Irrawaddy - Burmese women nominated for Peace Prize June 30, Irrawaddy Burmese women nominated for Peace Prize - Shah Paung Four Burmese ethnic minority women living in exile are among 1,000 nominees worldwide for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. The women include Cynthia Maung, a Karen medical doctor who since 1989 has run a clinic treating Burmese refugees, migrants and orphans in Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burma border, and Charm Tong, a leader of the Shan Women's Action Network. In 2002, Dr Cynthia, as she is widely known, won Southeast Asia’s Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership, considered by many as Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize, and last April she was listed as one of Time Magazine’s Asian Heroes. Altogether she has received six international awards for her work. In 1999, she was the first recipient of the Jonathan Mann Award, sponsored by US and Swiss health organizations. Charm Tong is also well known for her struggle on behalf of women from her native Shan State, on Burma’s eastern border. In 2004 she was one of 10 women chosen as Women of the World, by popular women’s magazine Marie Claire. The other two Burmese women nominated for the Nobel prize are Naw Zipporrah Sein, secretary of the Karen Women’s Organization, and Naw Paw Lu Lu, who runs a home for Burmese refugees in the Sangkhlaburi district of Thailand’s Kanchanaburi province. ~