|
|
|
|
|
|
BURMA RELATED NEWS - DECEMBER 21, 2004 YANGON (AP) - A small blast at a souvenir shop injured at least one person Tuesday while a festival was being held nearby at a tourist market in the Myanmar capital, witnesses said. It was not immediately known what caused the blast in the two-story wooden building. The shop is owned by a French citizen who sells lacquerware and silk. Police cordoned off the shop and closed down the nearby market, causing commotion, witnesses said. Police declined to comment. No one claimed responsibility for the blast, Yangon's third this year. In June, four bombs exploded near the central railway station. No casualties or damage were reported and no group claimed responsibility, although the government blamed exiled dissidents in Thailand. In November, a small explosion occurred in front of a government court complex, causing minor damage but no injuries. No one claimed responsibility. Public dissent is rare in the tightly guarded capital, and anti-government violence even more uncommon, although there is a well-organized armed opposition to the junta along Myanmar's eastern border with Thailand. ************************************************************* SINGAPORE (AP) - A Myanmar man has been sentenced by a Singapore court to four years in prison and six lashes with a cane after posing as a stewardess to pick up men in nightclubs and then stealing from them, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Chan Zo Zo, 24, prowled Singapore's nightclubs to find his victims, calling himself "Michelle" and claiming he was a flight attendant, The Straits Times newspaper said. Chan then swiped credit cards, cash and cell phones from the men while they were asleep in a spree that began in September 2003 and ended in August this year, the report said. Among his victims were two Britons, a Japanese and a Belgian man, the paper said. It wasn't clear whether they knew he was a man. BANGKOK (AP) - A Thai army helicopter carrying 11 people crash-landed Tuesday while patrolling the Thai-Myanmar border, lightly injuring seven people aboard, an official said. The U.S.-made UH-1 Huey craft was landing on a hilltop field of a border police outpost when it veered off-course and crashed, district official Thanee Noipheng said in a telephone interview. The crash occurred near the Thai-Myanmar border in Prachuab Khirikhan province about 230 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of Bangkok. The army declined to give information about the crash or the helicopter's mission. Thai forces have been stepping up security recently to prevent a spillover of fighting between Myanmar government troops and guerrillas of the Karen ethnic minority group. SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Bird flu, which risks being deadlier than the SARS outbreak, is endemic to Southeast Asia and poses the biggest risk to public health in the region, Singapore officials and international health experts said on Monday. The avian flu virus could trigger a lethal pandemic among humans if not contained, said Francois-Xavier Meslin, a coordinator at the World Health Organisation. "The disease is now endemic in the region, endemic in poultry, we have cases popping up in humans," he said on the sidelines of a regional meeting on the bird flu virus. "You will keep on having cases in humans and maybe eventually a pandemic strain of virus emerging," said Meslin, adding there was a need for better surveillance and more collaboration between governments and their ministries of health and agriculture. Bird flu has killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam this year and millions of chickens, ducks and other birds have been culled across Asia. The United Nations health agency has warned that millions could die in a pandemic and the number of cases could rise with the onset of winter. It wants to tighten international cooperation. Hans Wagner of the Food and Agriculture Organization said Asia was especially susceptible to bird flu outbreaks. "Asia is an area of very high poultry density, high human density and the centre of the flu. These are all factors that come together," he told reporters. Singapore, which suspended imports of poultry and eggs from Malaysia after an outbreak of bird flu near the Thai-Malaysian border in August, is hosting the first meeting of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) taskforce for the control of bird flu. "Scientific evidence suggests that the H5N1 virus is now endemic in this region. Overcoming this threat is therefore the single most pressing agricultural and public health issue facing us today," Minister of State for Defence and National Development, Cedric Foo, said in a speech to more than 50 delegates at the conference. ASEAN comprises Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, originated in Guangdong in November 2002 and went on to kill 800 people around the world, including about 350 in China, bringing Asian tourism and air industries almost to a halt. The illness is triggered by a new member of the family of coronaviruses, traditionally a cause of the common cold, and experts say it could return in the northern hemisphere's autumn, a season when other coronaviruses often reappear. Experts believe SARS originated in civet cats and jumped to humans. But the bird flu virus is believed to represent a much greater threat because it is now so widespread among poultry in some of the world's most populous countries. Health officials have also since learned how to control SARS outbreaks, lessening the chances of another major outbreak. (Kyodo) _ A Myanmar woman, detained for illegal entry and separated from her young children, has been released on bail Tuesday from a Tokyo immigration center, according to her supporters. The Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau gave the go-ahead to release the 25-year-old woman on condition that she post bond. Her 39-year-old husband, also detailed for illegal entry, remains in custody. Last Friday, the couple from Myanmar filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court seeking suspension and cancellation of the government's order to detain them. The couple had been living in Tokyo with their 1-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter when they were taken into custody by immigration authorities. They say their detention is inhumane because they have been separated from their children, who have been placed in a facility for children in Tokyo. According to the couple's petition, they belong to an ethnic minority group in Myanmar and took part in an antigovernment movement. They said they fled to Japan to escape persecution, entering the country on fake passports at around 1999. The two married in Japan and took on janitorial and other jobs. Representatives of pro-democracy movements in 13 Asian countries called yesterday for the release of Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi due to new concerns over her security and health. The statement was issued at the end of a meeting of the World Forum for Democratization in Asia (WFDA), hosted by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Representatives from 13 Asian countries attended a workshop of the forum entitled "Democratization in Asia's Closed Societies." "On Dec. 14, the 1991 Nobel Laureate's team of personal bodyguards was withdrawn from her compound and her access to medical attention was drastically reduced, just weeks after Burma's military regime officially extended her detention by a year," the activists said in their statement. "These threats and intimidation by the Burmese regime clearly signal that Burma must be disqualified from chairing ASEAN. Instead of releasing Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's generals have placed her at greater risk," the statement said. election victory Suu Kyi led her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), to a landslide victory in Burma's last general elections held in 1990. She has been under house arrest since May last year, and was recently informed that her detention would be extended for another year. She was last detained after a military-organized mob attacked her and her supporters, killing scores of unarmed civilians. more appeals The workshop participants also called for the release of all prisoners of conscience in Asia, including Thich Huyen Quang, Thich Quang Do and Nguyen Dan Que of Vietnam, as well as Tenzin Delek, a Tibetan monk facing the death sentence, and Hu Shigen, a long-term detainee suffering from poor health, in China. Workshop participants also expressed serious concerns over the harassment and detention of activists from Bhutan and North Korea who sought refuge in Nepal and China. The WFDA, launched in Taipei this year, is a platform for cooperation among democratic movements, networks and organizations in Asia. [World News]: Yangon (Myanmar) Dec 20 : Myanmar will start working on a $12.3-million edible oil project next month, funded by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to help upgrade its oil crops production for self-sufficiency. The five-year project would assist farmers in 36 main oil seed growing areas and help cut the import of edible oil, according to officials at the Myanmar Agricultural Services. The project deals mainly with the development of palm oil and four other oil seed crops -- sesame, groundnut, sunflower and soybean, reports Xinhua. Myanmar obtained the OPEC's international development fund in May last year after a six-month feasibility study conducted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The loan has been provided at an annual interest rate of one percent payable in 25 years. OPEC had previously provided Myanmar with loans for agriculture, telecommunications, energy, transport and water supply improvement networks. According to official statistics, Myanmar produced some 250,000 tons of edible oil annually but still has to import the same amount of palm oil to meet its local demand. Myanmar's cultivated area of oil crops, including the four oil crops and palm, is around 2.8 million hectares. --Indo-Asian News Service Feel like having your say on Asian news? Asia Times Online invites you to take part in the global conversation by writing an article for our new feature, a guest column that we call SPEAKING FREELY. It's our hope that by introducing this new feature, we'll be able to help keep our website fresh and vital and important to you, our global readership. Thus, our main criteria for judging submissions will be readability, global significance and general interest. We reserve the right to publish, edit or reject any submission. Unfortunately, due to the likely volume, we won't be able to reply to all who submit articles, so if you haven't heard back from us within a week, feel free to take it elsewhere. Submissions should be 500-1,500 words long and not previously published. We're sorry, but we're not able to pay for articles - although you're welcome to retain copyright. |
|
|
|
|
|
