AFP – Myanmar jails Suu Kyi supporters for pagoda prayerReuters – North Korean ship likely headed for Myanmar: report
Reuters – Singapore says would act if North Korea ship has WMD
The New York Times – U.S. Destroyer Shadows N. Korean Ship
AP – NKorea ship suspected of carrying missiles
AP – McCain favors boarding NKorean ship
AP – Thousands donate hair to fix Myanmar pagoda road
EarthTimes – UN special envoy to visit Myanmar 25 June
Itar-Tass – Moscow opposes political pressure on Myanmar, expects unbiased trial of Suu Kyi
The Malaysian Insider – 6 Myanmar refugees held for celebrating Suu Kyi’s birthday
TMC Net – Myanmar proposes Bangladesh to inter-connect submarine cable system
Xinhua – South Korea offers more scholarship to pre-university students in Myanmar
The Taipei Times – Why the collapse of a pagoda would unnerve Myanmar’s junta
Globe and Mail – The case against Myanmar sanctions
Asian Tribune – Yet another birthday, yet another unwanted ‘gift’ from ASEAN to Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow Burma citizens
Bangkok Post – Missiles ‘Burma-bound’ : North Korea dispute nears our neighbourhood
The Nation – Longest solar eclipse will sweep Thailand next month
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Myanmar jails Suu Kyi supporters for pagoda prayer
Sun Jun 21, 3:57 am ET

YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar has jailed two supporters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for one and a half years for insulting religion after they prayed at a pagoda for her release, her party has said.

Chit Pe and Aung Saw Wai, members of the detained Nobel laureate’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, were each sentenced last week, according to lawyer and NLD spokesman Nyan Win.

“They were sentenced… under the act of insulting religion,” Nyan Win said.

The pair were arrested at their homes in April after they led a religious ceremony at a pagoda in Twante, about 40 kilometres (30 miles) west of Yangon, at which they offered prayers for their leader’s freedom.

In a separate case, three youth members of the NLD were arrested ten days ago and are being held in custody, Nyan Win said.

“We do not know the details about their arrest but they were detained on remand under the Explosives Act,” Nyan Win said.

Myanmar’s military regime has kept Aung San Suu Kyi in detention for 13 of the past 19 years, after refusing to recognise the NLD’s landslide victory in the country’s last elections in 1990.

The pro-democracy icon is currently being held in Yangon’s notorious Insein prison on charges of breaching her house arrest rules in May, when an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside residence.

Her supporters in the predominantly Buddhist country have traditionally prayed at pagodas for her freedom and for the release of the country’s other political prisoners.

Myanmar authorities have frequently enforced the law against insulting religion — which carries a penalty of up to two years in prison — since Buddhist monks led protests against the junta in September 2007.

Aung San Suu Kyi turned 64 on Friday and supporters worldwide marked the day with calls for her release — from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to US actors Julia Roberts and George Clooney.

Myanmar’s top court will on Wednesday hear an appeal by her legal team to overturn a ban on two defence witnesses in the trial.

“We are preparing our arguments for the Supreme Court,” Nyan Win said.

The main trial, at Insein prison, is set to resume on Friday.

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North Korean ship likely headed for Myanmar: report
Sun Jun 21, 12:45 am ET

SEOUL (Reuters) – A North Korean ship that the United States is shadowing is likely headed for Myanmar, South Korean television reported on Sunday.

YTN channel quoted a South Korean intelligence source as saying the final destination of the Kang Nam looks to be Myanmar, after leaving a North Korean port on Wednesday.

North Korea has raised tensions in the region in the past months by test-firing missiles, restarting a plant to produce arms-grade plutonium and holding a May 25 nuclear test, which put it closer to having a working nuclear bomb.

Analysts say the North’s moves are partly aimed at building internal support for its leader, who is believed to have suffered a stroke last year and appears to be laying the foundation for his youngest son to eventually take over the impoverished nation.

A Japanese newspaper said that Kim’s third son, Kim Jong-un, has assumed the post of acting defense chief, cementing his position as the successor to his father.

U.S. officials have declined to say what the North Korean ship might be carrying but said it was “a subject of interest.” North Korea has five similar ships used for weapons trade.

Fox News quoted a senior U.S. military source as saying the ship appeared to be heading toward Singapore and that the navy destroyer USS John McCain was positioning itself in case it gets orders to intercept, according to a story on its website.

Singapore, a U.S. ally, said it would act “appropriately” if the vessel heads to its port with a cargo of weapons. Singapore has the world’s busiest shipping port and is also the world’s top ship refueling hub.

The Kang Nam is the first North Korean ship to be monitored under the new sanctions, adopted this month in response to Pyongyang’s May nuclear test. The resolution authorized U.N. member states to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo.

Japan’s Mainichi newspaper, citing unidentified sources close to North Korean leadership, said on Saturday the Swiss-educated Kim Jong-un has been working as acting chairman of North Korea’s National Defense Commission, supporting his father, who is commission chairman.

“If something happens to (Kim Jong-il, Jong-un) looks set to move up to the post as chairman,” the paper quoted one of the sources as saying.

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Singapore says would act if North Korea ship has WMD
Sat Jun 20, 2009 2:19pm IST

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore will take action against a North Korean ship that the United States is monitoring, if the vessel heads to its port with a cargo of weapons, the government said on Saturday.

“Singapore takes seriously the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and related materials,” said a spokeswoman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“If the allegation is true, Singapore will act appropriately. “

The U.S. Navy is monitoring a vessel called Kang Nam at sea under new U.N. sanctions that bar North Korea from exporting weapons, including missile parts and nuclear materials.

Fox News quoted a senior U.S. military source saying the ship appeared to be heading toward Singapore and that the navy destroyer USS John McCain was positioning itself in case it gets orders to intercept, according to a story on its website.

Singapore, a U.S. ally, has the world’s busiest shipping port, with most containers being trans-shipments between East and West, and it is also the world’s top ship refuelling hub.

Singapore government agencies could not give information on the current location of the ship.

“We don’t know even whether she is coming to Singapore,” said a source at the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, which is responsible for security in Singapore waters and at its port.

The U.S. officials said the ship became “a subject of interest” after leaving a North Korean port on Wednesday.

The Kang Nam is the first ship to be monitored under the U.N. sanctions adopted last week after Pyongyang raised tensions by test-firing missiles, restarting a plant to produce arms-grade plutonium and conducting a nuclear test.

The U.S. has deployed anti-missile assets to the Pacific in case Pyongyang launches more missiles, U.S. officials have said.

North Korea’s media on Saturday said it was not threatened by new sanctions after a U.N. committee said it was considering blacklisting more North Korea companies, and individuals, for supporting Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

“It is foolish and ridiculous of our enemy powers to call for more sanctions and isolation… (do they think) it could make us even raise our eyebrows one bit?” North Korea’s Rodong Sinmum newspaper said in a commentary.

“If they point a gun at us, we will get back with a cannon. If they point a cannon, we will point missiles and for sanctions, we will give them revenge. Getting back with a nuclear weapon for a nuclear weapon is what we do.”

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The New York Times – U.S. Destroyer Shadows N. Korean Ship
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: June 21, 2009

SEOUL — A North Korean cargo ship was reportedly steaming toward Myanmar on Sunday even as it was shadowed by a U.S. Navy destroyer, posing the first test of how far the United States and its allies will go to stop the North’s suspected arms trade under a new United Nations resolution.

The United States began tracking the 2,000-ton Kang Nam after it left Nampo, a port near Pyongyang, on Wednesday. U.S. officials have declined to say where the ship was headed and what it might be carrying but said it was “a subject of interest.”

Fox News quoted a senior U.S. military source as saying the U.S. Navy destroyer John S. McCain was positioning itself in case it gets orders to intercept. North Korea has already said it would consider interception an “act of war” and act accordingly.

YTN, a news cable channel in South Korea, reported on Sunday that the ship was headed for Myanmar, a country long suspected of buying North Korean arms and providing transit services for North Korean vessels engaged in illicit trade.

Quoting an unidentified intelligence source, YTN said that the U.S. authorities suspected the ship of carrying missiles or related parts.

South Korean officials were not immediately available for comment.

The Kang Nam is the first North Korean vessel to be tracked under the resolution the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted on June 12 to punish North Korea for its May 25 nuclear test.

The resolution bans North Korean trafficking in a wide range of not only nuclear but also conventional weaponry.

But it only “calls upon” countries to search North Korean ships, with their consent, if there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect that banned cargo is aboard. If the crew does not accept inspection on high seas, North Korea is required to direct the vessel to a port for inspection by the local authorities there.

Singapore, a U.S. ally and the regional refueling hub for ships, said it would act “appropriately” if the vessel docks at its ports. But there was doubt that Myanmar would cooperate with such an inspection.

U.S. officials have long sought legal tools to stop the North Korean arms trade.

In 2002, the Spanish and U.S. navies intercepted a North Korean ship carrying missile parts to Yemen but had to let it go because there was then no legal cause.

Even now, the U.N. resolution, whose wording was watered down because of concerns voiced by Russia and China, left questions about its effectiveness, a loophole highlighted by the Kang Nam’s reported voyage.

The Kang Nam was detained in Hong Kong shortly after North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and the Security Council adopted a resolution banning its trade in nuclear and ballistic missile technology. But then the ship was found to be carrying no cargo.

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Report: NKorea ship suspected of carrying missiles
By HYUNG-JIN KIM – 37 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A U.S. Navy destroyer is tailing a North Korean ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons toward Myanmar in what could be the first test of new U.N. sanctions against the North over its recent nuclear test, a leading TV network said Sunday.

The South Korean news network YTN, citing an unidentified intelligence source in the South, said the U.S. suspects the cargo ship Kang Nam is carrying missiles and related parts. Myanmar’s military government, which faces an arms embargo from the United States and the European Union, has reportedly bought weapons from North Korea.

YTN said the U.S. has deployed a destroyer and is using satellites to track the ship, which was expected to travel to Myanmar via Singapore.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry, Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report. Calls to the U.S. military command in Seoul were not answered late Sunday.

The ship is reportedly the first North Korean vessel to be tracked under the new U.N. sanctions.

Two U.S. officials said Thursday that the U.S. military had begun tracking the ship, which left a North Korean port Wednesday and was traveling off the coast of China.

One of the officials said it was uncertain what the Kang Nam was carrying, but that it had been involved in weapons proliferation before. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked since North Korea defiantly conducted its second nuclear explosion on May 25. It later declared it would expand its atomic bomb program and threatened war to protest the U.N. sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear test.

The sanctions toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea and authorize ship searches in an attempt to thwart its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect vessels on the high seas “if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo” contains banned weapons or material to make them, and if approval is given by the country whose flag the ship sails under.

If the country refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel “to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities. “

President Barack Obama said the sanctions will be aggressively enforced after talks Tuesday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington. Obama also reaffirmed the U.S. security commitment to South Korea, including nuclear protection.

In its first response to the summit, North Korea’s government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said Obama’s comments revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.

“It’s not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion,” it said in a commentary published Saturday.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. The U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons there.

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McCain favors boarding NKorean ship
27 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain says the U.S. should board a North Korean ship it is tracking if hard evidence shows it is carrying missiles or other cargo in violation of U.N. resolutions.

McCain says that such cargo would contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to nations that pose a direct threat to the United States.

South Korean media reported Sunday that the ship was sailing toward Myanmar via Singapore.

The Obama administration has said it’s prepared to confront ships believed to be carrying contraband materials to North Korea, but would not try to forcibly board them.

McCain appeared Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

(THIS IS AP’s earlier story is below.)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain says the U.S. should board a North Korean ship it is tracking if hard evidence shows it is carrying missiles or other cargo in violation of U.N. resolutions.

McCain says that such cargo would contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to nations that pose a direct threat to the United States.
South Korean media reported Sunday that the ship was sailing toward Myanmar via Singapore.

The Obama administration has said it’s prepared to confront ships believed to be carrying contraband materials to North Korea, but would not try to forcibly board them.
McCain appeared Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

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Thousands donate hair to fix Myanmar pagoda road
AP – Monday, June 22

YANGON, Myanmar – Thousands of faithful in Myanmar have donated 1,750 pounds (800 kilograms) of their hair in a money-raising campaign to repair the route to a sacred Buddhist pagoda, reports said Sunday.

About 30,000 women and more than 100 long-haired men from the central city of Mandalay and nearby towns have donated the hair, Kumudra magazine quoted a Buddhist monk as saying.

Some of the locks measured 120 centimeters (4 feet), said Shin Wayama Nanda, the chief abbot of Mandalay’s Naga monastery.

The campaign _ led by the Buddhist monks overseeing the upkeep of the remote Alaungdaw Kathapha pagoda _ will use proceeds from the sale of hair to repair sections of a road and build bridges leading to the popular pilgrimage site which is said to contain the remains of one of Buddha’s disciples.

The hair will be used in wigs or dolls, or it can be sold to traders from China for similar purposes.

The campaign has spread to the country’s largest city, Yangon, Popular magazine reported Sunday.

Access to the pagoda in the country’s northwest is difficult. Some sections of the route can be reached only by foot or on elephant.

“With the money acquired from the sale of hair, sections of the 25-kilometer (15-mile) road (will be repaired) and 15 small and medium-length bridges will be built,” Shin Wayama Nanda said.

One span will be called the “Shwe Hsan Nwe bridge,” or “Bridge of Golden Tresses.”

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EarthTimes – UN special envoy to visit Myanmar 25 June
Posted : Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:23:35 GMT
Author : DPA

Yangon – United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari is scheduled to visit Myanmar on June 25, a government official said. The official, who requested anonymity, said Gambari will discuss national reconciliation, but his visit is also seen as preparing for a probable visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in July.

Ban will be in Tokyo from June 30-July 2 to meet government and business leaders. His itinerary after that is undecided but a visit to Myanmar is a “possibility, ” UN spokeswoman Michelle Montas said in New York on Friday.

Asked whether Ban will go to Myanmar, where the controversial trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was still underway, Montas said, “Myanmar is a possibility, but the secretary general has not decided yet.”

Ban told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York early this month that he was ready to visit Myanmar.

“Promoting democratization, including the release of Daw (Mrs) Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, has been one of my top priorities and it will continue to be my top priority,” Ban said then.

“When the time is appropriate and conditions are ripe, as I said many times, I’m ready to visit Myanmar. I’m working on that now.”

Ban visited Yangon and the delta areas devastated by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

The ruling junta has scheduled a general election in 2010, the first since 1990, but has meanwhile put opposition leader Suu Kyi on trial for breaking the terms of her house detention last month by allowing an American to swim into her lakeside home-cum-prison.

If found guilty, Suu Kyi may face a five-year prison term, preventing her from participating in the election process.

Ban and many Western and Asian governments have called for the release of Suu Kyi.

Her National League for Democracy party, which won the 1990 polls, has vowed not to enter the 2010 election unless Suu Kyi is freed and steps are taken to amend the military-drafted 2008 constitution that essentially gives the army control over future elected governments.

Gambari’s June 25 visit will be his eighth to Myanmar and he will likely stay two days. His last visit was January 31.

On that visit he met with Suu Kyi and executive members of the NLD, but he was denied a meeting with Senior General Than Shwe.

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Itar-Tass – Moscow opposes political pressure on Myanmar, expects unbiased trial of Suu Kyi
21.06.2009, 18.41

MOSCOW, June 21 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian Foreign Ministry objects to political and economic pressure on Myanmar and hopes for an unbiased trial of opposition leader Suu Kyi, the ministry’s information and press department said on Sunday.

Russia is watching “the efforts of the Myanmar government to achieve peace and national concord,” the department said. “We believe that Myanmar will ensure the fulfillment of the reform program, primarily the holding of parliamentary elections in due time [in 2010].”

Moscow “opposes attempts to internationalize the internal situation in Myanmar, because it does not endanger peace and security in the region and the world at large. In our opinion, the political and economic pressure on that country is counterproductive, as it enhances isolationist feelings of the Myanmar military and exacerbates the socioeconomic position of citizens,” the department said.

“We see no reasons why the UN Security Council should discuss Myanmar. At the same time, we call on Myanmar for greater openness and cooperation with the international community, as well as for closer relations with the mission of Special Representative of the UN Secretary General Ibrahim Gambari. We are confident that this negotiating mechanism is useful in building up mutual understanding and confidence between Myanmar and the world,” the department said.

Russia hopes that the trial of “Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be unbiased, strictly comply with national laws and humanitarian standards, and take into account the international opinion,” the department said.

The Nobel Prize winner’s trial began this May at Yangon’s Insein prison, where she had been transferred from home arrest. If found guilty, she may be sentenced to five years of custody for breaching home arrest restrictions and meeting with a U.S. citizen without authorization.

Several days ago ASEAN urged Myanmar to stop the prosecution of the opposition leader and to release her from custody. The European Union sided with the demand and called for further political activity of Suu Kyi and larger international pressure on the Myanmar authorities aimed to promote massive democratic transformations. U.S. President Barack Obama also demanded the immediate release of the Myanmar opposition leader.

The National League for Democracy led by Suu Kyi won the majority of seats in the national parliament in 1990, but the military invalidated election results and started persecution of Suu Kyi and her supporters. For all these years Suu Kyi has almost permanently stayed under home arrest.

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The Malaysian Insider – 6 Myanmar refugees held for celebrating Suu Kyi’s birthday

PETALING JAYA, June 19 — Sixteen Myanmarese refugees have joined Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in detention on her birthday today, but in far away Malaysia.

Police picked up the 16 for being without any identification papers at the Taman Jaya park here about 9pm where they were attending a commemoration organised by Pakatan Rakyat parties. Two of the detainees were later released.

Among those at the gathering was DAP’s Ronnie Liu, who is a Selangor exco member. Police had mounted an operation to stop people from gathering to celebrate the Nobel laureate’s birthday.

Suu Kyi spent her 64th birthday in detention today for a trial that could put her in prison for five years for violating her house arrest, which has confined her for some 13 of the past 20 years.

There were a few other gatherings to celebrate her birthday in Malaysia and around the world, including one organised by the British High Commission in formerly trendy Bangsar.

Human rights group Suaram said those arrested are detained in the Petaling Jaya district police station and denied access to lawyers. Some activists have begun a candle-light vigil outside the police station.

“We strongly urge the police to release all the individuals arrested immediately and unconditionally. We also demand that the Malaysia government recognise the refugee’s status and providing protection to them, while guaranteed the people rights to assembly and stop the assault on freedom of expression,” said Suaram coordinator Temme Lee.

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[June 21, 2009]
TMC Net – Myanmar proposes Bangladesh to inter-connect submarine cable system

DHAKA, Jun 21, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) — Myanmar has proposed Internet inter- connectivity to Bangladesh allowing the two neighbors to use each other’s submarine cable system in case of any side’s cable failure, a senior official said here on Sunday.

“Myanmar last week proposed us about its interest to use Bangladesh’s submarine cable in case of the failure of its cable and in return Bangladesh could use Myanmar’s system in a similar situation,” Managing Director of the Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL) Md Manwar Hossain told Xinhua on Sunday.

He said the BSCCL, the state-owned public limited company, is studying the proposal of Myanmar before dispatching recommendations to the government’s ministry concerned for final decision in this connection.

“We’ll make our decision to the government shortly,” Hossain said.

According to the proposal, he said, Myanmar, like Bangladesh, also has a single submarine cable and voice and data communications get disrupted in case of cable failure for any reason.

Myanmar in its proposal said allowing one country to use the other’s submarine cable in case of any side’s network disruption will ensure smooth and uninterrupted telecommunications services for both countries.

Another BSCCL official requesting to be unnamed said Myanmar’s proposal seemed technically feasible as the Bangladesh submarine cable system was capable of carrying Myanmar Internet traffic without causing any disturbance to domestic users while the submarine cable system of Myanmar has the same capacity.

It will be also financially viable, as both Bangladesh and Myanmar would connect each other at minimal cost, the official said.

Bangladesh, connected to the global submarine cable system on May 21, 2006 at an approximate cost of 35.2 million U.S. dollars, is now working for the second submarine cable network.

There have been a number of cases of disruption in the submarine cable system in Bangladesh in the last few years, which resulted in problems in information and communications system in the country.

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South Korea offers more scholarship to pre-university students in Myanmar
www.chinaview. cn  2009-06-21 13:14:15

YANGON, June 21 (Xinhua) — The South Korean government will offer more scholarship to pre-university students in Myanmar, saying that students who win an average mark of over 70 in each subject in matriculation examination in the country can apply for the scholarship, sources with the Korean embassy said on Sunday.

A monthly provision of 800 U.S. dollars will be extended to the winning students for their living expense, the sources said.

The applicants are to undergo proficiency test for English or Korean languages and the winning students will be taught with Korean language in the first year of the university class in Korea which lasts for three years, the sources added.

According to the sources, under the Korean Government Scholarship Program for 72 countries for 2009, five Myanmar students won the scholarship to study in the National Institute for International Education (NIED) in South Korea’s capital city of Seoul.

The NIED is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and Human Resources and is involved in the education of overseas Koreans while further supporting international co-operation and educational exchange.

New scholarship winners for next year will be announced in December-January of 2009-2010, the embassy sources added.

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The Taipei Times – Why the collapse of a pagoda would unnerve Myanmar’s junta
By Seth Mydans, NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, BANGKOK
Monday, Jun 22, 2009, Page 9

It cannot have pleased Myanmar’s ruling family: the collapse of a 2,300-year-old gold-domed pagoda into a pile of timber just three weeks after the wife of the junta’s top general helped rededicate it.

There is no country in Asia more superstitious than Myanmar, and the crumbling of the temple was seen widely as something more portentous than shoddy construction work.

The debacle coincides with the junta’s trial of the country’s pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after an American intruder swam across a lake and spent a night at the villa where Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for most of the past 19 years.

After two weeks of testimony that began on May 18, the trial has been suspended as the court considers procedural motions — and as the junta apparently tries to decide how to manage what seems to have been a major blunder, drawing condemnation from around the world.

The superstitious generals may be consulting astrologers as well as political tacticians for guidance. That would not be unusual for many people in Myanmar.

Currency denominations and traffic rules have been changed, the nation’s capital has been moved and the timing of events has been selected — even the dates of popular uprisings — with astrological dictates in mind.

“Astrology has as significant a role in policies, leadership and decision-making in the feudal Naypyidaw as rational calculations, geopolitics and resource economics,” said Zarni, a Burmese exile analyst and researcher who goes by one name.

He was referring to the country’s fortified capital, which opened in 2005.

And so it seemed only natural to read a darker meaning into the temple’s collapse.

The Danok pagoda on the outskirts of Yangon was newly blessed on May 7 in the presence of Kyaing Kyaing, the wife of the country’s supreme leader, Senior General Than Shwe, along with an A-list of junta society. The rite received major coverage in government-controll ed media.

In a solemn ceremony, the worshippers fixed a diamond orb to the top of the pagoda along with a pennant-shaped vane and sprinkled scented water onto the tiers of a holy, golden umbrella, according to the government mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar.

Like the rest of the heavily censored press, the newspaper was silent when it all came crashing down.

But word of mouth — and foreign radio broadcasts — spreads fast in Myanmar.

“People were laughing at her,” said a longtime astrologer, reached by telephone in Myanmar, speaking of Kyaing Kyaing.

“OK, she thinks she is so great, but even the gods don’t like her — people believe like that,” the astrologer said on condition of anonymity.

“Even the spiritual world will not allow her to do this thing or that thing,” the astrologer said. “People laugh like that.”

The ceremony was part of a decades-old campaign by the senior general to legitimize his military rule on a foundation of Buddhist fealty — dedicating and redecorating temples, attending religious ceremonies and, with his influential wife, making donations to monks and monasteries.

That campaign was undermined, and perhaps fatally discredited, in September 2007 when soldiers beat and shot monks protesting military rule in the streets, invaded monasteries without removing their boots and imprisoned or disrobed hundreds of monks.

“No matter how many pagodas they build, no matter how much charity they give to monks, it is still they who murdered the monks,” said Josef Silverstein, a Myanmar specialist and professor emeritus at Rutgers University, at the time of the protests.

So when the Danok pagoda suddenly collapsed on May 30 as workmen were completing its renovation — killing at least 20 people, according to emigre reports — many people saw it as the latest in a series of bad omens for the junta that included a devastating cyclone early last year.

The pagoda’s sacred umbrella tumbled to the ground, and its diamond orb was lost in the rubble, according to those reports.

“The fact that the umbrella did not stay was a sign that more bad things are to come, according to astrologers,” said Ingrid Jordt, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and a specialist in Burmese Buddhism.

“It is also a sign that Than Shwe does not have the spiritual power any longer to be able to undertake or reap the benefit from good acts such as this,” Jordt said in an e-mail message. “In a sense, the pagoda repudiated Than Shwe’s right to remain ruler.”

As laborers began trying to rebuild the pagoda, local residents gave emigre publications vivid accounts of supernatural happenings.

“The temple collapsed about 3:10pm while I was loading bricks on a platform around the pagoda,” a 24-year-old construction worker told The Irrawaddy, an exile magazine based in Thailand.

“The weather suddenly turned very dark,” he was quoted as saying.

“Then we saw a bright red light rising from the northern end of the pagoda. Then, suddenly, the temple collapsed. I also heard a strange haunting voice coming from the direction of the light,” he said.

Indeed, the Danok pagoda may have been a poor choice for the junta’s ruling family to seek religious affirmation.

According to The Irrawaddy, “Several elderly locals from Danok Model Village said that they believed that the pagoda never welcomed cruel or unkind donors, and always shook when such persons made offerings.” 

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Globe and Mail – The case against Myanmar sanctions
Who really suffers when the international aid tap is shut off
Arno Kopecky, Yangon — From Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Saturday, Jun. 20, 2009 03:57AM EDT

Were the trial of the world’s most poignant embodiment of peaceful resistance not so real, Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent misfortunes could have sprung from the pages of a novel.

A diabetic Vietnam veteran swims across a lake in the dead of night, eludes the guards watching over a nation’s long-imprisoned leader and spends the night in her mansion, only to be plucked from the water in mid-escape the next evening and sent to prison along with “the Lady.”

Ms. Suu Kyi’s interminable house arrest over 13 of the past 19 years was supposed to expire at the end of May, in time for yesterday, her 64th birthday. Instead, the democracy advocate – who was elected president of Myanmar (formerly Burma) in a landslide 1990 vote, but never permitted to take office by the ruling junta – stands charged with breaking the terms of her detention, in a trial that will resume on Friday after being suspended last month.

Her sentence seems a forgone conclusion: five more years in jail.

Equally predictable, though, has been the international community’s corresponding verdict: further isolation for Myanmar, a fate parallel to that suffered by its heroine.
Yesterday in Brussels, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that European Union nations had agreed to mark Ms. Suu Kyi’s birthday by stepping up sanctions against Myanmar. He called for her “immediate, unconditional release,” and described her trial as “absurd and contemptible.”

The United States has already extended its sanctions, after the Obama administration briefly contemplated a more moderate approach, like the strategy of engagement that it has been advocating for Iran. Kurt Campbell, the incoming top U.S. diplomat to East Asia, said last week that Ms. Suu Kyi’s rearrest “makes it very difficult to move forward” with that goal.

And Ms. Suu Kyi would be the first to ask him not to. She has led the call for sanctions, maintaining that engagement with Myanmar’s generals can only strengthen them. Turn the screws of hardship tight enough, the argument goes, and eventually the oppressors will either back down or be overthrown by their victims.

With her integrity and sacrifice, she has won virtually every Western government, including Canada’s, over to her logic. In April, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier boasted of imposing “the toughest sanctions in the world” on Myanmar.

But something few people discuss in public is that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s high-minded politics are increasingly out of touch with the more pragmatic approach of many relief workers in her country. Their view of sanctions has been tempered by experience over the two decades since Ms. Suu Kyi was first locked away.

Not only is the regime’s grip on power as strong as ever, they say, but the net of sanctions meant to squeeze the junta has expanded to snare humanitarian aid as well, depriving innocent citizens of crucial assistance.

To the doctors caring for a burgeoning population of people with AIDS, or the development workers struggling to build schools in the country’s numerous conflict zones, the most relevant statistic about Myanmar is not its rank as the second-most- corrupt nation in the world, but the amount of foreign aid it receives – $3 a head, about a 20th of the amount sent to Laos or Sudan.

Sanctions on any intransigent dictatorship are meant to be selective.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department explicitly notes “certain humanitarian exemptions” to the ban on goods and services moving between the two countries. If you want to send medical supplies or money via the Red Cross, for instance, you can – though you’ll need a special permit.

Don’t expect to get any logistical help from the Canadian embassy in Myanmar, because there isn’t one. This reflects the government’s own choice – legislated or otherwise – to avoid the moral labyrinth of delivering aid into tyranny.

A rare exception occurred after Cyclone Nargis decimated Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta last spring. As part of the global outpouring that followed, the Canadian International Development Agency sent a one-time, $26-million package of emergency relief. But despite desperate appeals from the United Nations and other agencies still working there, we’ve not sent a penny since.

We’re even less likely to now, said Harn Yawnghwe, executive director of the Euro-Burma office in Brussels, despairing that “anyone proposing more humanitarian aid will face strong political opposition.”

Inside or out?

Peter Gillespie is the program manager for Inter Pares, a Canadian non-governmental organization that has provided health care to refugees outside Myanmar since 1991, despite Canadian bureaucratic obstacles that discourage NGOs from operating there, a practice he defends by pointing to the quarter-million patients Inter Pares reaches every year.

“Our work is having enormous impact,” he said. But working within the country itself would be another matter.

“There are two fundamental questions,” Mr. Gillespie said. “First, can aid be delivered into the country in an accountable way that does not strengthen the regime? And second, is it possible for NGOs to operate within the country without significant impediment from the junta? The answer to both these questions is no.”

Yet in northeastern Kachin state, where a brisk heroin trade flourishes among the savage jade and gold mines of the Himalayan foothills, I met a foreign doctor who felt otherwise. Hidden away in the mountains surrounding Myitkyina, Kachin’s verdant capital, are towns with HIV rates of 90 per cent; he described the “shooting galleries” he saw fuelling the epidemic there.

“I saw a place where men lined up outside a hut, and inside was a plastic sheet with a hole cut through the middle,” said the doctor (who asked not to be named, to protect his work). “You’d go in, stick your arm through the hole, and a man on the other side would inject you with heroin. He used the same needle all day.”

The doctor began a needle-exchange program that went through 160,000 needles in a month. All this in a part of Myanmar that foreigners are officially banned from visiting.
“Everything here is done unofficially,” he told me. “The authorities tend to see us as the enemy, and so local administrators are afraid to give us permission for anything. They often sympathize with us, but they know it could cost them their job to help us. So we try to just do things without asking, and usually this works – if you don’t ask permission, no one stops you.”

But can humanitarian aid go beyond saving lives to help effect the kind of change that sanctions have failed to produce? Absolutely, said David Tegenfeldt, a senior adviser to the Vancouver-based Hope International Development Agency. His personal history is closely tied to Myanmar’s.

Mr. Tegenfeldt was born in Yangon (then Rangoon) to missionary parents who developed close ties with the Kachin ethnic minority, who are mainly Christian. In 1962, the military regime kicked all missionaries out of the country and Mr. Tegenfeldt’s family returned to America; he moved back to Myanmar in 1994 at the urging of Kachin leaders who had just signed a ceasefire with the junta and wanted his help in rehabilitating their war-torn communities.

“When I arrived, there were just four registered NGOs in the entire country,” he recalled. “There has been a huge proliferation since then, to the point where there’s almost no part of Myanmar that NGOs don’t operate.”

What these groups can do, he argued, is help to lay the groundwork by encouraging social networks among communities with a history of conflict – something Myanmar has in abundance.

Wind of change

Such an opportunity came in the wake of the worst storm in Myanmar’s history. On May 2, 2008, 200-kilometre- an-hour winds tore across the Irrawaddy Delta region in Myanmar’s southwest corner, whipping up a four-metre storm surge that pulsed through the entire river system and drowned 140,000 people; a million more had everything but the clothes on their back washed into the Andaman Sea.

Cyclone Nargis brought Myanmar to the world’s attention, not least because of the junta’s initial refusal to accept international help. Planes laden with food and medicine languished at the Bangkok airport for weeks; many supplies that did make it through were pilfered by the military and sold in the markets for profit.

But something else happened too: Private citizens and NGOs already inside the country, local and foreign, responded to the crisis with a spectacular effort that kept the imperilled survivors alive. Among them was the Metta Foundation, a local group working in Myanmar’s post-conflict zones since 1994.

“We were lucky to have a presence in the delta already,” Seng Raw, its executive director, told me. A serene and soft spoken woman in her 60s, Ms. Raw explained that Metta had established relations with 231 delta villages after the 2004 tsunami, which killed about 60 people there.

“This meant we knew exactly where to deliver supplies and who to give them to. The government did not try to stop us – we’ve been doing this throughout the country for 15 years, and we know how to get things done.”

A year later, her organization is busy building schools and homes, replanting mangrove forests and conducting countless other projects whose costs and achievements are accounted for in Metta’s annual report down to each mosquito net.

Critically, this work is being delivered through local leaders drawn together from the delta’s patchwork of ethnic communities. “People who never before co-operated now see it as a matter of survival.”

By fostering these relationships, organizations such as Metta breathe life into civil society. But, of course, it isn’t the junta that pays the group’s way. When I asked if Metta relies on foreign donors, she smiled as though I’d asked if the sky was blue. “How else could we survive?”

Widening the conversation

The week before I met David Tegenfeldt in Yangon, he had been in Washington to plead with government representatives for an increase in strategic aid. He was tentatively promised one, from $3-million to $21-million a year.

What’s more, he urged his audience to open a dialogue with the junta. “History teaches us that isolating a country has never been an effective tactic,” he told me, repeating his pitch to Congress.

South Africa, he noted, was the only country in the world where sanctions could be said to have led to regime change, “and even there they were just one tool in a big toolbox that included all kinds of diplomatic engagement. You should never sacrifice your principles or stop criticizing, but criticism is only one part of the conversation.

“There are also constructive things to talk about. We are concerned with the environment – so is Myanmar. We are concerned about narcotics – so is Myanmar. Surely there is a common thread here that we could find a way to work together on.”

For now, however, Ms. Suu Kyi’s renewed detention has dashed any such hopes. Canadian Friends of Burma, a lobby group, is urging that the junta’s diplomats be expelled if she is not released.

On the question of aid, its executive director, Tin Maung Htoo, conceded by phone from Ottawa that “we should not let people die while we wait for a political solution.” But the problem, he said “is that any business you do in Burma, you have to deal with the junta.”

Should our refusal to do so persist, Ms. Suu Kyi’s chronicle of a verdict foretold will all too likely lead to Myanmar’s 100 years of solitude.

Arno Kopecky is a freelance journalist based in Vancouver.

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Yet another birthday, yet another unwanted ‘gift’ from ASEAN to Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow Burma citizens
Published by editor Myanmar, News Jun 20, 2009

Bangkok,  20 June, (Asiantribune):The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) calls on ASEAN leaders to urgently meet to deliver new and effective policies and mechanisms that are desperately needed vis-a-vis Myanmar’s military junta that will enable a tangible and lasting solution to the country’s crisis. Members of Parliament from various ASEAN countries, at a forum co-organized and co-hosted by the AIPMC, ‘Friends of Burma’, the Regional Centre for Social Science and Sustainable Development, and the Centre for Ethnic Studies and Development of the Chiang Mai University delivered strong messages to ASEAN leaders calling for change in the dire situation in the military ruled nation.

“There has been a considerable increase in military offensives and armed fighting in ethnic states especially in the Karen State over the past few weeks. Ethnic communities are fleeing their villages into Thailand while some remain as internally displaced persons in Burma,” said AIPMC President Kraisak Choonhavan.

“Where is the intervention and assistance by ASEAN’s leaders? Recent reports indicate soldiers in Eastern Burma have recruited up to 200 civilians as slave laborers and more than 4,000 civilians have been forced to abandon their homes while 4,000 more are at risk.”

AIPMC Senior Adviser Loretta Ann P Rosales added that in the Shan State, acts amounting to systematic sexual violence are used by Myanmar’s military as weapons of war.

“Testimonies and documentation by Shan people, fleeing their homes, indicate that women and children are subjected to rape and torture by soldiers,” said the former
Philippines Congresswoman adding that since 2001 till now, there have been 297 rape cases in Shan State alone.

“This is outrageous and unacceptable. AIPMC condemns such acts by the regime and armed groups. We insist that ASEAN uses its human rights charter to investigate and put a stop to such atrocities,” stressed Loretta at the sidelines of the event marking Aung San Suu Kyi’s 64th birthday.

Parliamentarians M. Kulasegaran and Charles Chong, from Malaysia and Singapore respectively, reminded ASEAN that its ‘constructive engagement’ with the military regime has failed.

“It’s all about dollars and cents at the end of the day for governments such as Malaysia whom invest with a military that uses the money to repress and harm its leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi and its citizens and not help them at all,” said Kulasegaran.

Participants at the event, primarily from Chiang Mai University’s academia, delivered messages of support and solidarity to Aung San Suu Kyi who celebrates her birthday once again in detention.

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Bangkok Post – Missiles ‘Burma-bound’ : North Korea dispute nears our neighbourhood
Published: 21/06/2009 at 10:16 PM

Seoul (AFP) – A North Korean ship that a US Navy destroyer is tracking off China as part of efforts to enforce UN sanctions is suspected of carrying missiles or related parts, a news report said on Sunday.

South Korea’s YTN television news channel, citing an unnamed intelligence source, said the ship was heading for Burma via Singapore. The 2,000-tonne Kang Nam 1 left the North Korean western port of Nampo on June 17, with Burma set as its final destination, YTN said.

“The United States suspects that the Kang Nam 1 may carry missiles or related parts and that the ship is likely to call at Singapore on her route,” the source said, according to YTN.

The ship is one of five – Kang Nams 1 to 5 – used by Pyongyang for arms trade in the past, YTN said. Officials at Seoul’s National Intelligence Service were not immediately available for comment on the YTN report.

A US defence official said on Friday the USS John S. McCain was shadowing the Kang Nam 1, the first vessel to be monitored under a UN resolution imposed a week ago that bans shipments of arms and nuclear or missile technology to and from North Korea.

Another defence official said the ship was one of a group of vessels previously linked to illicit missile-related cargo. It was unclear what cargo the ship was carrying but ‘once a suspect, always a suspect’, he said.

US officials have yet to indicate if or when they might ask to search the vessel under the UN Security Council resolution.

The North Koreans are expected to reject any such request. But at some point, the ship will likely need to stop for refuelling along the Chinese coast or elsewhere, US officials said. At that point, the country where the ship enters port is obliged under the UN resolution to search the vessel if there are grounds for suspicion.

Pentagon officials declined to comment on a television report saying the Navy destroyer was heading to intercept the North Korean vessel. The officials stressed that the UN sanctions do not authorise military force and that Washington was pursuing a diplomatic strategy.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running high since Pyongyang carried out its second nuclear test last month. After the underground test and subsequent missile launches, the Security Council adopted the UN resolution last week that includes financial sanctions designed to choke off revenue to the regime.

The New York Times reported:

The Kang Nam is the first North Korean vessel to be tracked under the resolution the UN Security Council unanimously adopted on June 12 to punish North Korea for its May 25 nuclear test.

The resolution bans North Korean trafficking in a wide range of not only nuclear but also conventional weaponry.

But it only “calls upon” countries to search North Korean ships, with their consent, if there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect that banned cargo is aboard. If the crew does not accept inspection on high seas, North Korea is required to direct the vessel to a port for inspection by the local authorities there.

Singapore, said it would act “appropriately” if the vessel docks at its ports. But there was doubt that Burma would cooperate with such an inspection.

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The Nation – Longest solar eclipse will sweep Thailand next month
Published on June 21, 2009

A Prachinburi astronomer said yesterday that Thais would be able to observe a solar eclipse for about six minutes from approximately 7-9.30 am on July 22.

Worawit Tanwutthibundit said the 240-kilometre- long shadow would give one of the longest-lasting solar eclipses in history and be visible in India, Pakistan, China, Burma, Thailand and Japan. The Upper North will see a 60-per-cent eclipse, the Lower North 50 per cent and the Upper South 30 per cent.

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