Day: February 8, 2009

Urgent help needed: Crackdown at the rubbish dump of Mae Sot-Ashin Sopaka

On By Burma Myanmar newsIn BurmaLeave a comment

The crackdown started on January 23, 2009 around 5:00 in the morning when everyone was sleeping still. Then it was followed by 3 more successive crackdowns on the same day. Men and women, children, babies, nursing mothers, pregnant women, were chased by police. They ran around the garbage area and heed off to the nearest jungle adjacent to the dumpsite leaving their few and only belongings. Their houses were ransacked and destroyed by the police.

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A UN survey found that the poppy cultivation rising in eastern and northern Shan State, Kachin and Kayah States. Moreover the current political tension might turn to rearmament of ‘United Wa State Army’ (UWSA) which will encourage poppy growing in these UWSA controlled areas besides the rising production in ATS drugs such as ‘Yaa baaa’.

On By Burma Myanmar newsIn BurmaLeave a comment

Fight against drug menace with synergy

by Mizzima News
Sunday, 08 February 2009 21:42

The apparently rising drug production is bad news and a menace not only for Burma, but the whole world. All organizations must tackle this problem with synergy.

The declining prices of crop substitutes, the domino effects of global financial crisis, the falling demand of these substitute crops in Chinese market severely affected the former poppy farmers compelling them to return to their poppy fields because of these irresistible factors.

Burma, the second largest drug producer in the world after Afghanistan, achieved some victories in drug its eradication programme in the past. The sown acreage of poppy was 120,000 hectares at the peak which declined to only one fourth of that amount in 2008. The poppy production also declined to just over 400 metric tons. After achieving all these successes, we are seeing the sign of returning to the previous situation.

A UN survey found that the poppy cultivation rising in eastern and northern Shan State, Kachin and Kayah States. Moreover the current political tension might turn to rearmament of ‘United Wa State Army’ (UWSA) which will encourage poppy growing in these UWSA controlled areas besides the rising production in ATS drugs such as ‘Yaa baaa’.

In fact the drug problem is closely linked with politics in Burma. The military regime, which assumed power by killing peaceful demonstrators brutally in the 1988 nationwide uprising, survived because of drug money of drug kingpins and heavyweights, allowing them free investment and free money laundering. This drug money helped much in building and arming its growing army. continue http://www.mizzima.com/edop/editorial/1672-fight-against-drug-menace-with-synergy-.html

Last call for forests in Northern Burma

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by Phyusin Linn
Sunday, 08 February 2009 05:39

Forests in Northern Burma, some of the last frontiers of Asia’s rain forests, are facing a chronic threat.

Logging is back in Kachin State under a new mask. Logging no longer will be the illegal business in one of the world’s biggest green regions that houses most of the teaks left on earth. Logging this time has returned into the region with bigger ambition and the safer shield under the title of agro-forestry development projects.

For decades, deforestation in Kachin State was traditionally carried out by agricultural farming industry of the local people and Asia’s one of the longest civil wars in the nation. High speed massive illegal logging was introduced to the region only by logging companies from neighbouring Yunnan Province only after China’s economy started roaring in 1990s. And it remarkably escalated in 1998 when China banned logging in its nation after facing serious floods in their home land. Forests in northern Burma were dwindling quickly in early 2000 and Kachin State became a hottest target for all the international watchdogs. But, finally, loggers have found a new and safest way to continue their business with a higher speed. continue
http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/1671-last-call-for-forests-in-northern-burma.html