Tuesday, July 2, 2013

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

New Global HIV Guidelines Highlight Burma’s Health Care Woes

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 05:58 AM PDT

AN HIV-positive woman receives medicine through an intravenous drip at Medecins Sans Frontieres-Holland (AZG)’s clinic in Rangoon last year. (Photo: Reuters)

RANGOON — The biggest provider of HIV drugs in Burma has welcomed recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO) to begin treatment at a much earlier stage of the disease, but says the country's health care providers do not yet have the capacity to follow the new guidelines and must routinely turn away sick patients due to underfunding.

The WHO has changed its global guidelines for HIV treatment, issuing new recommendations over the weekend that call on countries worldwide to begin antiretroviral therapy (ART) earlier, when the patient's immune system is stronger. The new guidelines make about 26 million people in poor and middle-income countries eligible for the drugs, compared with 17 million previously.

In Burma, however, health care providers say the new guidelines—while welcomed—will likely have little effect on the ground, as clinics already struggle to treat the volume of patients recommended by the old guidelines.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the first and biggest provider of antiretroviral therapy in Burma, says about 200,000 people are HIV-positive in the country, and that at the end of last year, only about 40 percent of those who required ART were receiving it.

The new WHO guidelines recommend that many more patients immediately begin the therapy.

"I don't think the country will be able to deal with that at the moment," Peter Paul de Groote, MSF's head of mission in Burma, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday. Despite some increase in health funding under the quasi-civilian government that took power in 2011, he said Burma's health system still lagged far behind those of neighboring countries. "We fully support the new WHO guidelines, it's a very good development worldwide, but you need the financial and human resources," he said.

Tough Count

According to the new WHO guidelines, patients should begin ART when their count of CD4 cells—the white blood cells first attacked by the virus—falls to 500 cells per cubic millimeter of blood or below. The CD4 count indicates the extent to which a person's immune system has been destroyed, leaving them vulnerable to infections. The previous guidelines, set in 2010, called for treatment at a count of 350 or below.

Some HIV-positive patients—including pregnant women, children under age 5, and anyone who also has active tuberculosis or hepatitis B—should begin treatment immediately after diagnosis, irrespective of CD4 levels, according to the new recommendations.

Many scientists suggest that all patients should begin treatment immediately upon diagnosis, to reduce the odds of spreading the disease. But WHO's more limited guidelines are often used by poor countries such as Burma that depend on donor funding for medical treatment.

Ninety percent of all countries have adopted the 2010 recommendation, according to the WHO.

Burma's current national protocol for HIV treatment follows the previous WHO guidelines, calling for treatment when CD4 levels hit 350, but in practice, patients are often denied care until their levels fall much lower, to 150.

That is the case at some MSF clinics, including in Rangoon, where De Groote said it was necessary to make tough decisions about whom to treat.

"There are so many patients—we were forced to make a decision to take the sickest people," he said. "So we take 150 or below—those people are close to dying, to be honest—and ask people with CD4 counts between 150 and 350 to come back in several months to be retested."

Of the treatment cutoff, he added: "It was a matter of saving lives—those patients were the sickest—just due to capacity in the country."

MSF, a France-based international aid organization, operates more than 20 clinics in Burma and treats more than 30,000 HIV-positive patients annually. It provides more than half the HIV drugs in the country.

De Groote said it would ultimately be less expensive to start treatment sooner—when patients' immune systems are still relatively strong—because doctors would not need to provide extra medicine to fight opportunistic infections.

"If people present when asymptomatic, it's much easier to manage them and you don't need all kinds of expensive treatments first to stabilize them," he said. "Although more people would be on treatment, in the end, treatment per patient is relatively cheaper."

Every provider has its own price for ART, but as a rough estimate he said it cost about US$350 annually to treat one HIV-positive patient in Burma, with funds spent not only on the drug therapy but also on medical testing, human resources and medicines for other infections.

Other Hurdles

A stigma against HIV infection also hampers efforts to provide treatment in Burma.

"Discrimination, in particular against populations at higher risk of HIV [infection], such as men who have sex with men, sex workers and people who use drugs, is fueled by laws that criminalize such populations, and keep people away from health facilities to access treatment," said Myo Thant Aung, who leads the Myanmar Positive Group, an advocacy organization that helps HIV-positive patients in the country. He called for more funding from the government and international donors to work toward the new WHO guidelines, as well as a drastic increase in HIV testing and support services.

Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was last year tasked with fighting discrimination against HIV patients when she was appointed an ambassador to the UN's program on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS. The Nobel laureate and parliamentarian in May joined a candlelight vigil in honor of people who have died from the disease, and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party has established a few HIV treatment clinics in Rangoon.

International treatment guidelines are only one part of the puzzle, agreed Dr. Vit Suwanvanichkij, a public health researcher who has worked with Burmese patients on the Thai-Burma border for more than a decade. "There are other very real structural issues too that have to be tackled if we are to realize the goal of starting everyone on anti-retroviral therapy, particularly earlier in the course of the disease," he told The Irrawaddy.

In addition to stigma against the disease and punitive laws, he cited poor health infrastructure in the country's rural areas as a cause for concern.

"There must be durable peace and development in many key areas and populations heavily affected by HIV, such as in parts of Kachin State," he added.

Far from Rangoon, where most of the country's health facilities are located, HIV is a major problem in mining areas of east Burma's Shan State and north Burma's Kachin State, due to a large number of migrant workers, high drug use and the prevalence of sex trafficking. These states are also plagued by fighting between armed ethnic rebels and government soldiers, who continue to clash despite peace talks.

Suwanvanichkij agreed that the new WHO recommendations would likely have little practical effect in the country. "On the ground, providers in Burma are already having a tough time trying to start patients on therapy based on older guidelines, where treatment is initiated much later in the course of the disease," he said, adding that he did not directly work on HIV in Burma, although he has frequently visited health care workers in the country. "These new recommendations have the real effect of increasing the size of the waiting list of patients needing to start treatment urgently."

He joined other public health researchers in calling for greater funding from Burma's government, which has allocated about 3 percent of its total national budget to health care. This is an increase from past years, when the former military junta spent less than $1 annually per person on health care.

Much of Burma's funding for ART comes from outside donors, especially the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The international financing organization, which suspended grants to Burma in 2005—citing political interference in its programs under the former junta—has pledged under the new government to provide more than $160 million for the country's HIV response through 2016.

The Fund could not immediately comment on whether the new WHO guidelines would affect its future funding allocation for Burma.

De Groote said that with the $160 million grant, it would be possible to treat about 80 percent of patients requiring ART in Burma, based on the previous WHO guidelines. Before talking to donors about funding to comply with the new guidelines, he said Burma would need to show that it had the capacity to rapidly scale up the number of people receiving treatment.

"Every person in need of treatment should be on treatment," he said. "There's a lot of work to be done, and if you look at surrounding countries, Myanmar is behind, but catching up."

UN Agencies Leave Traders, Inya Lake Hotels

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 05:52 AM PDT

The Gallery Bar at Traders Hotel. (Photo: Jpaing / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — More than half a dozen UN agencies are moving to new Rangoon offices, as their lease at two luxury hotels where they have been located for the last five years is due to end, UN officials said.

The well-known hotels, Traders and Inya Lake, decided not to extend the agencies' lease in order to offer rooms to the growing number of high-end visitors to Burma, according to the officials.

"Some agencies have already found new places; some are in the process of finding new places… The ILO has already found new premises," Aye Win, UN National Information Officer for Burma, said of the organizations located in Traders. "This has not happened overnight, they've been moving for quite a while."

The World Health Organization, Unicef, UN Aids, the International Organization for Migration, the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking and the International Labor Organization (ILO) all had their Burma headquarters at Traders Hotel.

The World Food Program, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Office for Project Services were located in Inya Lake Hotel.

Traders Hotel, located at the center of downtown Rangoon, offers rooms from US $200 per night, according to its website. Inya Lake Hotel's room rate starts at $180 per night in the low season.

Trader Hotel is part of the Shangri-La Hotel group of Malaysian Chinese businessman Robert Kuok. Forbes magazine estimates Kuok's fortune at almost $15 billion, making him the second-richest man in Southeast Asia.

Aye Win said the UN organizations moved into in Traders Hotel in 2007, when it had offered suitable office space at attractive rates. "At the time, there were a lot of unused hotel rooms," he said, "Now it's a different time, they're singing a different tune."

Burma is experiencing a surge in foreign visitors after President Thein Sein's reformist government opened up the country to foreign businesses and tourists.

The country's nascent tourism industry is struggling to cater to the growing number of visitors — which rose with a third to one million in 2012 — and hotel rates have more than doubled in the past year. The tourism boom is expected continue in coming years.

Due to these factors, Traders Hotel decided not to extend the UN and other development agencies' lease in order to offer their rooms to visitors instead, Aye Win said.

Asked if UN agencies were struggling to find suitable offices in Rangoon's booming real estate market, where prices have soared, he said, "They've overcome all that, they've crossed that bridge already."

Steve Marshall, ILO Liaison Officer in Burma, said that Traders Hotel had informed all UN agencies in August last year that it would not extend their lease beyond 2013, adding that UN organizations at Inya Lake Hotel had also been asked to move.

"It's not a matter of being thrown out, it's a different commercial environment now," he said.

The ILO had relocated to a new office in early May, Marshall said, adding that it had been meaning to do so for some time because the organization was expanding. "With the lifting of the restriction on our mandate, our organization and our role in the country got a lot bigger. We simply needed more space," he said.

‘Some Things, Like This Project, the Government Cannot Do’

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 05:47 AM PDT

Blogger Nay Phone Latt serves as the executive director of the Myanmar ICT Development Organization (MIDO), which provides computer and Internet training to Burma's rural communities. (Photo: Nay Phone Latt / Facebook)

During the 2007 Saffron Revolution, which saw massive Buddhist monk-led protests in the streets of Rangoon, blogger Nay Phone Latt was among a cohort of Burmese netizens keeping the world informed as the military junta violently cracked down on the peaceful demonstrations.

Less than a year later, he found himself imprisoned for his online activities, behind bars for a cartoon he had circulated that mocked then ruling Gen Than Shwe. Initially sentenced to 20 years under the Electronic Transactions Law, the blogger's prison term was later reduced to 12 years, but not before he became an international cause célèbre among free speech advocates.

Released as part of a mass amnesty in January 2012, the winner of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award has since undertaken an effort to bring the Internet to the country's rural populations, where electricity is in short supply or nonexistent, to say nothing of access to the World Wide Web.

As Burma emerges from decades of isolation, its underfunded education system is one of the biggest obstacles to development. In a 21st century economy that increasingly requires information and communications technology (ICT) skills from its workforce, Nay Phone Latt's Myanmar ICT Development Organization (MIDO) is trying to make up for lost time by holding basic computer and Internet training workshops in villages across the nation.

The 33-year-old executive director of MIDO spoke to The Irrawaddy about the challenges of connecting Burma's most remote communities, the importance of online "netiquette," and the role—both for good and for ill—that social media is playing in the country today.

Question: What has been the extent of MIDO's reach so far?

Answer: Out of the 14 states and regions, there are two states that we haven't gone to yet.

Q: What is the nature of your trainings for these rural communities?

A: It depends on the participants. In some places they don't have the Internet, so we give only basic computer training. If they can get Internet, we give basic Internet training. There are some participants who are very interested in journalism, so we give training about citizen journalism.

Q: What are some of the challenges that MIDO faces?

A: Infrastructure. [A lack of] electricity and Internet access. Another one is that whenever we go to rural areas to give training, when we return to Yangon they don't have a place or the ability to practice or to further their education.

Q: You bring laptops with you, and when you leave, the computers go too?

A: Yes, we have limited resources.

Q: MIDO has also worked with the Free Funeral Service Society [FFSS], which pays funeral costs for those who cannot afford them, among other charitable works. What was that training about?

A: The very first training we did was for some NGOs. We raised awareness on how they can use social media to promote their NGO and their activities.

Q: Many Burmese are new to the Internet, but the modern Web has been around and matured, for better or worse, for more than two decades. Can you talk about some of the dangers that this presents to Burma's newly initiated online communities?

A: Now there are not many Internet users [in Burma]—it's around 2 percent of the population—but maybe in one or two years, this number will increase. Right now we have so many Facebook accounts and websites where people defame others or try to incite unrest; they spread hate speech around the Internet. In some remote places they cannot access the Internet, but some people who want to incite unrest, they print out fake photos and writings from Facebook and they spread them to the local people.

That is one of the dangers, and they don't know about social media and they cannot decide what is right and what is wrong. So in our training we are teaching skills, but we are also teaching ethics and 'netiquette.' We also explain the nature of social media—that the Facebooker or the blogger or the people who are writing on social media are not well-trained journalists, and the reliability of the online media is not like print media. That you need to double or triple-check [the information provided].

Q: How do you strike a balance between protecting free speech and curbing some of the incitement and hate speech that you talked about?

A: Now the government is trying to lay out the telecommunications law, and maybe next year they also will try to amend the Electronic Transactions Act, but I don't like that kind of solution. If the government is trying to stop these kinds of problems, they only think about safety, nothing about freedom of expression. If we want to review the laws, we have to think about two things: one is freedom of expression, the other is how to protect the people. …When Parliament members try to make laws related to ICT, they should think about these two things.

Another thing is, we have to share knowledge and awareness about ICT with society, because if society has good awareness of ICT, they will also know about netiquette; they can regulate themselves in online society. We can do it by way of education, awareness seminars.

Q: The government last week awarded licenses to two foreign telecommunications firms that are expected to dramatically expand mobile phone access in Burma. Do you feel you should orient your trainings more toward mobile Internet?

A: We are thinking about that. Maybe in one or two years mobile penetration will definitely increase, but most of the people cannot use mobile phones effectively. Some people can answer calls and they can make calls to others, but that's it. You can do so many things on your phone, so we should give that kind of training to remote areas.

Q: Are you still blogging regularly?

A: Not regularly. Now Facebook is more popular, so I shifted to Facebook. I also write for some local magazines and journals. Under the military government we did not have a chance to write in the local print media, but now we have some kind of freedom, so I write many articles.

Q: Do you still follow the blogging community?

A: Yes, we have good communication with some bloggers, but compared with 2007 and now, in 2007 there were so many bloggers and we were very united and focused on blogging. But now, there are so many platforms.

Q: Ye Htut, the president's spokesman, is a bit of a Facebooker himself, posting official government statements to his Facebook account even before those statements are communicated through more official channels. What are your thoughts on that?

A: He should use Facebook. Compared with other officials, Ye Htut is a very well-known person because of Facebook. If you want to spread the news nationwide, you have to use so many media. You should use Facebook and you also should use print media, radio and multimedia, because in some places they cannot see Facebook and they cannot read the newspaper but they have a radio. In some places they cannot use Facebook but they can read the newspaper.

Q: Why did you choose MIDO as your contribution to today's changing Burma?

A: In a democratic society, the government and political parties are not the only ones to serve the country's development. We have to think about the role of civil society because the government cannot do everything. Some things, like this project, the government cannot do. Civil society can do so many things.

Former Political Prisoners Denied University Education in Rangoon

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 04:57 AM PDT

The University of Yangon is preventing 15 students from re-enrolling because they are former political prisoners. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — The university studies of 23-year-old Ye Myat Hein were interrupted in 2007 when he was imprisoned in connection with the pro-democracy uprising known as the Saffron Revolution.

Today, more than a year after his release by Burma's government as part of a mass amnesty in January 2012, he is among more than a dozen would-be students who have been denied the opportunity to re-enroll at the University of Yangon in Rangoon. The reason? Because of the time they served as political prisoners, which the government says amounts to truancy.

Burma's Ministry of Education has rejected attempts to re-enroll Ye Myat Hein and 14 of his peers, only allowing the activists to attend a distance learning program, according to an officer from the ministry.

Kyaw Thu Maung, a personal assistant to the deputy education minister, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that the 15 students in question were being treated in line with university policy.

"We could not allow daily university attendance to anyone who has skipped school for a long period of time," he said. "This [rule] is not only for political prisoners, but also for others, according to the system."

The 15 students, all activists and former political prisoners, sent three separate letters to the ministry and President Thein Sein. The group also met officials at the President's Office but has had no luck persuading them that they should be allowed to re-enroll.

During an education conference hosted in Naypyidaw over the weekend, Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi told the activists that she would assist their re-enrollment efforts after one of the students explained their struggle.

Suu Kyi said she would bring the case before Parliament and the Ministry of Education, according to De Nyein Lin, one of the students who spoke to the Naypyidaw conference.

"She [Suu Kyi] said we had suffered two punishments, as we could not go back to university after our release from prison," he said. "She told us she would help us all return to school."

Phyo Phyo Aung, also among the group of 15 students, urged the government to change its current policy.

"They should be able to study if they wish to study," said the 25-year-old activist who spent more than three years in prison before she was released in 2011.

Phyo Phyo Aung was engineering student in 2007, when she also joined the Saffron Revolution. After the protests, she went into hiding for eight months and could not sit for her university exams. She says she was arrested the next year, after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, when she left hiding to help bury victims of the storm.

"They [the government] punished us once by putting us in prison, but now they are punishing us again by preventing us from returning to school," she said, echoing Suu Kyi's remarks.

Before a quasi-civilian government took control in 2011, under the previous military junta, some former political prisoners committed suicide after they were released from detention and could return to university or find stable employment.

The activists now struggling for re-admission to the University of Yangon told The Irrawaddy that education was important to their lives and they believed the university's policy was a form of discrimination.

Without a diploma, they said they faced additional discrimination from Burmese society.

"We have a problem in our communities here: Those who do not have a degree are sometimes not recognized as an educated person," said Ye Myat Hein. "I feel there is discrimination against us—against those who were former political prisoners and could not attend university."

Time Magazine Spreads ‘Misconceptions’ about Buddhism: Thein Sein

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 03:17 AM PDT

A Buddhist monk and other protesters demonstrate against Time magazine in Rangoon on June 30, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun)

RANGOON — President Thein Sein accused Time magazine of creating misconceptions about Buddhism, a religion practiced by the majority of Burma's 60 million people, during his monthly radio address to the nation on Tuesday.

Burma's reformist president said he was aware that the controversial July 1 issue of Time had caused much anguish among the public.

"The cover story of the magazine, depicting a few individuals who are acting contrary to most of Myanmar, is creating misconceptions about Buddhism, a religion practiced by the majority of Myanmar's population," the 68-year-old said, according to a transcript published on the President's Office website.

Time magazine's July 1 issue features a photo of nationalist monk U Wirathu with the headline "The Face of Buddhist Terror."

The magazine's cover story, "When Buddhists Go Bad," explores the rise of aggressive, nationalist teachings among Buddhist monks in Burma and other parts of Asia, such as Sri Lanka, and the role that radical monks like U Wirathu have played in instigating unrest between groups of different faiths.

The magazine cover and story sparked a public outcry in majority-Buddhist Burma, leading to a government ban on the magazine. Hundreds gathered in downtown Rangoon on Sunday for a rally against the US publication.

In his speech, Thein Sein said he strongly believed that the right to freedom of expression should be exercised responsibly, in light of the delicate political dynamics and religious tensions currently at play in Burma.

"No matter how true a statement, it should not be said if it will not be beneficial and constructive," he added, quoting a well-known Burmese saying.

"Therefore, I urge you to use the Time magazine article as an opportunity to focus on constructive approaches, consensus building and calming outbreaks of violence," the former general said.

On a separate note, Thein Sein on Tuesday urged international media to take account of the relatively short 26 months that his government has had to work in assessing the success of Burma's reform process.

"My intention is not to ignore internationally accepted democratic norms, but rather to invite constructive observations and advice," he said.

Myint Kyaw, a Burmese journalism trainer and general-secretary of the Myanmar Journalist Network, said the president's remarks misconstrued the media's role in society.

"In journalism, we have to prioritize public interests," he said. "If a situation is bad, we have to say it's bad in order to make it better.

"He should give us a clear explanation on why they've banned the magazine. For example, whether there's any positive impact on the unrest by banning the magazine."

Myint Kyaw argued that the Time article did not create misconceptions about Buddhism as a whole, as the president claimed.

"The story doesn't attack Buddhism but points out that there are some people who misuse the religion to create violence," Myint Kyaw said.

U Wirathu’s Million-dollar Soapbox

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 12:51 AM PDT

In recent weeks, U Wirathu, the now infamous Islamophobic Burmese monk, has graced the cover of Time magazine, featured in a front page New York Times article, and been interviewed on the US's PBS News Hour. A Google News search of his name on Monday produces no less than 15,400 "results" or fifteen pages of linked news articles (up from four pages just one week ago). Already a celebrity at home in Burma, U Wirathu appears to be launching a global campaign from his monastery in dusty Mandalay, where a long line of journalists must be snaking around his temple complex, waiting patiently for their 15 minutes with the glassy-eyed monk.

U Wirathu clearly relishes the attention, eager to spread his message of Buddhist nationalist extremism to as many ears and eyes as he can reach. And the media seems just as eager to report on this headline-ready phenomenon of an ultra-nationalist Buddhist monk. As a result, U Wirathu, not Aung San Suu Kyi or Burma's reformist President Thein Sein, is currently the face of Burma's treacherous transition to democracy. What does that mean for Burma? And should the media be shining its spotlight so brightly on this anti-Dalai Lama?

I don't dismiss the importance of the story behind U Wirathu and it's about time that the international press corps changes their (mostly) happy tune about Burma's torpid reform process, which has been in the dumps for six months. Yet, might U Wirathu simply be a convenient villain for a complicated story? After all, everyone loves a good villain, particularly foreign correspondents. U Wirathu, clad in his crimson robes, makes a nice change from Syria's bunkered Assad or North Korea's Kim Jong-un (who only answers journalist's calls when a former Chicago Bulls star, Dennis Rodman, is put to him on a platter).

And reporting on one man is so much easier than reporting on the military's continuing involvement in politics, rampant land confiscation, the ongoing very deadly fighting between Burma's army and ethnic armed movements. Neither is it easy to cover the sad convergence of the so-called "peace processes" and the distribution of huge amounts of aid and cash by all sorts of nefarious international actors, much less trying to sleuth out the shady connection between the 969 movement and reform-phobic generals or following U Wirathu's money trail. But the growing anti-Muslim movement in Burma is a sophisticated, well-funded, and media-savvy enterprise much bigger than U Wirathu alone. Journalists would do well to better investigate the story and political interests behind the man.

What then is the responsibility of the international media when it comes to giving an ultra-nationalist like U Wirathu a million-dollar soapbox? In the days since the Time Magazine cover was released, U Wirathu's been milking the "controversy" to generate even more press for himself and his movement. U Wirathu feigns outrage that he's being demonized in the Western press, but does so in an interview for the AP!

What's more, the Burmese press has been running hard with the story. Burma's influential Weekly Eleven just published an article entitled "Monks, Journalists decry Time Magazine's cover portrayal of U Wirathu as Buddhist terrorist," in which a long line of Burmese personalities supposedly denounce the Buddhist/terror association, including, sadly, democracy icon U Win Tin, who is quoted as saying that "No one can deny that Muslims are usually extremists." Maniacal he may be, but U Wirathu's a brilliant PR man and spin doctor, certainly much better than any of Burma's politicians, who look amateur in comparison.

Case in point: President Thein Sein, not wanting to miss out on all the attention, opportunistically posted a statement on his official website criticizing the Time Magazine piece on June 23 with a blanket defense of Burma's monkhood, essentially shielding U Wirathu and the 969 movement from criticism, rather than actually doing something to demonstrate that the country's Buddhist aren't all rabid extremists. Aung San Suu Kyi, once again, is silent on an issue that might hurt her all-important public standing.

When it comes to hate speech, the media has enormous responsibility in how it reports on extremists like U Wirathu. And it is failing to do its job by focusing on one man and his stream of vitriol. Journalists may counter this criticism by saying that they're only helping dig U Wirathu's grave by offering up a crazed fanatic to be judged by world opinion. But that strikes me as naïve. People like U Wirathu thrive off of controversy and being labeled a "terror," particularly when they've already garnered a fervent following at home. Such portrayals only feed the Burmese Buddhist nationalist appetite. Now poor U Wirathu can claim to be both an embattled victim of both Western hypocrisy and conspiratorial Islamic extremism (the real actors behind the Time piece, according to U Wirathu).

U Wirathu and the 969 movement should, indeed must, be called out for their hateful Islamaphobia while hiding behind a false Buddhist veneer. But this must be done without playing into Machiavellian traps that only strengthen their hand. Baiting the bear will only focus its anger.

Jonathan Hulland is an independent human rights consultant.

Hong Kong Protests to Demand Beijing-backed Leader Resign

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 10:17 PM PDT

Pro-democracy protesters hold banners with the image Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying as they march in the streets to demand for universal suffrage and urge Leung to step down. (Photo: Reuters)

HONG KONG — Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers took to the streets in protest Monday, demanding their widely disliked Beijing-backed leader resign and pressing for promised democratic reforms so they can choose their own top representative.

The annual protest march has become increasingly popular in recent years, underscoring the growing gulf between Hong Kong and the mainland 16 years after the city ceased to be a British colony and came back under Beijing’s control.

This year the protesters unleashed their anger at the performance of leader Leung Chun-ying, who has been beset by one controversy after another since he took office a year ago. Leung was not elected but instead picked by a committee of mostly pro-Beijing and pro-business elites.

"One person, one foot! Kick Leung Chun-ying out!" organizers told the protesters, who braved sometimes heavy rain to gather at the march’s starting point in a central park. Protesters turned out despite a Korean pop music festival and other events that critics say were aimed at distracting people from taking part.

Organizers said 430,000 turned out, while police said 66,000 took part at the event’s peak. Hong Kong University researchers put the number at 88,000-98,000. In 2003, half a million people took to the streets to rally against a proposed anti-subversion law, which shocked Beijing and played a big role in the eventual resignation of the city’s then-leader, Tung Chee-hwa.

Beijing has pledged to let Hong Kongers pick their leader, known as the chief executive, no earlier than 2017 and the entire legislature by 2020. But residents of the city, now a special administrative region of China, are frustrated that there have been few signs of progress on drawing up an outline and some fear that it may never happen.

"Hong Kong people have been waiting too long for universal suffrage and for building a democratic city," said Andrew Shum of Civil Human Rights Front, the group that organized the event. "Many people feel very angry."

Speaking at a ceremony marking Hong Kong’s return to China, Leung said that the "government will launch a consultation at an appropriate juncture" on introducing full democracy. He later told reporters the government will listen "carefully" to protesters’ demands.

Leung’s popularity slumped to near an all-time low in mid-June, according to Hong Kong University pollsters.

Soon after taking office, Leung, a self-made millionaire who trained as a property surveyor, was hit by a scandal involving illegal additions to his mansion. Soon after, he outraged parents by trying to introduce Chinese patriotism classes that many saw as brainwashing.

More recently, Barry Cheung, a member of Leung’s Cabinet, was forced to step down from all his public posts after police launched an investigation into his upstart commodity exchange. Last week, Leung’s first development secretary, Mak Chai-kwong, was convicted in a rent fraud scam along with another government official.

Hong Kongers have also grown increasingly upset over stubbornly high property prices, which Leung has tried to combat with a set of cooling measures, and a growing influx of mainland Chinese visitors blamed for clearing out stocks of baby formula.

Protester K.M. Cheung, who works in the medical industry, said he thought Leung’s first year in office was a "complete failure."

"He looks like he’s capable but he’s actually not," the 53-year-old said, adding that he was upset because Leung was biased in favor of his own supporters and didn’t represent Hong Kong people.

Anxiety that Hong Kong will be denied full democracy has grown in recent months after Beijing officials said the city’s next leader must be acceptable to the central government, said Dixon Sing, an associate professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

"This message has ignited fears that they want a pseudo democracy, rather than a genuine democracy," Sing said.

Protesters also voiced support for a proposal calling for at least 10,000 people to peacefully block roads in Hong Kong’s central business district in July 2014 if the government fails to an outline a plan for full democracy.

Hong Kongers at the protest also worried about the erosion of the high degree of autonomy from mainland China promised until 2047. Under the city’s mini-constitution, Hong Kong enjoys rights and freedoms not seen on the mainland but many fear they will be eaten away by mainland China’s growing influence.

One group carried a large banner that read "Chinese colonists get out!"

Ivan Pang said they were fighting to maintain Hong Kong’s autonomy from Beijing.

"They don’t want to respect our culture. They want to colonize us, they want Hong Kong to be one of the cities of China," said Pang, a 21-year-old university graduate. "We can’t tolerate that. We want to take back control of Hong Kong."

China’s Xi Harks Back to Mao in Party ‘Cleanup’

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 10:13 PM PDT

Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Photo: Reuters)

BEIJING — China’s new leader Xi Jinping is commanding wayward Communist Party cadres to purify themselves of corruption, and he’s summed it up in a pithy slogan as Mao Zedong might have done: Look in the mirror, take a bath.

China’s leadership wants to show a cynical public that it’s modernizing and serious about graft, but it appears to be favoring a top-down ideological campaign — with study sessions, self-criticism and propaganda — over imposing real checks on power. That worries many observers, not only because they doubt it will work, but because the tactic appears to be ripped out of the playbook of Mao, the founder of Communist China.

"Winning or losing public support is an issue that concerns the Communist Party’s survival or extinction," Xi said in a message via teleconference on Tuesday to top party cadres gathered in groups in their provinces and cities nationwide.

The officials, who were nearly uniformly dressed in summer-casual, open-collar white shirts, sat in rows and dutifully studied sheets of paper in their hands as Xi spoke to them from a large, rectangular screen above.

State broadcaster CCTV repeatedly aired footage of the meetings starting late Tuesday. Party newspapers and websites proclaimed that Xi will fight "formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance."

Xi said his "rectification" campaign will focus on self-purification, encapsulated in the phrase "look in the mirror, straighten your attire, take a bath and seek remedies," the official Xinhua News Agency said. In practical terms, party organs and officials at or above the county level are to "reflect on their own practices and correct their misconduct."

Xi’s decision to roll out the campaign in such a high-profile way hews him closely to Mao. Observers say that is not an encouraging sign for those who hoped the new leadership would consider substantive political reforms and bolster China’s rule of law.

Mao led a bloody two-decade revolution that ended with the establishment of Communist China in 1949, then held power until his death in 1976. His policies plunged the nation into years of famine and led to the deaths of tens of millions. Xi’s father was a Communist revolutionary alongside Mao until he fell out of favor with the increasingly paranoid leader in 1962.

"Coming from the leader of such a huge country, it is a bit worrisome and shocking that he apparently is really a true believer of some of Mao’s approaches," said Willy Lam, a Chinese politics expert and professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Many Chinese still recall the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the 1966-76 ideological campaign Mao launched to purge the bureaucracy of pragmatic "capitalist roaders" and restore ideological purity to the revolution.

Youths were "sent down" to the countryside to learn from peasants — including Xi, who spent seven years as a farmer in a northern province. Millions were persecuted in the upheaval in which people were denounced by one another — including parents by their children — and labeled and victimized.

The "self-purification" plan announced this week might produce a purge of its own. Such ideological campaigns are widely perceived as a means for new party leaders to weed out their political opponents, who might be accused of foot-dragging in failing to meet the campaign’s goals.

Lam said Xi "is resorting to these metaphysical political campaigns of a bygone era which have proven already that attempts to brainwash people and change their worldview will not work."

"I’m afraid the reaction of most party members would be quite cynical," he added. "They’ll put up a show, but whether this purge will improve the moral quality of party members and cadres is another question."

Pressure on the party to fix corruption and malfeasance is high. As Xi rolled out the new campaign, he was competing for the attention of a public riveted by the trial of a former city official at the center of a sex tapes scandal in which officials allegedly were extorted by real estate developers after being secretly filmed in liaisons with hired women.

"This campaign is necessary because the (Communist Party) as a ruling party has been struggling to deal with popular distrust — popular cynical, critical, even confrontational reaction to everything the party says or does," said Ding Xueliang, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

He added, however, that the campaign is likely to achieve little in the long term as long as it remains a top-down effort in which the party is expected to police itself. "If they are re-using Mao Zedong-era slogans to deal with today’s problems, no matter how much resources are put into the campaign, the outcome will be very tiny," he said.

The party’s resistance to political reforms leaves Xi with few options, said Hu Xingdou, a political economist at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

"The best solution to improving the relationship between people and officials is democracy. Let people supervise the government, so they can’t abuse their power," Hu said. "But since political reform can’t be pushed forward because of strong opposition from vested interest groups, they have to use Mao’s tactics instead."

Law Requires Chinese to Visit Their Aging Parents

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 10:08 PM PDT

A group of elderly people play mahjong, a traditional Chinese game, at the cafeteria in the Cherish-Yearn care center in Shanghai September 2012. (Photo: Reuters)

BEIJING — Mothers and fathers aren’t the only ones urging adult children to visit their parents. China’s law books are now issuing the same imperative.

New wording in the law requiring people to visit or keep in touch with their elderly parents or risk being sued came into force Monday, as China faces increasing difficulty in caring for its aging population.

The amended law does little to change the status quo, however, because elderly parents in China already have been suing their adult children for emotional support and the new wording does not specify how often people must visit or clarify penalties for those who do not.

It is primarily aimed at raising awareness of the issue, said one of the drafters, Xiao Jinming, a law professor at Shandong University. "It is mainly to stress the right of elderly people to ask for emotional support … we want to emphasize there is such a need," he said.

Cleaning lady Wang Yi, 57, who lives alone in Shanghai, said the new law is "better than nothing." Her two sons work several hundred kilometers (miles) away in southern Guangdong province and she sees them only at an annual family reunion.

"It is too little, for sure, I think twice a year would be good," she said. "We Chinese people raise children to take care of us when we are old."

China’s legislature amended the law in December following frequent reports of elderly parents neglected by their children. It says offspring of parents older than 60 should see that their daily, financial and spiritual needs are met.

Although respect for the elderly is deeply engrained in Chinese society, three decades of market reforms have accelerated the breakup of China’s traditional extended family, and there are few affordable alternatives, such as retirement homes.

Xiao said even before the Law of Protection of Rights and Interests of the Aged was amended, there were several cases of elderly parents suing their children for emotional support. Court officials generally settle such cases by working out an arrangement for sons or daughters to agree to visit more frequently. Typically, no money is involved.

The number of people aged 60 and above in China is expected to jump from the current 185 million to 487 million, or 35 percent of the population, by 2053, according to figures from the China National Committee On Aging. The expanding ratio is due both an increase in life expectancy — from 41 to 73 over five decades — and by family planning policies that limit most urban families to a single child.

Rapid aging poses serious threats to the country’s social and economic stability, as the burden of supporting the growing number of elderly passes to a proportionately shrinking working population and the social safety net remains weak.

Zhang Ye, a 36-year-old university lecturer from eastern Jiangsu Province, said the amended law was "unreasonable" and put too much pressure on people who migrate away from home in search of work or independence.

"For young people who are abroad or work really far away from their parents, it is just too hard and too expensive to visit their parents," she said. "I often go to visit my parents and call them … (but) if a young person doesn’t want to, I doubt such a law will work."

Korean ‘Fast Fashion’ Gains Cachet in Asia

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 10:02 PM PDT

People walk along Apgujeong Rodeo Street in the Gangnam area of Seoul. Known as Seoul’s “Beverly Hills”, Gangnam's streets are lined with designer-brand shops and trendy bars and restaurants. (Photo: Reuters)

SEOUL — In central Seoul’s street fashion Mecca of Dongdaemun, more than 30,000 outlets and thousands of sewing workshops packed into a 2 sq. km area (3/4 square mile) churn out clothes in as little as a day.

That’s a lightning pace compared to the one to three weeks needed by global "fast" brands such as Inditex’s Zara and H&M.

Partly set up by displaced North Korean refugees after the 1950-53 Korean War, the shopping district was long home to seamstresses and merchants eking out a living by selling dyed military uniforms and, later, knock-offs of global luxury brands.

Now, Dongdaemun is emerging as a real power for Korea Inc, best known for its Samsung smartphones and engineering, leading its apparel industry’s overseas expansion.

"Dongdaemun might be the only place on Earth where if a design is decided and ordered in the morning, raw materials can be purchased by noon at the latest and finished products start arriving at the shop on the same day," said Lim Joon-weon, director of operations at Lotte Asset Development’s FitIn mall in Dongdaemun.

Behind the swift production is an ecosystem that includes 35,000 retail and wholesale clothing shops, the country’s largest fabric market, and an estimated 5,000 sewing workshops of six to 10 workers each, operating in close proximity.

Similar turnaround time in an organically-formed fashion hub is unheard of even in places like Guangzhou in southern China, where the scale of the wholesale market is too vast to enable such rapid production, Lim said.

Great Expansion

Privately owned E-Land Group Chairman Park Song-soo first opened a clothes shop in front of Seoul’s Ewha Womans University in 1984, but is now in the forefront of the overseas expansion of Korean fashion brands.

E-Land began retail sales in China in 1997 and has carved out a slice of the fragmented fashion market as one of the top five apparel retailers, according to a 2012 Standard & Poor’s report, with average annual growth of 60 percent over the past 10 years.

It has more than 2,000 outlets in China and earned $1.8 billion last year, building its growth on different fits and colors for consumers in 60 different regions.

More recent fashion groups ride the coattails of the rising fortunes of K-Pop, Korean drama and celebrities like rapper Psy.

"Right now, the biggest draw is the ‘Made in Korea’ label," said Yun Bum-suk, founder of fast fashion brand JEIKEI and wholesaler that yearly sells more than 3.5 million pairs of jeans in South Korea, China, Thailand and Vietnam.

"Consumers in Southeast Asia tended to respond better to the exact colour and style they’ve seen in Korean dramas than to clothes modified to fit local tastes."

At Singapore’s Wheelock Place in the shopping district surrounding Orchard Road, a new flagship store for the Headline Seoul brand opened in late April. Its initial reception as a pop-up store in the Raffles Hotel last year was positive enough for founders to plan five more in Singapore and the Philippines and a shop in Malaysia to open later this year.

Chaebols Taking Note

Even units of conservative chaebols, or big business groups such as Samsung Group ‘s Cheil Industries Inc and LG Fashion Corp, are now shoring up their fast fashion brands and working on improving existing overseas stores’ profitability to go toe-to-toe with global brands.

But these companies have yet to prove their staying power in Asia and leverage the anecdotal expansion of South Korean chic into actual sales.

LG Fashion, which entered China in 2004, reported a 24 percent year-on-year drop in operating profit in the first quarter of 2013 as its wholly-owned Shanghai unit and its Beijing joint venture with Lafuma SA continued to report losses.

Cheil Industries, whose fashion business made up about 30 percent of total revenue in 2012, is considering the China launch of its new fast fashion brand 8seconds next year. But its Bean Pole brand remains a lackluster performer in China, analysts said.

"[Chaebol fashion firms] have got the cash and the retail experience," said Park hee-jin, apparel sector analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp. "The biggest thing they need is time."

Kerry Presses North Korea over Nuke Disarmament

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 09:30 PM PDT

US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, speaks during a meeting with Japan and South Korea during the Asean meetings in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, on July 1, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Jacquelyn Martin)

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei — US Secretary of State John Kerry stepped up pressure Monday on North Korea to give up its atomic weapons program, saying key regional powers, including North Korean ally China, are all "absolutely united" in demanding nuclear disarmament.

Kerry made the comments on the eve of Asia's largest annual security conference, the 27-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, which includes top diplomats from the United States, North Korea and four other nations involved in long-dormant nuclear disarmament talks.

North Korea's nuclear ambitions are expected to dominate the security forum along with other issues such as South China Sea territorial disputes.

Tension on the Korean Peninsula spiked earlier this year after North Korea conducted its third nuclear test and issued a torrent of threats to attack the United States and South Korea in anger over toughened UN sanctions over the underground atomic blast. North Korea recently ratcheted down the rhetoric and offered to talk with its rivals but has repeatedly vowed to expand its nuclear arsenal in response to what it calls US hostility.

China, North Korea's longstanding ally and main aid provider, has shown signs of frustration with its neighbor by supporting UN sanctions and cracking down on North Korean banking activity.

After meeting with his counterparts from China, South Korea and Japan, Kerry told reporters Monday that "I want to emphasize … all four of us are absolutely united and absolutely firm in our insistence that the future with respect to North Korea must include denuclearization.

"China made clear to me they have made very firm statements and very firm steps that they have taken with respect to the implementation of that policy," he said.

"We confirmed that there is a better path open to North Korea," Kerry said. He said North Korea would have a chance to have normal relations with other nations if it undertakes "a serious set of steps to denuclearize and serious negotiations that could accompany that."

Earlier Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the six-nation disarmament talks need to be resumed to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue.

"We hope the relevant parties can work together toward the goal and bring the denuclearization back to the track of dialogues," Wang told reporters after private talks with his North Korean counterpart, Pak Ui Chun.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also expressed his opposition to North Korea possessing nuclear weapons when he met his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se on Monday, Yun's office said in a statement.

The nuclear disarmament talks—which involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia—have been stalled since North Korea pulled out of the negotiations in 2009 to protest international condemnation over a rocket launch.

Since the Asean security forum includes all six countries involved in the nuclear talks, it has previously provided a chance to use informal discussions to break stalemates over the nuclear standoff. In 2011, top nuclear envoys from the two Koreas met on the sidelines of the forum in Bali, Indonesia, and agreed to work toward a resumption of the six-nation talks.

It's still unclear whether such talks will take place in Brunei. South Korean and US officials said they have no immediate plans to meet privately with North Korea.

The North has expressed its intention to rejoin the nuclear talks, but the United States and South Korea say North Korea first must demonstrate its sincerity on nuclear disarmament with concrete action.

Meeting top Asean diplomats, Kerry also said Washington wants to see immediate progress on a proposed "code of conduct" between China and the 10-nation bloc to ensure regional stability amid long-raging territorial disputes in the South China Sea, which has some of the world's busiest shipping lanes. The proposed pact aims to discourage aggressive acts that could set off armed confrontations.

Saying America does not take sides in the disputes, Kerry reiterated that the United States has a strong interest in the way the disputes are to be resolved "and in the conduct of the parties." Aside from China and Taiwan, four Aseanmembers—Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam—have long contested ownership of the resource-rich islands, islets, reefs and surrounding waters.

"As a Pacific nation, and the resident power, the United States has a national interest in the maintenance of peace and stability, respect for international law, unimpeded lawful commerce and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea," Kerry said. "What happens here matters to the United States."

Aiming to reassure allies, Kerry said the Obama administration would intensify its strategic "pivot" to Asia, including its political and security engagement with Southeast Asia.

"Let me be crystal clear: I know that some people have wondered whether in the second term of the Obama administration and with a new secretary of state, are we going to continue on the path that we have been on? And the answer, I say to all of you directly, is yes," he said. "Not just yes, but we hope to increase the effort."

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.
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