ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုႀကည္ကို ေဒါက္တာတင္မ်ိဳးဝင္းလစဥ္သြားေနႀက ေဆးစစ္ေပးဖို ့သြားပါတယ္။ ေဒၚစုဟာ
အစာငတ္ခံဆႏၵမျပေပမဲ့ ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံမွာ လူ ့အခြင့္အေရးပိုမိုတိုးတက္ရရိွဖို ့့ နဲ ့မိမိကိုေနအိမ္အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ခ်ထားျခင္း
တို ့ကိုကန္ ့ကြက္တဲ့အေနနဲ ့ အစာအနည္းငယ္သာစားတာ အခုဆိုရင္ (၃) လရိွ ပါျပီ၊ ေဒါက္တာတင္မ်ိဳးဝင္းရဲ့အဆို
အရ ေဒၚစုဟာ အာဟာရဓါတ္ခ်ိဳ ့တဲ့ေနတယ္လို ့ဆိုပါတယ္။
Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081204/wl_asia_afp/myanmarpoliticssuukyi_081204162413
YANGON (AFP) – A doctor visited Myanmar's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday, witnesses said, three months after her refusal of food supplies sparked concerns.
Her regular doctor Tin Myo Win and his assistant went into the lakeside compound where Aung San Suu Kyi is detained in the early afternoon and stayed about four hours, witnesses near her Yangon home told AFP.
A spokesman for her National League for Democracy party said she was expected to receive a routine medical check-up, a month after the doctor's last visit.
YANGON (AFP) – A doctor visited Myanmar's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday, witnesses said, three months after her refusal of food supplies sparked concerns.
Her regular doctor Tin Myo Win and his assistant went into the lakeside compound where Aung San Suu Kyi is detained in the early afternoon and stayed about four hours, witnesses near her Yangon home told AFP.
A spokesman for her National League for Democracy party said she was expected to receive a routine medical check-up, a month after the doctor's last visit.
NLD spokesman Nyan Win previously said that Aung San Suu Kyi was given a clean bill of health after the doctor's visit in October.
Tin Myo Win gave Aung San Suu Kyi an intravenous drip on September 14, about a month after she began refusing food rations delivered to her home, prompting her lawyer Kyi Win to describe her as "malnourished."
The NLD and Kyi Win always denied the 63-year-old was on hunger strike, but said she was only eating small amounts of food to call for greater human rights in Myanmar and to protest her detention.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who has no other source of food aside from the daily supplies provided by the military regime, started accepting the food rations again a few days after being given the drip.
The Nobel peace prize winner had been detained for most of the past two decades. She is kept mostly isolated from the outside world, only receiving occasional visits from her doctor and lawyer.
Nyan Win said Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyer had requested a meeting with her to discuss an appeal against her detention.
"Lawyer U Kyi Win asked the authorities this week to meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for her legal appeal. We are hoping to meet her. But we haven't got any reply yet," Nyan Win told AFP.
The NLD won a landslide victory in a 1990 election but the military never allowed it to take office and instead cemented its decades-long grip on power.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Doctor visits Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi: witnesses
Myanmar's longest-serving political prisoner hospitalized
http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-56386.html
အန္ကယ္ဦးဝင္းတင္ေဆးရုံတင္ထားရပါတယ္။
Yangon, Dec 5 : Win Tin, 79, Myanmar's longest serving political prisoner who was released from prison three months ago, has been hospitalized, family members confirmed Friday.
"He had low blood pressure and difficulty breathing so we sent him to Yangon Medical Centre in Yangon at 7.30 pm Thursday," a relative of Win Tin's told DPA.
Win Tin was released Sep 23 after serving 19 years in prison.
A central executive member of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, Win Tin was released under a broad government amnesty that included more than 9,000 prisoners, most of them common criminals.
Win Tin was a prominent journalist, before he was arrested in 1989 and spent 19 years in prison.
Upon his release, Win Tin told a handful of journalists that the country's military rule must end, and he will "keep fighting until the emergence of democracy" in Myanmar.
Win Tin was arrested in July 1989, and three months later was sentenced to three years, but in 1992 before his release he was sentenced to an addition 11 years.
Long prison terms for politcal opponents of Myanmar's ruling junta are common. Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962.
Myanmar's courts last month sentenced dozens of political activists to 65 years in jail for participating in demonstrations in August and September 2007.
The country's main opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has spent at least 12 of the last 19 years under house arrest.
--- IANS
Thailand's revered king cancels speech to country awaiting guidance
King Bhumibol Adulyadej reportedly is ill. It was hoped that the monarch, who has helped resolve numerous political problems, would nudge political factions toward a compromise.
By Paul Watson
December 5, 2008
Reporting from Bangkok, Thailand -- Dashing the hopes of Thais who looked to their monarch to help lead them out of a political crisis, King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Thursday canceled the speech he normally gives on the eve of his birthday.
Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn said that the monarch, who celebrates his 81st birthday today, was ill.
"Yesterday, his majesty the king was eating fine," the princess said. "But today the king suffered from bronchitis."
She said that the king was weak but that his condition was not serious.
The king has helped resolve numerous political problems during his 62-year reign, and many here hoped he would use his birthday address to nudge the country's rival political factions toward a compromise.
Instead, the royal silence has left a void as politicians haggled behind the scenes, trying to build a new governing coalition to fill the vacuum left by Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's resignation Tuesday.
Bhumibol, revered as a demigod by many Thais, was admitted to a hospital last year for treatment of what his doctors said was poor blood flow to the left side of his brain.
If he were to suffer a serious illness now, it could complicate efforts to resolve Thailand's political stalemate, which dealt a severe blow to an economy already reeling from a spreading global downturn.
Banned from politics for five years by the Constitutional Court, Somchai handed over power to a caretaker prime minister. His party and two allied parties, found guilty of voter fraud in last year's elections, were ordered dissolved.
Somchai's disbanded People's Power Party has regrouped as the Puea Thai party. The antigovernment People's Alliance for Democracy, or PAD, which agreed to suspend its protests after the court order, regards the new party as another front for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin, who lives in exile and has been sentenced to two years in prison on corruption charges, was ousted in a bloodless military coup in 2006. His civilian successors, Samak Sundaravej and then Somchai, were seen as continuations of Thaksin's rule.
Thais fear that the military will intervene again if Thaksin allies return to government and PAD protesters return to the streets. The country is still struggling to recover from the massive economic damage wrought by a weeklong blockade of Bangkok's two airports.
Suvarnabhumi Airport resumed receiving international flights Thursday, two days after protesters ended an occupation that stranded more than 300,000 travelers. The country's airport authority says Suvarnabhumi, one of the region's busiest hubs, will be fully operational today.
The outgoing government had made a commitment for more than $28 million to compensate foreign tourists for food and lodging, with individual payments of nearly $60 a day.
Watson is a Times staff writer.
paul.watson@latimes.com
Japan Stocks Fall on Bank Earnings Concern; Tiremakers Jump
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601084&sid=aCb5Hbxe2XvE
By Masaki Kondo
Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Japan stocks fell, extending a weekly loss, as a dimmer earnings outlook for lenders prompted Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to cut price targets on the nation’s biggest banks, overshadowing benefits to manufacturers from oil’s decline.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. Japan’s biggest listed banks, dropped more than 5 percent, driving a gauge of lenders to a two-week low. Toyo Tire & Rubber Co., Japan’s fourth-largest tiremaker, surged 8 percent after crude sank to the lowest level in almost four years. Orix Corp. erased an 11 percent plunge to rise 0.5 percent after saying it asked authorities to investigate “ill-founded” rumors.
“Earnings at financial companies will inevitably worsen. You can’t rule out the possibility that smaller players will fail,” said Naoteru Teraoka, who helps oversee $21 billion at Chuo Mitsui Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “Higher oil prices have been the main cause of inflation, so their decline is positive in that it lowers costs for manufacturers.”
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average swung between gains and losses at least 13 times, and closed down 6.73, or 0.1 percent, to 7,917.51 in Tokyo. The broader Topix index slipped 2.86, or 0.4 percent, to 786.02. The Nikkei posted a 7 percent weekly drop, the biggest since the five days ended Oct. 24, while the Topix lost 5.9 percent.
The Nikkei has tumbled 48 percent in 2008, set for its worst year on record, as the collapse of the American mortgage market and ensuing credit crises sparked the first simultaneous recession in the U.S., Japan and Europe since World War II. Japan’s three biggest banks in October cut full-year profit targets by more than half on rising bad-loan costs.
Shifting Impact
Mitsubishi UFJ slumped 5.4 percent to 435 yen, and closest rival Mizuho lost 6.7 percent to 210,700 yen. No. 3 Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. declined 3.3 percent to 296,000 yen. Fukuoka Financial Group Inc., Japan’s second-largest regional bank by assets, dived 5.6 percent to 288 yen. The Topix Banks Index sank to the lowest since Nov. 20 and led declines among industry groups.
“Banks revenues continue to deteriorate, and the impact of macro environment worsening is shifting from the P&L to the balance sheet,” Goldman wrote in a report dated yesterday. The brokerage cut 12-month price estimates on Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui by as much as 55 percent, and lowered Fukuoka’s rating to “sell” from “neutral.”
Daiwa Securities Group Inc., Japan’s second-largest brokerage, soared 7.7 percent to 461 yen, while larger rival Nomura Holdings Inc. gained 4.1 percent to 611 yen. Goldman raised its rating on the brokerage industry to “neutral” from “cautious,” citing “little downside risk.”
‘Positive Side’
Oil has fallen 70 percent from a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11 as expectations evaporated that demand in emerging markets would make up for a slowdown in developed countries. Merrill Lynch & Co. commodity strategist Francisco Blanch yesterday said oil may sink below $25 a barrel next year if the global recession spills over into China.
Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. gained 8 percent to 175 yen, while Bridgestone Corp., the world’s biggest tiremaker, added 1.5 percent to 1,376 yen, ending a four-day slide. Tokai Rubber Industries Ltd. climbed 3.7 percent to 675 yen.
About 60 percent of the material used in tires is oil based, according to the Japan Automobile Tyre Manufacturers Association. Crude oil for January delivery fell 6.7 percent yesterday to $43.67, the lowest settlement price since January 2005.
“It’s high time we thought about the positive side of falling oil prices,” Yoshinori Nagano, a senior strategist at Tokyo-based Daiwa Asset Management Co., which manages about $96 billion, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Rumor Investigation
Orix, Japan’s largest non-bank financial company, added 0.5 percent to 4,400 yen after having lost more than a quarter of its value in the past three days. Some major institutional investors are spreading ill-founded rumors that are affecting the company’s share price, Orix spokesman Ataru Yoshida said today. The company requested an investigation by the Securities Exchange and Surveillance Commission, Orix said in a statement.
Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., the Japanese unit of Roche Holding AG, plunged 8.3 percent to 1,469 yen, leading declines on the Nikkei. U.S. regulators delayed their decision for a second time on whether to approve the company’s rheumatoid arthritis drug Actemra.
Nikkei futures expiring in December added 1.3 percent to 7,980 in Osaka and slumped 0.6 percent to 7,970 in Singapore.
To contact the reporter for this story: Masaki Kondo in Tokyo at mkondo3@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: December 5, 2008 02:22 EST
U.A.E. Seeks Japan’s Help to Develop Nuclear Power Plants
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aOPsk3yXu3Ts
By Megumi Yamanaka
Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates will hold talks with the Japanese government and reactor makers such as Hitachi Inc. and Toshiba Corp. this month as it seeks Japan’s help to develop nuclear power plants.
Japan, the world’s third-biggest atomic generator, may help the U.A.E. by offering services to develop legal frameworks and educate workers on atomic power, said government officials who declined to be named as negotiations haven’t been completed.
A delegation headed by Mohammed al-Hammadi, president of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp., arrived late yesterday for a week- long visit to hold talks with government officials on areas of cooperation. The U.A.E., holder of almost 8 percent of the world’s crude reserves, wants to develop nuclear energy as an alternative source of electricity.
“Japan is behind others such as France in terms of making approaches but has built up a high level of technology for reactors that the U.A.E. wants,” Yuzuru Aizawa, an analyst at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan’s biggest energy research body, said by phone.
Japan is poised to become the fourth country to sign atomic- power pacts with the emirates after France, the U.S. and the U.K. inked agreements this year.
Japan, the biggest buyer of oil from the U.A.E., imported about 58.5 million kiloliters (368 million barrels) from the Middle Eastern country last year.
Nuclear Project
Emirates Nuclear Energy hasn’t made any decision on a prime contractor, it said on its Web site. The agency chose in October CH2H Hill Cos Ltd., a U.S. consulting firm, to help implement a civil nuclear power program under a 10-year contract.
Abu Dhabi, the biggest of the seven emirates, this year started to import natural gas from its neighbor Qatar because its own deposits are too high in sulfur, making it too costly to process for power plants.
Electricity demand in the U.A.E. is expected to triple to 41,000 megawatts by 2020, Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al- Nahyan said in April.
Total SA, Suez SA and Areva SA have shown interest in building reactors in the U.A.E. with “local partners,” they said in a joint statement in January. Contracts may be worth as much as 4 billion euros ($5.1 billion), a French government spokesman said Jan. 11.
“The U.A.E. is expecting to get access to Japanese technology,” Aizawa said.
Meeting in Tokyo
The U.A.E. delegation including members of Emirates Nuclear Energy will meet with officials from the Japanese government and companies including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and visit a nuclear power plant and factories of Hitachi and Toshiba.
The U.A.E.’s planned nuclear program is the second of its kind in the Persian Gulf.
The emirates wants to set “a good example” in nuclear development for Middle Eastern countries, al-Nahyan said.
Iran is currently building its first reactor. The six Gulf Cooperation Council states, which include the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, asked the International Atomic Energy Agency last year to prepare a study on the viability of nuclear power for the region.
The U.A.E. is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and would have to negotiate with the IAEA once it makes a decision on nuclear power use.
To contact the reporter on this story: Megumi Yamanaka in Tokyo at myamanaka@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: December 4, 2008 19:12 EST
Myanmar in need of sustainable TB drug supply: minister
http://balita.ph/2008/12/05/myanmar-in-need-of-sustainable-tb-drug-supply-minister/
December 5, 2008 12:44 pm by pna
YANGON, Dec. 5 — A high-ranking Myanmar health official has stressed the need for sustainable supply of TB (tuberculosis) drug in the country, saying that the requirement is to retain the current achievement in "stop-TB strategy" under implementation, official press media reported Friday.
Minister of Health Dr. Kyaw Myint made the remarks at a recent review meeting of Myanmar's Health Department under the ministry and the Global Drug Facility (GDF) held in Nay Pyi Taw.
According to the report, the GDF has provided TB drug to Myanmar since 2003 and the TB eradication tasks have been carried out in the country under its national health plan.
TB remains one of the three major communicable disease designated in Myanmar and the government has offered effective treatment to patients suffering from the disease under the anti-TB national project.
Highly-effective medicines in treating TB have been or are being provided free-of-charge for treating every TB-suspected patient who reports to the nearest hospitals or clinics, project officials said.
Myanmar has been making efforts in fighting three diseases of national concern — HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, treating the three diseases as priority with the main objectives of reducing the morbidity and mortality in a bid to become no longer a public problem and meet the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.
Of the three diseases, it was estimated that about 100,000 new TB patients developed annually and about half of them are infectious cases.
Myanmar achieved 95 percent case detection rate and 84 percent treatment success rate with regard to TB. With the introduction of Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS) strategy of the WHO in Myanmar since 1997, over 85 percent of TB patients have recovered from the disease, the report disclosed. (PNA/Xinhua)
FFC/LBV/ebp
Myanmar calls for precaution against cross-border bird flu
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/099200812051122.htm
YANGON (Xinhua): The Myanmar Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department (LBVD) Friday called on the country's people to take preventive measures against cross-border bird flu, saying that the avian influenza was found occurring intermittently in neighboring countries in both the east and the northwest since last month.
The statement of LBVD attributed the phenomena to have been caused by migratory wild birds, carriers of deadly H5N1 virus from one place to another.
The statement urged poultry traders to step up bio-security measures against the probability.
Migratory birds from different regions across the world used to fly over Myanmar territory during the winter season period between November and February, especially December, according to experts.
The authorities have also called for keeping awareness about the modes of infection of the avian influenza and intensifying precautionary and educational measures to prevent any occurrence in humans and birds.
Meanwhile, Myanmar is cooperating with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in prevention against avian influenza.
In April this year, the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) declared Myanmar as a bird-flu-free country three months after the country was proved that there was no residual bird flu virus remained over the period since January.
Over the past two years since February 2006 until the last in December 2007, there were numerous outbreaks of the avian influenza in Myanmar covering 25 townships of six states and divisions.
All of the occurrences were blamed for infecting from abroad especially that the virus was carried into the country by migratory birds from the cold regions in the world infecting local birds, according to the LBVD.
Myanmar reported outbreak of the avian influenza in the country for the first time in some poultry farms in Mandalay and Sagaing divisions in early 2006, followed by those in Yangon division in early 2007, in Mon state's Thanbyuzayat and western Bago division' s Letpadan in July and in eastern Bago division's Thanatpin and in Yangon division's Hmawby in October the same year.
Despite the declaration as a bird-flu-free country, the Myanmar livestock authorities continued to call on the country's people to exercise a long-term precaution against the deadly H5N1 bird flu.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Health
Rangoon firms into lay-off; job seekers mount-MIZZIMA
http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/1404-rangoon-firms-into-lay-off-job-seekers-mount.html
by The The
Thursday, 04 December 2008 10:28
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Over the past three months reduction and lay-off of staff members have been on in Rangoon as companies struggle to survive the impact of the global financial meltdown, resulting in job seekers mounting, an employment agency in Rangoon said.
With the decline in business, companies have been forced to cut their staff strength and recruitment has become more competitive, with most firms seeking skilled and experienced workers. This has led to the rise in the number of unemployed educated youths in the Burmese capital, a Rangoon based well-known agency said.
"In earlier months, of a total of 100 applicants, at least 50 would be employed. But now, we have about 7,000 applicants seeking jobs, and we are only able to find placement for about 25 per cent," the Chief Executive Officer of the agency told Mizzima.
He, who wished to be identified as Aung Myint, said earlier the job market for fresh graduates and skilled labourers was much better as companies and firms were willing to recruit freshers on cheap pay packets.
But, he said, the situation is changing fast as companies are cutting costs and managing with a minimum number of employees.
Adding to the problems at home, several Burmese migrant workers from neighbouring Southeast Asian countries have made a desperate return home after being laid-off as a consequence of the global financial crisis faced by companies. This has added to the number of job-seekers in Rangoon, according to Aung Myint.
A managing director of a domestic employment agency in Rangoon told Mizzima that the prospect of finding jobs for returnees is grim as the situation at home and abroad are different.
However, contrary to the claims of the employment agencies, Burma's Prime Minister Thein Sein said, the country can offer jobs to even up to 100,000 returnees as the country's various sectors including the fishery and agriculture, still need a lot of work force.
Thein Sein was quoted by the government-owned newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar, as saying that the government could create jobs for all the returnees.
But the managing director of the Rangoon-based agency said, differences in nature of the business and types of business would be one area that could bar returnees from getting absorbed in the domestic job market.
"It is impossible for an IT expert to re-start working on paddy fields or to work as a fisherman. What I mean is the differences between the business status and types of business. So, it is difficult for returnees to be easily employed," he said.
A youth, who recently returned from Singapore, after being sacked by a construction company as part of the firm's lay-off process, said he is unable to find a suitable job.
The youth, who holds a diploma from Burma's Government Technological Institute, said in desperation that the only option would be to seek a way out again to go to another country in search of a job.
"What will I do in Burma? I can only hope to go out again to some other country," the youth said.
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