The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Burma Celebrates Buddha’s Birth by Watering Banyans
• Win Tin’s Foundations to Continue Supporting Political Prisoners
• Special, and Threatened

Burma Celebrates Buddha’s Birth by Watering Banyans Posted: 12 May 2014 11:30 PM PDT Two girls dressed like a king and queen of the Yadana Pone Era carry a silver bowl with water and flowers as they ride a horse cart along a village lane in Mandalay. (Photo: Teza Hlaing / The Irrawaddy) MANDALAY — Burmese across the country are on Tuesday commemorating the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death. Each year on the Kasone Full Moon Day, people in the Buddhist-majority country carry earthen pots filled with water and flowers to offer to banyan trees, in memory of the Buddha. Legend goes that the holiday falls on the hottest day of the year. Buddhists in Burma use water to cool off and protect the holy tree, under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment. In Mandalay, at the historical Shwe Kyat Yat Pagoda, the watering ceremony is celebrated with the same traditions used by the ancient kings and queens. The celebration is compulsory for the 10 villages located around the pagoda. Village elders were said to have missed the ceremony during one year in the 20th century due to war, and that year the villages suffered natural disasters and economic hardship. During the ceremony, girls and boys wear clothing like the royals once did, carrying flowers and pots filled with water as they walk to the banyan trees planted in the pagoda compound. Because this celebration is the only one throughout Burma that has maintained the ancient traditions, visitors come from near and far to witness it. Village elders say the ceremony is different today than it was when they were young, as some participants have opted for hip-hop and modern songs rather than traditional songs played on drums and gongs. Throughout the country, Buddhists gather at monasteries and precept halls to practice meditation and make charitable donations on the holiday. The post Burma Celebrates Buddha's Birth by Watering Banyans appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Win Tin’s Foundations to Continue Supporting Political Prisoners Posted: 12 May 2014 07:00 PM PDT The private foundation led by the late democracy activist and journalist will keep its cash donations going, honoring Win Tin's wishes. RANGOON — A private foundation led by late democracy activist and journalist Win Tin to help political prisoners and their families will continue offering financial support as it did before, despite the founder's death. "We will keep giving cash donations to political prisoners as well as former ones and their families. We will keep it alive, as this was the late U Win Tin's wish," Tin Oo, patron of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party and chairman of the foundation, said during the 14th cash donation ceremony of the foundation on Monday. It was the first such ceremony to be held without Win Tin, who died on April 21 at the age of 84. Founded in 2012, the Hanthawaddy U Win Tin Foundation has given cash donations of more than 120 million kyats (US$120,000) to 63 current political prisoners as well as 363 former prisoners of conscience and media professionals who need financial support. The foundation is mainly financed by Win Tin's admirers at home and abroad. Win Tin also contributed what he could to the foundation, and he channeled the royalties from his books—ranging from his prison memoir to works of journalism and tomes on European art appreciation—to good causes. During the ceremony on Monday, Aung Thein, the foundation's consulting lawyer, said Win Tin granted all copyright permissions for his books, as well as audio and video recordings, to the foundation in 2012, requiring anyone who wants to use them to first seek permission. The post Win Tin's Foundations to Continue Supporting Political Prisoners appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Special, and Threatened Posted: 12 May 2014 06:00 PM PDT A drawing of a hairy-nosed otter in "Anatomical and Zoological Researches, Vol. 2," by John Anderson, 1878. YANGON — Researchers have discovered one of the rarest otters native to Asia at the wildlife market in Mong La in Shan State, suggesting that the species exists in Myanmar and is in need of protection. Chris R. Shepherd of the wildlife organization Traffic, and Vincent Nijman of the Oxford Wildlife Trade Research Group, reported finding the skin of a single hairy-nosed otter in Mong La in early January. The finding was released in a note published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Hairy-nosed otters are generally thought to occupy a range that includes southern Thailand, Cambodia, southern Vietnam, peninsular Malaysia, Borneo, and Sumatra and its nearby islands. The only previous known record for a hairy-nosed otter in Myanmar is an animal taken at Gam Majaw in Kachin State in 1939, which is now in the Natural History Museum in London. Myanmar is home to three other otter species. The small-clawed otter and the smooth otter are assessed as vulnerable by the IUCN. The Eurasian otter is assessed as near endangered. All three are listed as protected in Myanmar under a 1994 conservation law. The new find suggests that the hairy-nosed otter should also be listed. Hairy-nosed otters were once widespread in many parts of Southeast Asia but have become rare due to a loss of habitat and poaching. In Cambodia, the Wildlife Alliance is taking care of one rescued animal, named Pursat, in its sanctuary at Phnom Tamao. The otters' sensitivity to stress and pollution means that Pursat has been provided with a secluded pool enclosure. He is said to be "playful and energetic" while living on a diet of live fish to reduce the chance of toxins entering his system. In the wild, hairy-nosed otters feed on fish and water snakes. They can supplement their diet with frogs, lizards, turtles, crabs, mammals, and insects. Snub-nosed monkey In April, a conservation group released video footage of a monkey in Kachin State whose existence was first reported only in 2010, and whose upturned nose hunters say make it prone to sneezing in the rain. Flora and Fauna International (FFI) released a video showing scores of the animals leaping high in a forest canopy. The Myanmar snub-nosed monkey lives in the Maw River area in the northern part of the state. There may be just a few hundred of the animals left, and the population is highly vulnerable to hunting, illegal Chinese logging and development. Other snub-nosed monkey populations are known only in China and Vietnam. FFI said that under IUCN criteria, the Myanmar snub-nosed monkey qualifies as Critically Endangered and is in need of government protection. Program director Frank Momberg told The Irrawaddy that FFI has held discussions with the government about creating an approximately 230,000-hectare national park to protect the mountain habitat of the animal from illegal loggers. The park around Imaw Mountain would also protect other endangered and charismatic species such as the red panda and the takin [a type of goat-antelope], Mr. Momberg said. This article first appeared in the May 2014 print edition of The Irrawaddy. The post Special, and Threatened appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

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