အားလံုးမဂၤလာပါ။ ဒီပြဲကို လာေရာက္ခ်ီးျမႇင့္တဲ့အတြက္ အားလံုးကိုေက်းဇူး အထူးတင္ပါတယ္။ ဒီႏွစ္ ၂၀၁၁ ခုႏွစ္ဟာ
၁ ဂဏန္းေတြအတြက္ ထူးျခားတဲ့ ႏွစ္တစ္ႏွစ္ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ၁-၁-၁၁၊ ၁၁-၁-၁၁၊ ၁-၁၁-၁၁၊ ၁၁-၁၁-၁၁ ၁ ဂဏန္းေတြ
ႀကီးစိုးတဲ့ႏွစ္မွာ Eleven Media Group ရဲ႕ ၁၁ ႏွစ္ျပည့္ အခမ္းအနား လုပ္ခြင့္ရတဲ့အတြက္ ကြၽန္ေတာ့္အေနနဲ႔မ်ားစြာ
ဂုဏ္ယူမိပါတယ္။ ဒီပြဲကိုတက္ေရာက္လာၾကတဲ့သူေတြဟာ Eleven Media Group ရဲ႕မိသားစုေတြ၊
ခင္မင္ရင္းႏွီးသူေတြအျပင္ Eleven Media Group ကိုနည္းမ်ဳိးစံုနဲ႔ အကူအညီေပးခဲ့ၾကတဲ့သူေတြ၊ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ
ႏိုင္ငံေရး၊ စီးပြားေရး၊ လူမႈေရး၊ က်န္းမာေရး၊ စာေပ၊ အႏုပညာနဲ႔ သတင္းမီဒီယာ နယ္ပယ္အသီးသီးမွာ မိမိတို႔ရဲ႕
အရည္အခ်င္းနဲ႔ လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈမ်ားနဲ႔ပတ္သက္ၿပီး လူအမ်ားအတြက္ ေလးစားဂုဏ္ယူေလာက္တဲ့ အရည္အခ်င္း၊
စိတ္ေနစိတ္ထား၊ လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈေတြရွိသူေတြကို ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ေရြးခ်ယ္ ဖိတ္ၾကားခဲ့တာပဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ၁၁
ႏွစ္ျပည့္ေျမာက္ပြဲလို႔ ဆိုရေပမယ့္ တကယ္ေတာ့ ၾကြေရာက္ခ်ီးျမႇင့္သူေတြရဲ႕ လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈေတြ၊ သူတို႔ရဲ႕
စိတ္ထားသေဘာထားေတြ၊ သူတို႔ရဲ႕အတိတ္၊ အနာဂတ္၊ ပစၥပၸဳန္မွာရွိေနတဲ့ သူတို႔ရဲ႕စြမ္းေဆာင္ႏိုင္မႈေတြကို ဂုဏ္ယူ
အသိအမွတ္ျပဳတဲ့အေနနဲ႔ ကြၽန္ေတာ္ဖိတ္ၾကားၿပီး ျပဳလုပ္တဲ့ပြဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အခုတက္ေရာက္လာၾကတဲ့သူေတြဟာ
သက္ဆိုင္ရာနယ္ပယ္ အသီးသီးမွာ အမွန္တကယ္ေအာင္ျမင္ၿပီးေတာ့ အခ်ိန္ရွားပါးတဲ့ၾကားက
ဒီပြဲကိုတက္ေရာက္ခဲ့တဲ့အတြက္ အားလံုးကို အထူးပဲေက်းဇူးတင္ရွိပါတယ္။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ Eleven Media Group ရဲ႕
ေရွ႕လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္နဲ႔ပတ္သက္ၿပီး ကြၽန္ေတာ္ရွင္းျပခ်င္ပါတယ္။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ဟာ သတင္းစာထုတ္ဖို႔အဆင္သင့္
ျဖစ္ေနပါတယ္။ ဒီမိုကေရစီႏိုင္ငံတစ္ႏိုင္ငံ၊ (သို႔မဟုတ္) ဒီမိုကေရစီမရတဲ့ ဗီယက္နမ္လိုႏိုင္ငံမ်ဳိးမွာေတာင္
ပုဂၢလိကသတင္းစာရွိပါတယ္။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ သတင္းစာထုတ္လုိ႔မရတဲ့အခါမွာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔အေနနဲ႔
ႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕လက္ရွိအေျခအေန၊ ျဖတ္သန္းလာတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းအရာ၊ လက္ရွိစာဖတ္ပရိသတ္ေတြရဲ႕ endurance နဲ႔
ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔အေနနဲ႔ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံလိုပဲ၊ ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံလိုပဲျဖစ္ျဖစ္ ဒီလိုလြတ္လပ္မႈမ်ဳိးကိုေတာ့ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔
ခ်က္ျခင္းေတာင္းဆိုေနတာေတာ့ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ သီးျခားဆန္တဲ့ ထိန္းခ်ဳပ္မႈအနည္းငယ္ရွိတဲ့ ထိန္းခ်ဳပ္မႈရွိတဲ့
သတင္းမီဒီယာလြတ္လပ္ခြင့္မ်ဳိးကို ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ေတာင္းဆိုေနတာပဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒါမွသာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕
လက္ရွိေရေျမသဘာ၀၊ ေလာေလာဆယ္ျဖစ္ပ်က္ေနတဲ့ လုိက္ေလ်ာညီေထြရွိမွာပဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ေနာက္သတင္းစာအျပင္ ဒုတိယအလုပ္က ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔အေနနဲ့ News Channel တစ္ခုျပဳလုပ္ႏိုင္တဲ့ အရည္အေသြး
ႏွစ္ႏွစ္အတြင္းမွာရွိေနပါတယ္။ လြတ္လပ္ၿပီး တာ၀န္ယူတတ္တဲ့ သတင္းမီဒီယာတစ္ခုဟာ ႏိုင္ငံအတြက္ေရာ၊
ျပည္သူလူထုအတြက္ေရာ တိုင္းျပည္ရဲ႕ အနာဂတ္အတြက္ပါ ဘယ္လိုလုပ္ေဆာင္မလဲဆိုတာ သက္ေသျပၿပီးျဖစ္သလို
ထပ္မံသက္ေသျပဖို႔အတြက္လဲ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ News Media ကိုခ်ဲ႕ထြင္လိုပါတယ္။ အေရးအႀကီးဆံုး ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ရဲ႕
ေရွ႕လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္ကိုေျပာရမယ္ဆိုရင္ ေနာက္ ၃ ႏွစ္ ၄ ႏွစ္အၾကာမွာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ တစ္ဦးတည္း ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔
ကုမၸဏီတစ္ခုတည္း ပိုင္ဆိုင္ထားတဲ့ ေနရာကေန အမ်ားျပည္သူပိုင္ဆိုင္တဲ့ လုပ္ငန္းအျဖစ္ publicize
လုပ္ပစ္မယ္လို႔ဆိုတာကို ဒီေနရာကေန ကတိျပဳေျပာၾကားလိုပါတယ္။ ဒီလိုလုပ္ရတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းအရင္းက
ဒီအာင္ျမင္မႈေတြ၊ ဒီေငြေၾကးေတြမရခင္က ကြၽန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ လူသံုးေယာက္နဲ႔ပဲစခဲ့တာပါ။ ဒီေအာင္ျမင္မႈေတြ၊
ဒီေငြေၾကးေတြ ရရွိခဲ့မယ္လို႔လဲ မထင္ခဲ့ပါဘူး။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္စီးပြားေရးလုပ္ခဲ့တယ္။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္စီးပြားေရးနဲ႔ ေငြရွာခဲ့တယ္။
ဒါေပမယ့္ ဒီလုပ္ငန္းနဲ႔ေငြအမ်ားႀကီးရလာမယ္လုိ႔လဲ မေမွ်ာ္လင့္ပါဘူး။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ဒီလုပ္ငန္းနဲ႔ပတ္သက္ရင္
ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ပိုင္ဆိုင္တာဟာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တစ္ေယာက္တည္းပိုင္ဆိုင္တယ္လို႔ ဒါမွမဟုတ္ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔အဖြဲ႔ပဲ
ပိုင္ဆိုင္တယ္လို႔ မသတ္မွတ္ပါဘူး။ ဒါဟာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ဆီမွာရွိေနတဲ့ ျပည္သူလူထု ဒါမွမဟုတ္
ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ကိုအားေပးတဲ့ ပရိသတ္၊ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ႏိုင္ငံက ပိုင္ဆိုင္သင့္တဲ့ News Media တစ္ခုျဖစ္သင့္တယ္လို႔
ယူဆတဲ့အတြက္ publicize အမ်ားပိုင္ကုမၸဏီအျဖစ္ ေျပာင္းလဲသြားဖို႔ အစီအစဥ္ ရွိတယ္လို႔ဆိုတာကို ဒီေနရာက
အာမခံေျပာၾကားလိုပါတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံတစ္ႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ ေျပာင္းလဲမႈဟာ မ႑ိဳင္ႀကီး သံုးရပ္အေရးပါသလို စတုတၴမ႑ိဳင္အနနဲ႔
အေရးပါတယ္ဆိုတာကို Eleven Media Group အေနနဲ႔ အခိုင္အမာသက္ေသျပႏိုင္ပါတယ္။ အခု ၾကြေရာက္လာတဲ့
ပုဂၢဳိလ္အားလံုးဟာ သက္ဆိုင္ရာနယ္ပယ္ အသီးသီးမွာ မိမိတို႔အရည္အခ်င္းနဲ႔ မိမိတို႔ရဲ႕ လုပ္ေဆာင္ခဲ့မႈေတြ၊
မိမိတို့ရဲ႔စိတ္ေနသေဘာထားေတြ၊ မိမိတို႔ရဲ႕ စြန္႔လႊတ္အနစ္နာခံ ကိုယ္က်ဳိးစြန္႔ခဲ့မႈေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီး
မွတ္ေက်ာက္တင္ႏိုင္ခဲ့သူေတြျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီမွတ္ေက်ာက္ တင္ႏိုင္တဲ့သူေတြဟာ တိုင္းျပည္ကို တကယ္ခ်စ္ျမတ္ႏိုးၿပီး
အမ်ားျပည္သူ အက်ဳိးစီးပြားကို အမွန္တကယ္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ႏိုင္မယ့္သူေတြလို႔လည္း ကြၽန္ေတာ္ယံုၾကည္ပါတယ္။
ဒါေၾကာင့္လဲ ဖိတ္စာမွာကို ဂုဏ္ယူေလးစားစြာနဲ႔ ဖိတ္ၾကားခဲ့တာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဓိကတင္ျပခ်င္တာကေတာ့
ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏိုင္ငံမွာ ေနာက္လာမယ့္ အႏွစ္ ၂၀၊ ၃၀ အတြင္း အဓိကရင္ဆိုင္ႏိုင္ရမယ့္ ျပႆနာႏွစ္ခုနဲ႔
ပတ္သက္ၿပီးတင္ျပခ်င္ပါတယ္။ နံပါတ္ ၁ ျပႆနာကေတာ့ Human Resources ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာနိမ့္က်ခဲ့ တဲ့ ပညာေရးနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီး ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏိုင္ငံမွာ Human Resource
ျပႆနာျဖစ္ေနပါတယ္။ စီးပြားေရးလုပ္ငန္းရွင္ေတြ၊ ဌာနဆိုင္ရာအႀကီးအကဲ ေတြသိမွာပါ။ ကိုယ္အင္တာဗ်ဴးလုပ္ရင္
အင္တာဗ်ဴးလုပ္ရမယ့္ အရည္အေသြးမီတဲ့ ပုဂၢဳိလ္ဘယ္ႏွေယာက္မ်ားရပါသလဲ။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ သတင္းမီဒီယာမွာကို
အိမ္နီးနားခ်င္းႏိုင္ငံ ငါးႏိုင္ငံကိုေတာင္မသိတဲ့သူေတြ အမ်ားႀကီးျဖစ္ေနပါတယ္။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေအာင္ဆန္းအသက္
ဘယ္ေလာက္မွာ က်ဆံုးသြားလဲ ဆိုတာမေျပာႏိုင္တဲ့သူေတြ အမ်ားႀကီးျဖစ္ေနပါတယ္။ ဒါလက္ေတြ႔ႀကံဳေနရတဲ့
သတင္းေထာက္ေလာကမွာကို ဒီေလာက္ျဖစ္ေနပါတယ္။ ဒီလုပ္ငန္းဆိုင္ရာ မကြၽမ္းက်င္မႈေတြက
နယ္ပယ္အသီးသီးမွာျပန္႔ေနပါတယ္။ တကယ္ကြၽမ္းက်င္တဲ့သူ၊ တကယ္ထူးခြၽန္တဲ့သူ ဘယ္ေရာက္ကုန္လဲ။ တကယ္
အလုပ္လုပ္ႏိုင္တဲ့သူ တကယ္အလုပ္လုပ္ႏိုင္တဲ႕ Working Force ေတြဘယ္ေရာက္ကုန္လဲ။ အခုလယ္ေတြထဲမွာ
လုပ္သားရွားပါးတဲ့ျပႆနာေတြ႔ေနၿပီ။ အလုပ္ၾကမ္းသမားရွားပါးတဲ့ ျပႆနာေတြ႔ေနၿပီး ေတာရြာေတြမွာ
တကယ္အလုပ္လုပ္ႏိုင္တဲ့အရြယ္ေကာင္းေတြမရွိေတာ့ဘူး။ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၂၀ ေက်ာ္ ၃၀ အတြင္းမွာ
ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏိုင္ငံဟာ လူဦးေရေလးသန္းရဲ႕ေျခာက္သန္းၾကား ႏိုင္ငံျခားကို ေရာက္ေနၿပီး တခ်ဳိ႕က
ႏိုင္ငံေရးေၾကာင့္ျဖစ္ျဖစ္၊ ပညာေရးေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ျဖစ္၊ စီးပြားေရးေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ျဖစ္ ႏိုင္ငံကို စြန္႔ခြာသြားၾကတယ္။
ဒီျပႆနာဟာ ေသးတယ္လို႔ဆိုရေပမယ့္ တကယ္ႏိုင္ငံကို ႀကီးပြားဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္ေအာင္ ေဆာင္ရြက္မယ္ဆိုရင္
ဒီျပႆနာဟာ အရမ္းႀကီးပါတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံျခားကို ေရာက္ေနတဲ့သူေတြ မျပန္လာဘဲနဲ႔ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏိုင္ငံ ဟာ
ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္တဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံတစ္ခု ထူေထာင္ႏိုင္ဖို႔ မလြယ္ပါဘူး။ ဥပမာ- နမူနာအားျဖင့္ ဗီယက္နမ္ႏိုင္ငံဟာ သူတို႔ႏိုင္ငံက
ထြက္သြားတဲ့သူေတြ ျပန္လာႏိုင္ေအာင္ အေျခအေနေကာင္းေတြ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရး၊ စီးပြားေရး အေျခအေနေကာင္းေတြ
ဖန္တီးေပးတဲ့အတြက္ ဗီယက္နမ္ႏိုင္ငံက လွ်င္ျမန္စြာ တိုးတက္လာခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္မို႔လုိ႔ ဒီမွာရွိတဲ့
ပညာေရးစနစ္ကို ျမႇင့္တင္႐ုံတင္မကဘဲ ႏုိင္ငံျခားမွာရွိေနတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းေၾကာင္းေၾကာင့္ ထြက္သြားတဲ့သူေတြ
ျပန္လာႏုိင္ေအာင္ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ႏုိင္ငံေရး၊ စီးပြားေရး၊ လူမႈေရး အေျခအေနေကာင္းေတြ ဖန္တီးေပး ဖို႔လိုအပ္ပါတယ္။
ဒီႏုိင္ငံကို မလႊဲမေရွာင္သာဘဲ ထြက္ခြာသြားရေပမယ့္ ျပန္လာခ်င္တဲ့သူေတြဟာ သူတို႔ဆီမွာ ၉၅ ရာခုိင္ႏႈန္းေလာက္
ရွိေနပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္မို႔လို႔ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ Human Resources ျပႆနာကို ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၂၀၊ ၃၀ အတြင္းမွာ
တက္လာမယ့္ ျပႆနာကို ေျဖရွင္းဖုိ႔အတြက္ ၀ိုင္း၀န္း အေျဖရွာစဥ္းစားရပါမယ္။ ဒုတိယအခ်က္ကေတာ့
ကမၻာ့သမုိင္းကိုၾကည့္ရင္ သမုိင္းအစဥ္အလာအားျဖင့္ ႏုိင္ငံႀကီးေတြ အင္အားႀကီးလာရင္Super Power ျဖစ္လာရင္
သမုိင္းမွာ ႏုိင္ငံငယ္ေတြ စေတးခံရပါတယ္။ ၁၉ ရာစုႏွစ္မွာ ဥေရာပမွာ စက္မႈေတာ္လွန္ေရး ျဖစ္တယ္။
စက္မႈေတာ္လွန္ေရး အက်ဳိးဆက္ေၾကာင့္ အဂၤလန္တို႔ ျပင္သစ္တုိ႔ အရမ္းခ်မ္းသာလာၾကတယ္။ ကိုလိုနီခ်ဲ႕တယ္။
အာဖရိကရဲ႕ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ အာရွႏုိင္ငံေတြ စေတးခံရတယ္။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ကြၽန္ျဖစ္ခဲ့တယ္။ ၂၀ ရာစုႏွစ္က်ေတာ့
Super Powerအျဖစ္ ဆိုဗီယက္ရဲ႕ အေမရိကန္တို႔ ျဖစ္လာတယ္။ သူတို႔ၾကားမွာ ေတာင္ဗီယက္နမ္၊ ေျမာက္
ဗီယက္နမ္၊ ေတာင္ကိုရီးယား၊ ေျမာက္ကိုရီးယား၊ အေရွ႕ ဂ်ာမနီ၊ အေနာက္ ဂ်ာမနီ၊ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏုိင္ငံေတာင္
အဖ်ားခတ္ခံရတယ္လို႔ ကြန္ျမဴနစ္၊ ဆိုရွယ္လစ္၊ အကြဲအျပဲရဲ႕ ျပည္တြင္းစစ္က ႏွစ္သက္ၾကာရွည္ခဲ့တယ္။ ၂၁ ရာစုမွာ
Super Power ျဖစ္မွာဘယ္သူလဲဆိုတာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တုိ႔အားလံုး သိၿပီးသားျဖစ္မွာပါ။ Super Power ျဖစ္လာမယ့္
ႏိုင္ငံတစ္ႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕အနီးနားမွာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ကိုယ္ခံအားမရွိဘဲနဲ႔ ရပ္တည္လို႔ မရႏုိင္ပါဘူး။ ေငြေၾကး
အရမ္းခ်မ္းသာလာၿပီးေတာ့ အင္အားႀကီးမားတဲ့ ႏုိင္ငံတစ္ႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕အနားမွာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ရဲ႕ဆင္းရဲတဲ့ ျပည္သူေတြက
ဘယ္လိုမွခုခံႏုိင္စြမ္းမရွိပါဘူး။ လူကုန္ကူးခံရတယ္။ ေရာင္းစားခံရတယ္။ ဒါေတြအားလံုးဟာ စီမံခ်က္ရဲ႕လည္း
လုပ္လို႔မရပါဘူး။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏုိင္ငံမွာ ကိုယ္ခံအား တကယ္ရွိမွပဲ လုပ္ေဆာင္လို႔ရမွာပါ။ ဒီလိုကိုယ္ခံအား
လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈမရွိဘူးဆိုရင္ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏုိင္ငံဟာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၂၀၊ ၃၀ ေတာင္ မၾကာပါဘူး။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔
အေျခအေနေတြ ဆိုးရြားသြားႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ ေငြေၾကးတစ္ခုတည္းတင္ မဟုတ္ဘဲနဲ႔ ေယာက်္ား၊ မိန္းမ
အခ်ဳိးအစားကြာဟမႈေၾကာင့္ တစ္ႏွစ္ကို သတို႔သမီး သန္း ၂၀ လိုအပ္တဲ့ ႏုိင္ငံတစ္ႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ေဘးမွာ
ရပ္တည္ေနထိုင္ရတာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔အတြက္ အႏၱရာယ္အမ်ားႀကီးရွိပါတယ္။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ Energy အားလံုးကို
ေရာင္းစားၿပီးေတာ့ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ ဘယ္လိုစက္မႈ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္ေအာင္ လုပ္ေဆာင္မွာလဲ။ ဒီလိုေျပာရျခင္း
အေၾကာင္းရင္းက ႏွစ္ႏုိင္ငံဆက္ဆံေရး ပ်က္ျပားေစလိုတဲ့ ဆႏၵမရွိပါဘူး။ လူမ်ဳိးေရးမုန္းတီးမႈလည္းမရွိပါဘူး။
ကိုယ့္ႏုိင္ငံကိုကာကြယ္လိုတဲ့ဆႏၵ၊ ကိုယ့္ႏုိင္ငံကို အဓြန္႔ရွည္ တည္တံ့လိုတဲ့ဆႏၵ၊ ကိုယ္ႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ လြတ္လပ္ေရး
တည္တံ့ခိုင္ျမဲလိုတဲ့ ဆႏၵပဲရွိပါတယ္။ ဒီအႏၱရာယ္ကို ကာကြယ္ဖုိ႔အတြက္ တစ္ခုတည္းေသာ
လုပ္ေဆာင္ႏုိင္တဲ့အရာဟာ ဒီႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ ဆက္ဆံေရး ပ်က္ျပားသြားတဲ့ မုန္းတီးစိတ္ျဖစ္ဖုိ႔ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ဟာ
ႏုိင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအ၀ိုင္းထဲကို ျပန္လည္၀င္ေရာက္ဖုိ႔ပဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ႏုိင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအ၀ိုင္းျဖစ္တဲ့ အာဆီယံ၊
အေနာက္အုပ္စုႏုိင္ငံေတြရဲ႕ မဆက္ဆံဘဲနဲ႔ ေနထုိင္ခဲ့မယ္ဆုိရင္ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏုိင္ငံ အေျခအေန
ဆိုးရြားသြားႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ ဥပမာ တျခားမၾကည့္ပါနဲ႔ ဧရာ၀တီျမစ္ကိစၥ၊ ဧရာ၀တီျမစ္ရဲ႕ ပတ္သတ္လို႔ရွိရင္
ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ဟာ ပညာရွင္ေတြ မဟုတ္တဲ့အတြက္ ပညာရွင္တြ ထပ္မံတြက္ခ်က္ဖုိ႔ လိုတာကေတာ့ ဒီလိုဆက္လက္ၿပီး
လုပ္ေဆာင္မယ္ဆိုရင္ ေနာင္အႏွစ္ ၂၀၊ ၃၀ မွာ ဧရာ၀တီျမစ္၀ကြၽန္းေပၚ ပေပ်ာက္သြားမယ္။
ပင္လယ္ေရမ်က္နာျပင္ဟာ ေနာင္အႏွစ္ ၂၀၊ ၃၀ မွာ တစ္ေပတက္မယ္။ ျမစ္ေခ်ာင္းေတြေကာ လာမယ္။
စပါးစိုက္ဧကေတြ ေလ်ာ့လာမယ္။ ေရခ်ဳိရရွိမႈေတြ ေလ်ာ့လာမယ္။ စပါးေတြဟာ ဧရာ၀တီျမစ္၀ကြၽန္းေပၚမွာ
မထြက္ႏုိင္ေတာ့ဘူး။ ဒီျပႆနာကို ဘယ္လိုရွင္းမလဲ၊ ျမစ္၀ါျမစ္ရဲ႕ အဓိကျမစ္ႀကီးေတြမွာ ဆည္ႀကီးေတြ
တည္ေဆာက္တဲ့အတြက္ ဒါေတာင္မွ ဥေရာပက ပညာရွင္ေတြ ေခၚေဆာက္တာေတာင္ သူတို႔ Problem
ျဖစ္တဲ့အတြက္ ၿမိဳ႕ႀကီးေတြ ေရလႊမ္းတယ္။ မႏၱေလးၿမိဳ႕ေရလႊမ္းရင္ ဘယ္လိုလုပ္မလဲ။ မႏၱေလးၿမိဳ႕ဟာ ဧရာ၀
တီျမစ္ေရျပင္အထက္ စိုးရိမ္ေရအမွတ္က ႏွစ္ေပပဲရွိတယ္။ ဒီလိုျပႆနာမ်ဳိးေတြကို Transparency ရွိရွိ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔
ေရကာတာေဆာက္တယ္။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ႏုိင္ငံအတြက္ ဘယ္ေလာက္ အက်ဳိးအျမတ္ရွိမလဲ။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ေရရွည္
ဘယ္ေလာက္ဆံုး႐ႈံးသြားမလဲ။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ဒါေတြ တြက္ခ်က္ဖို႔ လိုပါတယ္။ ဒါေတြဟာ ၾကည့္လိုက္ရင္
ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏုိင္ငံဟာ အင္အားႀကီးႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ ပူးတြဲယွဥ္ေနထုိင္တဲ့အခါ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ ဘယ္လိုလုပ္ေဆာင္ရမယ္၊
ဘယ္လိုကာကြယ္ရမယ္၊ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ လြတ္လပ္ေရးကို ဘယ္လိုထိန္းသိမ္း ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ရမလဲဆိုတာ
ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ ဂုဏ္သိကၡာကို ဘယ္လိုထိန္းသိမ္း ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ရမလဲဆိုတာ ထင္ရွားပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္မို႔
ႏုိင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအ၀ုိင္းကို ၀င္ေရာက္ေတာ့မယ္ဆုိရင္ ႏုိင္ငံတကာစံႏႈန္းေတြရဲ႕ ညီညြတ္ေအာင္ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔
လုပ္ေဆာင္ရပါမယ္။ ႏုိင္ငံတကာစံႏႈန္းေတြရဲ႕ ၀င္ေရာက္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ဖုိ႔ဆိုရင္ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တုိ႔အေနနဲ႔ ညီညြတ္မႈက
သိပ္အေရးႀကီးပါတယ္။ အမ်ဳိးသား စည္းလံုးညီညြတ္ေရးအရ ျပန္လည္တည္ေဆာက္ဖုိ႔က
အမွန္တကယ္အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ အခန္းက႑ကို ေရာက္ရွိေနပါၿပီ။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ အမ်ဳိးသားစည္းလံုးညီၫြတ္ေရးကို
လုပ္ေဆာင္ႏိုင္မယ့္ အရာအားလံုး ကို လုပ္ေဆာင္ၿပီးေတာ့ ႏုိင္ငံကို ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္ေအာင္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ဖုိ႔
လာတဲ့သူေတြေရာ၊ အစိုးရေရာ၊ သက္ဆုိင္ရာ အတုိက္အခံ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းေတြကိုေရာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္ဒီေနရာက
တိုက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕အနာဂတ္ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ရဲ႕ သားသမီးေျမးျမစ္ေတြရဲ႕ အနာဂတ္အတြက္
လုပ္ေဆာင္ဖုိ႔ တုိက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ ေနာက္ဆံုး နိဂံုးခ်ဳပ္အေနနဲ႔ ေျပာရရင္ တ႐ုတ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္ႀကီး တိန္႔ေရွာင္ဖိန္
ေျပာတဲ့ စကားတစ္ခြန္းလိုပါပဲ။ ‘ျပတင္းတံခါးေတြ ကိုဖြင့္ထားလိုက္ပါ၊ သန္႔ရွင္းတဲ့ေလရဲ႕အတူ ျခင္ေတြ၊ ပိုးမႊားေတြ ၀
င္လာပါလိမ့္မယ္’။ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ဒီေနရာမွာ တိန္႔ေရွာင္ဖိန္စကားကို ထပ္ျဖည့္စြက္ ၿပီးေျပာရရင္ ပိတ္ထားတာၾကာၿပီ
ျဖစ္တဲ့တံခါးကို ဖြင့္မယ္ဆိုရင္ ေလေကာင္းေလသန္႔ နဲ႔အတူ ျခင္၊ ယင္၊ ပိုးမႊားေတြ၀င္မယ္။ ဒါမွမဟုတ္ဘဲ မပိတ္ဘဲနဲ႔
ဖြင့္လိုက္ပိတ္လိုက္ လုပ္မယ္။ ဒါမွမဟုတ္ နည္းနည္းေလးပဲ ဖြင့္မယ္ဆိုရင္ေတာ့ ေလေကာင္းေလသန္႔မရဘဲ ျခင္၊
ယင္။ ပိုးမႊားေတြပဲ ၀င္လာပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္မို႔လို႔ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္အစိုးရကိုလည္း တုိက္တြန္းခ်င္တာက တံခါးကို
ရဲရဲတင္းတင္း ဖြင့္လိုက္ပါ။ ႏုိင္ငံအတြက္ ျဖစ္လာမယ့္ ျပႆနာေတြ အားလံုးကို ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ ဒီေနရာကေန ရဲရဲႀကီး
ကာကြယ္သြားမွာပါ။ ရဲရဲတင္းတင္း ဖြင့္တဲ့တံခါးေတြရဲ႕ေနာက္ကြယ္မွာ ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ အစိုးရကိုအားလံုး ကူညီသြားဖုိ႔
အဆင္သင့္ရွိေနတယ္ဆိုတာ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္အစိုးရကို ေျပာၾကားရင္း နိဂံုးခ်ဳပ္ပါတယ္။
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Eleven Media Group ၏ Chairman & CEO ေဒါက္တာ သန္းထြဋ္ေအာင္ မွ ေက်းဇူးတင္ စကားႏွင့္ ေရွ႕ဆက္မည့္ မူ၀ါဒ လမ္းစဥ္မ်ားအား ရွင္းလင္းေျပာၾကားစဥ္
News & Articles on Burma-Wednesday 8 June, 2011
News & Articles on Burma
Wednesday 8 June, 2011
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Myanmar port to displace 10,000 people
Italian-Thai Lowers Myanmar Project Cost Estimate
ITD kicks off Asian roadshow to seek partners for Dawei
EU May Consider Possibility Of Allowing Myanmar To Join Asean Peers In FTA Talks
Rising Myanmar currency adds to economic hardship
ILO strives to eliminate forced labour in Burma
Govt. Pressure Wrecks NLD Study Program
Burmese Censors Ease Conditions
Thai Developer Touts Burma Port Project
Forced labour complaints soar in Burma
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Jun 8, 2011
Myanmar port to displace 10,000 people
BANGKOK - THE Thai industrial giant behind a controversial deep-sea port project in Myanmar said on Wednesday that 10,000 people would have to leave their homes to make way for the development.
Ital-Thai Group is in charge of building and attracting investors to the Dawei Development Project, which is set to transform a sleepy strip of southern coastline with a deep-sea port and 250 sq km industrial estate.
The company confirmed the project would uproot local people, but insisted the villagers would be well catered for with new settlements.
'There is a population of only a little more than 10,000 people that have to be relocated,' said Premchai Kanasuta, president of Italian-Thai Development, the subsidiary in charge of the project.
Concerns about human rights and the environment have been raised about the scale and nature of the port plans because of a lack of regulation in Myanmar, which remains military-dominated despite a new nominally-civilian parliament.
The 10-year, US$8 billion (S$9.8 billion) project will include a steel mill, fertiliser plant, a coal-fired power station and oil refinery. -- AFP http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_677645.html
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 As of 9:00 PM
Italian-Thai Lowers Myanmar Project Cost Estimate
By PIYARAT SETTHASIRIPHAIBOON
BANGKO—Italian-Thai Development PCL President Premchai Karnasuta said Wednesday the investment cost of a planned infrastructure project in Myanmar is likely to be less than the $8 billion it had expected.
He said the firm's financial adviser, Siam Commercial Bank PCL, is working on the financing structure of the project and expects to determine the size of the loans needed for the project in the next few months.
The cost of building a deep-sea port, roads and railways in the first stage of infrastructure development at the 250-square-kilometer Dawei Special Economic Zone in southern Myanmar will cost less than the $4 billion earlier projected, Mr. Premchai told reporters.
The projected $4 billion construction costs for other infrastructure projects the firm will build in the special economic zone, including an industrial estate and a waste-water treatment system, will be reviewed later, he said.
Mr. Premchai said financial institutions from Japan, China and elsewhere have shown an interest in the projects, despite Myanmar remaining under sanctions from the international community. "They can fund the projects through Thailand," he said.
He said infrastructure construction at the special zone is likely to start early next year and finish in late 2015.
Italian-Thai expects to reduce its stake in its wholly owned Dawei Development Co., the developer of the economic zone, to 51% in a move to raise funds.
The firm will meet Japanese investors and business operators next week, followed by China and South Korea to attract partners to develop the international industrial hub.
Italian-Thai expects to hold a 10%-30% stake in each project built after the infrastructure is completed, through Daiwei Development, Mr. Premchai said.
The developer expects to build a power-generating plant in Dawei that will supply 6,000 megawatts of electric power to business operations in the area, Mr. Premchai said. The power plant is likely to need a total investment of $15 billion and the firm is seeking partners to operate the plant, he added.
PTT PCL, Electricity Generating PCL, Ratchaburi Electricity Holding PCL, state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, and power-generating firms from Japan and China have expressed an interest, Mr. Premchai said.
Italian-Thai is also in talks to sell an additional 3,600 megawatts of power to EGAT from the plant, and this project may need about $5 billion of investment, he said.
The construction of the port in Dawei would markedly cut transportation costs to Europe as ships could bypass Indonesian waters.
Italian-Thai signed a deal with the Myanmar government in 2010 to build roads linking Thailand to Dawei, a deep-sea port, a power plant, and an industrial estate. Under the agreement, Italian-Thai has the rights to a 75-year leasehold on 27,200 hectares of land.
Dawei is 300 kilometers from the Thai capital of Bangkok, and Italian-Thai plans to develop it into a trading hub on the Andaman Sea. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576373132737217912.html
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ITD kicks off Asian roadshow to seek partners for Dawei
By Somluck Srimalee
The Nation
ItalianThai Development will take a roadshow to China, Japan, South Korea and India this month in a bid to find strategic partners that will hold a 49percent stake in the concession to develop the multibilliondollar Dawei project in Burma.
The roadshow kicked off in Bangkok yesterday.
ITD currently holds a 100percent stake with registered capital of Bt500 mil?lion in Dawei Development, which has a 75year concession to develop a Dawei deepsea port, an industrial estate and a transborder corridor link on a 250squarekilometre site in Burma's Dawei district.
ITD president Premchai Karnasuta said the company is prepared to reduce its stake in Dawei Development to 51 per cent, as it will seek strategic partners over?seas for the remaining 49 per cent.
The overall Dawei project requires an investment budget of more than US$8 billion (about Bt240 billion).
ITD has appointed Siam Commercial Bank as its financial adviser and lead manager for loan syndication.
Premchai said the company is also interested in investing in both the infra?structure and industrial activity that will take place at the Dawei site, such as a power plant and cement, paper and steel plants.
"Dawei Development, which will develop the Dawei project, will hold between 10 and 30 per cent in both the infrastructure and industries in Dawei, with the rest being held as an overall majority stake by our strategic partners," he added.
The project will start construction next year, now that ITD has invested about Bt500 million to develop basic infra?structure such as roads.
The company will inject a further Bt2 billion to develop the infrastructure sys?tem.
The investment budget for this phase comes from the company's cash flow and a debenture that will be issued in the second half of this year, he said.
The company's president said the project would require about 10 years for full development of the infrastructure and the industrial estate.
The estate will eventually comprise a power plant, as well as petrochemicals, steel and other major industrial plants, with a focus on the export market.
The development period will entail costs of about $4 billion for the Dawei infrastructure, half of which will be spent on infrastructure for the projects themselves, which will be developed by ITD.
Industrial projects at the estate will receive tax privileges following the Burmese government's promulgation of the Dawei Special Economic Zone law. These include a waiver of business income tax for the first five years, followed by five years of paying half the normal rate of 30 per cent. Project owners can also sign long leases of between 30 and 75 years, Premchai said. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2011/06/09/business/ITD-kicks-off-Asian-roadshow-to-seek-partners-for--30157349.html
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June 08, 2011 21:30 PM
EU May Consider Possibility Of Allowing Myanmar To Join Asean Peers In FTA Talks
By Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah
SINGAPORE, June 7 (Bernama) -- The European Union (EU) may look into the possibility of allowing Myanmar to join its Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) peers to negotiate for a free trade agreement (FTA).
Head of EU Delegation and EU Ambassador to Singapore, Marc Ungeheuer, said Myanmar has not requested to have an FTA with the EU.
"But it is clear that for the moment the EU will wait for further progress in democratisation inside Myanmar.
"If Myanmar adopts the same standards on human rights and democracy like other Asean countries there would be no reason not to," he said at a media briefing on the EU-Singapore Trade and Investment 2011 here Wednesday.
However, Ungeheuer said, at the moment EU's assessment was that it was not the time and it has maintained the sanctions even if they were less strict than before.
EU had initiated efforts to form a regional pact with Asean as early as 2007, which if materialised, would have created one of the largest trading bloc in the world by bringing nearly one billion people under it.
But the efforts were halted because of the varying degree of economic development among the ten-member Asean and also because of the tumultuous political situation in member countries such as Myanmar.
However since the Union Solidarity and Development Party was sworn in as Myanmar's governing party, under the new president, Gen (R) Thein Sein, political analysts saw there had been changes in the country's political landscape where the government has given some face to the media unlike in the past.
Ungeheuer said the EU was Asean's second overall trading partner and its largest foreign investor.
-- BERNAMA http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsbusiness.php?id=592516
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Rising Myanmar currency adds to economic hardship
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published:June 8, 2011, 9:36 AM
Updated: June 8, 2011, 9:40 AM
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A strengthening of Myanmar's kyat currency is causing further hardship in the impoverished Asian country, hitting exporters and workers paid in dollars, with farmers also set to suffer.
The kyat's rise over the past three months is in part linked to the U.S. dollar's weakness, but also reflects other factors, some of which stem from the military-dominated government's attempts to pump up economic growth and create more wealth for the country's elite.
Among them: wealthy locals selling their U.S. dollar savings to snap up land in newly created special economic zones, higher foreign investment from neighboring countries, and increased sales of exports such as gems despite extensive U.S. and European sanctions.
Officially, the kyat is pegged at about six to the dollar and is not freely convertible into other currencies. But virtually all business and most currency transactions in Myanmar - also known as Burma - are conducted using a black market rate.
That rate has strengthened steadily from 860 kyats to a dollar in April to 830 in May and around 770 kyats this month. Myanmar's ruling generals generally tolerate the black market for currency exchange as the only practical way of allowing commerce to continue in a country that is among the world's poorest.
Because people recall instances of sharp inflation, as well as the cancellation of many bank notes in 1987 - an event that helped spark a failed pro-democracy uprising - it is common for Burmese to keep savings in dollars, generally illegally.
"Since the movement for the U.S. dollar of late has been down, especially against currencies of countries that produce commodities, the rise of the unofficial kyat is not that remarkable," said Sean Turnell, an expert in Myanmar economics at Australia's Macquarie University.
But he said other factors also have a role in driving the kyat higher such as increased real estate purchases by buyers from neighboring China, usually disguised as transactions by individual Burmese.
The government is also selling state assets to favored businesses, who are financing the deals by exchanging their holdings of dollars for kyat.
Sales, meanwhile, are up for export commodities such as gems, logs, beans and pulses, which could drive up the black market rate when U.S. dollar payments are exchanged into kyat. The country has earned more the $3 billion in the past six months from the sale of gems and jade.
Myanmar's extensive underground economy, particularly the drug trade, has also been known to cause swings in the black market exchange rate.
"Burma's production of narcotics is up, and payments on this do filter through into foreign currency conversions into kyats to pay the ultimate producers," Turnell said.
Myanmar is a major producer of the stimulant methamphetamine and heroin.
Yangon-based economist Khin Maung Nyo said it is impossible to pinpoint a single reason behind the kyat's appreciation.
A large increase in foreign direct investment from countries such as China and rumors the government could change the official exchange rate could be among the reasons, he said.
Exporters are among those being squeezed by a stronger kyat. Farmers are also likely to feel some pain.
"The strong currency is stifling exports. Exporters earn less and the bad business will affect other businesses, ranging from producers and transportation to restaurants," said Kyaw Myint, an exporter of beans.
Kyaw Myint said that because his income from bean exporting has been reduced by about 9 percent, he will not be able to pay a good price to the farmers for the next harvest. He is uncertain if he will continue in the export business.
Meanwhile, others hit hard by the kyat's rise are employees whose salaries are pegged to the dollar.
Some foreign embassies and foreign companies have adjusted their payments to their employees, but at a fixed rate that does not keep pace with the currency's real value.
Thin Thin, a 35-year old accountant for a foreign company, said her real income had fallen so much she has trouble eking out a living. She gets about $120 dollars a month, which was worth 102,840 kyats two months ago, but now brings only 93,600 kyats.
She said the monthly rent for the apartment she shares with a friend remains 25,000 kyats per month and food prices likewise haven't fallen, making it impossible for her to survive if it were not for extra income she gets from tutoring several young students.
http://www.buffalonews.com/business/24-hour-business-news/article447950.ece
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ILO strives to eliminate forced labour in Burma
By Zin Linn Jun 08, 2011 11:30PM UTC
Burma or Myanmar has seen a “dramatic” rise in complaints about forced labour owing to increased public awareness about the problem, a UN agency working in the country said Tuesday, according to AFP News.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) branch in Rangoon (Yangon) has received 506 complaints since the start of 2010 — more than double the number seen during the previous three years.
“This dramatic increase can be put down to extensive awareness raising activity,” said the ILO’s Myanmar liaison officer, Steve Marshall, in an email to AFP.
Of 749 complaints received since early 2007, 582 fell within the ILOs restricted mandate in Burma. Many involve child soldiers. The government allows the group to work in support of their policies to eliminate forced labour, including underage army recruitment.
Marshall said the distribution of a Burma-language brochure explaining the law was likely to be the main driver behind the rise in complaints, rather than an actual increase in the use of forced labour.
According to the Myanmar Times January issue, ILO office in Yangon has made a proposal to publish educational pamphlets in minority languages – including Shan, Kayin and Kachin – that aim to eliminate forced labour. The pamphlets would be translated from a Myanmar-language document the ILO began distributing in the middle of 2010.
An increase in complaints about forced labour since ILO began distributing the pamphlets showed the message was reaching its intended audience, Mr Marshall said.
On 25 February this year, Burma’s Nobel laureate and opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi had a meeting with an International Labour Organization (ILO) team in Rangoon led by Executive Director Guy Ryder. The meeting incorporated Guy Ryder, ILO liaison officer Steve Marshall and three other ILO representatives, in addition to Nyan Win and Hanthar Myint of the NLD.
Guy Ryder led ILO team met regarding 80 human rights activists at Traders Hotel in Rangoon on 24 February. At the said meeting, participant voiced apprehension about the recruitment of child soldiers in the country. And ILO officials explained their preparation to continue paying attention to complaints from general public. At the same time, they will work together with the regime to take out child soldiers from the armed forces.
Apart from the child soldier issue, forced portering has come to be known as one of the worst types of human rights abuse by the Burmese military. Many people have heard the continuous reports about kidnapping of civilians who were driven to the warzone to carry heavy loads of bullets and bombs. The Burmese soldiers used those porters like cattle under malnourishment and then killed as soon as they can no longer bring the burdens.
Forced labour question – including child recruitment and forced portering – is a cancerous syndrome especially made by General Ne Win’s socialist regime which took power by means of coup d’état in 1962.
Undeniably, countless reports have documented a reliable pattern of human rights abuses committed by the consecutive regimes in Burma which require to be addressed, such as the use of child soldiers, the flattening of villages and the dislocation of ethnic minorities, the use of rape as a weapon of war, extrajudicial killings, forced relocation, and forced labor.
At the 13th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council in March, UN Special Rapporteur for the Human Rights Situation in Burma, Mr. Tomas Ojea Quintana, released his latest report and urged the United Nations “to consider the possibility to establish a commission of inquiry with a specific fact finding mandate to address the question of international crimes” in Burma.
If the current President Thein Sein government stayed away from addressing the use of child soldiers and forced labor, ILO also may become a force pushing the UN to establish a commission of inquiry which helps promoting human rights situation in the country.
http://asiancorrespondent.com/56981/ilo-strives-to-eliminate-forced-labour-in-burma/
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Govt. Pressure Wrecks NLD Study Program
By KO HTWE Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Foreign scholars withdrew from a planned study meeting at the National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters after pressure from the Burmese government, according to sources.
Win Htein, of the NLD, told The Irrawaddy that many scholars were very keen to come and meet the opposition party's leader Aung San Suu Kyi and train its members, but their planned visit had to be been canceled.
The group were due to lecture students at the Bayda Institute from June 6 to 25 before addressing NLD members from June 20 to 28, but now even the first session has been moved to pro-government NGO Myanmar Egress instead.
“I think Kyaw Yin Hlaing, who currently works in Hong Kong, is afraid the government will revoke his passport if he speaks to NLD members. If Kyaw Yin Hlaing came to visit the NLD he could get into trouble, but he should still take the risk to find out what the result would be,” said Win Htein.
Dr. Kyaw Yin Hlaing is director of Myanmar Egress and also assistant professor of the Department of Asian and International Studies at the City University of Hong Kong.
Myanmar Egress is controversial for being closely associated with individuals connected to the Burmese Chamber of Commerce, and Kyaw Yin Hlaing also supported last year's sham election in Burma.
Htike Zaw Oo, from Tavoy Township, Tenasserim Division, is studying at the Bayda Institute and says he feels cheated by the renowned foreign-based professors who have shunned the seat of learning.
“At first we were very happy that professors from foreign countries would be teaching us. We have been preparing for the training for nearly three months. But when the fixed date arrived they [professors] canceled these plans very easily,” said Htike Zaw Oo.
The NLD study course on “the principles of political science” was the first offered by the party for two decades and was scheduled to be taught by almost a dozen foreign scholars. Young NLD members from across Burma have already arrived in Rangoon to attended the session.
“The teachers did not arrive at the opening ceremony of the Badya Institute and it is hard for them to come to the NLD. Although they did not come to the opening of the Bayda Institute, they are still teaching at Myanmar Egress. It is like a balloon which has been pierced with a needle,” said Win Htein.
“We have been planning this tuition since March but Kyaw Yin Hlaing said on the phone that he cannot give the lecture because the government put pressure on him. The professors would be teaching at Myanmar Egress and Bayda at the same time,” said Myo Yan Naung Thein of Bayda Institute.
The Irrawaddy contacted Kyaw Yin Hlaing but he refused to comment.
Burmese scholars Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Tin Maung Maung Than and US attorney Thi Han Myo Nyun will all contribute to the training program.
They will be joined by foreign scholars Robert Taylor, Robert Gregory, Martin Painter, Mark Thompson, Federico Ferrara and Brad Williams from City University of Hong Kong; Michael Montesano from Singapore's Institute of South East Asia Study; Eric Thompson from the National University of Singapore; and N. Ganesan from the Hiroshima Peace Institute in Japan. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21454
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Burmese Censors Ease Conditions
By THE IRRAWADDY Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Burma’s Ministry of Information said on Wednesday that as of June 10 censorship regulations have conditionally changed from a “pre-censorship” to a “post-censorship” mode on five topics— sports, entertainment, technology, health and children's literature. However, publishers have been warned to follow “Three National Causes” and avoid “state instability.”
Currently, all weekly journals, monthly magazines and books in Burma have to submit their proposed drafts to the Burmese censorship board ahead of publication.
Media sources in Rangoon said the Ministry’s censorship board, officially called the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD), told officials of private journals about the new regulation at its office in Rangoon on Wednesday afternoon.
Although the five topics mentioned will still be monitored after publication, the media is obliged to follow 12 censorship rules, which include abiding by the “Three National Causes”: non-disintegration of the Union, non-disintegration of national solidarity; and perpetuation of sovereignty.
The PSRD has also told some 500 officials of Burmese journals, writers and publishers to deposit five million kyat (over US $5,000) as a guarantee they will follow the regulations.
Any publisher deemed to break the PSRD's rules will lose their deposit and be suspended for an unspecified period or until they are able to pay the fine.
With the exceptions of sport, entertainment, health, technology and children's literature, other topics of publication have to pass the censorship board agreement before publication.
According to Washington-based Freedom House’s May 2 report, Burma is one of the 10 worst countries in the world for press freedom alongside Cuba and North Korea. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21453
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Thai Developer Touts Burma Port Project
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Wednesday, June 8, 2011
BANGKOK — “A gateway to Indochina and south China” and “a short-cut pioneer of global transformation”—that is how the Thai conglomerate responsible for developing the Dawei (Tavoy) port project in southern Burma described the complex in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Speaking at a conference organized by the Italian-Thai Development Public Company, which was selected to run the US $8 billion project on Nov. 2, 2010, the company's president, Premchai Karnasuta, painted an impressive picture of what it will mean for Thailand and the region.
“When completed, Dawei will save time and money, cutting four to five days off import and export calendars,” said Premchai.
As things stand, Thailand's exports are sent around Singapore via the Strait of Malacca—a narrow and congested sea lane through which 50 percent of the world's maritime trade passes—before being shipped to the West and elsewhere.
Three and a half years after the Burmese and Thai governments signed an agreement to jointly develop a port project at Tavoy in southern Burma's Tenasserim Region, Italian-Thai is billing it as a major turning point for Burma and its more economically advanced neighbors.
If completed according to current plans, the facility will measure 250 square kilometers (100 square miles) and comprise deep-water harbor facilities, an oil refinery and an industrial estate—all linked by road to Thailand's capital Bangkok, with transport infrastructure running alongside oil and gas pipelines.
“It could be the world's biggest industrial estate,” said Somchet Thinaphong, the managing director of the Dawei Development Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Italian-Thai.
Officials from Thailand's Ministry of Finance and National Economic and Social Development Board spoke of the project as a potential global fulcrum for trade, linking East and Southeast Asia to distant markets and investors, from India to the Persian Gulf and beyond.
The project's backers hope to link into Chinese rail projects underway or proposed for mainland Southeast Asia, as well as port development plans close to Vietnam's commercial capital, Ho Chi Minh City.
The Tavoy port and its oil and gas facilities could also provide a new route for energy supplies coming from the Middle East and Africa, akin to the pipeline being built to link the port of Kyaukpyu in western Burma's Arakan State with Yunnan Province in southern China.
With this in mind, Somchet said the project would have “geo-economic and geopolitical implications,” highlighting the growing importance of the Indian Ocean in world affairs.
Though the details were left unexplained, it was claimed that the new project would also result in an increase in tourism for this remote part of Burma, which features pristine white-sand beaches.
The discussion made only passing reference to the social and environmental impact of the project, which some observers fear will be enormous. Speaking to journalists and others in attendance today, the developers cited only plans for a waste-water management system as part of a proposed gated-community-style residence for workers who will move to Tavoy once the project is fully operational.
However, in its promotional literature, Dawei Development Co discussed a relocation plan for Burmese residents of the area who will be affected by the project, saying that “the relocation assessment plan will be conducted with the support of the Myanmar [Burmese] Government” and will be “developed with the local people based on a two-way communication scheme.”
Italian-Thai estimated that the project could generate 100,000 jobs, and officials today said that one of the attractions of Burma was its low-cost labor force, described as “the cheapest in Asia, even less than in Bangladesh.”
Despite being listed as the opening speaker, Burma's ambassador to Thailand, Aung Thein, did not address today's event, leaving the entire discussion to Thai representatives.
Among the issues discussed was the Dawei Special Economic Zone Law, which was promulgated by the Burmese regime on Jan. 27. The law aims to create a China-style foreign investment magnet around Tavoy, promising tax breaks for companies as well as speedy work- and trade-permit facilitation, and a promise from the Burmese government not to nationalize any industry or project established in the special economic zone.
Accountancy firm KPMG gave an overview of the legal context for investment in Burma, including a list of restrictions on foreign investment. However, no mention was made of Western sanctions on Burma, some of which prohibit investment in the country.
On the contrary, Premchai said that Burma is “beginning to open up,” adding that the Tavoy project “will help bring the country more investment.” http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21452
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Forced labour complaints soar in Burma
By AFP
Published: 8 June 2011
Burma has seen a “dramatic” rise in complaints about forced labour owing to increased public awareness about the problem, a UN agency working in the country said Tuesday.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) branch in Rangoon has received 506 complaints since the start of 2010 – more than double the number seen during the previous three years.
“This dramatic increase can be put down to extensive awareness raising activity,” said the ILO’s Burma liaison officer, Steve Marshall, in an email to AFP.
Of 749 complaints received since early 2007, 582 fell within the ILO’s restricted mandate in Burma. Many involve child soldiers.
The government allows the group to work in support of their policies to eliminate forced labour, including underage army recruitment.
Marshall said the distribution of a Burma-language brochure explaining the law was likely to be the main driver behind the rise in complaints, rather than an actual increase in the use of forced labour.
“But similarly the number of complaints cannot be used to reflect the size of the problem,” he said. “Many people are still either unaware of their rights or are not in a position to attempt to exercise them.”
Burma’s military junta handed over power to a nominally civilian administration in March after nearly half a century of army rule.
The ILO’s agreement to work in the country, extended in February this year for another 12 months, first came into effect in Febuary 2007.
Since then, 174 people recruited underage by the military have been released to their families, the ILO said, and in response 20 officers and 110 other ranks have been disciplined, according to defence officials.
Rights activists believe there are thousands of child soldiers in the state military, while some of Burma’s ethnic armed groups have also been named by the UN for recruiting and using children in conflict.
Marshall said they had “serious difficulty” assessing allegations against non-state armed groups, but they were negotiating with the government to get access at least to groups with which there are ceasefire agreements.
He pointed out that while each army recruitment case recorded by the ILO related to one victim, for other forms of forced labour a single case could relate to hundreds of complainants.
“There is still a long way to go,” he said, adding that complaints falling outside the ILO’s mandate mainly concerned land confiscation, corruption and industrial disputes.
http://www.dvb.no/news/forced-labour-complaints-soar-in-burma/16009
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