Democratic Voice of Burma |
- Bullet Points: 30 July 2014
- Burma President ‘allowed’ ministers to step down
- Pegu farmlands flooded by dam overflow
- 150 homeless as whirlwind sweeps through Rangoon
| Posted: 30 Jul 2014 05:19 AM PDT On today's edition of Bullet Points: Burma's Minister of Health, Dr. Pe Thet Khin and Minister of Information, Aung Kyi have resigned from their posts in the latest of several cabinet changes. UNICEF is aiming to electronically record every baby born in Burma. Ooredoo SIM cards are now on sale in Naypyidaw and Mandalay. Whirlwind sweeps through Rangoon.
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| Burma President ‘allowed’ ministers to step down Posted: 30 Jul 2014 04:46 AM PDT Burma's Information Minister Aung Kyi and Health Minister Dr Pe Thet Khin have been "allowed for resignation of their own volition", the president's office announced on Tuesday. One day after the sudden joint resignation, Burmese President Thein Sein informed the nation's parliament of his official nominations for their replacements: Deputy Information Minister Ye Htut and Deputy Health Minister Dr Than Aung, respectively. While the government has yet to offer an explanation for the swap-outs, some believe that permission to resign veils official pressure to leave a post; Aung Kyi, known as a relatively moderate voice for the press, is thought to have had deep disagreements with the president over media repression. "Minister Aung Kyi, in meetings with the Interim Press Council, refused to blame the media for recent disputes with the government," said Myint Kyaw, a member of the Myanmar Journalists Network, referring to several controversial lawsuits recently brought against journalists. The most infamous was a case against five employees of the now-defunct Unity Weekly journal, who are currently serving a ten year prison sentence with hard labour for their investigative reporting. "[Aung Kyi] did make a point about professional weaknesses of Burma's media, but he did not defend the government's jailing of reporters," Myint Kyaw added. "Instead he suggested that severe jail terms against journalists were caused by a lack of courage on behalf of local courts; they are reluctant to make their own verdict [against government charges]. This made his opinion stand out from other government officials." Though the former minister sometimes contradicted the government line, he was far less outspoken than his successor, the president's spokesperson Ye Htut. Likewise, Dr Pe Thet Khin was known for keeping a low profile as health minister; he did not enter politics with a military background, and his tenure was brief as he was appointed by Thein Sein in 2011. The shake-up follows another major cabinet reshuffle just last month, when the sacking of Religious Affairs Minister Hsan Hsint coincided with the resignation of Arakan State's Chief Minister Hla Maung Tin. The former has yet to be replaced, while the latter was controversially succeeded by a military official, Maj-Gen Maung Maung Ohn, who was, in turn, replaced by Maj-Gen Tin Aung Chit as minister of border affairs.
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| Pegu farmlands flooded by dam overflow Posted: 30 Jul 2014 02:40 AM PDT More than 40 square kilometres of farmland in Pegu Division's Thegon Township have been inundated by overflow from a nearby reservoir following heavy rain, according to locals. Residents said that while some flooding is normal in the area, which lies near the Irrawaddy River about 200km north of Rangoon, abnormally high waters and long-lasting floods have been frequent since development projects built by the former military regime altered irrigation flows. An irrigation dam and several industrial fishing ponds were built by the military on farmlands confiscated in 1999, according to locals, who have registered land claims with Burma's Land Investigation Commission, which was established in 2012. "Before, it would take about ten days at most for the water level to go down, leaving little damage to the paddy," said Khin Htun, a local farmer. "But nowadays the flooding lasts for up to a month, killing the plants and leaving us empty-handed for the rest of the crop season." Related StoriesAye Cho, a resident from Aungon village, said that although farmers were able to work for some time after the dam was built, it caused inconvenient changes to water distribution. Those inconveniences led many farmers to turn to fisheries, as the fish-farming industry was already being developed by the government on destroyed farmlands. "The situation was made worse after some locals decided to switch to the fishery business because the lands were no longer suitable for farming," said Aye Cho. "People started building ponds without proper land surveys, and now all of our farms are beyond repair." Representatives of Pegu's divisional parliament recently visited villages affected by the flooding to assess damages and provide assistance. One representative, Ohmar Moe Moe Zaw, told DVB that, "local ponds and wells have been restored and chlorinated as a health measure." The flooding was most severe in seven villages: Aungon, Minhla, Oakpho, Hnawgon, Kyargon, Myinni and Yaenanthar. The area in central Burma has become a hotbed of land rights claims in recent years. Villagers from many parts of Pegu, who had long subsisted off of farming, have registered numerous complaints that the former military junta had unjustly confiscated lands for development projects in the late 1990's. Some of those projects never materialised, while others turned out to be environmentally devastating. Upon the start of Burma's political turnaround and the subsequent amendment of both land policy and laws governing freedom of expression, many of those claims crept into public view. One of the villages most severely impacted by the recent floods, Aungon, has been the centre of a heated land dispute over which several protests have been brutally dispersed and at least five activists are facing charges. |
| 150 homeless as whirlwind sweeps through Rangoon Posted: 30 Jul 2014 02:02 AM PDT One hundred and fifty people have been made homeless in Mingalardon Township, Rangoon, after a whirlwind swept through the neighbourhood on Monday morning. The strong wind flattened 30 houses in Bawga ward and brought down several electricity poles. One person was injured in the freak storm. "I saw a dark cloud coming down around 6:50 in the morning so I started yelling to my brother-in-law and my mother, 'The wind is coming!' Just as we were fleeing, we saw my brother-in-law's house ripped up. The whole incident only lasted about three minutes," recalled one Bawga resident. Most of the houses in the area were made from bamboo and were too flimsy to resist the strong wind. Once the storm passed, more than 100 soldiers from the nearby army battalion helped to clear the debris. Weather expert and former head of the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Tun Lwin, said the summer monsoon would bring more unpredictable weather. "There have been unusual weather patterns lately due to an unpredictable monsoon, especially in the Andaman Sea and the east-central region of the Bay of Bengal, where heavy raincloud formation was seen," he said. The storm passed through several other townships in Rangoon that morning, including Hlaing Tharyar and Shwepyithar. In April, a whirlwind wiped out 150 homes and 130 acres of farmland in Shan State, near the popular tourist destination Inle Lake.
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