office a year ago, he began reforms easing the political landscape after almost five decades of military repression. To woo Suu Kyi's party, the election law was amended to meet its objections.
Her party captured 43 seats in an April 1 by-election to become the main opposition presence in Parliament, which is dominated by allies of the former military regime.
The polls were viewed as a milestone for Burma, as it emerges from a half century of military rule, and an astonishing reversal of fortune for former political prisoner Suu Kyi.
During their first historic meeting in August last year, the two had "frank and friendly discussions" to "find ways and means of cooperation," according to an official statement at that time.
Afterward, the 66-year old Nobel Peace laureate told reporters she believed Thein Sein is sincere and "genuinely wishes for democratic reforms."
National League for Democracy spokesman Nyan Win said Suu Kyi would fly to the capital Naypyitaw to talk at Thein Sein's invitation.
He said they may discuss democratisation and the peace process with ethnic rebels, as well as parliamentary affairs.
The parliamentary session opens April 23.
A meeting between them last August paved the way for the NLD to rejoin electoral politics and collaborate in promoting political reconciliation.
The NLD had boycotted a November 2010 general election as unfair and undemocratic.
However, when Thein Sein took office a year ago, he began reforms easing the political landscape after almost five decades of military repression. To woo Suu Kyi's party, the election law was amended to meet its objections.
Her party captured 43 seats in an April 1 by-election to become the main opposition presence in Parliament, which is dominated by allies of the former military regime.
The polls were viewed as a milestone for Burma, as it emerges from a half century of military rule, and an astonishing reversal of fortune for former political prisoner Suu Kyi.
During their first historic meeting in August last year, the two had "frank and friendly discussions" to "find ways and means of cooperation," according to an official statement at that time.
Afterward, the 66-year old Nobel Peace laureate told reporters she believed Thein Sein is sincere and "genuinely wishes for democratic reforms."
Sources: AP
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