The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• State Railway Seeks Private Partner for Trendy Tourist Train
• Thailand Frees British Man Blacklisted in Plagiarism Spat
• Chinese Woman Must Choose Between 2nd Child, Husband’s Job
• Australia Deal to Send Refugees to Cambodia Damaged, Say Critics
• Suspect in Bangkok Bombing Tells Police He’s ‘Guilty’

State Railway Seeks Private Partner for Trendy Tourist Train Posted: 08 Sep 2015 03:48 AM PDT A view of the Goteik Viaduct in Nawnghkio Township, Shan State. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) RANGOON — State-owned transport provider Myanmar Railways has called on private investors to operate one of the country's many promising new tourism opportunities, a railway gang car route spanning 2,200 feet to cross the Goteik Viaduct in eastern Burma's Shan State. Selected investors will be expected to enter a joint venture with Myanmar Railways for three years with an annually renewable contract, according to a statement from the enterprise. Kyaw Kyaw Myo, the company's deputy general manager, told the Irrawaddy that courting private investment is an urgent priority. Interested companies have until Oct. 6 to submit their expressions of interest. Located in Nawnghkio Township, the Goteik Viaduct is part of a railway system connecting Pyin Oo Lwin, formerly the summer capital of British colonial administrators in Burma, with Lashio, one of the state's principal towns. A popular destination for Burma's swelling crowds of tourists, the bridge is the highest in Burma and was once the tallest trestle in the world. Formerly used to conduct track repairs, rail gang cars were modified earlier this year to allow tourists to better experience the journey across the viaduct and the picturesque panorama of the surrounding Shan hills. Myanmar Railways collects 100,000 kyats (US$100) for every full one-way trip of the 20-seat cars, according to Kyaw Kyaw Myo, as tickets are currently valued at 5,000 per passenger. Phyo Wai Yar Zar, chairman of Myanmar Tourism Marketing, said that travelers will only be able to board the cars from a station near the viaduct, that the current pricing may be unsustainable and that a compromise reached during the tender process. Provided that that can be worked out, he said, "if the private sector can do it, it will be good for tourists." Construction of the famous bridge was overseen by Sir Arthur Rendel, an engineer for the Burma Railroad Company. Work on the bridge began in 1899 and was completed in 1900, consisting of 16 steel towers and 2,260 feet in track length. Its tallest tower is more than 800 feet high. Tourism has been on the rise in Burma since the government began to implement wide-ranging political and economic reforms in 2011, marking the beginning of the country's departure from military rule. Many local businesses and foreign investors are banking on hopes that the service industry and tourism sector will become a major contributor to the nation's economy, which is in the early stages of a slow recovery from its decimation under the former military regime. In early 2014, the Burmese government announced that 2016 would be designated as "Visit Myanmar Year," part of a Tourism Master Plan plans to raise foreign visitor numbers of 7.5 million by 2020. The government attempted to launch a similar scheme in 1996, but it was ultimately unsuccessful due to fierce criticism from the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) and the country's status as a pariah state. The post State Railway Seeks Private Partner for Trendy Tourist Train appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Thailand Frees British Man Blacklisted in Plagiarism Spat Posted: 07 Sep 2015 11:08 PM PDT Frosted glass in the departures hall of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport on November 28, 2008. (Photo: Reuters) BANGKOK — A British academic who accused a Thai official of plagiarism, and whose name later showed up on a national security blacklist as a potential danger to society, said on Tuesday he had been freed after being held for four days at a Bangkok airport. Wyn Ellis, a long-term resident of Thailand with British and Thai citizenship, was freed late on Monday after he was detained shortly after arriving from Europe last Thursday. Ellis is working on a sustainable rice program for the United Nations in Thailand. He discovered just a few days ago that he had been blacklisted, apparently because of a 2009 letter written by the man he had accused of copying his work. "I am out and I am off the blacklist," Ellis told Reuters on Tuesday after spending four days in a cell with 15 other people. "It's a relief to be back in my own home. We had a glass of wine last night to celebrate," he said. Ellis said immigration officials showed him the 2009 letter after he was detained. In it, he said former National Innovation Agency (NIA) chief Supachai Lorlowhakarn had described him as a "danger to Thai society" and accused him of forgery, stealing government documents and plagiarism. Supachai sent the letter to Thailand's immigration bureau after Ellis had filed a complaint to authorities that Supachai had plagiarized from one of his studies. The NIA told the immigration department last week that it had revoked Supachai's letter. Ellis said he had been coming and going to Thailand without any problem, but had lost his Thai passport on a recent trip to Britain and Norway. He was using his British passport when he returned to Thailand on Thursday. The post Thailand Frees British Man Blacklisted in Plagiarism Spat appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Chinese Woman Must Choose Between 2nd Child, Husband’s Job Posted: 07 Sep 2015 10:33 PM PDT Children sit in front of a tombstone waiting for their relatives during the Qingming Festival in Fujian province. (Photo: China Daily / Reuters) BEIJING — A public outcry has been raised over the plight of a woman who’s considering an illegal abortion at 8 months because the child would violate China’s restrictive birth policy and would cost her husband his job as a police officer. Members of the public have been phoning local officials in the couple’s Yunnan province community to inquire about the case, and an online travel service reportedly has offered the husband a position if he loses his government job. The case has rekindled debate over whether employment in the public sector should be used to enforce the policy that limits urban couples to one child in cases where both husband and wife have at least one sibling. The 41-year-old woman, who spoke on condition that she be identified only by her surname, Chen, said in a telephone interview Monday that the couple felt under pressure to abort their second child to keep her husband’s job with local police. “I’m fearful,” Chen said. “If my husband believes I must abort the child, there’s nothing I can do.” She also grew uneasy about the public attention her case was drawing. “I am worried he would lose his job even after we lose the baby, if the situation gets messy.” Chen said the couple had hoped for a policy change that would allow them to have a second child but found her unexpectedly pregnant earlier this year in violation of the current rule. Wen Xueping, a family planning official in Yunnan’s Chuxiong prefecture, said the couple will not be forced to abort the baby but have been warned of the consequences of having it. Couples who violate the child policy face hefty fines and—if they have government jobs—face being sacked. Wen said members of the public have been calling his offices to inquire about the couple, whose case has garnered much attention on China’s social media. “No way will we force them to have an abortion,” Wen said. “But there also is the suspicion that the couple wants to avoid the punishment for breaking the rules by stirring up public interest.” In 2012, the Chinese public was angry when a 23-year-old woman in the northern province of Shaanxi was forced to have a late-term abortion. Local family planning officials were punished, and Beijing sternly warned against any late-term abortion. The state-owned news website The Paper said James Liang, a senior executive of the web travel service CTrip, has offered the man in Yunnan a job if he loses his position on the police force. Many critics are calling for an end to the one-child policy altogether, saying that China cannot afford to be an aging society. They say that taking away a family’s livelihood is too draconian a punishment—especially for a family that will now have two children to raise. Some observers have said the couple should have obeyed the one-child policy and should not expect any exemption. China has eased the policy to allow for more couples to have a second child, but urban parents who are not only children themselves still can have only one child, as in the case of Chen and her husband. The post Chinese Woman Must Choose Between 2nd Child, Husband’s Job appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Australia Deal to Send Refugees to Cambodia Damaged, Say Critics Posted: 07 Sep 2015 10:20 PM PDT Former Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng drink champagne after signing a refugee resettlement agreement in September 2014. (Photo: Samrang Pring / Reuters) CANBERRA, Australia — A multi-million dollar deal to resettle refugees from an Australia-run detention camp on the Pacific nation of Nauru to Cambodia has been irreparably damaged by a Rohingya refugee’s decision to go home to Burma, the opposition and refugee advocates said on Tuesday. Only four refugees—two Iranian men, an Iranian woman and the Rohingya man—took up the offer of cash, free health insurance and accommodation to resettle from Nauru to a gated community in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh in early June. The four are pilot cases for another 637 asylum seekers on Nauru who were hoping that Australia will accept them. A Cambodian official revealed this week that the 24-year-old ethnic Rohingya man from Burma wanted to give up his refugee status and return to his homeland. He had been in contact with the Burma embassy in Cambodia. Opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government had agreed to pay AU$55 million (US$38 million) for the Cambodian deal, which did not solve the problem of where to send asylum seekers who want to live in Australia. “As an option, Cambodia has amounted to an expensive joke,” Marles said in a statement. He said Abbott’s government does not have a “sensible” solution for the asylum seekers on Nauru. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was in Europe and has not commented. He said in May that he expected the first refugees to resettle in Cambodia would be a success story that would encourage other refugees on Nauru to follow. Cambodia will only accept refugees who come voluntarily. Paul Power, chief executive of the national umbrella group Refugee Council of Australia, said the Cambodia experience would only discourage others. “The fact that someone who’s fled such an appalling situation in Myanmar wants to go back there rather than stay where they are, it’s a pretty devastating condemnation of the practicality of what the Australian government has constructed there,” Power said. Ian Rintoul, Sydney-based director of the Australian advocacy group Refugee Action Coalition, said he spoke to all four refugees before they left Nauru and none intended to stay in Cambodia. They’d hoped to collect lump sums of about $10,000, which never materialized. “They thought they were going to get enough money to go somewhere else—it’s as blunt as that,” Rintoul said. The International Organization for Migration, which helped settle the refugees in Phnom Penh, declined to comment on the Rohingya’s circumstances. The post Australia Deal to Send Refugees to Cambodia Damaged, Say Critics appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Suspect in Bangkok Bombing Tells Police He’s ‘Guilty’ Posted: 07 Sep 2015 09:37 PM PDT A suspect of the recent Bangkok blast arrested last week near the border with Cambodia is taken into police custody at the Metropolitan Police Bureau in central Bangkok on Monday. (Photo: Chaiwat Subprasom / Reuters) BANGKOK — A key suspect in last month’s deadly Bangkok bombing was transferred Monday to police custody after a week of military interrogation, and was asked to acknowledge the charge against him before police and the media. As cameras recorded in the packed room, police introduced an unusual twist to the routine by asking the suspect whether or not he was guilty of the charge of co-possession of illegal explosives, as stated in his arrest warrant. The suspect, identified by police as Yusufu Mierili, responded through a translator: “Guilty.” Authorities have previously released a variety of spellings of his name, including Mieraili Yusufu and Yusufu Meerailee. It was not clear whether the apparent confession would carry legal weight in a court. Mierili, who was arrested last Tuesday near the Thai-Cambodia border, has not yet been formally charged. Police say they found his DNA or fingerprints in two apartments that were raided a week ago by police on the outskirts of Bangkok, including a container of gunpowder. Police say both apartments contained bomb-making materials, and one had more than 200 fake Turkish passports. The Aug. 17 blast at the Erawan Shrine killed 20 people and injured more than 120 in one of the most devastating acts of violence in Bangkok in decades. Thai authorities have suggested that at least two of the suspects are possibly Turkish, boosting a theory that the bombing was to avenge Thailand’s forced repatriation of more than 100 ethnic Uighurs to China in July. Uighurs are related to Turks, and Turkey is home to a large Uighur community. Mierili’s nationality has not been confirmed, but police say he was carrying a Chinese passport that indicated he was from the western region of Xinjiang, home to the Turkish-speaking Uighurs. Police said last week that Mierili was suspected of being a conspirator rather than the bomber, who was seen in security videos placing a knapsack at the open-air shrine and then leaving. Another suspect, who was arrested Aug. 29 at one of the two apartments police raided, was in possession of a fake Turkish passport when arrested, police say. That man, whom police have identified as Adem Karadak, was transferred to police custody Friday after nearly a week in military custody. Thai authorities have said they would turn over the two passports to the relevant embassies to confirm their authenticity once forensics testing is completed. Authorities have so far issued 11 arrest warrants for suspects related to the blast, including two on Monday. One of Monday’s warrants was for a man identified as Abdullah Abdullahman of unknown nationality on charges of conspiracy to possess unauthorized explosives and unauthorized war materials. A police sketch showed a young man with short, brown hair, with a light mustache and beard. The other warrant issued Monday for the same charges was for “a foreign man” whose name and nationality were unknown. He appeared to have short, dark hair in the blurry picture from security camera footage. The post Suspect in Bangkok Bombing Tells Police He's ‘Guilty’ appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

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