The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• National Education Bill Passes Parliament, Heads to President
• Viber Says App Used by 5 Million Burmese
• First Resettlements Set to Begin in Violence-Hit Meikhtila
• Burma’s UEC Under Fire for Election Rule Changes
• Troop Repositioning, Code of Conduct Important for Nationwide Ceasefire: Ethnics
• Burma’s Interim Press Council to Meet Thein Sein
• China’s ‘Strategic’ Gas Pipeline in Burma May Be Built on Hot Air
• Chinese Minority Scholar Indicted for Separatism
• Drug-Resistant Malaria Reaches Southeast Asia Borders, Could Spread to Africa
• After Western Sanctions, Asia a Hard Sell for Russian Firms Seeking Cash

National Education Bill Passes Parliament, Heads to President Posted: 31 Jul 2014 06:23 AM PDT Students walk near a public school in Rangoon in 2013. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Burma's Union Parliament passed a National Education Bill during a legislative session on Wednesday, bringing the nation's derelict schooling system one step closer to an overhaul. The bill will be sent to President Thein Sein for review and will become law with his signature. The president may also choose to send the bill back to Parliament with suggested changes. Separate versions of the legislation were passed by the Upper House and Lower House earlier this month, and lawmakers reconciled 69 differences between the two bills this week. Khine Maung Myint, a member of Parliament's Education Upgrading Committee, said the bill was passed after incorporating suggestions made by the joint bill committee of Parliament's Upper and Lower houses. A discussion of the bill by Union Parliament lawmakers on Wednesday did not yield any further changes to the legislation. The newly approved National Education Bill is a master-plan that will touch on many aspects of Burma's education system, according to Mya Oo, secretary of the Education Upgrading Committee. "We can call this a mother-law," Mya Oo said, adding that Burma's education minister would later submit follow-up legislation dealing with specific sectors of the national education system. The bill passed Wednesday includes policies on the implementation of formal and informal education, and spans the schooling spectrum, from early childhood through primary, secondary and higher education levels. The bill would purportedly allow greater autonomy to higher education institutions, which are currently under the authority of the Higher Education Department. Burma's former military regime consolidated control of the country's universities, viewed as hotbeds of dissent against the government. However, the extent of universities' future autonomy remains unclear, as the bill calls for the creation of a Higher Education Coordinating Committee, which would be responsible for "negotiating issues related to higher education with suitable persons." It would be housed under the National Education Commission, also a yet-to-be formed product of the bill that would be chaired by a Union-level official from the executive branch. The commission, with a broad mandate to implement "national education goals and basic education policies," would include members of the cabinet, Parliament and academics. The bill has also included a policy to implement vocational schooling programs for youths who drop out of school before completing their basic education, according to Mya Oo, who is also a former director general of Upper Burma's Higher Education Department. "We have the problem of lots of [students] having degrees but being jobless. Any education system aims to prepare students, to guarantee them future jobs. In this law, we have planned for vocational schools from primary, secondary and higher education level," he said. The bill would increase schooling at the primary and secondary levels to 12 years in total, from the current 10 years. Students would have greater opportunity to attend the college or university of their choice, with higher education institutions offering entrance exams to gain admittance. Under the current system, students' matriculation exam scores determine what university they are eligible to attend. Implementation of the law could begin before the end of the year, depending on whether the president decides to return the legislation to Parliament with suggestions. However, Mya Oo said the changes and benefits of the new education legislation would not be seen immediately, and would take time to implement. He added that the bill, if passed into law, would give education practitioners "peace of mind," bringing continuity to a system that was otherwise subject to changes as education ministers came and went. The bill has been widely criticized since it was made public, including by the National Network for Education Reform (NNER), a network of civil society groups. Students from Sagaing and Mandalay divisions have also staged protests against it. The post National Education Bill Passes Parliament, Heads to President appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Viber Says App Used by 5 Million Burmese Posted: 31 Jul 2014 04:50 AM PDT Crystal Lee, Viber country manager Philippines, presents the figures on Viber users in Burma in Rangoon on Thursday. (Photo: Kris Banyar /Zagar Communications) Mobile phone application Viber has announced that the use of its communications service in Burma has soared in recent months and reached 5 million users in July. The figure offers an indication of just how rapidly mobile internet usage is growing in the country, which was cut off from modern communications technology under the former military regime for many years. Viber held a press event in Rangoon on Thursday to mark its rising popularity in Burma. "Myanmar is a very important market to us," Talmon Marco, CEO of Viber, said in a press release. "The growth rate is exceptional and we are thrilled that Myanmar mobile users have joined the Viber family. We are very happy to be in Myanmar today to share this milestone with members of the media." According to Viber, users of its services jumped from about 2 million users in February to 5 million users in July. Research into the mobile phone market in Burma by OnDevice had already revealed that Viber had become the most popular chat app, with 79 percent of all Burmese phone users communicating through Viber. Viber said it would seek to build on its popularity by tailoring it to the Burmese market. "We believe the key to capturing the hearts and minds of Viber users… is by offering unique localized content that reflects the values and culture of its people," said Michael Shmilov, Viber's Head of Product. "We are committed to delivering a great experience for Myanmar users." Viber, a global company owned by Japanese Internet Giant Rakuten, began in 2010 and provides free messaging and phone calls via internet on smartphone, desktop and tablet to more than 370 million users in 193 countries. Nay Phone Latt, the executive director of the Myanmar ICT for Development Organization told The Irrawaddy, "Viber is popular because of its low cost to make calls or text message as we only need to pay for the Internet charge." It has been a popular chat application along with Wechat, Tango, Whatsup, or Skype, he said, adding, "It is a convenient application to get in touch with my family and friends when I was outside of Burma." Zar Chi, a Viber user, said she preferred the app because "It is faster to send pictures via Viber on mobile phone than other apps" and it is easier to communicate with the family members who live far away from home. Due to international sanctions imposed on the former military regime, Burma was cut off from modern communications technology for many years and relied on state-owned Myanmar Post and Telecommunications (MPT), which provided costly and ineffective internet and mobile phone services. The number of smartphone and internet users in Burma has been rapidly increasing in recent years, rising from about 5 percent in 2012 to more than 8 percent, or about 5 million people, in May of this year, MPT has said. Last year, after a hotly-contested bidding process, the government awarded Norway's Telenor and Qatar's Ooredoo licenses to become the first private firms to offer mobile phone services in Burma alongside MPT. On Wednesday, mobile phone shops in several cities said they began selling a limited number of Ooredoo SIM cards. The post Viber Says App Used by 5 Million Burmese appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

First Resettlements Set to Begin in Violence-Hit Meikhtila Posted: 31 Jul 2014 04:30 AM PDT Construction workers build homes in Chan Aye Tharyar Quarter in March. The quarter was destroyed by communal violence in March 2013. (Photo: Samantha Michaels / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Local authorities are preparing to resettle the first group of people in Meikhtila to be provided new homes after inter-communal violence ripped through the town in central Burma more than a year ago. Thousands were displaced and at least 40 people were killed when the Mandalay Division town was engulfed by clashes between Buddhists and Muslims for three days in March 2013 before the government declared state of emergency. Some 7,845 people, mostly Muslims, remain homeless and living in camps around the town, of which 220 households will soon be resettled. Khin Naing, a member of the town's resettlement committee and the supervisor on the project to build new homes for the displaced, told The Irrawaddy that the first round of resettlement would begin next week. "The authorities informed our construction committee that the resettlement program will begin between Aug. 4 and 5. This is the first round of resettlement and includes 220 houses," Khin Naing said. Families will be given 40-by-30-feet plots of land and a small house in Meikhtila's Chan Aye Tharyar Quarter, he said. The area was the town's Muslim quarter, and more than 1,500 houses there were razed to the ground during the violence, according to state media. Khin Naing added that Mandalay Division Chief Minister San Aung had informed the committee about the start of resettlement on a recent visit. Authorities have not provided detailed information to the displaced people about how they will be resettled, sparking rumors that a random ballot system will be employed. About 100 people have written to the divisional government with concerns that a ballot system could mean they are not resettled on the sites of their former homes. "[The displaced people] strongly oppose the authorities using a ballot system because they are worried that they will not get their own land," said Khin Naing. Inter-communal violence in the past two years has affected a number of cities and towns in Burma, most notably in Arakan State, where about 140,000 people, mostly Rohingya Muslims, are living in camps following violence there. The Muslim and Buddhist communities in Mandalay clashed earlier this month during riots that led to the deaths of two people. However, Win Htein, a National League for Democracy member of Parliament for Meikhtila, said he was not concerned that problems would arise again between the two communities in the town. "It is peaceful already in the area. Both communities in the area can maintain a situation without violence, so there will be no problems," said Win Htein. The post First Resettlements Set to Begin in Violence-Hit Meikhtila appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Burma’s UEC Under Fire for Election Rule Changes Posted: 31 Jul 2014 04:07 AM PDT People count votes at a ballot station during by-elections in Rangoon on April 1, 2012. (Photo: Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun) The Union Election Commission (UEC), with a retired military general at its helm, has faced recent criticism from Burma's opposition political parties after it moved to tighten electoral rules, with some questioning whether an unreformed commission is capable of acting as a neutral arbiter ahead of elections next year. The electoral bylaws approved earlier this month include a reduction in the length of the campaigning period from 60 days to 30, and a requirement that candidates get approval from authorities in advance of holding political rallies, in addition to other new restrictions. The fact that UEC Chairman Tin Aye is an ex-general as well as a former senior member of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)—and in 2010 won a seat in Parliament under the USDP's banner—has aroused the concern of political parties, many of which have expressed dismay at the legal limitations on Burma's electoral process. Also rankling critics, members of election commissions at all levels are, in many cases, retired military officers appointed by the government. Over 60 colonels and captains a couple of months ago were transferred to the civilian administration and appointed as district- and township-level election commission chairmen. Given the election body's current makeup from the Union level on down, some political parties see a stacked deck ahead of the 2015 election. Tin Aye insists otherwise. "I don't have a tendency toward jungle law, nor bias. I will never try dishonest means and I don't like foul play," the UEC chairman said at a "Stakeholders' Conference on Ensuring Free and Fair Elections" in Rangoon on July 20. The nation's largest opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has issued a statement calling for changes to the electoral bylaws. According to NLD lawmaker Win Myint, the opposition in its July 21 statement suggested that the commission's members must have steered clear of politics for at least five years. The NLD also justified its objection by noting that the bylaws prescribe new provisions that did not exist in 1990 and 2010, the last two times Burma held elections. Examples include a provision that allows election monitoring at polling stations only by commission-designated individuals and a requirement that any decision to invalidate a vote be subject to the approval of the commission. "We issued the statement because the bylaws include new things," said Win Myint. "Though [the commission] is trumpeting free and fair elections, it can't be that it is free and fair only on Election Day. The laws surrounding the election must also be free and fair, only then can there be a free and fair election." Likewise, the Nationalities Brotherhood Federation (NBF), in its own statement, called for reorganizing the commissions at the various levels of government, replacing current members with respected community elders and lawmakers elected by people. UEC Director Hla Maung Cho has played down the military's UEC presence. "Only one-third of the election commission members are retired military officers. The rest are civilians," he said. Upper House lawmaker Hla Swe from the USDP said he supported the actions of the UEC, describing them as "necessary." "In some countries, electoral campaigns are only allowed for 10 days," he said. USDP Victory 'By Hook or Crook' USDP chairman and Union Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann has frequently predicted his party's victory in 2015, saying the USDP is transforming itself into "the people's party." Some say the ruling party fears a landslide victory by the opposition, which might then use its newly gained political power to settle scores. "We think so, but no matter what party wins the election, it is important that the past is forgotten and forgiven," said Aye Maung of the Arakan National Party. "If we are to build a democratic federal Union, we have to forget and forgive the past and work in collaboration toward that goal." The chief of staff of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Gen. Gun Maw, said the electoral stakes were high. "If the USDP doesn't win the next election, it will never win again," he said. "If it loses the next election, the power of the military may also decrease. So they will, by hook or crook, try to win the next election for fear that they may be hit back." Despite calls for the replacement of ex-military officers with civilians in the election commission, that reshuffling is unlikely because the 2008 Constitution grants the president absolute power to form the commission. "In the 2010 election, since the elections were mainly overseen by government-appointed township administrators, there was bias," said Saw Than Myint, an NBF spokesman. "[Political parties] don't like the commission's current actions either and have no complete trust in it. That's why they're calling for reorganizing the commission," he added. "It seems that the USDP are scared after it suffered a resounding defeat by the NLD in the [2012] by-election. So it will, by fair means or foul, try to win the coming elections," said a Lower House lawmaker on condition of anonymity. "Now, it is trying to introduce a proportional representation system in the Parliament. Again, since many commission members are their men, the USDP can't be underestimated in 2015 election," he added. Though there were complaints to the UEC and judicial authorities concerning voting irregularities in the 2010 election, which was won handily by the USDP, there was no follow-up by the commission. The post Burma's UEC Under Fire for Election Rule Changes appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Troop Repositioning, Code of Conduct Important for Nationwide Ceasefire: Ethnics Posted: 31 Jul 2014 03:43 AM PDT KNU Chairman, Saw Mutu Say Poe speaks during the ethnic armed groups conference in Laiza. (Photo: Thaw Hein Htet/The Irrawaddy) LAIZA, Kachin State — An alliance of ethnic armed groups wrapping up a meeting in Laiza said they had agreed to make troop repositioning and joint monitoring of a future national ceasefire agreement a priority in their negotiations with the government. The National Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT), comprising representatives of 16 ethnic groups, met in the Kachin rebel-held border town of Laiza in recent days to develop a common position for further talks with the government on a nationwide ceasefire text. An agreement to reposition rebel and Burma Army units, a code of conduct on how troops should behave following a nationwide ceasefire and a joint monitoring committee comprising rebels and the army to enforce this code would prevent violence after the ceasefire, the NCCT believes. "We think that government, ethnic groups, civil society organizations, and international community should get involved in studying this issue. Concerned military units from both sides should also be included in this stage. We also proposed it to the government," said Salai Lian Hmong Sakhong, an NCCT member and a leader of the Chin National Front. "Concerned military officials from both sides who are involved in the situation on the ground will need to negotiate military repositioning," he said. Tar Aik Bong, chairman of Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), one of two major ethnic groups that does not have a bilateral ceasefire with the government, said repositioning of troops would be key to establishing and maintaining a ceasefire deal. "They [government] need to discuss troop reposition seriously. We [ethnic groups] and the government can move forward only when we ensure troop repositioning. Unless we ensure it, we can’t reach a ceasefire agreement," he said. It remains to be seen, however, whether the emphasis on a code of conduct and troop repositioning will make a difference during the negotiations on a nationwide ceasefire. The Karen National Union signed a bilateral ceasefire with Naypyidaw in 2012 and enjoys a relatively good relationship with the government, yet an agreement for a code of conduct and a joint monitoring committee has yet to be implemented. President Thein Sein's reformist government has signed bilateral ceasefires with more than a dozen ethnic groups since taking office in 2011, and last year his government began to actively pursue a nationwide ceasefire with an alliance of groups, but this have proven elusive. Many sticking points are waiting to be resolved during the faltering nationwide ceasefire negotiations. The NCCT, government and Burma Army have jointly created a second draft of a nationwide ceasefire text in recent months, but talks have stalled over the ethnics' demands for political autonomy and a federal union. "By demanding a federal system, [the government] thinks that we, ethnic minorities, will secede from the union. They doubt our intentions, but we want to assure them that is not the case," said Nai Hong Sar, the NCCT chairman. Another key point of contention is the Burma Army's demands for the inclusion of its six-point statement into the nationwide ceasefire text. The text includes demands that ethnic armed groups come under central command of the army and that all parties respect the 2008 Constitution—a military-drafted charter that is viewed as undemocratic and puts ethnic regions under centralized authority of the government in Naypyidaw. Ethnic leaders at the Laiza meeting said they had left the issue of the Burma Army statement unaddressed and decided they would discuss it during the political dialogue that is supposed follow a nationwide ceasefire agreement. "The government’s demands such as disarmament, resignation from military service and reconciling [with the government] by becoming civilian organizations, are what we have to do right after we sign a ceasefire," said Nai Hong Sar. "We didn’t accept it since we began talks with them. But the government is trying to find many ways to include what they wanted to include [in the ceasefire]." Bertil Lintner, a veteran journalist and author of several books on Burma and its long-running ethnic conflict, said he was not surprised to see nationwide ceasefire talks were stalling. “The government is not and has never been interested in establishing a federal union. The purpose of talks… was always to lure the ethnic groups into accepting the present order based on the 2008 Constitution," he said. Saw Yan Naing reported from Chiang Mai. The post Troop Repositioning, Code of Conduct Important for Nationwide Ceasefire: Ethnics appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Burma’s Interim Press Council to Meet Thein Sein Posted: 31 Jul 2014 03:05 AM PDT President Thein Sein speaks to reporters in Naypyidaw in October 2012. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON—Burma's interim Press Council will meet with the country's president this week for the second time, according to council members. The council requested the meeting on July 14 and also wrote to Parliament urging for it to intervene over what it says are growing threats to media freedom in Burma. Council member Thiha Saw told The Irrawaddy that the group of veteran journalists had been granted a meeting with President Thein Sein in Naypyidaw at 9am on Friday. "We requested to meet him this month. The president responded to our request earlier this week, so the eight members of the council, including myself, will see him," said Thiha Saw, the former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Myanma Freedom Daily and current editorial director at the Myanmar Times. The meeting has been scheduled to discuss the overall situation of media in Burma, according to Zaw Thet Htwe, another member of the interim Press Council. "Our discussion will be ranging from trust building among media and the other estates to difficulties in news gathering to harsh punishments [against journalists] to activating the Press Law," he said. The council's request for a meeting shortly followed the sentencing of four journalists and a journal's CEO for reporting on an alleged chemical weapons factory, the threat of charges against journalists protesting those sentences, and a case that is being brought against the Bi Mon Te Nay journal. After receiving a letter from the interim Press Council, Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann urged Thein Sein to show "tolerance" toward the media. The meeting with Thein Sein follows a preliminary July 21 meeting with then Information Minister Aung Kyi—who resigned from the post this week—Zaw Thet Htwe added. The interim Press Council and the president met in 2013 for the first time to discuss the Press Law, which has since been drafted by the council and enacted by the government. The post Burma's Interim Press Council to Meet Thein Sein appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

China’s ‘Strategic’ Gas Pipeline in Burma May Be Built on Hot Air Posted: 30 Jul 2014 05:00 PM PDT A segment of the oil and gas pipelines running from the Arakan coast to China. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) The underperforming US$1 billion gas pipeline through Burma into China was built by the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to please political leaders in Beijing rather than for sound practical reasons, a report claims. The pipeline is one of several "strategic corridors" for energy resources ordered by now disgraced former CNPC chairman Jiang Jiemin in the face of opposition by other Chinese energy strategists. "Over the objections of Chinese industrial planners, Jiang launched the $1 billion Myanmar gas pipeline in 2010. It was completed in June 2013. As analysts had predicted, it has been carrying only a fraction of its capacity, because the offshore Myanmar fields feeding the line were unable to supply enough gas," a special report by Reuters said. The report coincides with the disclosure by CNPC that in its first full year of operation the pipeline carried only about 15 percent of its intended annual capacity. It runs from Kyaukphyu on the Arakan coast through Burma into China's Yunnan province and on to the provincial capital of Kunming. CNPC has said the pipe is built to handle 12 billion cubic meters of gas per year but up to the end of June had transported only 1.87 billion cubic meters. CNPC has given no reason for the low throughput. The pipe is linked to the Shwe field in the Bay of Bengal, operated by a consortium led by South Korea's Daewoo International and including two Indian state oil firms. Previous reports have said the Shwe field operators are experiencing technical difficulties in reaching targeted production. Describing Jiang as a political businessman, Reuters added: "Internal critics say Jiang drove this investment, sometimes without proper regard for cost or risk, because it would please his political masters. Given the priority the party leadership put on those strategic [energy] goals… it isn't clear how much choice he had." However, Jiang is one of several top-ranking leaders associated with state-owned energy businesses now under investigation for alleged corruption. No charges have been made public against Jiang. The official Chinese news agency has said only that Jiang is being investigated for "suspected serious disciplinary violations," which is Communist Party jargon for corruption. CNPC bought exclusive rights to about 200 billion cubic meters of proven gas reserves in two blocks of the Shwe field in a secret deal with the former Burmese military regime, which has been accused by numerous NGOs of channeling profits from national resource sales into foreign bank accounts. Under the deal, energy-starved Burma receives only a small percentage of the Shwe gas. In the year up to June Burma got just 60 million cubic meters, CNPC said in a brief statement on its website. The secret Shwe deal has been criticized by NGOs as being against Burma's national interests, and there have been numerous allegations of human rights abuses—such as confiscation of land and loss of homes—along the route of the gas pipeline, with Burma Army units involved. A sister crude oil pipeline being built alongside is nearing completion. Equally secretive Daewoo International makes few public statements and there has been no formal reason given for the low production from the Shwe field. Two energy industry news agencies, Platts and Interfax Natural Gas Daily, have quoted unnamed insiders blaming technical delays, caused in part by bad weather, for a low production rate from the Shwe field. "Industry sources attributed the delays to a hold-up offshore. One source told Interfax that Daewoo International…was behind schedule in its drilling programme," said Interfax earlier this year. "A ramp-up period is more or less expected, but in this case the delivered volumes are smaller than expected." Some energy analysts say that on the basis of the known details of CNPC's Shwe purchase deal, the field alone cannot alone fill the pipeline. "As CNPC's offtake is equivalent to 4 billion cubic meters [per year] analysts have questioned where the additional gas will come from to exploit the pipeline's designed 12 bcm/y [billion cubic meters per year] capacity," said Interfax. The answer may lie in wishful thinking by CNPC which has had drilling rights to three deep-water offshore blocks in the Bay of Bengal in areas surrounding the Shwe field since 2007. The blocks are as yet merely numbers on a map—AD-1, AD-6 and AD-8. However, on July 25 the oil and gas industry newspaper Upstream reported that CNPC has "slotted in a window early next year for a two-well exploration campaign at two deep-water blocks off Myanmar, marking the company's first deep-water drilling outside China". The blocks are about 200 kilometers offshore between Sittwe and Kyaukphyu and cover an area of about 10,000 square kilometers, said Upstream. The problem for CNPC—and any other gas and oil developer in Burma—is that the Ministry of Energy is on record as saying that no new discoveries of gas and oil will be permitted to be exported until Burma's own growing domestic demand is satisfied. Meanwhile, negotiations between the state-owned Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise and a clutch of major international energy companies over the terms of licenses to explore and develop 20 more offshore blocks drag on. The post China's 'Strategic' Gas Pipeline in Burma May Be Built on Hot Air appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Chinese Minority Scholar Indicted for Separatism Posted: 30 Jul 2014 10:31 PM PDT Police from a Special Weapons and Tactics team stand guard outside the South Railway Station in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, on May 1, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) BEIJING — An outspoken Chinese minority scholar was indicted on separatism charges amid a renewed flare-up of bloody anti-government violence in the country's far west. The prosecutor's office in the Xinjiang regional capital of Urumqi announced the indictment of economics professor Ilham Tohti in a brief online statement Wednesday. Tohti was detained in mid-January and later accused of separatism. Through his lawyer, he has firmly rejected accusations of advocating Xinjiang's independence from China. Such charges almost always end in conviction and a sentence of up to several years in prison. Tohti is widely considered a moderate but vocal proponent of equal rights for the Turkic Uighur (pronounced WEE-gur) ethnic minority in Xinjiang. Many Uighurs say they face repressive cultural and religious policies along with economic disenfranchisement in their homeland. The indictment was condemned by Human Rights Watch, the PEN American Center writers group and others, which warned that squelching moderate Uighur voices could worsen tensions in the region. "The Chinese government appears determined to silence Uighurs like Tohti, who for years has tried to peacefully express Uighurs' legitimate grievances and advocate peaceful solutions," said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. "Demonizing moderates like Tohti won't bring peace to the region." Tohti was originally accused of recruiting followers through a website he founded to allegedly manufacture rumors, distort and play-up incidents, spread separatist thoughts, incite ethnic hatred and engage in separatist activities. He is also accused of telling his students that minority Uighurs should emulate Chinese who violently resisted Japanese invaders in World War II, and of teaching them to hate China and seek to overthrow the government. Calls to Tohti's lawyer, Li Fangping, rang unanswered Wednesday night. Such sentiments are seen as contributing to a recent increase in violence in Xinjiang blamed on Uighur militants that has also spread to Beijing and the western province of Yunnan. On Monday, the government said rampaging militants armed with knives and axes killed or injured dozens of people in Shache county near the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang's far west. Official reports said police killed dozens of the assailants, who reportedly first attacked police and government offices before turning on civilians. More details haven't been released and the precise death toll remains unknown. China called the incident a "premeditated terror attack," and said further investigations were underway. If dozens were indeed killed, it would be the bloodiest single outbreak of violence since ethnic riots in Urumqi in 2009 left nearly 200 dead, according to the government. The official account of Monday's incident has been disputed by a Uighur group based in the US, where many Uighurs live. The Uyghur American Association said police killed protesters angered by heavy-handed security measures taken during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which ended this week. Neither version could be independently confirmed, and calls to police stations and government offices in the area rang unanswered Wednesday. A telephone operator in Shache said mobile communications and the Internet were being cut off, but declined to give details or her name. Obtaining details of violence in the remote region is usually impossible and authorities routinely prevent foreign journalists from working freely in the area. While some of the recent violent attacks have shown an increased level of sophistication and planning, most have relied on crude weaponry such as swords, bombs and homemade explosives. China's government says the militants have ties to overseas Islamic terror groups, although it has provided little evidence to back up its claim. Also known as Yarkant, Shache is near the border with the unstable Central Asian states, about 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) west of Beijing. The post Chinese Minority Scholar Indicted for Separatism appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Drug-Resistant Malaria Reaches Southeast Asia Borders, Could Spread to Africa Posted: 30 Jul 2014 10:26 PM PDT A Thai Public Heath Ministry official places a thermometer into a child's mouth at a malaria clinic in Sai Yoke district, Kanchanaburi Province, on Oct. 26, 2012. (Photo: Reuters) LONDON — Drug-resistant malaria parasites have spread to border regions of Southeast Asia, seriously threatening global efforts to control and eliminate the mosquito-borne disease, researchers said on Wednesday. The scientists, who analyzed blood samples from 1,241 malaria patients in 10 countries across Asia and Africa, found resistance to the world's most effective antimalarial drug, artemisinin, is now widespread in Southeast Asia. However, the study found no signs yet of resistance in the three African sites it covered in Kenya, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of the Congo. "It may still be possible to prevent the spread of artemisinin-resistant malaria parasites across Asia and then to Africa by eliminating them, but that window of opportunity is closing fast," said Nicholas White, a professor of tropical medicine at Oxford University who led the research and is chair of the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network. More than half the world's people are at risk of malaria infection, and while there have been significant reductions in the numbers falling ill and dying from the mosquito-borne disease, it still kills more than 600,000 people each year. Most malaria victims are children under five living in the poorest parts of sub-Saharan Africa. From the late 1950s to the 1970s, chloroquine-resistant malaria parasites spread across Asia to Africa, leading to a resurgence of malaria cases and millions of deaths. Chloroquine was replaced by sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP), but resistance to SP subsequently emerged in western Cambodia and again spread to Africa. SP was replaced by artemisinin combination treatment, or ACT, and experts say we now face the prospect of history repeating itself for a third time. White cautioned that conventional malaria control approaches would not be enough. "We will need to take more radical action and make this a global public health priority, without delay," he said in a statement released with his findings. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, enrolled infected adults and children at 15 trial sites in 10 malaria-endemic countries between May 2011 and April 2013. Patients received a six-day antimalarial treatment, three days of an artemisinin derivative and a three-day course of ACT, and researchers analyzed their blood to measure the rate at which parasites are cleared from it. They found that artemisinin resistance in Plasmodium falciparum—the most deadly form of malaria-causing parasite—is now firmly established in western Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, eastern Burma and northern Cambodia. There are also signs of emerging resistance in central Burma, southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia, they said. "If resistance spreads out of Asia and into Africa much of the great progress in reducing deaths from malaria will be reversed," said Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity. "This is not just a threat for the future, it is today's reality." The World Health Organization said last year that four countries in Southeast Asia had reported artemisinin resistance in 2013, and 64 countries found evidence of insecticide resistance. While there are a few new antimalarial drugs in the pipeline, including a once a day medicine from the Swiss drugmaker Novartis and a vaccine from Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, they are unlikely to be on the market and available for widespread use for at least several years yet. Mid-stage trial results on the Novartis drug also published in the NEJM on Wednesday showed it cleared the parasites from the blood within 12 hours—a result described by Christopher Plowe, a malaria expert at University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, as "rare good news." Elizabeth Ashley, a clinical researcher at the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit who worked with White, said that until new drugs come to market, artemisinin medicines and resistance to them need to be watched carefully. "The artemisinin drugs are arguably the best antimalarials we have ever had," she said. "We need to conserve them in areas where they are still working well." Additional reporting by Gene Emery in Boston. The post Drug-Resistant Malaria Reaches Southeast Asia Borders, Could Spread to Africa appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

After Western Sanctions, Asia a Hard Sell for Russian Firms Seeking Cash Posted: 30 Jul 2014 10:20 PM PDT Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a news conference in Moscow, July 28, 2014, addressing Western economic sanctions. (Photo: Reuters) SINGAPORE/LONDON — Russian banks and companies shut out of Western funding markets are unlikely to be greeted with open arms and ready wallets in Asia, international bankers and industry experts say. New sanctions imposed by Washington and Europe over the Ukraine crisis have prompted firms such as VTB—Russia’s second-largest bank by assets— and Gazprombank to look east for new sources of funding. Banks and investors in Asia, however, are reluctant to get involved. This leaves the Russian central bank as the only obvious alternative, apart from Chinese currency bonds where borrowing costs are rising and the market is too small to plug the gap left by Western capital markets. The Islamic bond market is also problematic. The European Union and United States announced the sweeping sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, targeting its energy, banking and defense sectors in the strongest international action yet over Moscow’s support for rebels in eastern Ukraine. Wealthy Russians looking to park their money outside Europe and the United States also face a cautious welcome in Singapore, Asia’s private banking hub, where wealth managers are increasingly picky about whose cash they handle. "A lot of Russian money wants to come to Singapore but a lot of it is not clean, so banks have tightened up all their rules," said Satish Bakhda, chief operating officer for Singapore at Rikvin, which helps people and businesses set up companies. "A lot have tried to incorporate companies, but when they open the bank account it becomes very difficult because the bank wants them to be resident in Singapore or know where the source of funds comes from—and that’s where they get stuck." On the corporate side, the possibility of blacklisted firms raising loans in any currency from syndicates of banks is close to zero, even in Asia, because lenders with U.S. branches and subsidiaries will not want to upset Washington. The United States is already lobbying Asian governments to join the sanctions regime. Banks around the globe have also been cowed by a $9 billion fine imposed by a New York court on France’s BNP Paribas for doing business in Sudan, Iran and Cuba—countries which are also subject to U.S. sanctions. Lenders are now taking a uniform stand, regardless of their base, on Russia. "Right now, all banks are acting the same, no group is any more or less cautious or sanctions-aware. It’s all too important – Asian banks are the same as European or U.S. banks in this respect," said a London-based banker at an Asian lender. Even Russian firms that have not been sanctioned are suffering as lenders reduce their exposure to the country. Chinese banks might be willing to consider a syndicated loan to such companies, bankers said, but only on a case-by-case basis. Dim Sum Russian banks on the U.S. and EU blacklists do not have much debt maturing this year and the central bank, which has international reserves of $472.5 billion, has said it will support any domestic bank hit by sanctions. However, Russian banks and companies are looking at issuing debt in the "dim sum" market from bonds denominated in yuan that are sold outside China. JSC Bank Rosinterbank, a small Russian bank, is looking at issuing a 500 million dim sum bond and its executives have already met investors in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau. ICDI, a corporate finance house which has been advising JSC Bank Rosinterbank on the bond, said the bank expected good demand despite the new sanctions because it is privately-owned. "Rosinterbank deposit income grew three times after the first wave of sanctions because clients choose private banks instead of state-owned ones," said Elena Trofimova, CEO of ICDI. Trofimova said investors from Hong Kong, Mainland China and even London were interested in the deal and, after due diligence, ready to take part. "They said that politics is politics and business is business," she said. But the fresh sanctions are spooking sentiment, making it more expensive for Russian companies to access such funding. Yields on Russian companies’ outstanding yuan bonds jumped on Wednesday with those on one Gazprombank issue soaring 100 basis points since July 16, when it was hit with an earlier round of U.S. sanctions. Executives from Gazprombank were in Seoul last week to meet fixed income investors in a so-called non-deal roadshow. The dim sum market is also too small to replace Russians’ external financing needs. The entire market is worth around $110 billion, less than half of what Russian companies have borrowed in euro- and dollar bond markets in the past decade. The Islamic bond market, around the same size as the dim sum market, is in theory an alternative option for Russian banks and companies but in practice its use would be limited. Around two thirds of the Islamic bond market comes from ringgit deals out of Malaysia, a country that could be reluctant to do business with Russian firms. The latest round of sanctions was prompted by Western suspicions that the pro-Moscow rebels shot down a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine with a Russian-supplied missile. Moscow denied responsibility, blaming the Ukrainian military for the disaster in which 298 people died earlier this month. The remaining third of the Islamic bond market is in dollars. A Neutral Line EU and U.S. sanctions on individuals have been restricted to a narrow group linked to President Vladimir Putin. Notwithstanding the difficulties in opening accounts in Singapore, private bankers there say that inflows from wealthy Russians are up this year, attracted by the island’s political stability, low taxes and its tendency to keep its head down when international conflict flares. "Singapore treads a neutral line," said Sean Coughlan, managing director of wealth planner Asiaciti Trust Singapore. "That’s attractive to clients who come from that part of the world (Russia)—what they don’t want is to park their assets in a jurisdiction where tomorrow they find all their assets are confiscated or frozen, or they can’t get access to them." There is no official data pointing to a rise in flows from Russia but the latest available central bank figures show a 17 percent increase in assets under management from Europe in 2013. Cyprus, the former destination of choice for Russian cash, imposed capital controls and losses on large depositors last year to save itself from bankruptcy. Russians wishing to move their cash to Singapore have to go to great lengths to prove that they are tax compliant. Singapore, anxious to avoid U.S. tax inquiries that have hit other financial hubs such as Switzerland, has brought in tougher rules around vetting new clients. Bankers in Singapore say Russians looking for a new Cyprus have come to the wrong place. "It takes around one to two months to open an account for a client from say Russia, especially if they’re using a complicated structure," said the head of the Eastern Europe team at a private bank in Europe. "By comparison for a client from a developed country opening a straightforward individual account it takes around one to two weeks." The post After Western Sanctions, Asia a Hard Sell for Russian Firms Seeking Cash appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

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