ABC News
TOKYO (Reuters) – The most difficult thing in a nuclear crisis, the Tokyo firefighter said, was the inability to sense where the danger was.
The Tokyo Fire Department's elite rescue team was among those called in to cool down a nuclear plant north of the capital that was badly damaged by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami and was leaking radiation.
"We usually detect dangers, like fire and smoke, with our eyes, ears and nose, and eliminate some of them, if not all," said Yukio Takayama, a leader of the team.
"At our latest site, we couldn't sense the dangers. It can be very scary if you cannot eliminate dangers for yourselves. As long as you work on the scene, you are constantly in danger, and a sense of fear is with you all the time ... But someone had to do this and that someone was us."
[Related: What is acute radiation syndrome?]
Takayama said he and his men had been tested for radiation exposure after they installed equipment and left the plant and they were all fine.
After the disaster knocked out cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power plant in Fukushima, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, the government scrambled to send in military and firefighters to hose down the reactors and spent fuel pools.
The magnitude 9.0 quake and ensuing tsunami devastated northeastern Japan and left more than 27,000 people dead or missing.
Radiation was released into the air as the plant operator was forced to vent nuclear containment vessels to reduce high pressure building up inside.
Underlining the risk the damaged nuclear plant poses, three Tokyo Electric employees were injured by radiation on Thursday, and two were taken to hospital with burns, Japan's nuclear safety agency said.
[Related: What is radioactive iodine poisoning?]
"There were no people for us to help on the site. There were no flames to douse. But I believe having given relief to the Japanese people through our activities was a form of a rescue operation," said Takayama, a 54-year-old father of two daughters and a son.
The plant was littered with rubble after a series of explosions, making running water hoses from the nearby coast to the reactor No.3, their target, difficult and time-consuming.
Takayama said he did not know whether the industry minister had threatened to punish rescue workers if they refused to participate in the operation, as reported by some media.
But he added that a final decision in a life-threatening situation like at the Fukushima plant should be left to a leader on the scene.
"We work to fulfill the duties that are given to us. But part of the job of a leader on the scene is to discern what's doable from undoable. You can't give instructions without knowing what's going on the ground."
"As a squad leader I can never tell my men to go in there and die."
(Additional reporting by Hyun Oh; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Friday, March 25, 2011
Japanese firemen battle invisible danger
Nuclear plant shadows future of neighboring towns
TOKYO/HONG KONG (Reuters) –
Millions of Tokyoites are worried about radiation in tap water or in the air, but the thousands of people living in the shadow of Japan's stricken nuclear plant have another fear: it may force them to abandon their homes for years, if not forever.
More than 70,000 people have already been evacuated from an area within 20 km (12 miles) of the plant, and another 130,000 are within a zone extending a further 10 km (6 miles) in which residents are recommended to stay indoors. They too could be forced to leave their homes if the evacuation is extended due to worsening radiation levels.
Nobody in government has yet touched on the issue directly, but given growing worries about soil contamination in the largely rural area and bans on shipping and sales of local milk and vegetables, many residents fear the worst.
"Nobody wants to say it out loud, but I think that in their hearts everybody worries that they won't be able to go home for years at least," said Yoichi Azuma, principal of Koriyama Commercial High School, not far west of the 30-km (18-mile) zone, whose gymnasium has been turned into an evacuation center.
"People here have suffered three disasters: the quake, the tsunami and the invisible danger of radiation, which is a man-made disaster. We feel a lot of anger about the last one."
Though some experts say the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, will likely turn out to be less serious than the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, the radioactive substances being emitted are the same -- iodine 131, caesium-134 and caesium-137.
The radioactivity in iodine-131 fully disintegrates in 80 days, but it can find its way rapidly into people through the air and through milk and leafy vegetables, lodging in the thyroid gland, where it can cause DNA damage and raise the risk of cancer, particularly in young children.
Caesium is more troubling as it remains radioactive for over 200 years, threatening people with longer-term exposure through food and from external exposure as it settles on the ground.
"The length of time these areas will remain contaminated depends on the radionuclide composition," said Jim Smith, Reader in Environmental Physics at the University of Portsmouth in southern England.
"If a significant proportion is radiocaesium, food bans and, potentially, evacuation may be long-term."
FOOD CONTAMINATION
Food contamination levels in Fukushima, which is known for its peaches, nashi Japanese pears, apples and strawberries as well as milk and vegetables, have risen sharply over the past week, opening up the logical option of extending the exclusion zone.
The United States as early as last week said its citizens should stay out of a broader 50 mile zone, but the Japanese government has not spoken of extension -- a view backed by experts such as Kenji Kamiya, director of the Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine at Hiroshima University.
"We must consider the impact of radiation on human health, but at this point I think the government's decision is correct given the radiation levels," he said.
A Fukushima prefectural official said there are no firm numbers on how many people remain within the 20-30 km radius but added that many appear to have already left voluntarily, whether from worry or just the growing difficulty of life within an area running out of food and other goods. Media reports say some truck drivers, wary of radiation, refuse to enter the zone.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano touched on this on Thursday, noting that "social needs" might have to be dealt with over the longer term.
"But we must be careful not to send the wrong message that danger is getting bigger if we were to issue such a direction (to evacuate)," he said.
In addition, experts said, the practical issues are huge.
"There is a limit to extend the zone because Japan is an island and one thing we have to face is we have to provide shelter, prepare enough housing and schools for these people," said Lam Ching-wan, a chemical pathologist at the University of Hong Kong and member of the American Board on Toxicology.
Some Fukushima towns and cities have laid on buses for citizens who want to leave, in some cases to nearby prefectures.
At present, Azuma's school hosts 150 people ranging in age from infants to 97 years old. Some had homes destroyed by the tsunami, but many were fleeing the radiation.
Some have chronic health issues, such as kidney problems requiring dialysis, and there are several pregnant women. There are enough blankets to go round, and enough food -- barely.
"People really want to go home, but since many of them grow things or are dairy farmers, they're really worried about what might happen and what the experts might say," Azuma said.
"Foreigners might be told to leave a wider area, but all we have is what we have here."
(Editing by John Chalmers and Michael Watson)
Japan faces its next chore: cleaning up
The legacy of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coastline in 2005, gives an idea of both the immensity of the job and the environmental hazards Japan could face for years to come.
"In Katrina, you had debris that had seawater, sewage, chemicals, gasoline, oil, that was all mixed together in a toxic soup," said David McEntire, a disaster expert at the University of North Texas. "And you're going to have similar problems with the disaster in Japan."
Three years after Katrina, which spawned enough debris to cover Britain, the U.S. government said the mess is not even close to being cleaned up in the New Orleans area.
The mess looks endless in Japan, and hauling it away seems unimaginable. The cost? No one really knows, though the crisis is emerging as the world's most expensive natural disaster on record, with Japanese officials saying losses could total up to 25 trillion yen ($309 billion). The World Bank says reconstruction could take five years.
So there's nothing to do but start.
Mayumi Hatanaka began with the knee-high mud that had flooded into her little seafood restaurant in the small seaside city of Shiogama.
"It's been four days, and we've been working, working," she said, standing beneath a sign that promised food "Straight From The Fishery To You."
She and her daughter were scraping the muck down their driveway and into the street. The thick, dark goo looked almost volcanic. Workers hired by the city used a gargantuan truck-mounted vacuum, normally used for well-drilling, to hose it up. The noise of the pump and the sucking splutter of the hose nearly drowned out her voice, and she had to shout to be heard.
Simply carving out an aisle in the restaurant took three days, Hatanaka said, so she has no idea when she'll be able to reopen. "I think we'll never finish," she said, only briefly willing to set aside her shovel before getting back to work.
Much of the official cleanup effort so far has been to support rescue teams. Soldiers and city crews have cleared streets of debris so rescuers can get through, and some buildings have been pulled apart in search of survivors.
Now, with little chance left of finding anyone still alive, the concern is to avoid accidentally clearing away corpses with the debris.
Takashi Takayama is a city official in Higashimatsushima, a port town brutalized by the tsunami, leaving nearly 700 people dead. He said the city, where the Chokai Maru ship was thrown ashore, is still cleaning up — and footing the bill — from a major earthquake in 2003.
"I don't know how long it will take," he said. "The last time it was just parts of houses that were destroyed. Now it's the whole house. So I don't know how we'll do it."
With city workers desperately overworked, officials turned to a local association of construction companies to help. Those private contractors helped clear the roads and have started piling up debris in small hills, soon to be small mountains, on city land near the port.
Japan is a country where separating trash into its various components is almost sacrosanct: There are the burnables, the food items, the array of different recyclables. Takayama is already dreading the arguments when disaster-weary residents refuse to categorize their garbage properly.
"Sorting everything out will be the first challenge," he said.
A 2004 tsunami, which killed 230,000 people in 14 Asian and African countries, left thousands of cities and towns facing a task similar to Japan's today.
In Indonesia, the United Nations employed 400,000 workers to clear 1.3 million cubic yards (1 million cubic meters) of debris just from the urban areas of the hard-hit city of Banda Aceh.
Many of the countries affected by that disaster were less developed than Japan and lacked sophisticated waste disposal systems. In the initial cleanups, some burned debris in the open air, dumped it in makeshift landfills and used other environmentally risky methods, polluting wells, inland waterways and the nearby seas.
Japan will presumably use state-of-the-art incinerators and sanitary landfills, though technological prowess doesn't guarantee there won't be problems. In the United States, there were allegations of corruption by cleanup companies after Hurricane Katrina, including claims that hazardous debris was improperly dumped in landfills.
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Associated Press writers Joji Sakurai in Tokyo and Denis Gray in Bangkok contributed to this report.
Tokyo shoppers clean store shelves of basic goods
AP – A worker prepares to load boxes containing bottles of water onto a truck to distribute to households … By SHINO YUASA and TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press Shino Yuasa And Tomoko A. Hosaka, Associated Press – 1 hr 35 mins ago
TOKYO – Nearly two weeks of rolling blackouts, distribution problems and contamination fears prompted by a leaking, tsunami-damaged nuclear plant have left shelves stripped bare of some basic necessities in stores across Tokyo. Some people are even turning to the city's ubiquitous vending machines to find increasingly scarce bottles of water.
At the source of the anxiety — the overheated, radiation-leaking nuclear plant — there was yet another setback Thursday as two workers were injured when they stepped into radiation-contaminated water. The two were treated at a hospital.
Supplies of bottled water grew scarce in Tokyo, one day after city officials warned that the level of radioactive iodine in the tap water was more than twice what is considered safe for babies to drink. Tests conducted Thursday showed the levels in the city's water fell to acceptable limits for infants, but they were up in neighboring regions.
Frightened Tokyo residents hoping to stock up on bottled water and other goods flocked to shops across the city, some of which tried to prevent hoarding by imposing buying limits.
"The first thought was that I need to buy bottles of water," said Reiko Matsumoto, a real estate agent and mother of a 5-year-old, who rushed to a nearby store to stock up on supplies. "I also don't know whether I can let her take a bath."
The shortages were mainly limited to basic staples, such as rice, instant noodles and milk. Vegetables, meat and tofu, meanwhile, were readily available in most places.
Japan has been grappling with an avalanche of miseries that began with a massive, 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11. That triggered a violent tsunami, which ravaged the northeast coast, killed an estimated 18,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. The quake and tsunami also damaged the critical cooling system at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which overheated and began spewing radiation into the environment.
Workers have been struggling to get the cooling system operating again, but their efforts have been hampered by explosions, fires and radiation scares. Lighting was restored Thursday to the central control room at Unit 1 for the first time since the quake and tsunami.
But two workers were hospitalized after stepping into contaminated water while laying electrical cables in one unit, nuclear and government officials said. The water seeped over the top of their boots and onto their legs, said Takashi Kurita, spokesman for plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The two likely suffered "beta ray burns," Tokyo Electric said, citing doctors. They tested at radiation levels between 170 to 180 millisieverts, well below the maximum 250 millisieverts allowed for workers, said Fumio Matsuda, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
Click image to see photos of quake, tsunami damage
Reuters/Kyodo
The men will be transferred to a radiology medical institute Friday, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, another nuclear agency spokesman. Their injuries were not life-threatening.
More than two dozen people have been injured trying to bring the plant, located 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, under control.
The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami continued to rise, meanwhile, with more than 9,800 bodies counted and more than 17,500 people listed as missing. Those tallies may overlap, but police from one of the hardest-hit prefectures, Miyagi, estimate that the deaths will top 15,000 in that region alone.
The crisis has stoked fears about the safety of Japan's food and water supply. Radiation has been found in raw milk, seawater and 11 kinds of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips, grown in areas around the plant.
The U.S. and Australia halted imports of Japanese dairy and produce from the region, Hong Kong said it would require that Japan perform safety checks on meat, eggs and seafood, and Canada said it would upgrade controls on imports of Japanese food products. Singapore, too, has banned the sale of milk, produce, meat and seafood from areas near the plant.
Concerns also spread to Europe. In Iceland, officials said they measured trace amounts of radioactive iodine in the air but assured residents it was "less than a millionth" of levels found in Europe in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster — the world's worst nuclear accident.
Radioactive iodine is short-lived, with a half-life of eight days — the length of time it takes for half of it to break down harmlessly. However, experts say infants are particularly vulnerable to radioactive iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer.
In Tokyo, government spokesman Yukio Edano pleaded for calm over the water contamination, and said the government was considering importing bottled water from other countries to cover any shortages. Officials urged residents to avoid panicked stockpiling and the city began distributing 240,000 bottles — enough to give each of the 80,000 children under age 1 three small bottles of water.
New readings Thursday showed the city's tap water was back to levels acceptable for infants, but the relief was tempered by elevated levels of the isotope in two neighboring prefectures: Chiba and Saitama. A city in a third prefecture, just south of the plant, also showed high levels of radioactive iodine in tap water, officials said.
Tap water in Kawaguchi City in Saitama, north of Tokyo, contained 210 becquerels of radioactive iodine — well above the 100 becquerels considered safe for babies but below the 300-becquerel level for adults, Health Ministry official Shogo Misawa said.
In Chiba prefecture, the water tested high for radiation in two separate areas, said water safety official Kyoji Narita. The government there warned families in 11 cities in Chiba not to give infants tap water.
"The high level of iodine was due to the nuclear disaster," Narita said. "There is no question about it."
Radiation levels also tested dangerously high in Hitachi in Ibaraki prefecture, about 70 miles (120 kilometers) south of the Fukushima plant, city water official Toshifumi Suzuki said, adding that officials were distributing bottled water.
The limits refer to sustained consumption rates, and officials said parents should stop using tap water for baby formula, although it was OK for infants to consume small amounts.
Despite the appeals, shelves were bare in many stores across Tokyo.
Maruetsu supermarket in the city center sought to impose buying limits on specific items to prevent hoarding: only one carton of milk per family, one 5-kilogram (11-pound) bag of rice, one package of toilet paper, one pack of diapers. Similar notices at some drugs stores told women they could only purchase two feminine hygiene items at a time.
Maruetsu spokeswoman Kayoko Kano acknowledged that the earthquake and tsunami resulted in delays of some products.
Some frustrated shoppers have turned to the city's many vending machines as an alternative. The machines are found everywhere in the city and one can feature about three dozen different beverages — ranging from hot coffee and green tea to power drinks and juice. A 500-milliliter bottle of imported water costs about 100 yen (about $1.25).
A spokesman for Procter & Gamble Japan said its plant was fully operational but that rolling blackouts in Tokyo may be affecting distribution. "Consumers are nervous, and they may be buying up supplies," Noriyuki Endo added.
Worse hardships continued in the frigid, tsunami-struck northeast. Some 660,000 households still do not have water, the government said. Electricity has not been restored to some 209,000 homes, Tohoku Electric Power Co. said. Damage is estimated at $309 billion, making it the most costly natural disaster on record.
In one bright spot of economic news, Toyota Motor Corp. — which had suspended production due to damage to suppliers' factories and power shortages in the quake zone — said it will soon resume production of the Prius and two other hybrid models.
But rival Honda Motor Co. said the suspension of car production at its Saitama and Suzuka factories will be extended to April 3.
The economic woes spawned by the disasters were especially painful for farmers in the region near the nuclear plant.
Sumiko Matsuno, a 65-year-old farmer in Fukushima, spent Thursday frantically harvesting vegetables from her fields.
"We are digging up all our carrots and onions as fast as we can. We can't sell them but we need them ourselves for food," she said. "We are really worried about our future. If this goes on, it is going to really hurt us."
___
Associated Press writers Eric Talmadge in Fukushima, and Mari Yamaguchi, Elaine Kurtenbach, Yuri Kageyama, Kaori Hitomi, Jean H. Lee and Ian Mader in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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News & Articles on Burma-Thursday, 24 March, 2011
News & Articles on Burma
Thursday, 24 March, 2011
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6.8-magnitude earthquake strikes northeastern Burma
Wa, Mongla “advised” by China to shun new alliance
Canadian Arrested in Myawaddy
Shan State Armies to Reconcile?
Rangoon Shoe Factory Workers Stage Successful Strike
100 Arakanese arrested, some tortured
Shan rebel ‘supporters’ uprooted
Parliamentary houses of Myanmar form representatives vetting committees
MYANMAR: Over 30 percent of TB cases going undetected
Teenager killed in Pegu bombings
Norway ups Burma oil investments
Burma sanctions must continue: Suu Kyi
Burma’s Parliament Revelations
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http://asiancorrespondent.com/51089/7-0-earthquake-in-myanmar-close-to-thai-border/
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The Associated Press
6.8-magnitude earthquake strikes northeastern Burma
Date: Thursday Mar. 24, 2011 11:06 AM ET
Rangoon, BURMA — A strong earthquake struck northeastern Burma on Thursday night, shaking buildings as far away as Bangkok. No tsunami was generated.
The quake struck along Burma's borders with Thailand and Laos, about 70 miles (110 kilometres) from Chiang Rai. The northern Thai city sustained a little damage, according to Thai television.
The 6.8-magnitude quake was just six miles (10 kilometres) deep, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At that strength and depth, the monitor said 600,000 people got shaking anywhere from strong to violent and that the buildings are considered vulnerable so moderate to very heavy damage is expected in homes.
Buildings swayed in Bangkok, about 480 miles (770 kilometres) south of the epicenter.
Max Jones, an Australian resident of the Thai capital, was in his 27th-floor apartment when his building started swaying so hard he had to grab the walls to keep from falling.
"It was bloody scary, I can tell you?" he asked. Jones said he could smoke rising from nearby buildings and people running in the streets.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says it was located too far inland to create a destructive wave.http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20110324/burma-earthquake-110324/
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Wa, Mongla “advised” by China to shun new alliance
Thursday, 24 March 2011 16:51 Hseng Khio Fah
Two of the anti- border guard force groups: United Wa State Army (UWSA) and National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), were reportedly warned by China not to get involved with any groups opposing the military junta, otherwise they would be open to attacks like the Kachin Independence Army and Shan State Army (SSA) ‘North’, according to a Sino-Burma border source.
“The junta will leave you alone if you don’t get involved with the new alliance,” a source quoted one of the Chinese officials as saying.
The report however has yet to be confirmed by Wa or Mongla authorities.
In February, the SSA and KIA participated in the formation of UNFC (United Nationalities Federal Council), an alliance of 11 ethnic armed ceasefire and non-ceasefire groups, which is to embark on an ambitious plan to set up a Union Army to be made up of armed forces from its member organizations. (The SSA later backed out, saying it could join it only on a state basis, not on an organization basis.)
A few days before the formation, a clash broke out between the KIA and the Burma Army in Manzi township for the first time in 18 years of theirs ceasefire period.
Likewise, the SSA is being under attack by the junta since 13 March. Fighting between the two sides are informed in several places in Shan State South’s Monghsu and Kehsi Townships and in Shan State North’s Mongyai township yesterday and today.
So far there has been 5 clashes: three yesterday and twice this morning. One took place near Mongkhang village, Tuya village tract, Mongnawng Sub-township of Kehsi Township, between SSA’s No. 801 Battalion and some Burma Army troops patrolling in the area.
Other include one at Kawngsaomong hill near Longkawng village in Shan State North’s Mongyai with SSA’s Battalion No. 1 and another between Nam-nga and Wan Hwe village in Monghsu township with SSA’s Battalion 196. Each attack lasted for half an hour, a SSA officer said.
“At least 3 were killed on the Burma Army’s side. We are still gathering the full data,” the officer said.
This morning clashes were at Loi Zang in Mongnawng with SSA’s 801, lasting for almost 6 hours from 3 am to 9 am, local sources said.
Yet again the two fought between Mong Awd and Tawoonkeng crossing on the Salween. At present, thousands of Burma Army troops are moving around the SSA controlled area and along the Salween which serves as a shared boundary with the UWSA.
The Burma Army also brought in hundreds of mules and horses for transportation in the roadless countryside. http://www.shanland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3525:wa-mongla-advised-by-china-to-shun-new-alliance&catid=86:war&Itemid=284
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Canadian Arrested in Myawaddy
By THE IRRAWADDY Thursday, March 24, 2011
Burmese security forces arrested a Canadian man on Thursday for illegally entering Burma near the Thai-Burmese border town of Myawaddy, according to official sources.
Although they did not reveal the name of the detainee, the sources said the man was a 62-year-old Canadian national who was arrested shortly after he crossed the border near War Lay Myaing in Myawaddy Township.
During interrogation at Myawaddy police station, the man, who was carrying only his passport and a camera, said that he accidentally entered the country after misreading a map.
Burmese officials in the town said the man would likely be charged under Section 13/1 of the Immigration Act.
On Nov. 7, a Japanese journalist was arrested after entering Myawaddy to cover Burma’s elections. He was released after three days detention.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21005
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Shan State Armies to Reconcile?
By KO HTWE Thursday, March 24, 2011
The ongoing conflict between Burmese government troops and the Shan State Army-North (SSA-North) Brigade 1 could potentially lead to a reconciliation or a platform of cooperation between the political wings of Brigade 1 and the SSA- South, according to sources close to the ethnic factions.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, Khuensai Jaiyen, the editor of Thailand-based Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN), said both the SSA-North Brigade 1 and SSA-South are fighting the same enemy.
“I heard there is a mutual understanding between both the Shan armies, but details of any formal agreement are not available yet,” he said. “At first, when hostilities broke out with the Tatmadaw [Burmese army], Brigade 1 expected assistance from their allies, but it could not convince the SSA-South to fight.”
The SSA-North Brigade 1's allies include the United Wa State Army (UWSA), with 30,000 troops, and the 10,000-strong Kachin Independence Army (KIA), as well as other ethnic cease-fire groups.
A breakaway faction of the SSA-North, Brigade 1 is led by Col Pang Fa and is estimated to be the strongest of the SSA-North's three brigades with some 3,000 troops. Unlike the SSA-North's other two factions—Brigades 3 and 7—Pang Fa's unit refused to join the regime's Border Guard Force (BGF) plan under Burmese army command.
Sai Lao Hseng, the spokesperson for the SSA-South, said that in the past there were differing points of view between the political wing of SSA-North Brigade 1, called the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP), and the SSA-South’s political wing, which is called the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS).
“No agreements have been made yet, but we have a personal relationship with them,” he said. “For the time being, we are helping each other though it is not as part of an official alliance.
“SSA-North [Brigade 1] did not get the rights they expected. So, they believe they have to take up arms,” he said. “That makes it more possible for them to begin cooperating with us.”
Led by Col Yawd Serk and based along the Thai-Burmese border, the SSA-South is one of the strongest ethnic groups that has taken up arms against the Tatmadaw.
There has been continuous fighting between Burmese government forces and the SSA-North Brigade 1 in Mongshu and Tangyan townships over the last month.
According to local sources, a clash between Brigade 1 and the Tatmadaw took place in Mong Naung Township on Thursday morning. Although full details of the clash have not been released, local residents said that a number of civilians, including one monk, were killed. Thousands were forced to flee their villages and are now reportedly existing in makeshift camps as internally displaced persons.
The Burmese army ordered SSA-North Brigade 1 to evacuate its headquarters in Kyethi Township by the end of March. Brigade 1 controls territory in Kyethi and Monghsu townships in southern Shan State, as well as Mongyai and Tangyan townships in the northern part of the state.
Since last year, the Burmese regime has pressured 17 cease-fire armies to accept the BGF plan, but only a few have joined. The others, including the UWSA and the KIA, have refused.
The UWSA and the SSA-South, which never signed a cease-fire with the junta, have offered support to SSA-North Brigade 1 since it resumed hostilities with the Burmese army. http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=21001
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Rangoon Shoe Factory Workers Stage Successful Strike
By THIN AUNG Thursday, March 24, 2011
Workers from the New Way shoe factory in Rangoon's Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone 4 went on a one-day strike on Tuesday to protest failed salary negotiations, according to sources. The strike ended when an agreement was reached with management.
“There were about 500 employees sitting or standing in front of the factory. No violent action took place. It looks like they just didn't enter the factory compound in protest,” said the owner of a shop near the factory.
A factory staff member told The Irrawaddy that workers staged the protest because negotiations between worker representatives and factory officials regarding a salary increase failed. The negotiations began on March 21, he said.
“Workers were asked to go back home around noon on Monday, much earlier than the end of their work day. I think they talked to each other and agreed to stage a protest at 7:30 a.m. the next morning,” said the factory staff member.
Police and firemen in Hlaing Tharyar reportedly arrived at the protest scene around 8:30 a.m. and blocked Bogyoke street with long bamboo poles in order to prevent people from passing by.
“Chinese officials at the factory do not treat us so badly. But Burmese supervisors are very rude. Even when we are sitting when we don't have work to do they always berate us for speaking to each other and turning around. They press us more, and that's why I think the protest broke out,” said a person who used to work at New Way.
A shop owner told The Irrawaddy that she saw a Mazda jeep with a Township Peace and Development Council [TPDC] label enter the factory around 9 a.m. On Tuesday.
“Officials from the TPDC and township labor office came. I don't know what they were talking about in the factory. After the departure of the TPDC car, the workers went back inside the factory compound,” said the shop owner.
In a new round of negotiations between worker representatives, the head of the New Way factory and township TPDC and labor officials that started at 10 a.m. On Tuesday, factory officials reportedly agreed with the demands of workers, including a monthly salary increase of 6,000 kyat [US $6.80].
A worker who participated in the protest said that apart from the salary increase, factory officials promised to provide workers with clean drinking water and the convenient use of restrooms.
He said officials also pledged to relax other regulations related to work hours, warnings for being late to work, sleeping or eating during work hours, lying down while having no work to do and speaking while working.
Another worker said they all would go back to work on Wednesday as the factory head and other officials made their promises in front of government authorities.
“We will be given salary for March on April 5, so we will definitely know if our salary is increased by 6,000 kyat then. Their promises include an award of 20,000 [US $22.70] kyat to workers who have worked the whole year without absence, but nobody is interested in it,” said a female worker.
New Way is jointly owned by Burmese and Chinese businessmen. There are more than 1,000 employees working in the factory, out of which less than 100 are male. The male employees work as technicians and security guards.
The protest at New Way was the second protest in Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone 4 this month. Workers from the Taiyi shoe factory, who staged a protest last week, will receive a salary increase of 12,000 kyat [US$ 13.60].
http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21000
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100 Arakanese arrested, some tortured
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 24 March 2011
Police in Rangoon have reportedly rounded up and arrested nearly 100 Arakanese nationals, some of whom were tortured, following suspicion that they were linked to a bomb attack in late February.
A coordinator of the Rakhine [Arakan] Club said that the wave of arrests took place in Hlaingtharyar and Insein township, the site of the bombing, after an Arakanese man who lived with one suspect initially arrested by police went into hiding.
Another Arakanese national told DVB that six people, including the Rakhine Club’s chairman, Saw Hla Aung, were detained and interrogated for days. Saw Hla Aung was reportedly handcuffed, and when he questioned the harsh treatment, was told he was “definitely going to prison”.
“They also said: ‘You Arakanese are arrogant and we’ve been longing to beat you up. We’ll send you lot into prison’,” according to the man.
All have since been released after police failed to find any link between them and the bombing, which took place in Insein township’s Aungzaya Housing Complex on 27 February.
But a 29-year-old man identified as Kyaw Hla Sein is believed to have been tortured for nearly 10 days to the point were he has required treatment for trauma, while another Arakanese taxi driver whom police suspected had driven the accused had a rolling pin rolled on his calf, and now has difficulty walking.
Officials at Insein and Hlaingtharyar police stations were unavailable for comment.
Eight people were inured in the February attack, which a government official said happened after a 26-year-old man “accidentally” triggered an explosive device he was carrying near to a street stall.
http://www.dvb.no/news/100-arakanese-arrested-some-tortured/14909
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Shan rebel ‘supporters’ uprooted
By NANG MYA NADI
Published: 24 March 2011
Inhabitants of six villages in southern Shan state have been ordered to relocate as the Burmese army looks to isolate Shan rebels operating in the region.
More than 190 families in the Kunhing township villages have been told to leave by the end of March and will be forced to move closer to the road connecting Kunhing to the town of Nansang.
One Kunhing resident said that move was aimed at “curbing support for Shan rebels”, likely referring to the Shan State Army–South (SSA–South), which holds sway over a large part of the southern Shan region.
The order came hot on the heels of fighting between Burmese troops and the SSA–South on 10 and 11 March in the Kunhing district. Reports surfaced at the time that villagers were forcibly abducted to serve as porters during a fight in nearby Mongshu township, while some were told to show troops the location of nearby Shan army bases.
The relocation is part of the junta’s so-called ‘four cuts’ strategy which looks to sever lines of support and communication for Burma’s various ethnic armed groups. The country’s military generals ordered troops to re-launch the maligned tactic in order to rout defiant opposition armies like the SSA–South who have refused its demands to become border security forces.
In the country’s remote border regions, swathes of which are under the control of ethnic armies, the Burmese junta considers the line between civilian and insurgent heavily blurred and thus regularly targets rural populations it deems guilty of supporting the groups.
The ‘four cuts’ has also seen a renaissance in Burma’s west, where troops are fighting the Arakan Liberation Army, but it has struggled to apply a strategy designed for lowland warfare in the mountainous border regions.
Fighting also broke out further north in Shan state after Burmese troops on 13 March launched an attack on bases belonging to the Shan State Army-North (SSA-North).
The series of assaults came as the junta supposedly gave the group an ultimatum to withdraw from its bases by 20 March and fully surrender by 1 April.
The location of the bases, in Namlao, is seen as a key strategic target, both in the fight against the SSA-North but also against the larger and more powerful United Wa State Army (UWSA) – the Burmese junta fears the UWSA will coordinate with SSA–South to aid the SSA–North.
http://www.dvb.no/news/shan-rebel-%E2%80%98supporters%E2%80%99-uprooted/14915
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Parliamentary houses of Myanmar form representatives vetting committees
15:53, March 24, 2011
Both parliamentary house of representatives (Lower House) and parliamentary house of nationalities (Upper House) of Myanmar have formed representatives vetting committees respectively to scrutinize representatives as from the second meeting of the first respective parliaments, according to the respective parliaments' announcements made public Thursday.
The lower house's representatives vetting committee was formed with 14 members with U Maung Oo, current home minister, as chairman, while the upper house's representatives vetting committee was set up with 8 members with U Aung Tun as chairman.
Meanwhile, according to Thursday's Union Election Commission, 19 more parliamentary candidates from some region or state constituencies and their election agents were disqualified, bringing the total of such candidates to 112 so far since March 15.
The commission said these candidates and their election agents failed to submit election expenses during the 60-day period after they were announced as parliament representatives-elect through Nov. 7, 2010 general election as found by the election tribunal.
The commission added that they are disallowed to contest in the election as parliamentary candidates in the existing parliament term and the next term.
In the 2010 general election, 1,154 candidates out of over 3, 000 representing political parties in contesting were elected as parliamentary representatives at three levels, in which 325 as representatives to the house of representatives, 168 as representatives to the house of nationalities and 661 as representatives to the region or state parliament.
A total of 37 political parties including 82 independents took part in the parliamentary election held across the country's seven regions and seven ethnic states.
Myanmar started its first three-chamber parliament sessions simultaneously on Jan. 31 this year and the sessions of the house of representatives (lower house) and house of nationalities (upper house) ended in the new capital of Nay Pyi Taw Wednesday evening, while the sessions of region or state parliament remain ongoing separately in 14 respective regions or states since then.
The union parliament is made up of the house of representatives and the house of nationalities, each level of which involves elected ones in the November 2010 general election and 25-percent military-nominated ones.
In Myanmar's presidential election on Feb. 4 this year, Prime Minister U Thein Sein won the presidency, while U Tin Aung Myint Oo and Dr. Sai Mauk Kham were elected as the vice presidents.
Source: Xinhua http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7330432.html
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MYANMAR: Over 30 percent of TB cases going undetected
Photo: Brennon Jones/IRIN
Some 300,000 people are believed to have TB in Myanmar
YANGON, 24 March 2011 (IRIN) - According to the most recent national tuberculosis (TB) prevalence survey in Myanmar conducted from 2009-2010 and still undergoing analysis, preliminary data show a large proportion of TB cases are going undetected.
In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) - working from 2009 estimates not yet confirmed by the latest survey data - estimated 300,000 TB cases out of a total population of 53 million, but that only 64 percent of new cases were being detected.
The latest survey by the government’s national TB programme of 51,367 people in 70 geographical areas confirmed the 2009 estimates.
Of the estimated 597 in every 100,000 people nationwide who have TB (316,410 out of 53 million), most are male living in urban areas. The number infected in urban areas is twice as high as in rural areas, as has been the case for years.
“Of the found TB cases in the [2009-2010] national prevalence survey, the majority had not sought health care for TB,” said Eva Nathanson, the TB technical officer in Myanmar’s WHO office.
It may be that patients are ignoring symptoms of their illness, are unaware about TB, live far from health care facilities, are not having their TB detected by health workers, or are being misdiagnosed, she added.
Of those who do start treatment, many abandon it before completion, making them candidates for multi-drug resistant TB, said a government clinic doctor in Mgway Division in central Myanmar who preferred anonymity.
“Many patients do not understand their TB could be resistant if they do not take drugs regularly. It is hard to convince them why they must take their drugs on a regular basis… Some patients stop taking their drugs when their health is getting better. They just come back [to treatment] when their health is bad again.”
MDR-TB
The 2009-2010 survey did not examine multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) - when patients no longer respond to the first line of TB treatment because they are infected with a drug-resistant form of the disease, or they did not follow through with the entire course of treatment, thereby rendering treatment ineffective.
Based on earlier surveys, heath experts estimated there were 9,000 people with this more difficult-to-treat form of TB in Myanmar in 2008.
The next nationwide drug resistance survey is expected to be conducted in 2011.
TB results in an estimated 1.7 million deaths each year, with the global number of new cases in 2009 (more than nine million, with 55 percent occurring in Asia) higher than at any other time in history, according to WHO.
In a study published in the British medical journal, the Lancet, for World TB Day on 24 March, the authors concluded: “Increasing rates of drug-resistant TB in eastern Europe, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa now threaten to undermine the gains made by worldwide tuberculosis control programmes.”
Classified by WHO as a high-burden TB country, Myanmar has one of the world’s highest TB prevalence rates. http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=92272
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Teenager killed in Pegu bombings
By MOE MYINT ZIN
Published: 24 March 2011
A 17-year-old boy has died and several more were left injured after a series of blasts hit the Pegu division town of Shwegyin on Monday.
Three separate explosions occurred in different locations around the town, which lies around 150km north of Burma’s economic hub, Rangoon. A Shwegyin resident said that the first went off at 5.30am local time close to a popular gold digging site, where one man was seriously injured.
The second, half an hour later on a road leading to a local army base, killed 17-year-old Htun Linn Naing, while another blast later that morning close to the same gold digging site caused minor injuries to several people.
The Burmese army’s Light Infantry Battalion 57, which operates close to Shwegyin, had put out orders restricting gold digging around Madama creek, near to where two of the explosions happened, although it is not clear whether the two are linked in any way.
No details about the bombings have been released by the Burmese government, who regularly blames attacks against civilians on opposition ethnic armies.
The spokesperson for the Karen National Union, David Thackrabaw, whose armed wing the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) has troop deployments in Pegu division, said he knew nothing of the attacks, and that KNLA troops were under orders not to plant explosives in civilian areas.
http://www.dvb.no/news/teenager-killed-in-bago-bombings/14904
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Norway ups Burma oil investments
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 24 March 2011
Figures released last week by the Norwegian government show that investments in oil and gas companies operating in Burma stand at close to $US5 billion, despite heavy opposition from rights groups.
The new sum marks an increase of around $US300 million on last year’s figures. The state-owned investment body, the Norwegian Pension Fund, holds shares in 15 energy companies in Burma, a position that the campaign group Norwegian Burma Committee this week criticised as “double morale”.
The Fund, which was founded on the country’s North Sea oil wealth, was the focus of a damming report in December last year by EarthRights International (ERI), who accused it of “contributing to grave unethical actions in Burma” through its investments.
The revelation coincides with reports of several extra-judicial executions last month close to pipelines operated by two overseas companies, the US-based Chevron and French oil giant, Total. Both are targets of investment by the Fund, which has shares of more than $US2 billion in Total and $US0.9 billon in Chevron.
It has also doubled its stake in the controversial Swiss-American drilling firm Transocean, which is being investigated by the US for its work with a consortium of Burmese companies that includes a firm owned by junta crony Steven Law, who is a target of US sanctions.
ERI, which has been monitoring the impact of the Yadana and Yetagun gas pipelines in Burma’s southern Tenasserim division, released a statement yesterday in which it claimed an ethnic Karen man had been killed by Burmese troops close to the pipelines. Both Total and Chevron, who operate the Yadana pipeline in partnership with Thailand’s state-owned PTTE and the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), are known to use Burmese army units as security for their operations.
Eight of the 15 companies, including Transocean, have seen increased investment from the Fund, while six have seen a reduction and one remains the same.
Its shares in Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries have soared from $US11.5 million to $US173 million, while its holdings in PetroChina now top $US100 million, information obtained by ERI shows.
What these companies have in common is their involvement in the controversial Shwe dual pipeline project, which will transport Burmese gas and Middle Eastern and African oil across the breadth of the country to southern China. The campaigning group Shwe Gas Movement (SGM) claims the project has dramatically increased military presence along the pipeline route and caused the forcible relocation of hundreds of civilians.
Matthew Smith, senior consultant at ERI, said the increase in investments by the Pension Fund “is indiscriminate of the ethical considerations – that [the Fund doesn’t] determine whether or not to increase their holdings based on ethnical decisions”.
Significant chunks of the Shwe pipeline and the Yadana-Yetagun pipelines, which transport gas to Thailand, run through military zones, where incidents such as the killing of the Karen man in February are common. Smith said however that such risks are an issue “these companies have consistently tried to deny in communications with their investors and other interested parties”.
The Pension Fund in March 2007 disinvested from the Chinese company Dongfeng following evidence that it had been supplying trucks to the Burmese military.
Norway was one of the first countries to accept Burmese refugees following the 1988 uprising, and in 1991 awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
http://www.dvb.no/news/norway-ups-burma-oil-investments/14919
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Burma sanctions must continue: Suu Kyi
Suu Kyi is pushing for change in Burma. [ABC]
Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi says sanctions on the Burmese military regime should remain.
Her comments to a German newspaper come ahead of a decision next month by the European Union on whether to continue sanctions.
Aung San Suu Kyi says sanctions should only be lifted when there are changes in Burma.
EU diplomats held talks with Ms Suu Kyi last week on a possible policy change.
Global think-tank International Crisis Group has recently described the sanctions as 'counterproductive'. http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201103/3172722.htm?desktop
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THE DIPLOMAT
Burma’s Parliament Revelations
By Mong Palatino
March 24, 2011
Burma’s Amyotha Hluttaw (Upper House) and Pyithu Hluttaw (Lower House) have been holding sessions since January 31, but it wasn’t until two weeks ago that members were allowed to question government ministers. The transcript of the meetings published by the state-owned paper New Light of Myanmar provides a peek inside the parliament.
So what have we discovered so far? As expected, the debates were non-antagonistic in a parliament dominated by the junta-backed party. Meanwhile, the minority had to submit questions in advance, which allowed government ministers to prepare well-researched reports on all issues raised by opposition MPs.
But the statistics and other information given by the junta’s ministers also turned out to be unexpectedly useful in determining the true situation in the country. And, rather than improving the image of the new government, they quite surprisingly ended up validating fears about the continuing suffering of Burma’s citizens under the insane and brutal leadership of the junta.
For example, the minister for agriculture and irrigation may have assured the parliament that most of the agricultural dikes and dams that were destroyed by Cyclone Nargis in 2008 and Cyclone Giri last year have already been rehabilitated, but his report also highlighted how the junta’s denial about the scale of destruction was misleading. We also learned that 37 percent of the dikes in Ayeyawady and Yangon regions and in Rakhine state are still damaged, as are 46 percent in An township, and 42 percent in Yanbye township.
Yet despite the slow pace of reconstruction efforts in the Nargis-hit regions, the government had the audacity to boast that ‘rescue and rehabilitation tasks have achieved success’ and that other countries are using Burma as a model for their post-disaster efforts.
This isn’t all. The health minister claimed that Burma is providing free medical services for the poor, while the finance and revenue minister argued that increasing the salaries of government personnel isn’t a priority because wages have already been raised nine times since 1972.
A close examination of the transcript of proceedings also provided a better understanding of the junta’s censorship network. Asked by an MP to explain why a manuscript submitted to the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD) hadn’t been approved, the information minister was forced to outline the necessary procedures for manuscripts to be published in Burma. It was made clear that a manuscript first has to be scrutinized by junior PSRD officers before being submitted to the deputy director and then go to the division director for approval. Following this, the relevant division submits the material to the appropriate ministry for comments.
The final decision is made by the information minister. It’s easy to understand now why there are only five newspapers in Burma.
The bicameral parliament may be an institution that’s manipulated by the junta, but so far it has been providing us with junta-sanctioned reports about the deteriorating conditions inside the country which the pro-democracy movement could use to push for more democratic and substantial reforms.
http://the-diplomat.com/asean-beat/2011/03/24/burma%E2%80%99s-parliament-revelations/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+the-diplomat+%28The+Diplomat+RSS%29
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