The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Why Burma’s Big Plans Haven’t Taken Flight
• Land Sale Dispute Could Affect Some Facilities at Mae Tao Clinic
• A Life of Poppies and Profits for Deceased Drug Kingpin Lo Hsing Han
• Burma’s Press Council Threatens Resignation Over Media Rules
• Complaints Abound Over Letpadaung Implementation Committee
• Buddhist Monks, Students Condemn Temple Blasts in India
• Exhibition Shows Burma’s ‘Vanishing’ Natural, Cultural Heritage
• Man Dubbed ‘Godfather of Heroin’ Dies in Burma
• Blasts at Buddhist Sites in East India Injure Burmese Pilgrim
• Massacre of Muslims in Burma Ignored
• Verdict in Singapore: US Engineer Shane Todd Killed Himself
• Retailers Plan Bangladesh Factory Inspections under Safety Pact
• Tiny Chinese Enclave Remakes Gambling World, Vegas

Why Burma’s Big Plans Haven’t Taken Flight Posted: 08 Jul 2013 06:57 AM PDT

Land Sale Dispute Could Affect Some Facilities at Mae Tao Clinic Posted: 08 Jul 2013 06:54 AM PDT It's smiles all round as Burmese government negotiator Aung Min hands a donation for the Mae Tao Clinic over to Dr. Cynthia Maung in Mae Sot on Wednesday, June 27. (Photo: Wai Moe/ The Irrawaddy) Mae Tao Clinic founder Cynthia Maung said that some of the facilities of her long-running medical charity for Burmese refugees in Thailand's Tak province could be affected by a disputed land sale, but she added that the main clinic would not suffer from the dispute. Thai newspaper The Nation reported on Saturday that the Metta Thammarak Foundation, an organization with Thai members who are registered as owners of some of the clinic's land, had agreed to the sale of 1,200 square meters of land to a local policeman, Lt-Col Cholthep Maichai, based in Fang. The report said that Thai social critic Sulak Sivaraksa had called on the organization's members to file a lawsuit against the foundation's chairman Phra Kittisak Kittisophano, a Buddhist monk who had approved the unauthorized sale of land for about US $83,300. Sulak, who is a founder of Metta Thammarak, has said that Cynthia Maung would not be qualified to lodge a lawsuit herself, as she was not a Thai national and the Mae Tao Clinic (MTC) was not registered as a legal entity. Cynthia Maung said the planned sale of the plots would not directly affect the MTC as it concerned only part of its premises where the old clinic building and nurse's training school were located. She added that she had only heard about the disputed sale through the media. "The current dispute does not affect the MTC’s service, but it could have impact on the long run if we are not allowed to use these facilities," Cynthia Maung told The Irrawaddy. The MTC's main building is located on larger premises that were being leased, she added. "The foundation's members are now solving this issue among themselves. The legal matters are beyond our hands because these lands were bought under the name of the Thai foundation in 2003," she said. Cynthia Maung said Sulak had helped acquire the land for the MTC through the Metta Thammarak Foundation a decade ago because as a Burmese citizen she is unable to own land in Thailand. She added that the MTC was planning to move its main hospital building to a new location in the coming years. Mae Tao Clinic (MTC) was founded in 1989 and provides healthcare to the Burmese refugee community that sprung up near Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border during past decades of ethnic conflict in Karen state and other parts of Burma. The MTC treats tens of thousands of people every year, including many Burmese migrant workers. Cynthia Maung has been honored with the international awards, including the Southeast Asia’s Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2002 and most recently National Endowment for Democracy’s 2012 Democracy Award.

A Life of Poppies and Profits for Deceased Drug Kingpin Lo Hsing Han Posted: 08 Jul 2013 05:24 AM PDT Visitors' cars are lined up the road outside Lo Hsing Han's villa in Tamwe Township, Rangoon, on Monday. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) The former Burmese drug kingpin Lo Hsing Han, an ethnic Kokang who parlayed his influence and earnings from the illicit narcotics trade into a business empire, passed away in Rangoon on Saturday at the age of 80. Lo Hsing Han died of cardiac arrest at his home in Burma's commercial capital, according to sources close to the family. With the blessing of the country's ex-military regime, Lo Hsing Han accumulated great wealth in the early 1970s as a leading figure in Burma's notoriously rampant drug trade. His narcotics empire included lucrative opium production in the Kokang region of northern Shan State. Lo Hsing Han, the father of another Burmese tycoon, Steven Law (also known as Tun Myint Naing), was arrested in 1973 and sentenced to death on charges of treason. Veteran journalist Bertil Lintner, the author of several books on Burma including "Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948," told The Irrawaddy that the drug lord was often misperceived abroad. "Many outsiders regarded him as an outlaw, but he wasn't," said Lintner, whose "Burma in Revolt" details the life of Lo Hsing Han. "He was a local, government-recognized militia commander who was allowed to trade in narcotics in exchange for helping the Burmese army fight the Communist Party of Burma [CPB], which had, in 1969, taken over his native Kokang. "He was sentenced to death, not for drug trafficking, which he had official permission to engage in, but for 'rebellion against the state,' a reference to his brief alliance with the Shan State Army [SSA]. The death sentence was never carried out and he was treated as a VIP even when in prison," Lintner added. Lo Hsing Han was arrested by Thai authorities and extradited to Burma after crossing into northern Thailand in 1973, during a period in which he went underground and teamed up with the SSA, an ethnic Shan rebel group. He was later freed, in 1980, in a general amnesty. Following his release, Lo Hsing Han returned to Lashio, Shan State, where he built up a new militia force under the pyi thu sit program (government-backed paramilitary forces), sponsored by Burma's Military Intelligence. According to Lintner, Lo Hsing Han rose to prominence once again after the 1989 CPB rebellion, when he and Burmese officials Olive Yang and Aung Gyi were sent by the military regime's former spy chief Khin Nyunt to negotiate an agreement with the rebels in Kokang. They reached a deal in early 1990 and Lo Hsing Han and his family were able to establish a new business empire, Asia World Co Ltd, which is today run by son Steven Law. Asked by The Irrawaddy about Lo Hsing Han's legacy, Lintner said the man's positive contributions to Burma were negligible. "He [Lo Hsing Han] traded in opium and other drugs and built a business empire on black money," he said. Lintner said there would be little impact from Lo Hsing Han's death, as other Kokang businessmen had eclipsed the former drug kingpin in importance and influence, including his son Steven Law, who heads several major firms. In addition, Steven Law's wife Cecilia Ng manages Golden Aaron Pte Ltd and nine other Singapore-based companies. Asia World is involved in a number of controversial hydropower projects in Burma, including the Sino-Burmese pipeline project from Arakan State to southern China and the now-suspended Myitsone hydropower dam on the Irrawaddy River in Kachin State. His brief alliance with the SSA aside, Lo Hsing Han had close ties to Military Intelligence officials, including Tin Oo in the 1970s and Khin Nyunt from the late 1980s onwards, Lintner said. Lo Hsing Han and son Steven Law were put on the US sanctions lists in February 2008, along with their companies Asia World, Asia World Port Management, Asia World Industries Ltd and Asia World Light Ltd. The US blacklisting does not seem to have tainted local opinion of the business tycoon, with cars lining the street outside Lo Hsing Han's villa in Rangoon on Monday as visitors paid their respects. Agriculture Minister Myint Hlaing and Border Affairs Minister Lt-Gen Thet Naing Win both placed notes of condolence in Monday's edition of The Mirror, a state-run newspaper. In an obituary in the state-run newspaper Myanma Ahlin on Monday, Lo Hsing Han's family indicated that his funeral will take place on July 17. He is survived by his wife, eight children and 16 grandchildren.

Burma’s Press Council Threatens Resignation Over Media Rules Posted: 08 Jul 2013 05:03 AM PDT Thiha Saw, a newspaper editor and member of Burma’s interim Press Council, speaks in Rangoon late last month at a US Embassy seminar about preventing hate speech. He says he and other members of the Press Council will resign if the upper house of Parliament passes the Printing and Publishing Enterprise Bill in its current form. (JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Members of Burma's interim Press Council say they will resign if the newly minted Printing and Publishing Enterprise Bill is passed into law in its current guise. The bill, which gives the Ministry of Information broad powers to issue and revoke publishing licenses, was passed last week by Burma's lower house of Parliament and will next go to the upper house for consideration. In the meantime, the council—which has requested that publishing licenses be regulated under commercial rather than media laws—says it will petition the upper house and the President's Office to have the bill revised. "If this is passed in its current form, we will resign," says Thiha Saw, a Rangoon-based newspaper editor and member of the interim Press Council, a body formed with government backing last September that comprises representatives of three Burmese journalist associations as well as lawmakers and legal experts. Fellow council member and journalist Myint Kyaw says the body's recommendations on changing the initial draft, which was published earlier this year, "were mostly ignored" by lawmakers prior to the lower house's passing of the bill last Thursday. "The interim Press Council felt that agreements had been broken," he said, citing meetings between the council and officials about deleting provisions that the journalists opposed from the first version of the bill. Ye Htut, the deputy minister of information and spokesman for President Thein Sein, responded to criticism of the bill on his Facebook page, writing that some parts of the initial bill had been changed and that "this law has nothing to do with controlling press freedom." However the bill contains vague language banning criticism of Burma's 2008 Constitution, despite calls from lawmakers from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to look into constitutional reform. And although some proposed punishments, such as jailing reporters for infractions, have been removed from the bill, the threat of fines—and of licenses being withheld or revoked by the ministry—remain in place. The licensing stipulations are similar to Malaysia's much-criticized print media licensing system, which though recently diluted, has long prompted self-censorship in the country's print press. The bill comes three months after Burma's first private daily newspapers in five decades hit the streets, and almost a year after the end of the old pre-publication censorship system, which typically saw officials run lines of red ink through copy submitted by newspapers, telling them what they could and could not publish. While those restrictions are now artifacts and Burma's media is much freer than in the recent past, repressive statutes such as the Electronic Transactions Act and the Internet Act—under which reporters were given multi-decade jail terms under the old military junta—remain in place. The government recently banned an edition of Time magazine with a cover story featuring controversial monk Wirathu and headlined "The Face of Buddhist Terror." The edition prompted protests in Rangoon, signifying support in some quarters for the government's ban and a marked turnaround from August last year, when journalists in the city demonstrated against the suspension of two newspapers by the old censorship board, then on its last legs. Defending the temporary reversion to censorship in Burma, Thein Sein said that "according to a traditional Burmese saying, people shouldn't say something if it is not good for others, even if it is right." The Printing and Publishing Enterprise Bill is not the only proposed reform of Burma's media rules that has been met with disapproval by media watchdogs. The Public Service Media Bill, which would regulate Burma's state-linked media, contains some positive attributes, such as ending state ownership, according to London-based NGO Article 19, but proposes continued state funding for newspapers such as The New Light of Myanmar and would not give sufficient independence to public broadcasters. Among Burma's private media, it seems that tensions with the government are growing. While the Press Council says it will lobby the upper house and the President’s Office over the new publishing bill, it separately submitted a draft Press Bill to the Ministry of Information and Parliament on June 26. Seeking to distinguish between the two drafts, presidential spokesman Ye Htut wrote that the Press Council's draft law is a professional law, while the Printing and Publishing Enterprise Bill is an institutional and enterprise-related law, and therefore should be undertaken by the relevant ministry. However there are concerns that the Printing and Publishing Enterprise Bill overlaps with the council's own draft code and will shackle Burma's media. "If this [the Printing and Publishing Enterprise Bill] is meant as just an industry law, then it contains far too much content regulation," says Gayathry Venkiteswaran, executive director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA). According to the Press Council, the Ministry of Information replied to the council's draft last Wednesday, seeking 17 changes, demands that the council looks set to ignore. "We [the Press Council] agreed not to make any more changes," said Thiha Saw.

Complaints Abound Over Letpadaung Implementation Committee Posted: 08 Jul 2013 04:54 AM PDT The Letpadaung copper mine project area is seen in northwest Burma's Sagaing Division. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON – Residents displaced by the controversial Letpadaung copper mine in northwest Burma say the committee tasked by the government with reducing the mining project's negative impact on local communities has failed to perform its duties. "They haven't done anything pragmatic so far to ease the adverse educational, social and environmental effects on the locals," Sanda, a leading activist against the Chinese-backed mining project in Sagaing Division, told The Irrawaddy. She was referring to the Implementation Committee formed earlier this year after a government-commissioned investigation recommended that the mining project continue—despite widespread public objections—and that displaced residents receive compensation for their lost land. More than 7,000 acres of farmland were confiscated in 2010 for the project, a joint venture between the Chinese Wanbao company and Burma's military-owned Union of Myanmar Economics Holdings. Sanda said that although some farmers had accepted the compensation, about 4,000 rejected the money because they did not want to leave their land. She said dozens of plainclothes police officers were patrolling areas where farmers refused to give up their property. "Some people, disguised as civilians with soot on their faces, are surrounding the villages that don't want to sell their land," she said. Khin San Hlaing, a member of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party in Sagaing Division, said she had received complaint letters from the public regarding disagreements with the Implementation Committee. She said activists were considering seeking help from lawmakers if the committee continued to neglect its duties. "If the Implementation Committee's performance does not satisfy the locals, if it fails to obey the points in the [investigation team's] report, if it takes much more time than is needed to conduct its duties and fails to bring any good results, we will submit [a complaint] to Parliament," said the NLD member, who was also part of the15-member investigation team led by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi which recommended that the residents receive compensation. The Letpadaung copper mine made international headlines last November following a police crackdown on peaceful anti-mine protesters that left dozens of people—mostly Buddhist monks—injured. An investigation team was formed by presidential order after the crackdown to investigate the mining project's feasibility. It issued a report in March urging the project to continue, despite protests about adverse environmental and social effects. The Implementation Committee was also formed in March with an order from President Thein Sein. Its members include Burma's minister of home affairs, a minister from the President's Office, and the officer in charge of the military-backed Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings. Meanwhile, an activist and two farmers on Monday saw their prison sentences extended by a district court in Sagaing Division after opposing the mining project. The three men were earlier sentenced to between six and 18 months in prison, but their prison terms were extended on Monday by between two and 10.5 years. Their lawyer says they never received a fair trial. "I was not allowed to appear in court and defend them," Aung Thurein Htun said. "Only today was I allowed [inside], but because this was the last day of trial, I had no chance to defend them and could only listen to the verdict. We are going to appeal to the high court." The two farmers, Soe Thu and Maung San, were sentenced in June to six months in prison after illegally plowing land that had been confiscated for the mining project. The June sentences were handed down by the same district court in Sagaing Division in a suit filed by Wanbao. The farmers' prison terms were each extended on Monday to a total of 2.5 years after they were found guilty of separate charges, including trespassing and disturbing officials on duty, in a suit filed by the government. Aung Soe, an activist from the Rangoon People's Support Network, was sentenced in June by the same court to one year in prison after supporting the protesting farmers. His sentence was extended to 11.5 years in the government's suit for violating 11 acts of the country's penal code, including defaming Buddhism and encouraging the farmers to participate in unlawful acts.

Buddhist Monks, Students Condemn Temple Blasts in India Posted: 08 Jul 2013 04:51 AM PDT Indian security personnel inspect the site of an explosion inside the Mahabodhi Temple complex at Bodh Gaya in the eastern Indian state of Bihar on July 7, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Krishna Murari Kishan) Buddhist monks and students from Burma and other neighboring countries held protests on Monday in Bodh Gaya, India, condemning bomb blasts at three Buddhist holy sites in eastern India. The Magadh University students, from Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, staged a protest at their university campus a day after several bomb blasts rocked Bodh Gaya and two other locations in the Indian state of Bihar. "We condemn the attack because this is threatening the peace in the area. We are saddened by this violence, which attempted to destroy the holy monuments of our religion," said a monk from Sri Lanka who studies at Magadh University in Bodh Gaya. Across town, about 100 Buddhist monks from Bangladesh and some locals marched on Monday morning outside of the Mahabodhi Temple, the scene of the biggest attack, urging the Indian government to investigate the bombings and punish those responsible. A Burmese monk and a Tibetan pilgrim were reportedly injured in serial bomb blasts at the Mahabodhi Temple compound, a sacred site where the Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment, at around 5:30am on Sunday. Two other Buddhist sites were also hit by explosions on Sunday, and other undetonated bombs were discovered at different places around Bodh Gaya. The Burmese monk, U Wilathatka, sustained injuries to his face, shoulders and arms, and is currently hospitalized at Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College & Hospital. "His eyes were swelling and doctors said he will need to have an operation for his skin, especially on the face. … We worry that he might have lost vision and hearing," said U Nandarsiriya, a fellow Buddhist monk from Burma. According to U Nandarsiriya, the local Public Administration Committee of Bodh Gaya has issued a directive warning residents not to go outside at night while the Indian army has taken over security at the Mahabodhi Temple. "We were warned not to go outside at night. Our university compound is being guarded by the policemen as well. We do not feel worried about our security since security personnel control the area," U Nandarsiriya said. In the wake of the explosions, speculation has swirled that the bombings may have been linked to recent religious conflicts in Burma. Indian police had reportedly warned officials earlier that an attack might be carried out in retaliation for Buddhist-led violence in Burma that has targeted minority Muslims over the past year. U Nandarsiriya said Burmese monks living in Bodh Gaya dismissed the notion. "For us, we do not believe this is related to the problems in our country," he said. "If it was so, the culprit would have targeted only the area where most of the Burmese monks live. And they would target Burmese pilgrims. Since the blast took place in the early morning when only a few pilgrims were there, I think this was only to destroy the landmarks and sites of Buddhism." "Some months ago, security was tightened in the area because they received notice that extremists would bomb or attack the area. But later, the security was loosened. We think that Sunday's blast is an incident related to that," he added. Meanwhile, Burmese government officials are communicating with their Indian counterparts concerning the safety and security of Burmese nationals in neighboring India. "The communication with the Indian government and the responsible state government is still in process for the safety of Buddhist monks, Burmese citizens who are living in India and for the security of the holy places," said Ye Htut, spokesman for the President's Office in Burma. He said the government is working to help the injured monk by cooperating with the Burmese Embassy in New Delhi while the Ministry of Religious Affairs is attempting to contact the family of U Wilathatka. "We are cooperating with the responsible country to find out the situation. We need to prevent things like this from happening. The culprit needs to be arrested as well. But we need no negative reactions or revenge because of this incident," Ye Htut said. Additional reporting by The Irrawaddy reporter Lin Thant.

Exhibition Shows Burma’s ‘Vanishing’ Natural, Cultural Heritage Posted: 08 Jul 2013 04:10 AM PDT A visitor to Gallery 65′s exhibition walks past a photograph of a tiger. Click on the box below to see more photos (Photo: Sean Harvey / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Some 200 people gathered at Gallery 65 on Rangoon's Yaw Min Street on Saturday to attend the opening of an exhibition on Burma's rich natural and cultural heritage. Organized by several well-known artists such Myint Maung Kyaw, Myint Moe Aung, Myint Zaw, Ko Tar and Ju, the exhibition features photography, video clips, paintings, maps and Burmese-language texts that give an overview of the diversity of Burma's natural world and its cultural traditions. The three-day event, which ends on Monday, is called "Vanishing Treasures of Myanmar" and urges activists, the government and the public to come together to preserve Burma's culture and environment. Organizer and artist Myint Zaw said the exhibit intends to foster understanding between Burma's different ethnic groups and unify people in their demand for peace and protection of their national heritage. "We show photos of the environment, peace and culture. This exhibition is very much multi-media. [And] we try to show different arts, as many as we can, from different parts of Myanmar," he said, adding that environmentalists and artists from many different regions had been invited to participate and showcase the beauty of their native areas. Photos showed the country's endangered animals, such as the Irrawaddy Dolphin, Asian elephant and the tiger, remote mountains, islands and rivers, as well as the traditional artifacts, lifestyles and garbs of Burma's ethnic groups, such as the Naga, the Pa-o, and the 'sea gypsies' of the Mergui Archipelago, the Moken. The threat to Burma's heritage is imminent however, the exhibition warns, as the rapid spread of mining, plantation agriculture, hydropower dams and logging destroys the environment, while accelerating urban and industrial development is replacing many historic buildings. Maung Aye, an environmentalist from Dawei, in southern Burma's Tenasserim Division, held a presentation and explained that Dawei is a old town with a long history, adding that discoveries of its historic past were still coming to light. "We found 1,500 Buddhist artifacts underground, such as ancient small Buddha statues, shrines and coins, and other things. We found it underground and we collected and preserved it," he said. Development of the massive Thailand-backed Dawei Special Economic Zone and deep-sea port, he warned however, could affect local traditional livelihoods and the environment in Tennaserim. "We have a lovely culture. We have the [so-called] six-legged tortoise [the Burmese mountain tortoise], this is an amazing creature, which is difficult to find at other places in our country," he said. "But, the seaport project has threatened our beautiful environment and we are worried a lot that they [developers] are going to swallow it." Myo Myint Oo, a researcher with the Green Network, an environmental group, said he was documenting the heritage of riverside communities along the Irrawaddy River in Magwe Division to find out how their traditional wooden Buddhist pagodas could be maintained. "In the past, most of our people based themselves along the river where they could have access to waterways and they built these wooden temples," he said. "They love their pagodas, but these days they could not help to renovate them as they have economic problems. This is why it is important to help preserve these wooden pagodas," Myo Myint Oo said, adding that he hoped that one day foreign tourist visits to this unique heritage could help generate funds for its preservation.

Man Dubbed ‘Godfather of Heroin’ Dies in Burma Posted: 08 Jul 2013 12:22 AM PDT Lo Hsing Han is photographed in Shan State on April 26, 1999. (Photo: Reuters) RANGOON — A man dubbed the "Godfather of Heroin" by the US government and slapped with financial sanctions for allegedly helping prop up Burma's brutal former military junta through illegal business dealings died over the weekend. Lo Hsing Han was 80 years old. His body lay in a glass coffin in the family home for a private ceremony Monday, a long line of relatives, senior government officials and business leaders turning out to pay their final respects, one of the attendees told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity out of respect to the family. For decades, Lo Hsing Han was considered one of the world's biggest traffickers of heroin. In the 1990s, he and his son Stephen Law founded the conglomerate Asia World, allegedly as a front for their ongoing dealings in the drug trade, said Bertil Lintner, author of "The Golden Triangle Opium Trade: An Overview." They quickly became two of Burma's most powerful business tycoons, winning contracts from the junta to run ports, build highways and oversee airport operations. The US Department of Treasury, dubbing Lo Hsing Han the "Godfather of Heroin," put both father and son on the financial sanctions list in 2008. Lo Hsing Han first got involved in the drug trade in the 1960s. In exchange for heading a local militia set up by then-dictator Ne Win to help fight local communists in the region of Kokang, he was granted the right to traffic opium and heroin, said Lintner. Thai police arrested Lo Hsing Han in northern Thailand in 1973. He was handed over to the Burmese government. His initial sentence of death was commuted to life in prison, not for drug trafficking but treason. This stemmed from a brief stint with the insurgent Shan State Army, Lintner said. In 1980, he was released as part of a general amnesty. An obituary announcement submitted by the family in the Burmese language Myanma Ahlin daily on Monday said his funeral would be held July 17. He is survived by a wife, four sons, four daughters and 16 grandchildren.

Blasts at Buddhist Sites in East India Injure Burmese Pilgrim Posted: 07 Jul 2013 11:28 PM PDT An Indian security personnel walks next to bloody footprints inside the Mahabodhi temple complex, after a series of explosions at Bodh Gaya in the eastern Indian state of Bihar on July 7, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Krishna Murari Kishan) PATNA, India — A series of blasts hit three Buddhist sites in eastern India early Sunday, injuring at least two people and drawing condemnation from the prime minister. Senior police officer S.K. Bhardwaj said a gate at one of the two temples that was hit was badly damaged in Bodhgaya, a town 130 kilometers south of Patna, the capital of Bihar state. No other damage was reported to the Buddhist sites. Junior Home Minister R.P.N. Singh said that no one claimed responsibility for the explosions and that an investigation would be carried out to determine who was involved. Four blasts took place on the grounds of the Mahabodhi Temple, or the Great Awakening Temple, Bhardwaj said. Another four explosions were reported at the nearby Karma temple and at a site with a 55-meter-tall Buddhist tower. Abhyanand, the director-general of state police, said the blasts ranged from low to high intensity. He also said police recovered two unexploded bombs, which were defused in the area. Abhyanand uses only one name. A Tibetan and a pilgrim from Burma received minor injuries in the blast at the Mahabodhi Temple and were taken to a hospital, Bhardwaj said, adding that a temple gate was badly damaged. Another explosion damaged an empty tourist bus parked near the Mahabodhi Temple, he said. The temple is a Unesco world heritage site where Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment. There were few people at the popular pilgrimage centers, which were targeted for the first time, Bhardwaj said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh strongly condemned the blasts, saying "such attacks on religious places will never be tolerated." The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, also condemned the explosions. "It's very sad. It's a few individuals," he told reporters during a visit to the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The Buddhist sites attract a large number of pilgrims, especially from Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Burma, but the main pilgrimage starts in September. Bhardwaj said there have been intelligence reports about the possibility of attacks on the sites, but he did not give any details.

Massacre of Muslims in Burma Ignored Posted: 07 Jul 2013 11:26 PM PDT Motorcycles pass in front of a mosque that was torched during rioting in Meikhtila in March. (Photo: Reuters) MEIKHTILA — Their bones are scattered in blackened patches of earth across a hillside overlooking the wrecked Islamic boarding school they once called home. Smashed fragments of skulls rest atop the dirt. A shattered jaw cradles half a set of teeth. And among the remains lie the sharpened bamboo staves attackers used to beat dozens of people to the ground before drowning their still-twitching bodies in gasoline and burning them alive. The mobs that March morning were Buddhists enraged by the killing of a monk. The victims were Muslims who had nothing to do with it—students and teachers from a prestigious Islamic school in central Burma who were so close to being saved. In the last hours of their lives, police had been dispatched to rescue them from a burning compound surrounded by swarms of angry men. And when they emerged cowering, hands atop their heads, they only had to make it to four police trucks waiting on the road above. It wasn't far to go—just one hill. What happened on the way is the story of one of Burma's darkest days since this Southeast Asian country's post-junta leaders promised the dawn of a new, democratic era two years ago—a day on which 36 Muslims, most teenagers, were slaughtered before the eyes of police and local officials who did almost nothing to stop it. And what has happened since shows just how hollow the promise of change has been for a neglected religious minority that has received neither protection nor justice. The president of this predominantly Buddhist nation never came to Meikhtila to mourn the dead or comfort the living. Police investigators never roped this place off or collected the evidence of carnage left behind on these slopes. And despite video clips online that show mobs clubbing students to death and cheering as flames leap from corpses, not a single suspect has been convicted. International rights groups say the lack of justice fuels impunity among Buddhist mobs and paves the way for more violence. It also reflects the reality that despite Burma's bid to reform, power remains concentrated in the hands of an ethnic Burman, Buddhist elite that dominates all branches of government. "If the rule of law exists at all in Myanmar, it is something only Buddhists can enjoy," says Thida, whose husband was slain in Meikhtila. Like other survivors, she asked not to be identified by her full name for fear of retribution. "We know there is no such thing as justice for Muslims." The Associated Press pieced together the story of the March 21 massacre from the accounts of 10 witnesses, including seven survivors who only agreed to meet outside their homes for security reasons. The AP cross-checked their testimony against video clips taken by private citizens, many with the date and time embedded; public media footage; dozens of photos; a site inspection, and information from local officials. The day before the massacre began like every other at the Mingalar Zayone Islamic Boarding School—with a call to prayer echoing through the darkness before dawn. It was Wednesday, March 20, and 120 drowsy students blinked their eyes, rising from a sea of mats spread across the floors of a vast two-story dormitory. Set behind the walls of a modest compound in a Muslim neighborhood of Meikhtila, the all-male madrassa attracted students from across the region whose parents hoped they would one day become Islamic scholars or clerics. The school had a football pitch, a mosque and 10 teachers. It also had a reputation for discipline and insularity—the headmaster, a strict yet kind man with a wispy beard, only allowed students outside once a week. Muslims made up about a third of Meikhtila's 100,000 inhabitants, compared with just 5 percent of Burma's population, and they lived peacefully with Buddhists. The Muslims, though, were nervous after sectarian clashes in western Arakan State in June and October last year killed hundreds and drove more than 140,000 from their homes. Both times, the madrassa shut down temporarily as a precaution. The unrest was aimed at ethnic Rohingya Muslims, who have lived in Burma for generations but are still viewed by many Buddhists as foreign interlopers from Bangladesh. The hatred has since morphed into a monk-led campaign against all Muslims, seen as "enemies" of Buddhist culture. When classes began on March 20, student gossip quickly turned to an argument on the other side of town between a Muslim gold merchant and a Buddhist client, which had prompted a crowd of hundreds to overrun the shop and set it ablaze. That afternoon, several Muslim men yanked a monk off a motorcycle and burned him to death. Buddhist mobs in turn torched Muslim businesses and 12 of the city's 13 mosques. In Mingalar Zayone, some teachers skipped courses. Then classes were canceled altogether. Students rushed to the dormitory's second floor and gazed out of the windows, in shock. Black and gray columns of smoke were rising in the air. At dinner a couple of hours later, the sound of a teacher weeping filled the hall. His family home had been burned with his parents inside it. Some students pushed their food away. As the sun slunk in a hazy sky, a Buddhist government administrator came to the gate of the madrassa and took the headmaster aside. "You need to get your students out of here," he warned. "You need to hide. The mobs are coming—tonight." At sunset prayers, the headmaster told everyone to collect their valuables, their money, their ID cards—and prepare to leave. He asked them to remove their head caps, Islamic dress and anything that might identify them as Muslim. He never explained why. He didn't have to. "If they try to destroy this place, we'll do our best to stop them," he said. "But whatever happens, we will not let you die." After dark, they crept deep into a swampy jungle of tall grass a block away called the Wat Hlan Taw, and the tall reeds swallowed the school's refugees whole. Most were students and teachers. But at least 10 women and their children were also among them, relatives or residents too terrified to stay in their own homes. They sat down in the mud. Nobody said a word. Soon, they heard the mob approaching—dozens, maybe hundreds of voices, a cacophony of menace and anger that grew louder by the second. The voices were at the gate of their madrassa. And then they were inside, kicking in doors and smashing windows. In the darkness of the Wat Hlan Taw, a teacher named Shafee with a stomach ailment reached for his wife's palm and squeezed it hard. "If they find us," he whispered nervously, "you know I won't be able to run." "Don't worry," his wife, Thida, replied, cradling their 3-year-old son in her arms. "We'll be together, every step. I'll never leave you." As the long night wore on, the madrassa burned down. At 4 a.m., Buddhist prayer gongs rang out, and the mobs began shining flashlights into the Wat Hlan Taw. Some Buddhists fired rocks into the bush with homemade slingshots. "Come out, Kalars!" they shouted, using a derogatory word for Muslims. The Muslims ran to a neighboring compound, owned by a wealthy Muslim businessman. Some tore down a bamboo fence to get inside. The mobs were not far behind. Thida heard a boy screaming behind her, a student who had been trying to call his mother on his cell phone. He had waited just a few seconds too long to run. As the first rays of dawn touched Mingalar Zayone, Koko, a quiet, heavy-set 21-year-old student, peered over the compound's thin fence and felt numb. Men clutching machetes and sticks were girding for a fight outside. Hundreds more were gathering on a road running across a huge embankment that shadowed the neighborhood's western edge. The embankment had always been there, but now it seemed to seal them inside the bottom of a huge, oppressive bowl from which they could not escape. Koko could almost feel the blood draining from his cheeks. He felt weak, no longer human. "We're trapped," he thought, "like animals." Some students were frantically making calls for help—to parents, to police. Some were chanting loudly. Others were scouring the property for anything they could use to defend themselves—wooden boards, rocks the gangs outside had thrown at them. By the time an opposition lawmaker, Win Htein, arrived around 7:30 a.m., dozens of helmeted riot police were on the scene. The security forces, equipped with rifles and gray shields, had formed lines to keep the Buddhist hordes away from the Muslims. Win Htein saw the head of police and the district commissioner standing nearby, and the bodies of two dead Muslims on the edge of the Wat Hlan Taw. Over the next 45 minutes, he watched in horror as mobs of men chased five more students out of the bush, one by one, and hacked or bludgeoned them to death in broad daylight. As stone-faced police officers stood idle just steps away, crowds cheered like spectators in a Roman gladiator show. "They must be wiped out!" one woman shouted. "Kill them all!" shouted another. "We must show Burmese courage!" Win Htein felt nauseous. He wanted to vomit. In two decades of prison and torture under brutal military rule, he had never seen anything like this. When he tried to convince people in the crowds to spare the Muslims, the mobs began threatening him. One Buddhist man demanded bitterly: "Why are you trying to protect them? Are you a Muslim lover?" An officer advised Win Htein to leave. Shortly after, a monk and four policemen offered to escort the trapped Muslims on foot to several police vehicles on top of the embankment. "We'll protect you," one officer said. "But the students must stop chanting. They must put down their weapons"—their sticks and stones. As the teachers debated what to do, they realized their time had run out. The crowds were flinging long bamboo staves wrapped with burning fabric over the fence like giant matchsticks. The compound was on fire, belching orange flame and black smoke into the air. The group emerged slowly with their hands behind their heads, like prisoners of war. Police led them down a narrow dirt track—a long line of desperate people, crouching in terror. Almost immediately, they were stoned by livid residents of a tiny Buddhist neighborhood who attempted to block their way. What followed was a gantlet from hell, an obstacle course that came with its own set of macabre rules: Do not run, or they will chase you. Do not fall, or you may never get back up. Do not stop, or you may die. Police fired several rounds into the air, but the crowds attacked anyway. A teacher was knocked to the ground, and panicked students stepped over his body, sprawled face down in the dirt. Koko saw a friend hit across the forehead with a hoe. When he tried to stand again, five men with knives dragged him off. The mobs then attacked Koko with machetes from behind, slicing six palm-sized gashes into the flesh of his back. Blood stained his yellow shirt. He fell and blacked out. One officer, struck in the face by a rock, apparently by accident, shot a Buddhist man in the leg. The crack of gunfire woke Koko, who realized he had been left for dead and leapt to his feet to catch up with the group. As they moved inside the Buddhist neighborhood on the path to the trucks, police ordered the Muslims to squat down. Crowds taunted and slapped them. Several women forced them to bow their heads and press their hands together in prayer like Buddhists. And according to testimony gathered by Physicians for Human Rights, they also shoved pork, which is prohibited in Islam, into the mouths of the Muslims. One man swung a motorcycle exhaust pipe into a student's head. Another hit him with a motorcycle chain. A third stabbed him in the chest. "Don't kill them here," yelled one monk. "Their ghosts will haunt this place. Kill them up on the road." The monks said the police should round up the women and children and let them go first. When Thida refused to let go of her husband, a Buddhist man shoved a palm in his face and forced them apart. Another man she recognized tried to grab her 3-year-old. "He's still breast-feeding. Leave him alone!" she shouted, pulling away. The man then grabbed her 9-year-old, but pushed him back in disgust when he wailed. Amid the confusion, one Buddhist woman hurriedly waved two of Thida's teenage daughters into her home to protect them, in an act of kindness. Both would be reunited with Thida several days later, unharmed. As Thida and about 10 women and children climbed the hill, several riot police pushed back the stick-wielding crowds around them with open palms. A video reviewed by the AP records a man trying to dissuade the mobs, saying: "Don't do this. There are kids there as well." But the violence continued. Buddhists still clearing the Wat Hlan Taw forced a thin 17-year-old student named Ayut Kahn out into an open patch of low grass. In a scene captured on video by at least two different unidentified people, the boy—a Meikhtila native with a stutter who loved football—was struck 24 times by nine people with long sticks and bloody machetes. Five blows were from a monk. "Look! Look!" one Buddhist bystander shouted from the top of the embankment as the student was murdered. "The police are heading down there, but they aren't doing anything." The last time Thida saw her husband, he was struggling to climb the hilltop road where she waited anxiously beside police. Two teachers were by his side, their arms locked in his. Mobs swarmed the steep embankment between them. Shafee's face was pale. He had never looked this way—so exhausted, so drained, so helpless. Across the hillside, Thida could hear the cries of hate. "Kill the Kalar! Don't leave any of them behind!" "Clean them up! They are just dirty things!" Somewhere below, several students tried to make a run for it. Crowds chased them. Somebody pummeled 14-year-old Abu Bakar across the cheek with a bamboo stick. Somebody else sliced the back of 20-year-old Naeem's legs with daggers. Yet another clubbed Arif—the teacher who had wept at dinner the night before—to the ground. Police stood on both sides of the hill watching, unmoved. When a boy sitting with them at the bottom of the slope looked up, an officer slapped his head and shouted: "Keep your eyes down!" A frantic monk waved a multicolored Buddhist flag screaming for the killing to stop. "This is not the Buddhist way!" The crowd backed away briefly, but police left the wounded behind. One video clip of the moments that followed shows seven Muslim men curled on the ground beneath a grove of rain trees. The faces of at least three are heavily covered in blood. A man in a green jacket swings a bamboo stave down on the wounded with all his might. The camera pans to another group of three other crumpled men. One is Shafee, who is lying face down, pulling his legs in toward his stomach. "Oh, you want to fight back?" a voice says, laughing. A grainy video filmed shortly after shows flames leaping from a pile of 12 charred corpses in the same spot, and onlookers backing away from a smoky body rolling down the hill. Another video shows crowds cheering. Thida could only smell the burning flesh. She hugged the leg of a police officer standing beside her and asked: "Hey, brother. Please. Please. What is happening to us?" "Shut up, woman," the officer replied. "Keep your head down. Don't you know you can die here, too?" In all the mayhem, several dozen police reinforcements arrived to escort the remaining Muslims to the hilltop and load them onto trucks. As they pulled away, Koko knew he would never return to Meikhtila. "There is nothing left of our lives here," he said to himself. "There is only Allah." The trucks took the traumatized survivors to a police station, where they were offered water, and, by at least one officer, an apology. In all, about 120 Muslims survived—among them, 90 students and four teachers. They stayed several days at a police station before being bused to another town to join their families. The dead totaled 32 students and four teachers, according to the headmaster, who cross-checked their deaths with families and witnesses. The head of state security in the region, Col. Aung Kyaw Moe, who ordered the rescue operation, said "10 or 15" died on the way. But video obtained by the AP, shot by unidentified witnesses touring the area after the killings, contradicts that claim. Two videos alone indicate at least 28 people died, most of them blackened corpses with fists and arms reaching into the air; one is decapitated. When the people filming pass one body, a voice can be heard saying: "Hey, is that a child?" "No, he's just short," another replies, chuckling. The police present that day were the only ones with rifles and guns, which would have been no match for the crude weapons carried by the mobs. But while they rescued more than 100 Muslims, they did not stop the massacre of dozens of others. "They were of two minds. We could see that," the headmaster said. "Some of them tried to help us … but in the end, they all watched us die." Win Htein, the lawmaker, said there were two explanations: Either the "police didn't get any order from above [to shoot], or they got the order from above not to do anything." Aung Kyaw Moe, the regional security chief, insisted he had given authorization to fire. But he said police didn't shoot because "doing so could have angered the crowds and made the situation even worse." He said even though 200 police were deployed to the area, the crowds outnumbered them, and Muslims died because "some of them tried to run." "They scattered and our forces could not follow every one of them," he said. "They had to take care of the rest of the people they were guarding. … On the front lines, some things cannot be clearly explained." During a tense 50-minute interview, Aung Kyaw Moe said he was "satisfied" with the job police had done. But he grew increasingly agitated, saying five times that it was "inappropriate" to ask for details because "you're not writing a novel, you're not making a movie … you don't need to know." The first people prosecuted for the violence in Meikhtila were not the Buddhist mobs. The first were Muslims. On April 11, a court sentenced the gold shop owner and two employees to 14-year jail terms for theft and causing grievous bodily harm. On May 21, the same court sentenced seven Muslims to terms ranging from two years to life for their roles in the killing of the monk the day the unrest began. On June 28, a Buddhist man was convicted of the murder of a Muslim elsewhere in Meikhtila and sentenced to seven years in jail, according to state prosecutor Nyan Myint. He said 14 Buddhists have been charged and are on trial for the Mingalar Zayone killings, some for murder, but none has yet been convicted. Justice "is a matter of time," he said. "The courts are proceeding with the trials and have no prejudice or bias against any group." Aung Kyaw Moe, the security chief, said all those arrested were residents of Meikhtila, but he gave no other details. No police have been reprimanded. Similar patterns of justice have played out in other towns. After Buddhist mobs burned several villages in the central town of Okkan in April, the first convicted was a Muslim woman accused of starting it by "insulting religion." She had knocked over the bowl of a novice monk. Muslims say it was an accident. And after more Buddhist mobs rampaged through the eastern city of Lashio in May, setting Muslim shops alight, the first convicted was the Muslim man authorities say triggered the unrest by dousing a Buddhist woman with diesel fuel and severely burning her. One Muslim man was killed in each incident, but no one has been prosecuted. After the massacre in Meikhtila, the corpses rotted for at least two and a half days before the government sent workers to haul them away, some on garbage trucks. The remains were taken to Meikhtila's main cemetery, where they were simply burned again in an open patch of red dirt with used car tires and gasoline and left for stray dogs to pick through. Authorities say they did not hand the bodies back to the relatives of the dead because they were too badly burned to be identified. But families of those slain say they were never even asked, and never given the chance to bury their loved ones according to Islamic rites. No Muslim families have dared visit the cemetery or return to the massacre site. The mood in the neighborhood is still hostile to outsiders. When AP journalists visited the area, residents stared silently. One barefoot woman washing clothes beside a well where a pile of charred corpses were dumped claimed she had no idea what happened that day, because she wasn't there. Her friend looked up and said: "Tell him what started it. Tell him about the gold shop, the monk who was killed." Ma Myint shook her head, squinting up briefly in the direction of the hilltop. Those bones "mean nothing to me," she said. The school's headmaster pulls out a single sheet of blue-lined paper from his pocket. On it, handwritten, are the names and ages and hometowns of the dead. What bothers him the most isn't the decision he made to take his students into the Wat Hlan Taw, or the nightmares he has had since. It's that those who were slaughtered could have been saved. Most of those beaten to the ground did not die immediately, he says. "Had anybody stepped in to help them even then, to push back the mobs, to pick them up and take them to the hospital—they could have lived," he says. He has told many of the 90 students who survived to lie low and not testify for fear of reprisal. He dreams of gathering them together again and rebuilding his school elsewhere, but he is too afraid of sectarian violence flaring anew to say where or when. "Where is safe in this Myanmar?" he says. "Who will protect us?" On March 21, the headmaster urged his students not to fight back. "Next time, we will defend ourselves," he says quietly, "because we know that nobody else will."

Verdict in Singapore: US Engineer Shane Todd Killed Himself Posted: 07 Jul 2013 11:22 PM PDT Rick, right, and Mary Todd, center, check in their Delta Airlines flight back to the United States with their sons at Changi Airport in Singapore on May 23, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Edgar Su) SINGAPORE — American engineer Shane Todd committed suicide in Singapore last year, a coroner's inquiry in the city-state concluded on Monday, in a verdict at odds with his family's belief that he was murdered because of his work. The case had threatened to become an issue between Singapore and the United States as Senator Max Baucus, who represents Todd's home state of Montana, had pressed for more American involvement in the investigation. The possibility of diplomatic discord appears to have diminished, even though Todd's parents have vowed to push for an inquiry at home. The US embassy in Singapore was expected to issue a statement later on Monday. Todd died of "asphyxia by hanging" and there was "no foul play involved in the deceased's death," said the summary of the findings by District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt, following two weeks of testimony by dozens of witnesses in May. Singapore law requires a coroner's inquiry for deaths that are not a result of illness. Todd, 31, was found hanging from the bathroom door of his apartment in June 2012, two days after he left his job at Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics (IME). He had been researching an advanced semiconductor material called gallium nitride (GaN) that has commercial and military applications. Todd's parents believe he was murdered over what they said was his role in a project between state-linked IME and Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd that involved the transfer of sensitive technology to China. Huawei and Singapore officials have denied the accusations, saying they did not proceed beyond initial discussions into a possible project involving GaN, which can be used in equipment ranging from mobile phone base stations to military radars. The judge concurred, saying: "The potential GaN power amplifier project did not even materialize. Even if it did, which I did not find, the listed specifications show it would not have violated general export control laws, nor could it have been used for military applications." He added, "The deceased was not in possession of confidential and valuable classified information in the course of his employment at the IME." Huawei has been blocked from some projects in Australia and is deemed a security risk by the US Congress on the grounds that its equipment could be used for spying. Rick and Mary Todd attended the inquiry for several days before pulling out and leaving Singapore, saying they had lost confidence in the system investigating their son's death. "What has made us say that we can no longer stay here is the testimony from the beginning, saying they are always only looking at suicide, never murder," Rick Todd told Reuters Television on May 22. "The outcome was pre-determined." Through their lawyer, the Todds said they would issue a statement after they had gone through the 145-page report. During the inquiry, Singapore government lawyers presented forensic reports that showed Todd died by hanging, based on injuries around his neck. Their findings were backed by two US pathologists, who said the manner of death pointed to suicide. In June, Senior State Counsel Tai Wei Shyong said there was a "conspicuous absence" of any evidence to support the theory that Todd was murdered. The parents walked out of the hearing after a US medical examiner they had hired retracted a statement that Todd had been garroted and the judge refused their request to delay testimony by another witness so they could go through it. The Todds' belief that their son was murdered was based on documents on a hard disk drive they said they found in his apartment. Singapore disputes the Todds' account, saying police had returned the hard drive to the family after examining it.

Retailers Plan Bangladesh Factory Inspections under Safety Pact Posted: 07 Jul 2013 11:20 PM PDT Clothes and sewing machines are seen in the Tazreen Fashions garment factory, where 112 workers died in a fire, in Savar, Bangladesh. (Photo: Reuters) ZURICH — A group of mainly European retailers has finalized a plan to conduct coordinated inspections of factories in Bangladesh in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the Rana Plaza disaster that killed 1,129 people in April. The collapse of Rana Plaza, a factory built on swampy ground outside Dhaka, on April 24 ranks among the world's worst industrial accidents and has galvanized brands to look more closely at their suppliers. The new accord was launched by trade unions in May and signed by 70 brands, including the world's two biggest fashion retailers, Inditex and H&M, which have agreed to accept legal responsibility for safety at their Bangladesh factories. But a number of US chains, including Wal-Mart, Gap , Macy's, Sears and JC Penney, have shunned the deal, saying that it gives labor unions too much control over ensuring workplace safety and have proposed a non-binding initiative. The largely European plan, coordinated by Switzerland-based unions IndustriALL and UNI Global, involves the creation of a team of inspectors to evaluate fire, electrical, structural and worker safety in factories supplying signatory brands. In a report published on Monday, the implementation team said that all 70 signatory brands had to provide full details of the Bangladesh factories from which they source goods—the first time such data would be collected or shared in such a comprehensive way. Every factory will undergo an initial inspection within the next nine months, with repairs initiated where necessary and a process put in place to allow companies or workers to report problems with buildings that pose an immediate risk. Employees were forced to go to work at Rana Plaza even after huge cracks appeared in the walls a day before the building collapsed. About 3.6 million people work in Bangladesh's clothing sector, making it the world's second-largest apparel exporter behind China. The industry employs mostly women, some of whom earn as little as $38 a month. Bangladesh has pledged to improve safety, but it has not pledged new money to relocate dangerous buildings. "Brand signatories are responsible to ensure that sufficient funds are available to pay for renovations and other safety improvements," Monday's report said. Tesco, the world's third-largest retailer and one of the accord signatories, last month said that it has stopped sourcing clothes from a Bangladesh site because of safety concerns. North American retailers and trade associations are believed to be putting the finishing touches on their own Bangladesh safety agreement. Jason Grumet, president of the Washington think-tank helping to coordinate the effort, last month said the process was on track to be completed in July. European, Bangladeshi and US officials will meet in Geneva on Monday for talks aimed at improving safety conditions and discussing the country's trade benefits, which the EU has threatened to suspend. Tax concessions offered by Western countries and the low wages paid by the manufacturers have helped to turn Bangladesh's garment exports into a $19 billion a year industry, with 60 percent of clothes going to Europe. In late June, US President Barack Obama cut off US trade benefits for Bangladesh in a mostly symbolic response to conditions in the country's garment sector, given that clothing is not eligible for US duty cuts.

Tiny Chinese Enclave Remakes Gambling World, Vegas Posted: 07 Jul 2013 11:17 PM PDT A general view of local and foreign casinos in Macau. (Photo: Reuters / Dennis Ho) LAS VEGAS — Most people still think the US gambling industry is anchored in Las Vegas, with its booming Strip and 24/7 action, a place where years of alluring marketing campaigns have helped scrub away the taint of past corruption. Yet in just a decade, the center of gambling has migrated to the other side of the world, settling in a tiny Chinese territory an hour's ferry ride from Hong Kong. The gambling mecca of Macau now handles more wagers than all US-based commercial casinos put together, and many of those bets end up swelling the balance sheets of US corporations. But as US gambling companies have remade Macau, Macau has also remade them. Chasing riches, these companies have been hit with allegations of improper conduct, prompting investigations and serious questions about how closely US authorities are watching the corporations' overseas dealings, and what, if any, real repercussions they could face. Could these corruption claims revive the specter of gambling's bad old days, when Sin City casinos kept mobsters flush? "There are some countries where you either have to pay to play and break the law, or you have to not do business there," Indiana-based casino consultant Steve Norton said. "I think the jury's still out on Macau." A few hours' flight from half the world's population, Macau is the only place in China where gambling is legal. Each month, 2.5 million tourists flood the glitzy boomtown half the size of Manhattan to try their luck in neon-drenched casinos. Most of them are nouveau-riche Chinese who sip tea and chain-smoke as they play at baccarat. The former Portuguese colony has long been known for its gambling but used to offer a seedier experience, with small-time gambling dens crowding up against textile factories and gangs, prostitutes and money-launderers operating openly in the cobblestone streets. That was the scene in 1999 when China assumed sovereignty of Macau and opened it to outside gambling operators. "It was a swamp," said Sheldon Adelson, CEO of Las Vegas Sands, as he looked back on his early venture in an obscure city where Chinese officials envisioned conventions and resorts. "Everybody thought that I was crazy." Nevertheless, he and the two American competitors that tried their luck there succeeded spectacularly. Adelson's first casino opening there caused a stampede that ripped doors off their hinges. Now operating four booming casinos in Macau, he described Sands as "an Asian company" with a presence in America. He makes far more in China, a culture in which notions of luck and fate play integral roles, than in Las Vegas. "This industry is supply-driven, like the movie 'Field of Dreams:' Build it and they will come." he said. "I believe that." If Adelson's words and jack-o'-lantern smile suggest all is right in the globalized casino world, consider where he made these statements—on the witness stand in a Vegas courtroom this spring, defending his company against one of his former Macau consultants. A jury in May found against Adelson, awarding the consultant $70 million for helping Sands secure a lucrative gambling license in Macau. Sands immediately appealed. But the lawsuit may be the least of Adelson's worries. His firm is also accused of making improper payments to a Macau lawmaker and collaborating with the Chinese mafia. The US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating. The company says it's done nothing wrong. It's not just Sands facing legal and regulatory troubles connected with Macau. Two of the other three major US gambling enterprises are, too: Wynn Resorts Ltd. and MGM Resorts International. Both Sands and Wynn are facing related lawsuits from shareholders who claim Macau mismanagement has damaged the companies. Wynn is being investigated by the Justice Department and the SEC over a $135 million donation to the University of Macau Development Foundation in 2011. Wynn co-founder Kazuo Okada characterized the donation as "suspicious" in a 2012 letter to the SEC. He noted that the Development Foundation's lead trustee is also a member of the Macau government, and said that the donation coincided with Wynn's request for land to develop a third casino. "I am at a complete loss as to the business justification for the donation, other than that it was an attempt to curry favor with those that have ultimate authority for issuing gaming licenses," said Okada, who is now under Department of Justice investigation himself for possible bribery in the Philippines, and has fallen out with his former Wynn colleagues. Okada denies wrongdoing. If his claim is true, the Wynn payment could violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA—a law that bars US companies from paying off officials to win business overseas. Wynn says it acted properly and had no need to buy-off authorities. Nevada regulators, in a separate investigation, found no wrongdoing. MGM got into trouble with New Jersey regulators when the company opened a Macau casino with Pansy Ho, the daughter of a gambling kingpin allegedly linked to Chinese gangs. The state found the partnership "unsuitable" in a 2010 report, and forced MGM to sell its stake in an Atlantic City casino. MGM denied that there was anything inappropriate about the relationship, began the process of selling its stake, and did not cut ties with Macau. Two years later, MGM CEO Jim Murren stands by that choice. "The Macau market is now larger than the entire US gaming market. Unfortunately for Atlantic City, it's gone the other way. It's smaller now than when we entered it. The fortunes of the two couldn't be more different," he said. Last winter, New Jersey agreed to consider MGM's application for a renewed license. The Sands inquiries stem from a pending wrongful termination case brought by former Sands executive Steve Jacobs in 2010. Jacobs claims that Sands' China subsidiary did business with known gangsters, tacitly condoned prostitution and made inappropriate payments to an attorney who was also a Macau lawmaker. Jacobs claims Sands paid the lawmaker to help settle various regulatory issues in Sands' favor. Sands has denied all claims, but recently said in an SEC filing that an internal audit had found possible breaches of a section of the FCPA that requires public companies to file proper financial statements and maintain a system of internal controls. In April, Sands' auditor declined to stand for re-election. Justice Department spokesman Michael Passman declined to comment on the probe. Sands says it is cooperating with federal prosecutors. Spokesman Ron Reese said the company's dealings in Macau attract more scrutiny because it's the world's largest gambling market, but Sands is diligent wherever it operates. Sands opened for business in Macau in 2004, at the beginning of a massive boom in China's economy that has lifted incomes for hundreds of millions of people, allowing them to afford upscale pleasures like gambling in casinos. Today, the former backwater is in the midst of one of the greatest gambling booms the world has ever known. To rival the money it takes in, Las Vegas would have to attract six times more gamblers each year than it does now—essentially every adult in America. Wynn Resorts now makes nearly three-quarters of its revenue in Macau. Sands, which owns the Venetian and Palazzo, earns two-thirds of its revenue there. But like early Las Vegas, Macau has a long history of ties to crime syndicates—in this case secretive brotherhoods called triads that first formed on the mainland more than a century ago. Machine-gun shootouts, bombings and even assassinations of government officials were commonplace during magnate Stanley Ho's four-decade monopoly of gambling. (He is Patsy Ho's father.) In the late 1990s, a police official tried to reassure visitors by remarking that Macau had "professional killers who don't miss their targets." The history and regulations governing the enclave continue to make it tricky for modern casinos to avoid gangs, illegal money transfers and at least the appearance of bribery. Businesses operating there can expect allegations against them, true or not, said Bill Weidner, who was president of Sands until 2009. He added: "Macau is their country, not ours, and it's their system not ours, and it operates differently than ours. It's not better or worse, just different." One contributing factor is China's capital controls, which restrict the amount of money that citizens take out of the country, including to Macau, which like Hong Kong, is a semi-autonomous region with its own financial system. Another is the lack of reliable credit risk information in China, which makes it hard for casinos to figure out whom they should lend to. So-called junket agents provide an easy fix. They use their networks on the mainland to identify wealthy would-be VIP gamblers, whisk them to Macau's tables, lend them money, then settle up when they get home. Junket operators often assume management of a casino's private VIP room. Casinos provide the facilities, dealers and chips in return for a cut of the profits. Baccarat played in VIP rooms accounts for two-thirds of Macau's $38 billion in annual gambling revenue. While many of the more than 200 junket operators active in Macau are law-abiding, some have documented ties to organized crime. Operating off the books, junkets pay out winnings in Hong Kong dollars, widely accepted in Macau, which players can then move to another location. As a result, Macau is seen as a conduit for money flowing out of China, with wealthy individuals and corrupt officials suspected of transferring funds abroad. The enclave has seen a spate of killings and kidnappings associated with debt collection, including one grisly case last year in which two men were stabbed to death in their four-star hotel room, discovered by a friend who had come to lend them the money they needed. Today, US companies are tweaking their flagship Las Vegas casinos to look and operate more like Macau-style properties. The biggest casinos have imported Asian pop sensations, Chinese delicacies and baccarat, now Nevada's biggest moneymaker. They've outfitted their hallways in red, a lucky color in Asian culture, and set up Macau-style VIP rooms that employ junket operators catering to high-rollers. Asian visitors now account for 9 percent of tourists to Las Vegas, up from 2 percent in 2008. And the Strip is preparing to welcome its first Asian-owned casino: a multi-billion dollar Chinese-themed extravaganza called Resorts World, complete with pandas and pagodas. One reason casino bosses are dreaming up ways to lure Macau customers to Las Vegas is that Nevada imposes one-fifth of China's 39 percent tax on winnings. "They can make a lot more money from a big gambler here," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. But some of the problems associated with Chinese gambling halls may be migrating to the Strip as well. In March, a man police described as an enforcer for the Taiwan-based triad United Bamboo began serving a life term for stabbing a man to death in a karaoke bar near the Strip. Prosecutors said he'd been sent to collect a $10,000 gambling debt. Last year, the US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network warned casinos to monitor junket operators and report suspicious activity. The warning followed media reports that Sands allowed a man named as a triad member in a congressional report to move a $100,000 gambling credit from Las Vegas to one of its Macau casinos. Unlike some other states, Nevada allows junket operators to work in casinos without the full suitability checks required for key employees. Some Hong Kong operators licensed in Nevada have been found unsuitable by other jurisdictions, including Singapore. "The reason why we don't do a full giant investigation on them is that they have no control over the casino operations; they are basically travel agents and hosts," Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett said. If another jurisdiction finds fault with a junket operator licensed in Nevada, state regulators will simply ask the operator to submit to a suitability workup, which is tantamount to telling them to get out, Burnett said. Still, regulators are not blind to the link between junkets and triads. At a hearing before a congressional advisory panel in June, Burnett said it is "common knowledge that the operation of VIP rooms in Macau casinos had long been dominated by Asian organized crime." Steve Vickers, who spent 18 years in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force and commanded its criminal intelligence bureau, believes that nearly all junkets that cater to Chinese tourists collaborate with organized crime. "You won't find the triad names listed as the junket operators, but they are behind it, because who is it that can reach into China and enforce the debts, move the money? Only one kind of person can do that," said Vickers, who now runs a consulting company. In the 1980s, state regulations, along with an FBI crackdown, helped push out the mob bosses who had taken refuge in the gambling world and usher in the industry's modern corporate era. Today, states can impose fines or revoke licenses if any US companies are found to have acted improperly in Macau. But except for rare instances like New Jersey's action against MGM, regulators have so far refrained from public action, preferring to wait until federal probes are complete. Nevada's Burnett said that does not mean regulators are sitting idle. "A lot of what goes on is dialogue between the board and the companies that the public doesn't necessarily see," he said. Conventional wisdom is that no US companies will lose their licenses over the allegations, even if proven true. At worst, they could get fined, said Michael Paladino, an analyst at the credit rating agency Fitch. "They can handle that," he said, noting that the largest FCPA fine to date—imposed on German engineering giant Siemans A.G. for bribery—amounted to about $1 billion. That's less than one month's revenue for Sands. The balance of power between casinos and regulators has shifted as gambling companies have achieved their own version of outsourcing, according to I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in California who writes a blog called Gambling and the Law. "Macau forced the casinos to see that they could become like other large US corporations: Set up their plants and operations in other nations and make far more than they can being stuck just in Las Vegas," he said, speaking from his hotel room near Macau University, where he teaches a summer course. Sands, Wynn and MGM have structured their China operations as subsidiaries that could eventually be spun off entirely. In any case, public officials aren't exactly clamoring for investigations. Among the ranks of the unconcerned is former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a one-time lawyer for mob figures. Sitting on an overstuffed green leather couch his living room, Goodman, whose wife is now mayor, said he doesn't worry about Macau because Americans are not paying attention to the murky allegations there. "You ask people who Sheldon Adelson is, if 10 out of 50 recognize the name, I'd be surprised. If they associated him with the Venetian and the Palazzo, I'd be even more surprised. People are busy," he said. Of course, within the industry, Adelson is an object of fascination. As the Sands chief appeared in court this spring, a former rival, Phil Satre, who headed Harrah's Entertainment, followed the coverage from his home in Reno. Harrah's, the nation's largest casinos company when Satre stepped down in the early 2000s, was later renamed Caesars Entertainment Corporation. While Wynn, MGM and Sands have taken off, Caesars, the industry's fourth major player, has been left behind. Caesars did not apply for the finite number of gambling licenses in Macau in the early 2000s for fear of upsetting domestic regulators. At that time, Satre said, the US gambling industry had at last gained a legitimacy and mundane familiarity that had been unthinkable a generation ago. He said he didn't think American regulators would tolerate any hint of ties to criminal activity in Asia. "There are some things that still have to play out, but when I look back and think about the opportunity to go back in Macau," Satre said, "I'd probably take a different posture." Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed to this story.

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