Friday, October 25, 2013

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Business Weekly

Posted: 25 Oct 2013 05:06 AM PDT

 

Ups and downs

One US dollar was buying at 968 kyat on Friday, staying the same as the week before. The selling rate rested at 975 kyat to the dollar.

The price of gold rose remained stable at 685,000 kyat per tical on Friday, the same as last week. Fuel prices also stayed the same – petrol 814 kyat per litre; diesel 920; and octane 920. The cost of rice and basic commodities was also stable at Rangoon marketplaces, with good quality rice selling at 1100-1200 kyat per basket.

 

Shwe gas pipeline fully operational

A pipeline pumping natural gas from Burma to energy-hungry China has gone fully operational, state-run Chinese media reported on Monday. The project, stretching more than 2,500 km from Kyaukphyu in western Burma to southwest China, will help the world's second-largest economy feed its growing energy needs in southwestern provinces including Yunnan, Guizhou, Chongqing and Guangxi.

Read more: http://www.dvb.no/news/shwe-gas-pipeline-now-fully-operational-burma-myanmar/33703

 

Burma invites tender bids for broadband services

Burma's Myanmar Post and Telecommunications department (MPT) is inviting foreign and domestic companies to offer tender bids to provide broadband wireless Internet services across Burma. According to an announcement by MPT, companies interested in joint-ventures with the government are welcome to conduct surveys in the relevant regions across the country before submitting their business model to the MPT chief engineer's office. About two years ago, a Malaysia-backed company in Burma proposed a scheme with the MPT to provide prepaid Wi-Fi services in several townships in Rangoon, but it was rejected. Meanwhile, Burmese ISP RedLink Communications Co Ltd has announced a plan to provide Wi-Fi service in public "hotspots" around Rangoon by the end of this year.

Read more: http://www.dvb.no/dvb-video/burmese-internet-provider-promises-free-wi-fi-hotspots/33782

 

Mandalay railway station floors to be converted into hotel

The Adventure-Myanmar company has won through a US$4.4 million tender bid the rights to develop a hotel business on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the Mandalay Railway Station, according to an official from the Burma Railway Enterprise. The company is currently awaiting permission from the country's investment commission to work on the three floors which contain 130 rooms. The Burma Railway Enterprise previously disclosed that the Ministry of Railways was incurring losses and was looking to lease out floors of its buildings to generate income.

 

Ministry to ban foreign fishing boats in Burmese waters

The Livestock Breeding and Fisheries Ministry has declared that it will no longer allow foreign fishing vessels, including those from neighbouring Thailand, to fish in Burmese waters starting from the next fiscal year. An official from the Fisheries Department, Hnin Oo, said the ministry made the decision after consulting with ministry officials, the Fisheries Department and experts. Currently, Thai fishing vessels are allowed to operate in Burmese waters by paying roughly US$12 million in taxes to the Burmese government under a fishing rights scheme. Hnin Oo said the state can recuperate a similar amount in tax from Burmese fishing vessels, and that the scheme will not only increase the country's GDP but also will prevent fish deposits from being depleted. The current fishing permit for Thai vessels will expire in March 2014.

 

UN to help modernise Burma's aviation industry

The UN's aviation agency has agreed to help modernise Burma's airline industry by providing technical assistance to the government after a deal was reached at a meeting between President Thein Sein and the Secretary-General of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Raymond Benjamin, in Naypyidaw on Monday. Discussions reportedly focused on Burma's need for economic assistance and modern technology, along with airline security, infrastructure and equipment.

Burma's aviation industry has boomed since the inauguration of the new government in 2011, with foreign companies lining up to invest in the country's largely untapped markets. One such firm is Japan's All Nippon Airways, which announced plans in August to buy a US$25 million stake in Burma's Asian Wings Airways, becoming the first foreign carrier to invest in a domestic airline.

Read more: http://www.dvb.no/news/un-to-help-burma-improve-aviation-technology/33760

 

DHL freight service opens Burma office

DHL Global Forwarding, an air and ocean freight service, has expanded its presence in Southeast Asia by setting up a Rangoon office and appointing a Burma country manager, according to the Bangkok Post.

Asia-Pacific CEO Kelvin Leung said that Burma has enormous potential to become one the region's biggest markets. "DHL Global Forwarding’s logistics experts based in Yangon [Rangoon] will help bridge businesses in Myanmar [Burma] with a network of international business partners both within and beyond the region,” he said.

 

Work on 'trilateral' highway to finish soon

A proposed highway connecting Burma, India and Thailand is expected to become operational in the near future, according to India's Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharm. The highway, which will connect western India's Moreh town in Manipur with western Thailand's Mae Sot, will significantly boost trade routes in the region. One third of India's pulses and one fifth of its timber are imported from Burma.

The idea of the highway was conceived at the trilateral ministerial meeting on transport linkages in Rangoon in April 2002. India says it is also looking to connect to Burma via a new sea route. The Indian government is currently developing the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which will connect Kolkata with Sittwe port in Burma by sea; then Sittwe to Mizoram via river and road transport.

 

Burma calls for FDI in Sandoway hotel zone project

The Burmese government is planning to invite foreign companies to invest in the development of a hotel zone project in Arakan state's Sandoway [Thandwe] township, according to Aung Zaw Win, director general at the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism. President Thein Sein has reportedly budgeted 5 billion kyat (US$5.2 billion) to the project with the aim of modernising the popular beach resort Ngapali, which attracts thousands of foreign tourists each year. "The president wants the Ngapali Beach in Thandwe to [be modern] like the Bali Beach," said Aung Zaw.

 

Myanmar Investment Commission

The Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC), which reviews all applications from foreign companies looking to operate in Burma, may have its discretionary powers curbed as part of a government review process, according to the Irrawaddy. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is working with Burma to help improve the country's investment capacity, including reducing its administrative burden. A spokesperson for the opposition party, the National League for Democracy, welcomed the move. "The MIC has too much power and any reduction of that is to be welcomed," Executive Committee member Han Tha told The Irrawaddy.

Fresh protests erupt near Latpadaung copper mine

Posted: 25 Oct 2013 04:00 AM PDT

Over 150 locals in central Burma's Monywa staged another round of protests against the controversial China-backed Latpadaung copper mine on Wednesday after police and security guards began bulldozing their farms on the project site.

The farmers have refused to accept the compensation offered for their lands, which were confiscated to make way for the expansion of the mining project. They told DVB that guards working for the Chinese Wanbao company turned up with police protection on Tuesday to begin clearing their old farmlands anyway.

"They bulldozed the pea and sesame crops in my farm up on the Leikhun hill which we see as blatant bullying," said Yi Win, a resident from Sete village, adding that the officials have built a fence around the area.

Aung Myo Thant from Tonywa village said the locals have reached out to the Sagaing division's Security and Border Affairs Minister Colonel Kyi Naing to stop the company from destroying their farmlands, but no action had been taken so far.

"The colonel pledged to help mediate the situation but has done nothing so far," said Aung Myo Thant.

The Latpadaung project, which is a joint military and Chinese venture, has provoked outrage from locals who say it will cause irreversible environmental damage and has forced hundreds from their homes.

It rose to notoriety last year when the government led a bloody crackdown on a group of peaceful protestors, resulting in dozens of monks being severely burned. A controversial parliamentary investigation led by Aung San Suu Kyi later ruled that the project should go ahead, despite local objections.

A member of Suu Kyi's investigation commission and lower house MP, Khin San Hlaing, reportedly met with local Monywa authorities in mid-October in an effort to negotiate a new land compensation deal, but it ended in failure.

The disappointed villagers subsequently destroyed the fence erected around the project, and began to plough their farmlands in a show of defiance. These so-called plough protests have become an increasingly popular among farmers in Burma, as an influx of foreign investment continues to fuel land grabs across the country.

Over 120 local farmers from 12 villages in Latpadaung on Thursday held a meeting to discuss the issue of compensation, and decided to call for negotiations with more senior figures of authority.

"We have decided to call for a meeting specifically with someone who can make a decision instead of sending another letter [to the authorities]," said Min Min, a member of the local anti-mine campaign group, the Committee to Protect the Interests of the Latpadaung Mountain.

The residents, who are from Latpadaung's Mogyopyin, Tonywa and Sete villages, say they will continue to fight against the project. Work on the unpopular mine recently resumed after Wanbao agreed a new contract with the government.

However, lawmakers have said that the project still does not meet the requirements set out in the state-backed investigation commission, including demands for greater transparency on issues relating to public health and environmental impacts.

Burmese migrant group files formal complaint against Thai police

Posted: 25 Oct 2013 01:41 AM PDT

A Burmese human rights organisation has filed what is claimed to be the first ever formal complaint against Thai police for their alleged role in extorting Burmese migrant workers in Thailand.

The complaint was lodged at the Royal Thai Police Headquarters on Monday after gaining support from the Burmese embassy in Bangkok, activist and reporter Kyaw Thaung told DVB on Thursday.

Kyaw Thaung, director of the Myanmar Association in Thailand (MAT), said the complaint was directed at the local police in Mahachai, near the Thai capital, based on reports that they had detained and extorted money from four Burmese migrants, who carried legal work permits, on 10 October.

The MAT initially consulted with the Thai Lawyers Council and anti-human trafficking groups about the case but was told it was legally impossible for a civil society group to file such a complaint without support from the Burmese government. The group then approached the Burmese embassy in Bangkok which "willingly" offered its assistance.

Kyaw Thaung said police-led abuse and extortion of Burmese migrants in Mahachai has been a concern for many years, but most workers are too afraid to file formal complaints or act as witnesses in court.

"The police in Mahachai have been abusing Burmese migrants for a long time – they often arrest and extort Burmese migrants on accusations of dealing drugs by using shopping lists found in their pockets as 'evidence'," said Kyaw Thaung.

"We have both photo and video footage of the abuses and previously consulted with lawyers and our affiliate organisations about making a formal compliant but they said it would be unfeasible for us, as a civil society group, to file it as the Thai authorities are involved in the case and suggested that we approach the Burmese embassy for assistance."

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Burmese migrant workers in Thailand are still denied basic rights and are regularly subjected to abuses by their employers and the police, despite repeated pledges by the government to improve conditions.

"In theory, Burmese migrants who carry legal passports have the right to travel freely – exactly like their Thai counterparts," said Kyaw Thaung. "But in reality the migrants are forced to pay (US$3) 100 baht at each of the nine highway checkpoints between Bangkok and Mae Sot."

He added that the MAT had acquired video footage documenting the Thai police extorting money from migrants at checkpoints, which they sent to the Burmese government and NGOs in Thailand over six months ago, but without response.

In June last year, the Thai authorities in Tak province, near the Burmese border, imposed travel restrictions on legally registered migrant workers. The Migrant Assistance Progamme described it as a coercive strategy aimed at preventing Burmese workers from seeking better employment conditions in other parts of the country.

Migrants in Thailand make up about five percent of the county's workforce, and provide a crucial pool of labour for low-skilled, often dangerous, industries such as fishing and construction. Up to three million people, or about 80 percent, are estimated to come from Burma.

Suu Kyi wants to learn from Northern Ireland peace process

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 11:02 PM PDT

Aung San Suu Kyi said Northern Ireland’s peace process could help reconciliation in Burma, as the Nobel peace laureate visited the British province on Thursday.

The Burma opposition leader said she wanted to learn lessons about how Protestants and Catholics ended three decades of sectarian bloodshed and formed a power-sharing administration.

Burma has recently been rocked by anti-Muslim bloodshed and is also trying to overcome the legacy of decades of rampant human rights violations and conflict between the government and various ethnic groups.

Suu Kyi met politicians, police and schoolchildren during her visit to the province.

“The main reason I have come to Northern Ireland is to learn about how you managed to negotiate a peace process in spite of all the difficulties,” she said at WellingtonCollege in Belfast.

“It is very useful, what we have learned here I think will help us a great deal back in Burma.

“I want to see from you how you see your present-day problems because I am told the work is not done.”

She said the divisions in Northern Ireland were more deep-seated than in Burma, though the problem in her country was more complex, with many different ethnicities and the challenges of integrating civilian and military politics.

Suu Kyi toured the Northern Irish capital and visited the Titanic Belfast visitor attraction, based on the doomed ocean liner built in the city.

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On Wednesday in London she met Britain’s heir to the throne Prince Charles, shortly before the christening of his grandson Prince George.

The Nobel peace laureate also met Prime Minister David Cameron, who said he would help build international pressure on Burma to lift its ban on people whose spouses or children are foreign nationals — including Suu Kyi — from running for president.

Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest under military rule in Burma, before she was freed after controversial elections in 2010.

The democracy icon is now an opposition lawmaker as part of sweeping reforms under a new quasi-civilian regime that took office in 2011.

Anti-Muslim violence threatens Burma’s reforms: UN

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 10:43 PM PDT

Violence against the Rohingya minority in Arakan state has fuelled a wider campaign of anti-Muslim hostility in Burma which threatens to derail the country's fragile democratic reform process, a UN envoy warned on Thursday.

Presenting his final report to the UN General Assembly, Special Rapporteur for human rights in Burma, Tomas Quintana, urged the government to do more to stem the tide of violence, which has claimed almost 250 lives since last year.

Violence first erupted in northern Arakan state in June 2012, when Rohingya Muslims, who are considered illegal Bengali immigrants and denied citizenship in Burma, clashed with local Buddhists. The unrest has since rippled through other parts of the country, targeting various Muslim communities, including the Arakan-based Kaman who unlike the Rohingya is a recognised Burmese ethnic group.

"The president [Thein Sein] has made some commendable public speeches in which he has emphasised the need for trust, respect and compassion between people of different faiths and ethnic groups in Myanmar [Burma],” Quintana told the General Assembly's third committee, which deals with human rights.

“However, more needs to be done by the government to tackle the spread of discriminatory views and to protect vulnerable minority communities.”

The unrest has been linked to the rise of an extremist Buddhist movement, called 969, whose lead proponent, monk Wirathu, has likened Muslims to "mad dogs" and often been described as a hate preacher. But Thein Sein has publicly defended Wirathu as a "son of Buddha" and banned an edition of TIME Magazine that labelled him "The Face of Buddhist Terror".

Quintana's 23-page report, which was made public on Wednesday, described the situation in Arakan state as a "profound crisis", and highlighted "credible" allegations of state-complicity in serious human rights abuses, including torture and arbitrary detentions of Rohingya Muslims, which the government has failed to investigate.

“The underlying issue of discrimination against Muslim and particularly Rohingya populations remains unaddressed," he told the UN. "Allegations of gross violations since the violence erupted last June, including by state security personnel, remain unaddressed.”

Some 800,000 Rohingya Muslims live in northwestern Burma, where they are denied access to basic rights and need permits to travel or marry. Nearly 140,000 Rohingya have been confined to squalid displacement camps with limited access to food, sanitation and healthcare.

Chris Lewa from the advocacy group, The Arakan Project, praised Quintana's report as "very comprehensive" and urged the international community to treat it as a "renewed alert" over the predicament of the Rohingya.

"I would qualify the situation in Arakan absolutely critical," she said on Thursday.  "The government does not appear to take any initiatives to address not just the root causes of the violence but also its consequences.  Encampment and segregation of 140,000 Rohingya and Kaman are becoming permanent as time goes by."

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According to government data, 1,189 people including 260 Buddhists and 882 Rohingya Muslims have been detained for their role in the unrest. The rapporteur expressed concerns that Muslims have been unfairly targeted, with many arrested as part of village "sweeps" and subsequently denied access to legal representation or fair trials.

Lewa warned that the situation has not improved since Quintana's visit to Arakan state in August, explaining that another 200 Rohingyas have been sentenced to jail terms ranging from 5 to 40 years.

"It is not surprising that, according to The Arakan Project’s estimate, more than 10,000 already fled by boat just over the last two months and from North Arakan alone," she said.

Quintana's report concludes his 6-year mandate as Special Rapporteur for Burma, and will be used to inform a new UN resolution on the former military dictatorship. The UN's Human Rights Council will subsequently decide if a new rapporteur should be appointed next year.

His warnings come on the same day that opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, denied allegations that ethnic cleansing of Muslims is taking place in Burma.

"It's not ethnic cleansing," she told the BBC in an interview. "What the world needs to understand [is] that the fear is not just on the side of the Muslims, but on the side of the Buddhists as well.

Muslims make up some 5 percent of a population of 60 million in the Buddhist-majority country.
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