The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- Burmese Pageant Agency Grooms Five Ladies for World Stage
- In US, Burmese Sushi Chef Crafts New Career on Incubator Farm
- The Irrawaddy Business Roundup (August 23, 2014)
| Burmese Pageant Agency Grooms Five Ladies for World Stage Posted: 22 Aug 2014 06:00 PM PDT  The five winners of the Miss Golden Land Myanmar Organization's competition on Thursday. (JPaing / The Irrawaddy) A Burmese pageant agency led by a 22-year-old man with links to some of the world's biggest beauty competitions is grooming five women in the country to compete internationally. Miss Golden Land Myanmar Organization is one of four pageant agencies in Burma that trains local contestants for overseas beauty competitions, which have become popular as the country opens up after half a century of military rule. The Rangoon-based pageant agency on Thursday selected five women from more than 400 applicants to compete at competitions in the Philippines, Thailand, Jordan, Taiwan and Poland in October and November. M Ja Sai will compete at Miss Grand International, Han Thi at Miss Supranational, Ei Mon Khine at Miss Earth, Angel Lamung at Miss Intercontinental, and Helen Myo Ko at Miss Face of Beauty International. "Each will represent Myanmar [Burma] at the five pageant contests for this year," said Han Zaw Latt, 22, who co-founded his pageant agency two years ago and is now its national director. He is the youngest national director of a beauty organization in the world, according to the Philippines-based Missosology, a website that analyzes international beauty pageants. "A main challenge of being young is that people don't trust as easily a young person looking for sponsors or organizing events," he said. He said the five women had received talent training and would be supported in the international contests. The Miss Golden Land Myanmar Organization, which has contracts with international pageants, received 426 applicants in May who wanted to compete abroad. It chose 150 women in the first round and whittled the list down to five women on Thursday, with help from a guest judge, Mutya Johanna Datul from the Philippines, who is the current Miss Supranational 2013. In 2012, for the first time in six decades, a Burmese contestant entered an international pageant. Nang Khin Zay Yar won a people's choice award at the Miss International pageant in Japan. Last year, more Burmese women took part in five different pageants, including the Miss Universe competition in Russia. In May of this year, May Myat Noe won the title at the Miss Asia Pacific World pageant, hosted in South Korea. In November, Khin Wai Phyo Han will compete at Miss International 2014, after being crowned Miss Myanmar International last week. Meanwhile, Sharr Htut Eaindra is receiving training in the Philippines before competing at the Miss Universe competition. Not only young Burmese women are entering international pageants. Burma's Myo Htut Naing, aka Khar Ra, is currently competing at the Mr. Asia 2014 contest in Hong Kong. The post Burmese Pageant Agency Grooms Five Ladies for World Stage appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. |
| In US, Burmese Sushi Chef Crafts New Career on Incubator Farm Posted: 22 Aug 2014 05:30 PM PDT  A farmer stands in a wheat field in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Photo: Reuters) ITHACA, New York — A physicist from Armenia, a juice-maker from Bermuda and a Burmese sushi chef are crafting new careers in agriculture under a program that applies the business incubator model to farming. The Groundswell Center for Local Food and Farming is one of dozens of incubator farms springing up around the country to nurture the next generation of agricultural entrepreneurs. The projects help would-be farmers get started by providing a plot of land, shared equipment, mentoring on business planning and marketing, and the opportunity to build a track record of success that will help them qualify for startup loans when they're ready to launch their own farms. "It's giving me an opportunity to implement business ideas that I hadn't had a chance to before," said Damon Brangman, 43, an immigrant from Bermuda who wants to grow his own vegetables for the mobile juice business he runs with his wife in Ithaca. "I'm looking to buy or lease land, but there's more risk and cost involved. This was more within my reach." The 10-acre farm in Ithaca, in New York's Finger Lakes region 140 miles west of Albany, is now in its second growing season with Brangman and two other farmers tilling quarter-acre plots that they can use for three years. Surik Mehrabyan, 54, came to upstate New York with a contract for physics research at Cornell University, but after it ended, he wanted to return to the agrarian lifestyle he grew up with in Armenia. "My goal is to understand what to grow to make a living," Mehrabyan said as he spaded stony soil to build a raised bed in his plot at Groundswell. "All the time, I'm doing different experiments and finding markets, planning. For me, it's most important to get established with buyers before I invest in land." Ye Myint, 47, a native of Myanmar, is growing sushi cucumbers and greens such as gongura and water spinach, which are popular in Asian communities. "I have a deal with a Burmese grocery store in Syracuse to buy gongura," said Myint, who makes sushi for the Cornell University food service. There are about 105 incubator farms in 38 states, many of them still in the planning stage or just a few years into operation, according to the National Incubator Farm Training Initiative at Tufts University in Massachusetts. The program, launched in 2012, advises new incubator farms and helps farmers connect with them. More than half the farms serve immigrants and refugees, but others nurture a range of new farmers including young people, career changers and retirees. In 2008, new grants from the US Department of Agriculture's Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program spurred a number of incubator programs into existence. The USDA program was a response to the rising average age of US farmers and the 8 percent projected decrease in the number of farmers from 2008 to 2018. The 2014 farm bill includes $100 million for the program. "The barriers to getting into this industry are so large that we have to come up with new strategies to get people on the land," said Jennifer Hashley, project director of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, parent organization of the Incubator Training Initiative. A network of mentor farmers is key to the success of the incubator farm, said Joanna Green, director of the Groundswell Center. "The farmers we work with are really interested in helping the next wave get started and succeed," Green said. Groundswell's oversight team also includes advisers from Cornell's horticulture department and farm credit organizations. The New Entry incubator program requires farmers to pay startup costs including a $175 fee for a quarter-acre plot, plus the cost of their seeds, nursery pots and other supplies. Farmers must take a farm business planning course and write a plan that will be refined at the end of the growing season. In the first year, some earn only enough to recoup startup costs, while others may earn as much as $10,000. "It depends on what they grow, how much time they put into it and what their market is," Hashley said. The post In US, Burmese Sushi Chef Crafts New Career on Incubator Farm appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. |
| The Irrawaddy Business Roundup (August 23, 2014) Posted: 22 Aug 2014 05:00 PM PDT Red Tape and 'Delay Tactics' Could Slow Mobile Phone Networks' Rollout Bureaucracy and "suspected" delaying tactics by the state-owned enterprise Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) will slow down the availability of Internet and mobile phone services to many parts of Burma, a survey said. An overlap of bureaucracies is holding up the construction of new wireless signal towers, said the London Financial Times' Asean Confidential research service. "Despite the significant progress, a long road lies ahead for the telecoms [Ooredoo and Telenor] as they expand their networks to cover the rest of the [Burmese] population," the paper reported, referring to the two foreign telecoms firms that were granted licenses to operate mobile services in Burma last year. "For every tower, the contractor must acquire separate permission from the Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Construction, one or more regional and district authorities, and the landowner, any one of which can cause delays in a country without streamlined approval processes. "Ooredoo and Telenor also face a potentially hostile regulatory environment because state-owned MPT, a direct competitor, doubles as regulator for the telecom sector. It is widely suspected that MPT has delayed certain approvals in order to slow the launch of the foreign telecom networks, buying itself time to catch up." PricewaterhouseCoopers Fined US$25M for Breaking US Burma Sanctions The international financial services company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has been fined US$25 million for breaking the United States' economic sanctions against Burma's former military regime. The company contravened rules made by New York State against Iran, Sudan and Burma, said AFP news agency, quoting the state's Department of Financial Services this week. PwC was pressured by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), Japan's biggest lender, to hide details of transactions by the bank with the sanctioned countries, the department said. "Under pressure from BTMU executives, PwC removed a warning in an ostensibly objective report to regulators surrounding the bank's scheme to falsify wire transfer information," the department said. As well as the fine, PwC's Regulatory Advisory Services unit will be suspended for 24 months from accepting consulting work at financial institutions regulated by the New York State agency. Thilawa SEZ Raises Shares Cash as More Loans Pour in for Development The holding company for the Thilawa special economic zone (SEZ) has sold more than three million shares, raising enough capital to be able to operate the business enclave, a report said. "We now have enough capital to run the economic zone. We have a plan to list on the stock exchange, which is going to kick off in 2015. This is for the benefit of our shareholders," said Thilawa SEZ Holdings Public Company chairman Win Aung, quoted by Eleven Media. Shares for Zone A of the SEZ, which have been on sale since March, have netted US$33 million, Win Aung said. News of the shares capital coincides with an announcement that agricultural consortium Myanmar Agribusiness Public Corporation (MAPCO) has secured another loan of $50 million to develop a port, wharf, warehousing and a processing factory in Thilawa. The loan has been provided by the UOB bank of Singapore, MAPCO managing director Ye Min Aung was quoted by the Myanmar Times as saying. The development and the loan will be subject to approval by Burma's Central Bank and also the Myanmar Investment Commission, he said. MAPCO has already secured loans totaling $200 million from UOB, said the Myanmar Times. MAPCO is made up of six companies, including one registered in Singapore. Delhi Government Eyes Burma to Help Solve India's Gas Shortage The New Delhi government has Burma in its sights to help solve India's growing natural gas shortage, reports said. Demand for gas in India is forecast to grow more than 10 percent in the current financial year, against production growth of just over 7 percent, said Interfax news agency, quoting the Ministry of Petroleum. Although the country is thought to have large reserves of natural gas as well as coal-bed methane and gas locked in shale rock, supplies from abroad offer a medium-term solution, India's Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan said in a statement reported by Indian media. "Meanwhile, the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is 'focused on securing new overseas assets, acquiring two new blocks in [Burma] just last week,'" said Interfax, quoting the statement. ONGC won exploration and production rights in a handout of 15 onshore development licenses by the Naypyidaw government in contracts linked with state-owned Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise (MOGE). The terms of the contracts have not been disclosed. Migrant Workers' Rights Campaigner Warned of More Thai Legal Action The British campaigner for Burmese migrant workers' rights in Thailand, Andy Hall, has been threatened with further criminal legal action if international human rights NGOs and trade unions continue to petition on his behalf. The warning came from the Thai Pineapple Industry Association (TPIA), saying it appeared to be Hall's intention to "destroy Thailand's economic system and severely impact negatively on business owners." "If Mr. Hall insists in continuing to behave in this manner, businesses affected by Mr. Andy Hall's allegations made without fact will coordinate together to prosecute him further in Thailand's Courts of Justice," said a statement signed by TPIA general secretary Nirut Ruplek. One of TPIA's member companies in the fruit canning export business, Natural Fruit Company, has brought criminal libel prosecutions in Thailand against Hall after he published a report alleging the company violated Thailand's minimum wage standards, confiscated Burmese workers' travel and work documents, and the failed to provide legally mandated paid sick days and holidays. This led to a petition to TPIA signed by almost 100 labor and rights organizations in 20 countries calling for the case to be dropped and Hall to be allowed to leave Thailand. Signatories included the International Trade Union Confederation, the British Trades Union Congress the European Coalition for Corporate Justice and Human Rights Watch. The post The Irrawaddy Business Roundup (August 23, 2014) appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. |
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