http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200812171233.htm
YANGON (Xinhua): A cross-border optical fiber link between Myanmar and India to boost information link is expected to be completed and operational by March next year, the local weekly Yangon Times journal reported Wednesday.
Under the Indian government loan, the project, which worths 7 million U.S. dollars, started in 2006 December.
The 640-kilometer-long Myanmar-India optical fiber link, which connects Indian's northeastern border town of Moreh and Myanmar's second largest city of Mandalay, passes through six cities of Tamu, Kampatwa, Kyi Gone, Shwebo, Monywa and Sagaing.
Along the fiber link, ADSL+2 system with 7,000 lines are being installed in 80 locations including Yangon, Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw, the report added.
The project was signed between the state-run Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) and the Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) during then President APJ Abdul Kalam's state visit to Myanmar in March 2006.
According to the contract, MPT and TCIL agree to implement SDH/ STM 4 optical fiber link between the two cities and the ADSL system.
Meanwhile, in April this year similar link between Myawaddy ( Myanmar) and Maesot (Thailand) was established as part of the information superhighway network (ISN) project of the six-country Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)-Economic Cooperation.
The Myanmar-Thai fiber optical link extends as angon-Hmawby- Bago-Kyaikhto-Tahton-Pha an-Kawkareik-Thingan Nyinaung-Myawaddy on the Myanmar side, while Maesot-Bangkok stands on the Thai side.
Those links on the two countries' respective sides have been in place, leaving the cross-border link between Myawaddy and Maesot is to be connected to complete the network.
Also in March this year, fiber link between Myanmar and China, built since April 2007 and involving China Telecom and Yunnan Telecom, was set up in Myanmar's border town of Muse also as part of the regional ISN project.
The Myanmar-China fiber optic link was built across China's Kunming and Myanmar's Muse with its link further extended to reach the commercial city of Yangon.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Myanmar-India optical fiber link project to complete next March
How the Regime Punishes Political Prisoners’ Families
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=14811
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By SAW YAN NAING Wednesday, December 17, 2008
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The wife of imprisoned activist Pyone Cho spent about 90,000 kyat (US $75) on a 10-day journey to visit him in jail in Kawthaung, southern Burma. The sister of another political prisoner, the prominent labor rights activist Su Su Nway, spent only slightly less on a six-day journey to visit her in Kale Prison in Sagaing Division, central Burma.
Family members spoke to The Irrawaddy about the huge difficulties they faced as a result of the regime’s decision to consign activists condemned in the recent series of trials to prisons in various remote parts of Burma.
Mandalay prison. (Photo: Nic Dunlop/The Irrawaddy)
The decision is being described by human rights organizations as a form of torture, imposed not only on the abused prisoners themselves but also on their families.
More than 100 of the estimated 215 activists sentenced in the November trials to terms of imprisonment of up to 68 years have been consigned to at least 20 isolated prisons in various parts of Burma, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), known as the AAPP.
AAPP Joint-Secretary Bo Kyi said it was international practice elsewhere in the world to confine condemned people in prisons close to where family members lived. “Here [Burma] they were moved to prisons far from their relatives.”
Bo Kyi accused the regime of intentionally creating problems for prisoners and their families, causing mental and physical pain.
Many of the political prisoners were being held under inhumane conditions and were being tortured, Bo Kyi said. Some prisons had no doctors or facilities for treating inmates.
“Some political prisoners are not allowed to walk outside their compounds,” Bo Kyi said. “They even can’t see the sun. It is very dangerous for the health of those detained in cold locations over the next few months.”
Several political prisoners, including Zarganar, Burma’s best-known comedian, are in Myitkyina Prison, Kachin State, where temperatures drop below zero in winter.
One Rangoon source said a youth member of the opposition National League for Democracy, Aung Kyaw Oo, serving a 19-year sentence in Pegu Prison, had been savagely beaten and denied medical treatment.
When Aung Kyaw Oo’s wife visited the prison on December 3 she was denied permission to see him and had to wait until December 13. A prison source said Aung Kyaw Oo had told his wife about the beatings.
A defense lawyer, Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min, who recently fled to Thailand, said one of his clients, Myint Aye, founder of the group called Human Rights Defenders and Promoters, had also been tortured while in prison.
“Prison authorities questioned him continuously for five days. They didn’t let him sit down and sleep. He finally collapsed.”
Myint Aye was convicted of involvement in a bomb attack on an office run by the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association in Rangoon’s Shwepyithar Township on July 1.
The New York-based international rights group Human Rights Watch has also deplored the regime’s decision to send political detainees to remote prisons.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Elaine Pearson, the group’s deputy Asia director, accused the regime of using the country's legal mechanisms to threaten political prisoners and deny them access to justice.
The statement also urged Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan to assign an independent legal assessment team to closely watch the treatment of political prisoners in Burmese courts and in Burmese prisons.
It said Asean should address Burma's lack of respect for the rule of law when it holds its rescheduled summit meeting in early 2009.
Pearson said: “The government locks up peaceful activists, sends them to remote prisons, and then intimidates or imprisons the lawyers who try to represent them. This abuse of the legal system shows the sorry state of the rule of law in Burma.”
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
UN chief criticizes Myanmar and Zimbabwe
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081217/ap_on_re_us/un_un_human_rights_1
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 17, 4:57 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized the governments of Myanmar and Zimbabwe Wednesday and said a year of multiple crises has put human rights on trial.
At a year-end news conference, the U.N. chief said 2009 "promises to be no less difficult" than 2008, with a worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, the danger of anarchy in Somalia, a continuing global financial crisis and the need to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Ban said he has been frustrated by the failure to protect innocent lives, and the lack of resources and political will to tackle important issues such as poverty, conflicts and climate change.
Though the world came together to confront the global financial crisis, "I fear we are only at the end of the beginning," Ban said, stressing that "global solidarity" will be key to a solution.
Ban said he was pleased at the world's response to natural disasters, including the devastating cyclone in Myanmar and hurricanes that lashed Haiti.
"Yet I am disappointed by the unwillingness of the government of Myanmar to deliver on its promises for democratic dialogue and the release of political prisoners," he said.
In Zimbabwe, Ban said, "the humanitarian situation grows more alarming every day" and the country "stands on the brink of economic, social and political collapse."
The secretary-general said he told President Robert Mugabe "things need to change urgently" during a meeting several weeks ago on the sidelines of a U.N. conference in Doha, Qatar, and Mugabe agreed to receive his envoy, Haile Menkarios.
"Now we are told that the timing is not right," Ban said. "If this is not the time, when is?"
The Southern African Development Community has insisted on leading diplomatic efforts to address the crisis, but eight months of talks have produced few results, Ban said, adding that "a fair and sustainable political solution" must come quickly.
In Congo, Ban said, U.N. forces "have held the line" but have been unable to protect innocent people from violence.
"Our record on human rights is on trial — in many places, in many ways," he said. "In this 60th anniversary year, we must stand strong for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
In conflict-wracked Darfur, he urged Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir to fully cooperate with U.N. resolutions and lamented that the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force still needs helicopters and will only be 60 percent deployed by the end of the year.
In Afghanistan, he said "a political surge and a clear change of direction are required" to deal with growing insurgent attacks and the worsening humanitarian situation.
While the U.N. responded well to the world food crisis, tackling the problem on a wide front including nutrition, agricultural production, trade and social protection, "it has not gone away" he said.
Ban said he was pleased with U.N. and international efforts to keep climate change high on the global agenda.
"2009 will be the year of climate change," he said, stressing the importance of reaching a global deal requiring nations to make mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases starting in 2013.
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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World Press tells junta to stop repression of media-MIZZIMA
http://www.mizzima.com/news/world/1458-world-press-tells-junta-to-stop-repression-of-media.html
by Solomon
Wednesday, 17 December 2008 20:23
The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) condemned the Burmese military junta for cracking down on freedom of expression, called for the release of all jailed journalists and urged its neighbouring countries to pressure the junta for change.
Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, Public Relations of WAN said, the Board of directors of WAN which represents more than 18,000 publications in five continents, met on December 15, 2008 in Beirut, Lebanon and urged the military junta in Burma to release all detained journalists and to end restriction on freedom of expression.
"The Board of directors from WAN, while issuing the resolution and condemning the lack of press freedom in Burma, urged the military junta to stop arrests and the crackdown on the press," Kilman said.
"There is no press freedom in Burma. It is one of the most repressive regimes and is an embarrassment to the entire region," added Kilman.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on December 4 that Burma is the third worst country in terms of imprisoning journalists in the world after China and Cuba. Burma has at least 14 journalists behind bars.
"The Burmese regime, one of the most repressive in the world, recently stepped up its attack on freedom of expression," said WAN.
WAN also called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) "To abandon their discredited policy of non-interference and mount pressure on Burma's rulers to adopt international norms of free expression."
Despite condemnation and pressure from the international community the Burmese military junta arrested journalists and bloggers and sentenced them to long terms in prison. They were sent to prisons in remote areas where their family members would find it difficult to visit.
The blogger and well know comedian Zargarnar (Maung Thura) were sentenced up to 59 years in prison for disseminating information about the September 2007 protests and in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
Blogger Nay Phone Latt was sentenced to 20 ½ years in jail for posting free writing that fired the feelings of Burmese youth in his blog site. Journalist Ein Khaing Oo from Ecovision weekly Journal was sentenced to two years in prison for covering a story about Cyclone Nargis victims.
"For press freedom in Burma the best solution is democracy and that is not there," said Larry Kilman.
A Rangoon based veteran editor of a privately owned monthly journal said the journal had fallen in quality because of extreme censorship by the junta authorities. It has been reducing its print order every month.
"We are more and more disappointed with the government's censor board. They are rejecting whatever they want without following exact rules," the editor who wished not to be named told Mizzima.
"It is Impossible to publish stories relating to political issues. The junta is also prohibiting news and write ups which are not political in nature," he added.
Now they have reduced the print order. While earlier they published over 10,000 copies monthly now it is well below that figure.
"We have to reduce the number of journals because the demand has fallen and the censor board destroys the quality of journals," he added.
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