The rapid-fire visits have gone beyond goodwill gestures and the normal diplomatic niceties of re-establishing ties. Rather, the personalities involved in the visits indicate that Myanmar is not only seeking weapons procurements, but also probable cooperation in establishing air defense weaponry, missiles, rockets or artillery production facilities.
The secretive visits are believed to entail a Myanmar quest for tunneling technology and possible assistance in developing its nascent nuclear program. Tin Aye and Myint Hlaing, by virtue of their positions as lieutenant generals, are logical choices to head official delegations in search of weapons technology for Myanmar's military, while Brigadier General Aung Thein Lin, current mayor of Yangon and chairman of the city's development committee, was formerly deputy minister of Industry-2, responsible for all industrial development in the country.
Prior to 1998, the minister of Industry-2 also served as the chairman of the Myanmar Atomic Energy Committee. This came to an end when Myanmar's Atomic Energy Act of 1998 designated the Ministry of Science and Technology as the lead government agency for its aspirant nuclear program. However, the Ministry of Industry-2, by virtue of its responsibilities for construction of industrial facilities and the provision of equipment, continues to play a key supporting role in Myanmar's nuclear program.
Myanmar's stagnant nuclear program was revitalized shortly after Pakistan's first detonation of nuclear weapons in May 1998. Senior general and junta leader Than Shwe signed the Atomic Energy Law on June 8, 1998, and the timing of the legislation so soon after Pakistan's entry into the nuclear club did little to assuage international concerns about Myanmar's nuclear intentions. Some analysts believe the regime may eventually seek nuclear weapons for the dual purpose of international prestige and strategic deterrence.
Myanmar's civilian-use nuclear ambitions made global headlines in early 2001, when Russia's Atomic Energy Committee indicated it was planning to build a research reactor in the country. The following year, Myanmar's deputy foreign minister, Khin Maung Win, publicly announced the regime's decision to build a nuclear research reactor, citing the country's difficulty in importing radio-isotopes and the need for modern technology as reasons for the move.
The country reportedly sent hundreds of soldiers for nuclear training in Russia that same year and the reactor was scheduled for delivery in 2003. However, the program was shelved due to financial difficulties and a formal contract for the reactor, under which Russia agreed to build a nuclear research center along with a 10 megawatt reactor, was not signed until May 2007.
The reactor will be fueled with non-weapons grade enriched uranium-235 and it will operate under the purview of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. The reactor itself would be ill-suited for weapons development. However, the training activities associated with it would provide the basic knowledge required as a foundation for any nuclear weapons development program outside of the research center.
Constrained reaction
The United States' reaction to Myanmar's nuclear developments has been somewhat constrained, despite the George W Bush administration referring to the military-run country as an "outpost of tyranny".
After Myanmar's 2002 confirmation of its intent to build the reactor, the US warned the country of its obligations as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). After the contract was formally announced in May 2007, the US State Department expressed concerns about the country's lack of adequate safety standards and the potential for proliferation.
The warming and growing rapport between Myanmar and North Korea will likely further heighten Washington's proliferation concerns. Myanmar broke off diplomatic relations with Pyongyang in 1983, after North Korean agents bombed the Martyr's mausoleum in Yangon in an attempt to assassinate the visiting South Korean president, Chun Doo-hwan.
The explosion killed more than 20 people, mostly South Korean officials, including the deputy prime minister and the foreign minister, and the South Korean ambassador to Myanmar. Four Myanmar nationals perished and dozens more were wounded in the blast. Myanmar severed ties with North Korea after an investigation revealed the three agents responsible for planting the bomb spent the night at a North Korean diplomat's house before setting out on their mission.
However, common interests have brought the two secretive nations back together. The famine in North Korea in the late 1990s and Myanmar's military expansion ambitions, including a drive for self-sufficiency in production, have fostered recent trade flows. While Myanmar has the agricultural surplus to ease North Korean hunger, Pyongyang possesses the weapons and technological know-how needed to boost Yangon's military might. There is also speculation Myanmar might provide uranium, mined in remote and difficult-to-monitor areas, to North Korea.
As testament to Pyongyang's willingness to supply weapons to the military regime, more North Korean ship visits have been noted at Thilawa port in Yangon, one of the country's primary receipt points for military cargo. During one of these visits in May 2007, two Myanmar nationals working for Japan's News Network were detained outside Yangon while covering a suspected arms delivery by a North Korean vessel.
Growing bilateral trade has helped to heal old diplomatic wounds and eventually led to a joint communique re-establishing diplomatic relations in April 2007. The emerging relationship is also a natural outgrowth of the ostracism each faces in the international arena, including the economic sanctions imposed and maintained against them by the West.
While it is possible the recent visits are related to Myanmar's nascent nuclear program, the evidence is far from conclusive. Nevertheless, Myanmar has undoubtedly taken notice of the respect that is accorded to North Korea on the world stage because of its nuclear weapon status. Unlike North Korea, Myanmar is a signatory to the NPT.
Myanmar has publicly stated it seeks nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes, such as developing radio-isotopes for agricultural use and medical research. Yet two well-placed sources told this reporter that North Korean and Iranian technicians were already advising Myanmar on a possible secret nuclear effort, running in parallel to the aboveboard Russia-supported program. Asia Times Online could not independently confirm the claim.
The lack of participation by Myanmar's Ministry of Science and Technology in the recent trips to Pyongyang would seem to indicate that nuclear developments were probably not the primary focus of the high-level meetings. The regime is also known to be interested in North Korea's tunneling technology (see Myanmar and North Korea share a tunnel vision, Asia Times Online, July 19, 2006) in line with the ruling junta's siege mentality and apparent fears of a possible US-led pre-emptive military attack.
The junta and others have no doubt noted the extraordinary problems tunneling and cave complexes have caused US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the success North Korea has enjoyed in hiding underground its nuclear facilities. Bunkers are rumored to underlie several buildings at Naypyidaw, where the regime abruptly moved the national capital in 2005. The ongoing construction of a second capital, for the hot season, at Yadanapon, is also believed to have tunnels and bunkers integrated into its layout.
Whether the visits are related to arms procurement, military industrial development, tunneling technology or nuclear exchange, they foreshadow a potentially dangerous trend for Myanmar's non-nuclear Southeast Asian neighbors and their Western allies, including the US.
As the true nature of the budding bilateral relationship comes into closer view, the risk is rising that Pyongyang and Yangon are conspiring to create a security quandary in Southeast Asia akin to the one now vexing the US and its allies on the Korean Peninsula.
Norman Robespierre, a pseudonym, is a freelance journalist specializing in Sino-Asian affairs.
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Saturday, October 4, 2008
Nuclear bond for North Korea and Myanmar
Myanmar leader Maung Aye to visit Bangladesh
Myanmar leader Maung Aye to visit Bangladesh
+ - 14:43, October 04, 2008
Vice-Chairman of the Myanmar State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) Maung Aye will pay an official visit to Bangladesh in the near future, said an official announcement issued from Nay Pyi Taw Saturday without giving the date of his visit.
At the invitation of Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, Chief Adviser of the Bangladesh Caretaker Government, Maung Aye, who is also Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, will pay the visit.
Maung Aye's trip will be another one to Dhaka by a Myanmar leader in more than three years since September 2005 when SPDC member General Thura Shwe Mann toured the western neighbor.
Maung Aye's planned visit came after Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an agreement in Dhaka in July 2007 to establish a 25-kilometer direct road link between the two neighbors to boost trade and tourism.
The 20 million-U.S.-dollar "Friendship Road" from Gundhum in Cox's Bazaar of Bangladesh to Baulibazar in Myanmar was also designed to connect China's Kunming under tri-nation road connectivity which will give further access to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and to the Asian Highway.
Myanmar and Bangladesh have maintained exchange of high-level visits in recent years. In December 2002, Myanmar SPDC Chairman Senior-General Than Shwe visited Dhaka, while in 2003, Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia came to Yangon, during which the two countries signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on the establishment of a joint trade commission and an agreement on coastal and maritime shipping.
According to figures of the Ministry of Commerce, bilateral trade between Myanmar and Bangladesh stood over 60 million U.S. dollars annually with the balance of trade favoring Myanmar.
The two countries are striving to increase their bilateral trade to 100 million dollars, the sources said.
Source: Xinhua
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6509587.pdf
Vietnamese companies to explore oil and gas in Myanmar offshore area
Vietnamese companies to explore oil and gas in Myanmar offshore area
+ - 10:41, October 04, 2008
Two Vietnamese oil companies have reached a production sharing contract with Myanmar to explore oil and gas in the country's offshore area, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Saturday.
Under the contract signed in Nay Pyi Taw between the Petrovietnam Exploration Production Corporation Ltd and the Joint Venture Vietsovpetro of Vietnam and Eden Group Co Ltd of Myanmar, and the state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, such exploration on mutually beneficial basis will be undertaken by the three parties at Block M-2 in Myanmar's Mottama offshore area, the report said.
It is the first engagement of Vietnamese companies in Myanmar's oil and gas sector and the move came more than a year after the two countries initiated a memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation in oil and gas during Vietnamese Prime Minister NguyenTan Dung's visit to Myanmar in August 2007.
Myanmar has abundance of natural gas resources in the offshore areas. With three large offshore oil and gas fields and 19 onshore ones, Myanmar has a recoverable reserve of 18.012 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) or 510 billion cubic-meters (BCM) out of 89.722 TCF or 2.54 trillion cubic-meters (TCM)'s estimated reserve of offshore and onshore gas, experts said, adding that the country is also estimated to have 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve.
Statistics reveal that foreign investment in Myanmar's oil and gas sector had reached 3.243 billion dollars in 85 projects as of the end of 2007 since the country opened to such investment in late 1988, standing the second in the country's foreign investment sectorally after electric power.
In 2007, foreign investment in the oil and gas sector more than tripled to 474.3 million U.S. dollars compared with 2006, accounting for 90 percent of the total during the year which stood505.02 million, according to the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development.
Currently, 13 foreign oil companies, mainly from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Russia, are involved in oil and gas projects in Myanmar, according to official sources.
Statistics show that natural gas topped Myanmar's exports in 2007-08 with 2.594 billion dollars, up 27.7 percent from 2006-07's2.03 billion dollars, representing 42.9 percent of the total exports during the year.
Totalitarian and Isolation: Different Sides of the Same Coin
http://www.tayzathuria.org.uk/bd/2007/6/10/e/nnl.htm
10.06.2007
_ By Nyi Nyi Lwin
The question of whether the ruling military generals are heading Burma towards isolation and distancing the nation from the global order is growing. Recent development of closer relationship with the China and ambition for nuclear possession aided by the Russia is another also controversial. Moving the ministerial offices from Rangoon to Pyinmana without informing neighboring countries, especially the ASEAN, raises uncertainty and suspicions to the region.
Contrarily, some analysts claim that those growing foreign investments in Burma and trading with the neighboring nations are tangible indicators of Burma opening its door for a free market economy. Other observers disagree that the investments and trades are the wary adjustment of power-equilibrium between the neighboring nations.
That China:
The First Secretary Thein Sein of State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and its delegations are visiting Chin, being invited by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, in June second week. He meets China’s top legislator Wu Bangguo. Both leaders reaffirm to continue bilateral cooperation in “various fields” and build mutual political trust. Thein Sein also meets State Councillor Tang and briefs Burma’s about “7 point roadmap” and resuming National Convention.
The call for the Burmese leaders for the state-visit to China comes in the middle of international pressures to release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and for tangible political reforms. Burma’s watchers mull over Chinese invitation of Thein Sein as unusual move. Before Thein Sein headed to China, the SPDC announces it will resume the National Convention on July 18 to finalize the last chapters of their pro-military constitution. Besides, China along with Russia vetoed Burma’s peace resolution before the United Nations Security Council.
This Russia:
The recent agreement between Burma and Russia to build nuclear reactor and research plants alarms the world. Russia's atomic energy agency Rosatom will assist Burma to build a 10 megawatt nuclear reactor with low enriched uranium consisting of less than 20 percent uranium-235. The United States of America openly warned Russia.
Since several years ago, Kachin local news agencies have reported that joint-ventures of Burma and Russia discovered rich uranium mines in the Kachin State, northern Burma.
In fact, Burma has enough energy for domestic consumption. Burma has discovering large onshore and offshore gas and oil fields. It has signed several contract agreements with China and Thailand to build hydro-electric power plants in Karen state and Shan state. It even earns 20% of its revenues from the gas sales to its neighboring countries, especially to Thailand.
Those ASEAN:
Despite to Burmese generals’ bad behaviour, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) includes Burma in its forum by adopting “constructive engagement” rhetoric. The interest of the generals is to use ASEAN as a shell to protect itself from international pressure. In recent years after lack of political development, the patience is running out among ASEAN members. The association recently released a joint statement with the European Union to call for an end of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urges international community in June during 6th Shangri-La dialogue held in Singapore that ASEAN should not be taken hostage to Burma’s political and human rights violations. ASEAN even announces it will not defend Burma in the international community.
It’s Burma:
The mindset of military generals is tyrannical blind-nationalism and isolationist. In opposite, leaders of democracy movements and ethnic nationalities seek freedom, democracy, and justice. These two sides clash in ideology, in terms of policy and strategy. The opposition wants to open up the country. They want to solve political problems via political means, in the form of peaceful transition. The call for tripartite dialogue by the opposition since 1994, and later endorsed by United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), is their current strategic position.
On the other hand, the military generals respond to the opposition with isolation, cutting off Burma from the globe. At the same time, they arrest political leaders, control business, and attack ethnic nationalities forces. They modernize their weapons and military technology. China and Russia are in conspiracy with the generals who vigorously oppose the western nations. India is trying to penetrate into the conspiracy by providing a few weapons and surveillance planes.
In the end, only the people of Burma are suffering.
What Next:
US President George W. Bush announces in Europe that the cold war is over. It means the conflict between the US led block and the Russian led block is no more. Concurrently, regional power grouping among the so-called Third World, non-allied nations, is growing in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Both US and Russia are trying to influence the non-allied nations, under the rhetorical approach of with-us or not-with-us. In addition, China’s growing economic and military power is absorbing the non-allied nations. This tri-bock power competition cannot be ignored to understand the Burmese general’s pursuit of isolation.
To end Burma's isolation, there are many exits. One of the exits is tri-partite dialogue in Burma—ruling generals, the opposition National League for Democracy and Ethnic Nationalities Council should talk to find a common ground. And, China, India, and ASEAN should discuss Burma’s problem during the coming APEC meeting this year. The US and Europe can facilitate the talks. In broader sense, the United Nations should sponsor for 6 Party Talks; ASEAN, Burma, China, India, Europe, and the United States of America, without preconditions.
In fact, the eventual change in Burma will happen internally. The international forum can be a meaningful auxiliary of acute changes. Both internal and external forces are equally important to end Burma’s isolation.
(Nyi Nyi Lwin is head of ENC-Economic and Development Planning Committee and Advisor of Arakan National Council)
Friday, October 3, 2008
Eye specialist examines Aung San Suu Kyi
Yangon - An eye doctor has visited Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi at her home, where she has been detained for most of the past two decades,
her party said on Friday.
The specialist accompanied the Nobel peace laureate's general physician and his
assistant on a rare visit to her lakeside home in the main city Yangon on Thursday.
"The eye specialist spent about an hour with her," National League of Democracy
spokesperson Nyan Win said, adding he had no further details about her health
condition.
Witnesses said her regular physician Tin Myo Win spent about four hours at the
house, just two weeks after his last visit.
The doctor had given Aung San Suu Kyi an intravenous drip on September 14,
about a month after she began refusing to receive food rations delivered to her
home.
The 63-year-old campaigner has refused to meet with anyone other than her
lawyer and her doctor since early August.
She rejected talks with visiting United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari and the
junta's liaison officer, labour minister Aung Kyi.
Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won 1990 elections but the military, which has ruled
Burma since 1962, never allowed them to take power. - AFP
Published on the Web by IOL on 2008-10-03 08:58:28
© Independent Online 2005. All rights reserved. IOL publishes this article in good
faith but is not liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on the information
it contains.
IOL: Eye specialist examines Aung San Suu Kyi Page 1 of 1
http://www.iol.co.za/general/news/newsprint.php?art_id=nw20081003085828846C936625... 10/3/2008
Dissidents reflect on Burma uprising
WIN TIN
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7649267.stm
This week two Burmese dissidents spoke to the BBC about their country and how things have developed since events one year ago, when monks took to the streets to protest against their government.
Win Tin, who was one of 9,000 prisoners released last week, spent 19 years behind bars. A prominent journalist, he was one of the founders of the opposition National League for Democracy.
Before 2003 I was treated very badly.
Sometimes I was not allowed to sleep; sometimes I was not allowed to eat. For all the time, I was in solitary confinement.
I was interrogated up until 1995. I would be asked questions for hours without being allowed to sleep, for four or five days at a stretch.
Deprivation of sleep is torture, of course.
Sometimes I would be put in the field, handcuffed at the back and with a hood on my head, and I would be put there for hours - from seven in the evening to four in the morning.
I have seen many prisoners who were not given enough food. They would have only one big scoop of rice to last a week. If they asked for more, they were beaten.
Sometimes I feel hatred towards those who treated me this way, but not for long. But I am still angry towards the oppressive military machine.
It is a puzzle as to why the regime released me now, but it was almost impossible for them to keep me longer. I was sentenced to 20 years and I had served 19.
The other thing is that I'm not healthy. I have heart disease. They could not just leave me.
I think there might be some political undercurrent here.
I have noticed a lot of changes since I came out. The telephones for example - before I went to prison, it was impossible to make a call.
But I cannot define all the changes as progress - they are not.
Conditions are almost exactly like in 1988, with people being so poor and finding it so hard to earn their living.
I will continue with my campaign for democracy. I have to. I am nearly 80 now, but in prison I told the authorities I would be going into politics in the country - not because I am well-versed in political affairs, or because I have followers, but because it's my duty.
It's because there have been no democratic changes since I was imprisoned. In fact it's worse.
ASHIN PANNASIRI
Ashin Pannasiri was one of the leading monks in last year's uprising. He was arrested in October 2007 in Upper Burma.
At interrogation centres, I was disrobed and made to do sit-ups several times.
I was also slapped and punched in the face. My interrogators stepped on my toes with their army boots.
In May I was sent to a labour camp in Chin State, which borders India.
There I was chained on both legs and had to break stones and dig ditches. I and another 100 prisoners worked seven days a week without any break. We were given very little food and were always hungry.
In the early hours of 16 September, I crossed the two rows of barbed wires surrounding the camp - and fled.
I was covered in blood, with scratches from the spikes - but fled as I feared for my life.
I walked through the jungle day and night towards the Indian border and reached there after two days.
I now live in Delhi and will continue the struggle as long as injustice prevails in Burma.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7649267.stm
Published: 2008/10/02 20:11:03 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
Where Would Burma Be without Suu Kyi?
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By KYAW ZWA MOE Friday, October 3, 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let's imagine a situation: Burma without Aung San Suu Kyi. Undoubtedly, the ruling generals would see this as a dream come true. But for the majority of Burmese, it would come as a great disappointment to lose the leader of the country’s pro-democracy movement.
Suu Kyi may be a prisoner, but she still has immense power. She strikes fear into the hearts of heavily armed men, while giving moral strength to the powerless. She is the hope of the people of Burma, who have struggled to survive under the boot of their military rulers for the past 46 years.
Her recent refusal to receive food deliveries raised serious concerns about her health and worries about the country’s future without her.
According to her lawyer and her doctor—the only two people who were able to meet her during her month-long ordeal, which began in mid-August—Suu Kyi’s protest against her continued unlawful detention had left her thin and malnourished.
It was the first time in two decades that Suu Kyi had subjected herself to a hunger strike. Soon after beginning her first period of house arrest in 1989, she refused food and demanded to be placed in prison alongside her colleagues. After several weeks, she won guarantees that her fellow pro-democracy activists would not be tortured, and ended her protest. Her weight had dropped from 48 kg (106 lbs) to just 40 kg (90 lbs), and she suffered hair loss, impaired vision and a weakened immune system.
At the time, Suu Kyi was still in her early forties. Now she is in her sixties, and the impact on her health has presumably been much greater, even if she merely restricted her intake of food to the barest requirements for survival.
What would happen if Suu Kyi died or became so unhealthy that she couldn’t continue her role as the political leader of Burma’s pro-democracy movement? It is something we need to ask in light of the fact that she has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest, without regular access to proper medical treatment and under immense psychological pressure.
Most people would prefer not to think of Burma’s future without Suu Kyi. Her absence from politics would probably be a death blow to the already weakened democracy struggle, because she has no obvious successor as leader of the movement.
On the other hand, the ruling generals would probably see Suu Kyi’s demise as an end to an era of trouble. After all, she is even now regarded as a threat to their hold on power.
From the generals’ viewpoint, there are many reasons to believe that the future without Suu Kyi would be very bright indeed. For one thing, they would not have to fear a repeat of the non-violent confrontation that she initiated in early 1989, when she called on people to resist unlawful decrees imposed by the junta. The movement continued for months, until July 19, when the regime used an overwhelming show of force to stop a planned Martyrs’ Day march. The next day, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for the first time.
Another reason the generals would be happy to see the back of Suu Kyi is that it would probably mean no more electoral upsets like the one the world witnessed in 1990. Despite the regime’s efforts to ensure a victory for the pro-junta party, Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy inflicted a stunning defeat, winning more than 80 percent of seats in parliament. It was Suu Kyi who urged her party to contest the election, despite the fact that she was still under house arrest at the time and not permitted to participate herself. Even within the confines of her home, she showed the generals that she could make life difficult for them.
It was also Suu Kyi who called for a boycott of the National Convention in 1995. She made this decision a few months after being released from six years of house arrest because she deemed the convention convened to draft a new constitution as undemocratic. The generals have never forgiven her for continuing to resist their plans even after they were good enough to give her back her freedom.
In 1998, Suu Kyi once again proved to be a thorn in the side of the generals. That was the year she spearheaded the creation of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament, a body that directly challenged the junta’s right to rule. The generals wasted no time in arresting members of the newly formed group.
Since then, Suu Kyi has enjoyed a few brief interludes of relative freedom. Each time, she demonstrated that her immense appeal was in no way diminished by her long absence from the public eye. She campaigned around the country, drawing crowds of thousands eager to hear her speak. Her engaging and courageous speeches inspired hope in the hearts of countless ordinary Burmese—and intense anger among the country’s military rulers, who watched her every move and did everything they could to keep her away from her adoring audiences.
All of these episodes have only served to convince the generals that they need to keep her on a tight rein if they want to carry through their agenda. Last year, they finally succeeded in completing their constitution, which they will use to usher in a new era of military-dominated “democracy” that excludes a democratic opposition. It is doubtful that they would have been able to achieve this long-pursued goal if they hadn’t kept Suu Kyi confined within the walls of her residential compound for the past five years.
Suu Kyi’s reputation as a troublemaker within the military government’s ruling circles has earned her a further—illegal—extension of her current period of house arrest. Although she should have been released in May under Section 10 (b) of the State Protection Act, which only allows for a maximum sentence of five years, she is still in detention.
The regime is now preparing for the next stage in its transition to quasi-civilian rule—the 2010 election, which is intended to undo the damage of the 1990 vote. But in order to reverse the tide of history, the generals know that Suu Kyi must remain detained and silenced.
If Suu Kyi’s health were to fail prior to the election, it would probably deliver the regime the victory that has eluded it for the past two decades. Her death would not spell the end of the democracy movement, but it would leave it greatly weakened.
Although Suu Kyi has spent most of the past two decades almost completely cut off from the outside world, she is still Burma’s single greatest hope for democratic change. She is also a leader who is widely trusted by people of every ethnicity in Burma, and one who is respected by the international community, which will have a major role to play in helping to restore the country’s economy.
She has the rare ability to speak to the generals in a straightforward, unflinching manner. Indeed, her power derives almost entirely from what she calls “plain honesty in politics.” Her courage, dedication and steadfast adherence to the truth have empowered her to speak for the people of Burma in a way that no one else can at this point in the country’s history.
After 46 years under military rule, Burma is very lucky to have someone who can still command such immense power through the sheer force of her convictions. Without her, life would go on, but the country would be impoverished in a way that makes even its current circumstances seem tolerable by comparison.
This article appeared in the October issue of The Irrawaddy magazine.
Japan's election battle already underway on Internet (AFP)
Posted on Fri Oct 3, 2008 3:54AM EDT
TOKYO (AFP) - While snap elections appear to have been pushed back in Japan, the battle between the ruling and opposition camps is already well under way on the Internet.
Prime Minister Taro Aso, who took office last week to lead his conservative Liberal Democratic Party into elections, launched an emailed movie newsletter on Thursday -- a first for a Japanese premier.
"We have concluded that it's a good idea to send videos. Thank you in advance for your support," a relaxed Aso said in the first video of the "Taro Channel," which he plans to email each week.
Aso, 68, is a passionate reader of comic books who has tried to appeal to hardcore fans of pop culture.
Reformist prime minister Junichiro Koizumi started a weekly email in 2001, writing blog-like messages in plain language for the public and featuring famous guest columnists such as New York Yankees slugger Hideki Matsui.
Koizumi's successors Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda both continued the popular ex-premier's email, but kept it focused on policy priorities.
Aso also maintained the email, vowing in the first issue to work to ease people's anxieties about the struggling economy.
"I am determined to build a strong and bright nation -- a nation of which we, the people of Japan, can feel proud," Aso wrote.
Ichiro Ozawa, head of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, launched his own video series on YouTube called the "Life Priority Channel."
"We cannot rebuild and protect people's lives unless the DPJ wins general elections and takes power," Ozawa said. "Through this channel, I want to work hard to win support. Thank you for your cooperation."
Aso was initially expected to call snap elections as early as the end of this month, but he has recently suggested he would hold off until he passes extra funding to help Japan cope with the global economic slowdown.
PetroChina inks 1st natural gas distribution agreement
Oct. 3, 2008 (China Knowledge) - PetroChina<601857><857>
Under the agreement, PetroChina's subsidiary PetroChina Kunlun Gas Ltd (51%) along with three local companies, namely Kunming Cola Gas Ltd (20%), Yunnan Investment Group (20%) and Yunnan Changan Investment Corp (20%) will incorporate a joint venture, which is set to provide urban natural gas distribution services to Kunming city, according to a spokesman at Kunming Coal Gas.
The spokesman said this move will enable PetroChina to expand into urban gas distribution business and cross-border natural gas pipeline between China and Burma.
The Sino-Berman natural gas pipeline is expected to start operation in the first half of 2010 with a capacity of 10 million cubic meters, a local newspaper cited Hu Zhaoke, vice president of Kunming Cola Gas, as saying.
Reportedly, PetroChina's parent China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a financial group led by Daewoo International Corp in June to buy natural gas from two mining blocks in Burma.
US must send China a clear signal
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/10/03/2003424855
By Gerrit Van Der Wees
Friday, Oct 03, 2008, Page 8
‘The Bush administration thus let itself be used by China to undermine democracy in Taiwan and put the future of the country in question.’
The Russian attack against Georgia on Aug. 6 — two days before the Beijing Olympics began — has led to a number of commentaries drawing parallels between Georgia’s relation with Russia and Taiwan’s with China.
In one article, “Events in Georgia bode ill for Taiwan,” published in The Weekly Standard on Aug. 25, Dan Blumenthal and Chris Griffin strongly criticize the administration of US President George W. Bush for its tepid response to Russia’s invasion. They see in Washington’s complicity in isolating Taiwan a temptation for China’s aggression. They argue for a clear signal that the US will defend Taiwan from attack.
In the article “From Georgia to Taiwan,” published in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 16, Richard Bush and Jeff Bader blame the Bush administration for giving “mixed signals” to Georgia, thereby encouraging Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to “provoke” the Russian bear. On the other hand, they laud Bush’s “more tempered approach” to Taiwan, which led to “a more nuanced American policy” that bolstered Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) election, and “hopeful initiatives to stabilize cross-Strait relations in ways that hold out the prospect for improving Taiwan’s economy, reducing the military threat from China, preserving Taiwan’s democratic system of governance.”
The two articles represent opposite sides of the US political spectrum: Blumenthal and Griffin are associated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, while Bush and Bader are at the liberal Brookings Institution and are associated with the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
On the policy toward Georgia, we would actually disagree with both analyses: In our view, the Bush administration did a reasonably good job in its expressions of support for the newly democratic country. There may have been some tepid responses right before and after the invasion, but overall, the US did the right thing: Express clear support for Georgia, condemn the Russian invasion and get the NATO partners to form a united front in opposition to the Russian moves.
On the issue of US policy toward Taiwan, we would fully agree with Blumenthal and Griffin and strongly disagree with Bush and Bader: At least since the end of 2003, the policies of the Bush administration toward the democratic island have been abysmal. In 2001, Bush started out quite alright by declaring he would do “whatever it takes” to help defend Taiwan from aggressive moves by China.
However, in December 2003 he somehow got weak knees and started to oppose Taiwan’s evolution toward a full democracy. He opposed a referendum held in conjunction with the 2004 presidential election that expressed opposition to China’s missile buildup. In an infamous TV opportunity, Bush, standing next to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), didn’t say a word about China’s missiles aimed at Taiwan, but lambasted President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for wanting to let the people of Taiwan express themselves on this issue. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?
The Bush administration compounded its mistakes last year and this year when it launched a veritable campaign against Taiwan’s UN referendum — which was held concurrent with the presidential election in March — even with people like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing “opposition” to the referendum.
What went wrong? For one thing, the US was preoccupied by Iraq and Afghanistan and let itself believe that it needed to accommodate China to resolve a number of other fires burning in the world: North Korea, Tibet, Burma, Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
China was able to capitalize on the US’ desire to put out these fires, but at the same time kept them burning in order to gain more concessions from the US.
The Bush administration thus let itself be used by China to undermine democracy in Taiwan and put the future of the country in question. What is needed from a new US administration — whether it is led by Obama or his Republican rival John McCain — is a clear signal by the US that it will help defend Taiwan in the case of a Chinese threat or attack. This is in the spirit of the Taiwan Relations Act and we should stick to it.
We also need to emphasize the right of Taiwan to be a full and equal member in the international community. Any talk about only support for participation in organizations “that do not require statehood” undermines Taiwan’s position and is not befitting the US — a nation that portrays itself as the leader of the democratic world.
Both Taiwan and Georgia are examples of countries that have achieved democracy against great odds. If the US wants to expand democracy in the world, it needs to work harder to get these democracies into the mainstream of the international community. At the same time, it needs to convince the large — and less-than-democratic — neighbors that peace and stability can only be achieved if they let their small neighbors next door live and prosper in peace.
Gerrit van der Wees is editor of Taiwan Communique, a publication based in Washington.
Mizzima News - Llyod's writes to all agents to 'reconsider' business deals with Burma
by Solomon
Thursday, 02 October 2008 20:48
New Delhi - UK's leading insurance marketplace, Lloyd's of London, said it has written to all its managing agents to reconsider their business involvement with Burma's military junta.
Louise Shield, Head of Communications of Lloyd's, told Mizzima that the marketplace' s chairman has received a letter from the British Government's Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) stating its disapproval over the market's involvement with Burma.
"We have been asking the government for guidance on doing business in Burma, and now we have received a letter. And we are writing to all our managing agents," Shield said.
But Shield said, the market's businesses in Burma are not significant and pulling out of the country will not have much impact on the market.
"We have very small amount of insurance business [in Burma]," said Shield. "Probably there is no significant effect in our business."
The response of Lloyd's of London, a leading marketplace in England dealing in reinsurance business, came after campaigners urged several insurance companies across the world to stop dealing with the Burmese military junta, as the regime is profiting from them.
Burma Campaign UK, a group advocating for human rights and democracy in Burma, has named 16 insurance companies including Lloyd's of London, Hannover Re, Catlin, Atrium, XL, Tokio Marine, Sompo Japan and Mitsui Sumitomo as groups having business dealings with the junta.
BCUK, in its report 'Insuring the generals' released in July said, these companies and insurers are providing billions of dollars to the Burmese military regime that is infamously known for repressing its citizens.
Johnny Chatterton, Campaigns Officer of BCUK said, "We welcome the impact of the government's letter, they [Lloyd's of London] now have to write to the entire marketplace. "
Chatterton said, while a few other leading insurance companies of the world have pulled out of Burma, Lloyd's has turned a deaf ear to the call made by him and his colleagues to cut all business ties with Burma's military regime.
In August, two of the world's leading insurance companies Chubb and XL capitals announced a stop to all business deals with Burma's military government in response to the BUCK's campaign.
"The British government clearly wants them to pull out, we want them to pull out," said Chatterton adding that the Burmese regime could lose tens of millions of Dollars if the Lloyd's stop insuring oil and natural gas in the Southeast Asian nation.
BCUK, however, said Lloyd's refusal to reveal the contents of the FCO's letter indicates that it wants to hide its involvement in Burma.
While admitting that Lloyd's has received a letter from the FCO, Shield said they cannot reveal the contents as it is "Private".
BCUK warned that avoiding to act in accordance with the letter would be breaking the government's guidelines and damaging their own reputation.
"If they don't end their involvement in Burma soon they will be branded by Burma in the same way that Barclays was in Apartheid South Africa and Exxon with climate change," Chatterton said in a press statement released on Monday.
"We warmly welcome the government's firm stand against Lloyd's, they should continue their leading role by pushing for targeted EU sanctions banning the provision of insurance services to Burma," Chatterton added.
Charity Concert for the victims of the Cyclone Nargis
Charity Concert for the victims of the Cyclone Nargis
Concert with Japanese Professional musicians
http://www1.jca.apc.org/pfb/char0810.htm
●Date: October 17, 2008 (Friday) 6:30PM－8:30 PM (Door Open 6:00PM )
●Ticket: \3,000
●Venue: Seiryo Kaikan
（Nagata-Cho Staation, Exit.6 (3min.), Kokkai Gijido Exi.5(5min.)）
Map: http://www.seiryokai.org/kaikan.html
●Organizer: People’s Forum on Burma(PFB)
●Supporters' organizations: JAC, Burma Information Network
Amnesty International – Japan
●Guest:
Ms. Tomoe Sawa (Singer, songwriter, pianist)
“Amazing grace”, “Kokoro” etc.
Official website: http://www.comoesta.co.jp/
My space (you can listen to her songs !)
http://www.myspace.com/tomoesawa
Mr. Seiko Ito
"Poetry-reading against the military regime of Myanmar"
You can watch his performance here!
YouTube: FREE BURMA WE ARE BUDDHIST,TOO Poetry Reading Japan on April.19, 2008
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Hj-GwkH2I
Prof. Kei Nemoto (Sophia University, Steering Committee Member of PFB)
Lecture－latest situation in Burma
●Ticket and more information:
People’s Forum on Burma ( PFB): Miyazawa
Tel: 03-5312-4817 (10am-6: 30pm, Monday- Friday)
E-mail: pfb@izumibashi-law.net
Thursday, October 2, 2008
More Candy From China, Tainted, Is in U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/world/asia/02milk.html?ref=world
By JIM YARDLEY
Published: October 1, 2008
SHANGHAI — More contaminated Chinese candy was discovered in the United States on Wednesday, this time in Connecticut, where consumer protection officials issued a public warning against eating the sticky sweet.
Times Topics: Consumer Product SafetyIn China, meanwhile, a couple filed a lawsuit against the company at the center of the tainted dairy scandal despite efforts by authorities to keep the issue out of the courts.
The discovery announced Wednesday involved the White Rabbit Creamy Candy brand, which is sold in 50 countries but has already been recalled from stores in Britain and many Asian countries. Jerry Farrell Jr., Connecticut’s consumer protection commissioner, announced that contaminated candy had been found at two stores in New Haven, one in West Hartford and one in East Haven. In each case, tests found traces of an industrial additive, melamine, in the candy.
“We’re concerned, obviously, there may have been bags sold of these before we got to them,” Mr. Farrell said on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.
Last month, the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers about White Rabbit candy because of concerns over possible melamine contamination. In California, health officials have found traces of melamine after testing samples of White Rabbit candy. The American distributor has ordered a recall, but some of the candy may still be in stores.
Melamine is at the heart of China’s scandal over contaminated dairy products. It is used to make plastics and fertilizers, but it is sometimes illegally mixed into food products, including milk, because its high level of nitrogen can help fool tests that measure protein levels.
In September, Chinese authorities acknowledged that more than 53,000 Chinese infants had been sickened after consuming powdered baby formula that had been contaminated with melamine. Of that total, 13,000 were hospitalized and four died.
Initially, the contamination seemed isolated to powdered baby formula as the state media focused on one company, the Sanlu Group. But officials then announced that tests had found traces of melamine in formula produced by 21 other Chinese dairy companies.
This week, the list of offenders grew as government tests found traces of melamine in some batches of dairy products produced by 15 more companies, according to news agency reports. And traces of melamine have now been found in samples of yogurt and other products made with Chinese dairy.
The scandal has focused widespread public anger at the government. Beijing has sought to place the blame on dairy companies and local officials, especially in Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital where Sanlu has its headquarters. This week, People’s Daily, the authoritative newspaper of the Communist Party, published an unusual article in which a spokesman in Shijiazhuang apologized but also accused Sanlu officials of asking to cover up the problem in August, shortly before the beginning of the Beijing Olympics.
The People’s Daily article never addressed whether city officials participated in a cover-up but stated that they did not inform higher, provincial officials of the problem until a month later.
Meanwhile, Caijing, one of China’s leading independent magazines, reported this week that the parents of a 1-year-old boy were trying to sue Sanlu because the infant developed kidney stones after drinking the company’s powdered baby formula. The couple is asking for $22,000 in compensation. However, Caijing reported that the local court had yet to accept the lawsuit, a tactic often used in China’s legal system to prevent politically delicate subjects from being litigated.
For weeks, parents have besieged several prominent defense lawyers in Beijing with requests to file lawsuits tied to the contamination. One lawyer, Li Fangping, said his office had received more than 1,200 inquiries from parents. But Mr. Li said that the city’s legal association had advised lawyers not to file lawsuits in the matter.
Andrew Martin contributed reporting from New York.
Parents file lawsuit in China against dairy firm
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/02/china.milk.ap/
BEIJING, China (AP) -- A lawyer says the parents of a baby allegedly sickened by tainted infant formula are suing the dairy at the heart of China's contaminated milk scandal, as 15 more companies were accused of producing spiked products.
Chinese food safety personnel check the fresh milk at a milk collection station in Chengdu, China, Sunday.
1 of 3 Lawyer Ji Cheng says although product liability lawsuits have become more common in recent years, he would not know until next week if the court in Henan province would take the case.
From the time of birth, the 1-year-old in central China's Henan province was fed infant formula made by Sanlu Group Co., according to a report by Caijing, a leading Chinese business magazine.
One of the child's parents, surnamed Sun, filed a lawsuit in a court in Zhenping county seeking $22,000.
Lawyers said they had not heard of any other civil lawsuits being filed in response to the melamine contamination of liquid milk, yogurt and other products made with milk. Four infants died and more than 50,000 have become ill after drinking the contaminated formula, which has been linked to kidney stones.
The lawsuit comes amid increasing public awareness of an individual's legal rights in China. Some parents who lost their children when shoddily built schools collapsed in a massive earthquake in May reportedly tried to sue local governments, but were offered cash in return for signing pledges not to pursue legal action.
Ji said one of the sick child's parents filed a lawsuit in a court in Zhenping county seeking $22,000 (150,000 yuan) in compensation from Sanlu for medical, travel and other expenses incurred after the child developed kidney stones. The amount could go up because the child is still being treated.
China's State Council, the Cabinet, has ordered hospitals to provide free treatment for sick infants, but the baby is at Beijing Children's Hospital, which will only offer free treatment to children diagnosed ill after September 12, when the scandal broke, Caijing magazine said.
One lawyer suggested his profession was under pressure to not accept lawsuits connected with the scandal.
"About one week ago the Beijing Judicial Bureau asked Beijing lawyers to attend a meeting and requested them not to accept problematic milk powder-related cases," said Zhou Shifeng, who was out of town and did not attend the meeting.
Other Beijing lawyers told The AP they had not come under any pressure to reject such cases.
On Wednesday, China said 15 more companies were accused of selling compromised products found to be contaminated with melamine after a new series of tests. The tainted samples were mostly milk powder products for adults.
Thirty-one samples of Chinese milk powder provided by 20 companies were found tainted with melamine after new testing, according to data seen Wednesday on China's food safety administration's Web site. Five of those companies had already been fingered in the scandal. Product safety officials could not be reached for comment.
The scandal has sparked global concern about Chinese food imports and recalls in several countries of Chinese-made products including milk powders, biscuits and candies such as the widely sold White Rabbit sweets, which have been pulled from shelves in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Officials in the United States on Wednesday reported finding tainted White Rabbit candies for sale at Asian food markets in the state of New Jersey, after finding them earlier in California and Hawaii. Officials in Germany said they had discovered them for sale in the southern state of Baden Wuerttemburg.
The Shanghai-based maker of the candy, Guan Sheng Yuan Co., said last week it was halting production of the sticky, taffy-like confection, an iconic brand beloved by generations of Chinese.
CNOOC/Sinopec lead race for Marathon Angola stake-source
http://www.reuters.com/article/americasMergersNews/idUSHKG33970620081002?sp=true
HONG KONG, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Chinese oil firms Sinopec Group and CNOOC Ltd (0883.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are closing in on buying an Angolan oil field stake being sold by U.S. energy firm Marathon Oil (MRO.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), a source with knowledge of the bidding said on Thursday.
"(The two companies) are probably preferred bidders," the source said.
The sale appeared to have stalled about a month ago after Marathon demanded upwards of $2 billion for the 20 percent stake in Angolan Block 32, but it was now being more "realistic" and would accept less than $1.8 billion, the source said.
"It's probably slightly below that price after factoring in all the adjustments."
The source said there was a good chance of a deal, but some key issues remained to be resolved.
"It's way too premature to assume it's a done deal. The deal is progressing but it's definitely not at that stage."
The stake in the offshore block had attracted bids from India's ONGC (ONGC.BO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Brazil's Petrobras (PETR4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) as well as the Chinese pair.
Marathon and Harrison Lovegrove, the consultancy running the sale of the stake, have both declined to comment on the process.
Marathon has a plan to raise cash by selling assets worth $2-$4 billion in the next year, but that target could be in jeopardy if it can't clinch a sale of the Angolan stake.
Marathon Oil holds 30 percent of Block 32 and was looking to cut its stake to 10 percent, the same as it holds in Angola's Block 31, which the government approved for development in July.
The remaining interests are held by operator Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), with 30 percent, Sonangol with 20 percent, Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) with 15 percent and Petrogal with 5 percent.
Angola now produces almost 2 million barrels of oil per day, rivalling Nigeria as Africa's top oil producer. It is the biggest oil supplier to China and the sixth-biggest to the United States. Oil accounts for about 90 percent of Angola's exports.
Its mostly offshore reserves total about 11.4 billion proven barrels, about the same as Algeria, according to estimates by Edinburgh-based energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
Myanmar’s Path to Democracy
http://ospr3y.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/democracy-and-human-rights/
When one thinks of the concept of democracy and human rights, Myanmar certainly does not spring into mind. Unlike the other members of Asean, Myanmar or Burma as some nations still regard it, has yet to adopt a system of government resembling any form of what one would describe as a democracy. Myanmar’s failure to make the transition to democracy can be largely attributed to the ever-diminishing prospects for reconciliation between the military-led junta, the State Peace and Developmental Council (SPDP) and the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) (Kyaw, 2003)
The current political situation in Myanmar can be traced back to 1990, when the NLD decisively won a general election called by the military junta. However, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the NLD and daughter of national hero Aung San did not see power handed over to her party. Instead, the junta’s reluctance to hand over power saw Aung San Suu Kyi placed under house arrest – an event that invariably led to international outcry. Over the years, the military junta has twice released the pro-democratic leader only to have her arrested again. For example, in 2003, the government arrested several NLD members, placed Aung San Suu Kyi under ‘protective custody’ and closed NLD offices throughout the country. These actions were, according to the Myanmar government, in response to the commotion caused by unruly NLD members and their supporters which resulted in a number of casualties. (Kyaw, 2003) The international community, being largely pro-democracy was of course not exactly willing to accept the word of the junta. Most felt that the clash between the government and NLD was premeditated and served as an excuse for eliminating the NLD threat to their power.
The military junta of Myanmar has also been widely criticized by other countries for failing to provide its people with basic human rights. Apart from politically stifling its people, the Myanmese government hardly did any good to its international reputation by cracking down on protesting Buddhist monks in 2007. The protests, sparked off by the doubling of fuel prices, caused massive numbers of people to join these monks in demonstrations calling for economic, political and social reforms. The government’s response to this was one of violence and contempt. Almost a year later in 2008, the military junta further tarnished its name in the international spotlight by refusing foreign aid after being stricken by the deadly Cyclone Nargis. Furthermore, they refused to issue visas to United Nations relief teams whose jobs were to ensure the victims of the disaster were receiving the aid they desperately needed. Though it was estimated that the lives lost due to the tragedy numbered in the tens of thousands with millions more ending up homeless, the Myanmese government remained adamant about their decision.
The path to democracy for Myanmar looks tumultuous at best. Then again, it is difficult to think of any democratic nation that has risen through totally peaceful means. In the international scene however, Myanmar may be seen as lagging behind with already about 62% of all countries embracing democracy (Zakaria, 2003) The most recent attempts to reconcile Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD with the military junta through the aid of United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari have been widely regarded as failures. International pressure for Myanmar to turn to democracy may be high but the notion of it being the most viable method to solve Myanmar’s problems cannot simply be taken for granted. To quote Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Presumably however, democracy brings with it the idea that the rights of the people will be protected – something which Myanmar and the rest of the world is striving for in the first place. Only time can tell if this will ever materialize and eventually eradicate the numerous issues that malign Myanmar.
This entry was posted on October 2, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under Democracy and Human Rights . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Japan's Five-Year Notes Rise on Mounting Evidence of Recession
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601009&sid=a4Wk8IodVwJY
By Theresa Barraclough
Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's five-year government bonds rose as mounting evidence the world's second-largest economy faces a recession prompted investors to favor low-risk assets.
Five-year yields fell as traders increased bets the Bank of Japan will reduce interest rates this year after the central bank's Tankan survey, published yesterday, showed manufacturers are the most pessimistic in five years. Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average slumped to a three-year low, boosting the attraction of fixed-income securities.
``There's concern of a deeper recession,'' which led to bond buying, said Susumu Kato, chief economist in Tokyo at Calyon Securities, one of the 24 primary dealers required to bid at government debt sales. ``The five-year bond is one of the safe havens for banks because of the large drop in the stock market.''
The yield on the 1.1 percent note due September 2013 fell 2.5 basis points to 1.04 percent as of 4:08 p.m. in Tokyo at Japan Bond Trading Co., the nation's largest interdealer debt broker. The price rose 0.118 yen to 100.282 yen. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
Ten-year bond futures for December delivery increased 0.20 to close at 137.24 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Reports this week showed industrial production fell at the fastest pace in five years in August, household spending dropped for a sixth month and the jobless rate reached a two-year high.
``The BOJ policy stance will change from neutral to one that considers business conditions,'' said Eiji Dohke, chief strategist at UBS Securities Japan Ltd. in Tokyo.
The chance the BOJ will lower borrowing costs to 0.25 percent from 0.5 percent by year-end jumped to 21 percent from 3 percent a week ago, according to calculations by JPMorgan Chase & Co. using overnight interest-rate swaps.
Stock Losses
The Nikkei 225 lost 1.9 percent to close at 11,154.76, the lowest close since May 2005, and the broader Topix index declined 2.2 percent.
Benchmark bonds handed investors a return of 1 percent in the three months ended Sept. 30, the least among Group of Seven nations, according to indexes compiled by Merrill Lynch & Co. The Nikkei decreased 16 percent in the same period.
Ten-year bonds declined after a sale of 1.9 trillion yen ($17.9 billion) in the securities drew less demand than the previous auction in September after the U.S. Senate approved a $700 billion bill that would allow the government to buy troubled assets from banks. Ten-year yields added 1 basis point to 1.51 percent.
`Negative Factor'
The auction ``wasn't good because market participants wanted to be cautious before the vote,'' said Takashi Nishimura, an analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co., a unit of Japan's largest bank by assets, in Tokyo. ``In theory, the rescue plan is a negative factor for the bond market.''
The sale attracted bids worth 2.58 times the amount offered, compared to a so-called bid-to-cover ratio of 2.66 times at the Sept. 2 sale.
The lowest price at the auction of 10-year debt was 0.13 yen below the average price, compared to a so-called tail of 0.04 yen in September. The tail is the difference between the lowest price and the average price. The longer the tail, the fewer bids are clustered around the average price.
The U.S. Senate approved the financial-rescue plan by 74 votes to 25. The package now goes to the House of Representatives, which rejected an earlier version of the measure. ``It's very important for us to pass this piece of legislation so as to stabilize the situation,'' President George W. Bush said before the Senate vote.
``The bill itself is needed to stabilize the market,'' said Tomohiko Katsu, deputy general manager of the capital market division at Shinsei Bank Ltd. based in Tokyo. ``It's a last resort measure.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Theresa Barraclough in Tokyo at tbarraclough@bloomberg.net.
Myanmar to boost tourism with seaside airport at cyclone scene
Myanmar authorities are building a seaside airport in the southwest region laid waste by a cyclone five months ago, a local weekly paper reported Wednesday.
They hope to boost tourism at Ngwesaung beach, in the country's Irrawaddy delta near the Bay of Bengal, 7Day said.
"The hotel authorities in Ngwesaung beach said an airport with an 8,000-feet (2,400-metre) long runway is under construction now at the beach," the paper said.
Ngwesaung beach, opened in 2000, is 240 kilometres (150 miles) from the main city Yangon, in the middle of the area left devastated by Cyclone Nargis, which struck May 2-3 and left 138,000 people dead or missing.
The beach attracts foreign tourists looking for budget deals according to one tour operator.
"Spanish and Italian tourists are more interested in Ngwesaung beach as the hotel rates there are lower than at Ngapali beach," a tour company operation manager told AFP, referring to a beach in Rakhine state already accessible by air and speaking on condition of anonymity.
"But recently the road has been very bad since the Nargis cyclone and because of the rainy season," she said.
Ngwesaung beach has 20 hotels providing 800 guest rooms according to official statistics.
Construction of the airport began in the third week of September, the report said.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
WHO, Honiara, Provides Information on Melamine
http://solomontimes.com/news.aspx?nwID=2724
The World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in Honiara, Dr. Jeffrey Hii has said that the use of the chemical melamine in baby formula in Mainland China is an issue of serious concern.
Dr Hii said that what has happened has raised concerns that there is a strong possibility that the chemical Melamine is also used in other food products.
"Nearly 40-thousand cases of kidney stones in infants, three deaths and one unconfirmed case is related to the consumption of the Melamine-contaminated powdered infant formula. Reports have been recieved from across China since the 21st of September 2008. Almost 12,900 children are currently hospitalized," says Dr. Hii.
A statement from the WHO said that while the exact timing of the contamination itself remains unknown, a manufacturer (Sanlu) received a complaint of illness in March 2008.
The Chinese media however reported at the beginning of September that the "Good Cows Company" infant formula produced by Sanlu was contaminated with melamine.
According to the WHO, Sanlu's powdered infant formula is widely consumed by infants across China because the product is relatively affordable compared to others.
"Following inspections, conducted by China's national inspection agency, at least 22 dairy manufacturers across the country were found to have melamine," says Dr. Hii.
He says that two companies; Guangdong Yashili and the Qingdao Suokang, export their 'Sanlu' products to Bangladesh, Burundi in Africa, Burma, Gabon in Africa, and Yemen.
According to him, contamination in those countires remain unconfirmed, however a recall has been ordered from China.
"Other countries also reported finding melamine in dairy products manufactured in China," says Dr. Hii.
So far the chemical has also been found in liquid milk, frozen yogurt, desert and in coffee drink.
"All these products were most probably manufactured using ingredients made from melamine contaminated milk," says Dr. Hii.
Dr. Hii, on behalf of WHO also revealed that in 2007, Melamine was found in pet food manufactured in China and exported to the United States of America which caused the death of a large number of dogs and cats due to kidney failure.
National Express
Should Asia brace for more mega storms?
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20081002a1.html
Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008
By MICHAEL RICHARDSON
Special to The Japan Times
SINGAPORE — We have become acutely aware of the financial storm threatening to sweep the world. But what about nature's most powerful storms? Will global warming cause more frequent and intense tropical cyclones, increasing the already heavy annual toll of death, damage and injury in densely populated coastal Asia?
A panel of scientists advising member states of the United Nations on climate change told policymakers late last year that it was likely future tropical cyclones "will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical sea-surface temperatures."
The latest scientific research on cyclones, published last month, suggested that global warming has already made storms more destructive. However, the study by three U.S. weather researchers made no reference human causes for rising sea temperatures, such as the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere — mainly from burning coal, oil and natural gas, and clearing tropical forests. Much of this activity is happening in Asia.
The weather researchers examined photographs and other data from a single set of satellites from 1981 to 2006, a period in which sea surface temperatures rose to 28.44 C from 28.22 C. They concluded that the highest wind speeds of the most violent storms averaged 251 kph in 2006, up from 225 kph in 1981. The increases in cyclone intensity were most marked in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, but less evident in the North Pacific, where most tropical cyclones occur. The study also found that more common and less powerful cyclones — about two-thirds of all the storms — had not become stronger in the 26 years to 2006.
An average of 90 cyclones form around the world each year. Around 50 of the most powerful reach wind strengths of 118 kph (74 mph) and above. In the North Pacific, they are known as typhoons; in the Atlantic, as hurricanes. Typhoons regularly strike Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, the Philippines and Japan in the storm season from late June until December, gathering strength in the Pacific Ocean or the South China Sea before weakening over land.
Although the Bay of Bengal has been the scene of some of the world's deadliest cyclones, most of them have struck Bangladesh and India, not Myanmar. However, Cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar last May, appears to be the first high-strength storm recorded in the populous Irrawaddy River Delta in Burma, and this has prompted speculation that these cyclones may be extending their reach and striking in new places.
Shortly before the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina struck the Bahamas, Florida and Louisiana in 2005, causing nearly $100 billion in damage, Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, attracted worldwide attention when he published a study showing hurricanes had become significantly more violent due in part to global warming. His latest research, which came out last April, confirmed that there had been a big rise in hurricane power in the last 25 years but cast doubt on whether this trend would continue in the future as the world got warmer.
Some scientists have linked stronger storms to rising sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and elsewhere. They propound the so-called heat engine theory: because tropical cyclones draw energy from warm water and warm moist air, the warmer the water and the atmospheric temperature, the more intense the storm.
However, the three U.S. weather researchers previously mentioned found that cyclones are also affected by factors not related to ocean temperatures and that these can prevent some storms from gathering devastating strength. The shaping factors include where cyclones originate, how close they are to land, solar activity, El Nino and La Nina ocean-atmosphere cycles, as well as the speed, direction and height of wind shear.
The trouble is that even when these factors are considered disadvantageous statistically to storm development, some storms are able to emerge as banshees of destruction.
Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
Averting Asian water wars
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20081002bc.html
BRAHMA CHELLANEY
As the most pressing resource, water holds the strategic key to peace, public health and prosperity. The battles of yesterday were fought over land. Those of today are over energy. But the battles of tomorrow will be over water. And nowhere else does that prospect look more real than in Asia.
According to a 2006 U.N. report, Asia has less fresh water than any other continent other than Antarctica. In that light, water is emerging as a key challenge for long-term Asian peace and stability.
Although water covers two-thirds of Earth, much of it is too salty for use. Barely 2.5 percent of the world's water is potentially potable, but two-thirds of that is locked up in the polar icecaps and glaciers. So, less than 1 percent of the total global water is available for consumption by humans and other species.
These freshwater reserves are concentrated in mountain snows, lakes, aquifers and rivers. Already, 1.5 billion people lack ready access to potable water, and 2.5 billion people have no water sanitation services.
In Asia, deforestation, poor management of river basins, environmentally unsustainable irrigation, overuse of groundwater and contamination of water sources have all helped aggravate water woes. The over-exploitation of subterranean water has resulted in a falling water table in several parts of Asia.
Depleting groundwater irreplaceably can dry up wetlands and lakes that depend on such sources. Saline seawater can flow in to replace the fresh water that has been pumped out, as is happening in some Asian coastal areas. In the Gangetic Delta, wells have tapped into naturally occurring arsenic deposits, leading to tens of millions of people in eastern India and Bangladesh being exposed to high levels of arsenic in drinking water and staple agricultural products like rice.
In fact, access to water illustrates the divide today between the rich and the poor in Asia. While the poor struggle to get basic access to water for their daily consumption and household chores, the rich now largely rely on bottled drinking water.
Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008
By The quality and quantity of available fresh water indeed is becoming a critical component of Asian security-related challenges. Increasingly, dams built on transnational rivers are spurring interstate friction. If wars in the future are to be averted over these and other hydro-engineering projects, international norms and rules will have to be evolved.
With the world's fastest-rising military expenditures, most-dangerous hot spots and fiercest resource competition, Asia appears as the biggest flash point for water wars — a concern underscored by attempts by some states to exploit their riparian position or dominance. Riparian dominance impervious to international legal principles can create a situation where water allocations to co-riparian states become a function of political fiat.
Upstream dams, barrages, canals and irrigation systems can help fashion water as a political weapon — a weapon that can be wielded overtly in a war, or subtly in peacetime to signal dissatisfaction with a co-riparian state. Even denial of hydrologic data in a critically important season can amount to the use of water as a political tool. Such leverage could in turn prompt a downstream state to build up its military capabilities to help counterbalance the riparian disadvantage.
Except for Japan, Malaysia and Burma, Asian states already face water shortages. The very future of some low-lying states like Bangladesh and the Maldives is at stake due to creeping saltwater incursion, frequent storm-related flooding and the climate change-driven rise of ocean levels. Bangladesh today has too much water, yet not enough to meet its needs. Born in blood in 1971, the world's seventh-most populous nation faces the specter of a watery grave.
China and India already are water-stressed economies. The spread of irrigated farming and water-intensive industries and a rising middle class are drawing attention to their serious struggle for more water. The two giants have entered an era of perennial water shortages, which before long are likely to parallel, in terms of per capita availability, the scarcity in the Middle East.
Their rapid economic growth could slow in the face of acute water scarcity if their demand for water continues to grow at the present frenetic pace. Water shortages indeed threaten to turn food-exporting China and India into major importers — a development that would seriously accentuate the global food crisis.
Even though India's usable arable land is larger than China's — 160.5 million hectares compared to 137.1 million hectares — the source of all the major Indian rivers except the Ganges is the Chinese-held Tibetan plateau. This is the world's largest plateau, whose vast glaciers, huge underground springs and high altitude have endowed it with the greatest river systems.
Almost all the major rivers of Asia originate there. Tibet's status thus is unique: No other area in the world is a water repository of such size, serving as a line for much of an entire continent.
Through its control over Tibet, China controls the ecological viability of several major river systems tied to southern and southeastern Asia. But today, China is toying with massive interbasin and inter-river water transfer projects starting from the Tibetan plateau.
Its ongoing "Great South-North Water Transfer Project" is an overly ambitious engineering attempt to take water through man-made canals to its semi-arid north. The diversion of waters from the Tibetan plateau in this project's third leg is an idea enthusiastically backed by President Hu Jintao, a hydrologist who owes his swift rise in the Communist Party hierarchy to the brutal martial-law crackdown he carried out in Tibet in 1989.
In the stark words of Premier Wen Jiabao, water scarcity "threatens the very survival of the Chinese nation." But in seeking to address that challenge, China's gargantuan projects threaten to damage the delicate Tibetan ecosystem. They also carry seeds of inter-riparian conflict. The hydropolitics in the Mekong River basin, for example, can only become worse as China, ignoring the concerns of downstream states, completes more upstream dams on the Mekong.
While making halfhearted attempts to staunch Indian fears about the prospective diversion of River Brahmaputra northward, Beijing has identified the bend where the Brahmaputra forms the world's longest and deepest canyon, just before entering India, as holding the largest untapped reserves for meeting China's water and energy needs.
A Sino-Indian conflict over the sharing of the Brahmaputra waters would begin no sooner than China began to build the world's largest hydropower plant on the river's Great Bend.
Asia will continue to have the largest number of people without basic or adequate access to water. Such water stress in the face of rising demand and poor water management will sharpen competition between urban and rural areas, between neighboring provinces and between nations. As global warming accelerates, local, national and interstate disputes over water will become increasingly common in Asia, making cooperative institutional mechanisms over water resources essential within and between states.
Clearly, the way to forestall or manage water disputes in Asia is to build cooperative river-basin arrangements involving all riparian neighbors. Such institutional arrangements ought to center on transparency, information sharing, pollution control and a pledge not to redirect the natural flow of transboundary rivers or undertake projects that would diminish cross-border water flows. The successful interstate basin agreements (such as over the Indus, the Nile and the Senegal rivers) are founded on such principles.
In the absence of institutionalized cooperation over shared resources, peace would be the casualty in Asia if water became the new battleground. In the ominous words of Wang Shucheng, China's former minister of water resources: "To fight for every drop of water or die, that is the challenge facing China."
Brahma Chellaney is a professor of strategic studies at the privately funded Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
Myanmar detains political ally of Aung San Suu Kyi
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jTKyFgp_de4JJDlBy33hNVFLa1uAD93I5SCG0
Myanmar detains political ally of Aung San Suu Kyi
7 hours ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's military authorities have detained a prominent former journalist and political ally of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition party said Thursday.
Police took 64-year-old Ohn Kyaing from his home Wednesday evening, said Nyan Win, the spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
"The reason why he was detained was not known," Nyan Win said.
Ohn Kyaing was released from prison in 2005 after serving 15 years of a 17-year prison sentence for "writing and distributing seditious pamphlets" and threatening state security.
Ohn Kyaing joined the NLD after a long career in journalism and won a parliamentary seat in 1990 — elections that were overwhelmingly won by Suu Kyi's party but which the military junta refused to recognize.
Until then, he had worked at several newspapers and written articles under the pen name "Aung Wint."
Ohn Kyaing is a close friend and former colleague of Win Tin, another former journalist turned opposition politician, who was the longest-serving political prisoner in Myanmar until his release Sept. 23. Win Tin served 19 years behind bars.
Asked to comment on the detention of Ohn Kyaing, Win Tin said, it "is not unusual and something we have to expect. He is a close colleague, a good friend and a highly qualified man."
The Home Ministry, which is in charge of police, could not be reached for comment Thursday. Authorities seldom comment on arrests of this nature.
Myanmar has been under military rule for 46 years and is one of the world's poorest and most authoritarian nations. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been detained for 13 of the last 19 years.
Burma Dam Projects Said to Threaten Residents, Wildlife
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1573868/burma_dam_projects_said_to_threaten_residents_wildlife/
CDT Text of report in English by Thailand-based Burmese publication Irrawaddy website on 30 September
The Burmese government's plan to build two major hydropower dams - the Wai Gyi and Hat Gyi - on the Salween River in eastern Burma threatens the human rights of local residents and the biodiversity of the area, says an environmental organization.
According to the report "Khoe Kay: Biodiversity in Peril" released by the Thailand-based Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) on Monday, more than 40 rare seeds and animal species in the Salween River watershed are likely to vanish if the Burmese government completes construction of the hydropower dams.
Ko Shwe, a spokesperson for KASEN, said, "According to our research, we found about 394 different species. Among them, there are 8 endemic species including plants and animals. If the dam is completed, these species will be totally vanished."
The report urged the government to conduct a professional environmental assessment as well as an environmental impact study before construction work begins on the hydropower dams.
The Wai Gyi and Hat Gyi dams are both located in Karen National Union controlled areas.
Meanwhile, Saw Nay, the director of Karen River Watch, said the Hat Gyi dam on the lower Salween River threatened several thousands of residents as well as wildlife.
According to its research, about 5,000 reside in more than 20 villages in the upper Hat Gyi dam area will be forced to relocate if the dam is completed, he said. He said human rights abuses such as forced labour, forced relocation, the disappearance of culture heritage as well as environmental damage including disforestation and flooding are likely to occur.
The Hat Gyi dam, the first to be built, is designed to power a 600-megawatt turbine. The project is expected to be complete by 2010.
The Hat Gyi dam project has drawn strong protests from nongovernmental organizations concerned about the potential environmental impact and the dam's effect on the livelihood of villagers.
Originally published by Irrawaddy website, Chiang Mai, in English 30 Sep 08.
(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Win Tin’s Logical Principles
http://www.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=14362
COMMENTARY
Win Tin’s Logical Principles
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By KYAW ZWA MOE Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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The expression, Suu Hlut Twe, offers three simple ideas to break the country’s chronic political stand off between the military and political opposition groups.
Suu stands for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the unconditional release of all political prisoners.
Hlut stands for Hluttaw (people’s parliament) and the convening of parliament with the representatives of the 1990 elections.
Twe stands for dialogue between the military government and opposition groups.
Those were three basic ideas that prominent journalist-turned-politician Win Tin held to during his 19-year imprisonment. It was his commitment to the pro-democracy movement that helped him overcome harsh obstacles in prison, said the 79-year-old NLD opposition leader days after his release in late September.
Win Tin said he will continue to work toward those simple principles in the ongoing struggle for democracy. Win Tin, who was a secretary in Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy before his arrest in 1989, was reappointed to his old position as a member of the party’s Central Executive Committee on September 27 during the NLD’s 20th anniversary in Rangoon.
Win Tin’s principles harkens back to the NLD policies in place following the 1990 elections. In the passage of years, the military regime has consistently dismissed all NLD proposals and, instead, gone its own way—following its “road map” to democracy that simply excludes all opposition groups and main ethnic political parties.
Burma’s Foreign Minister Nyan Win told the UN General Assembly on Monday, “Peace and stability now prevails in almost all parts of the country.” The former military officer said the government’s road map offers the best chance for a return to civilian rule.
The junta’s planned election in 2010 is the next step on its road map. After the election, the junta claims it will hand over power to a civilian government. Last year the junta concluded its 14-year National Convention, which drafted a constitution, since approved that guarantees the military will control the pseudo-civilian government.
The regime’s foreign minister told the UN assembly, “All citizens, regardless of political affiliation, will have equal rights to form political parties and to conduct elections campaigns.” However, some former political prisoners and activists are likely to be banned from taking part in the election.
The NLD boycotted the junta’s National Convention in 1995 and consistently criticized the regime’s road map as illegitimate, calling it one-sided and lacking the participation of the 1990-elected members of parliament. Last week, in a statement the NLD called for the junta to review the constitution.
The head of Burma’s police, Brig-Gen Khin Yi, warned NLD’s leaders to withdraw their critical statement, saying it could provoke citizens to make critical comments against the government, which—by law—is illegal in Burma because it could provoke instability.
Similar demand by the UN special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, was also ignored by the regime.
On Saturday, the UN’s Group of Friends of Myanmar—composed of the United States, Britain, China, Southeast Asian countries and the European Union—again called for the release of all political prisoners.
But it’s quite unlikely. The junta’s recent release of less than 10 political prisoners, including Win Tin, won it praise from some countries. The release was part of a general amnesty for about 9,000 prisoners convicted of criminal offenses.
The remaining 2,000 political prisoners are unlikely to enjoy an amnesty anytime soon. The junta considers the jailed pro-democracy advocates “destructive elements of the country” and, as a result, most of them have no chance of release until after the 2010 election.
Recently, The Irrawaddy learned from intelligence sources that an election law for the upcoming 2010 election is now on Than Shwe’s desk in Naypyidaw waiting to be signed. He’s still the only person who has the power to determine Burma’s course.
Win Tin’s Suu Hlut Twe policy is logical. Like everything in Burma, however, the ideas have to be acceptable to Than Shwe.
Japan arson suspect a jobless, lonely divorcee: reports
Thursday October 2, 1:59 PM
TOKYO (AFP) - The man accused of starting a fire which killed 15 people at an all-night video shop in Japan was a gentle father whose life went downhill when he got divorced and lost his job, reports said Thursday.
The blaze before dawn on Wednesday engulfed the Cats parlour which offered adult films in small rooms for people looking for a cheap place to stay in the western metropolis of Osaka.
Kazuhiro Ogawa, 46, was arrested and admitted starting the fire by burning newspapers, according to police. He said he wanted to die although he was not injured.
Ogawa once worked at an electronics company and was popular in his neighbourhood, the Asahi Shimbun said, quoting neighbours.
He would play catch with his son outside and take care of other local children, who grew fond of him, the newspaper said.
But he divorced when his son was still young and moved in with his mother, who then died. He then lost his job and found an apartment by himself.
One neighbour said Ozawa starting dressing flamboyantly as he took on different jobs. He reportedly managed a store and learnt sign language to work with people with disabilities.
But he was hospitalised for a long time with an unspecified illness and moved twice more, reports said.
He had recently appeared tired and told neighbours he couldn't work because of illness and had no money, the Asahi said.
Ogawa told investigators he had debts of more than two million yen (19,000 dollars), public broadcaster NHK said.
There has been growing concern about a deteriorating social safety net in Japan as the economy moves away from the recession of the 1990s.
A government survey found last year that 5,400 people were living in all-night lounges offering movies and comic books as they could not afford rents in the world's second largest economy.
The crime was the deadliest in Japan in seven years. In June, a young man with worries about work went on a slashing spree in a busy part of Tokyo, killing seven people.
Than Shwe Delays Signing Election Law
Snr-Gen Than Shwe. (Photo: AP)
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14363
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By MIN LWIN Thursday, October 2, 2008
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The head of the Burmese military regime, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, has still not approved the country’s election law, which authorizes an election in 2010 and the constitutional backing for the Burmese armed forces to retain at least 25 percent of parliamentary seats.
Sources within the Burmese military said that although the election law had been approved by the constitution process, it was still on Than Shwe’s desk waiting to be signed.
Win Min, a Burmese military analyst based in Thailand, said that Than Shwe will not authorize the document until closer to the election date.
Rumors are circulating in Naypyidaw and Rangoon that Than Shwe and his No 2, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, have argued recently about which officers would be given parliamentary seats and which would continue in military service.
Military sources said that Than Shwe is the key player in deciding which military officers run in the election.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win said that the fifth step of the junta’s “road map”—a general election—will be completed in 2010 and that all necessary measures are being taken for the election.
He also said in his speech that all citizens, regardless of political affiliation, will have equal rights to form political parties and the government will make every effort to ensure that the election will be free and fair.
According to the constitution approved in May, 25 percent of the seats in the Burmese parliament will be reserved for members of the military, nominated by the Commander-in-Chief of the Burmese Defence Services.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese military analyst living on the China-Burma border, said that Than Shwe wanted to keep his grip on power and was preparing to form a political party to compete in the 2010 election.
According to military sources, regional military commanders competed for Than Shwe’s approval during the constitutional referendum in May. The commanders were told that unless their regions produced a high percentage of Yes votes, they could find themselves “retired” or transferred to inactive positions.
Official figures concluded that more than 90 percent of the electorate voted “Yes” despite the process being labeled a “sham” by most observers.
Since Than Shwe seized power in 1992, he has relegated his colleagues and opponents ruthlessly if he suspected they were not loyal to him. In 2004, he purged former Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt and his supporters for disobeying him. Khin Nyunt has been under house arrest ever since.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
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