Day: March 13, 2009

Norway’s state pension fund, one of the world’s biggest investors, has pulled out of Dongfeng Motor over its sale of military equipment to the Burmese junta, the finance ministry said on.

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German engineering giant Siemens, which has been implicated in several corruption scandals, had also been placed ”under observation” due to ethical concerns, Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen said.

The fund has sold off its 30 million kroner (HK$33.97 million) stake in Dongfeng over its sale of some 900 military trucks to Burma.

That move came after Norway in October said the fund would no longer invest in companies that send military equipment to the country’s military junta.

Dongfeng is thus the first company to be blacklisted by the fund over the new rule and is also the first mainland company to be ruled out as an investment target.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=13193&icid=2&d_str=20090313

2009 March 13 is Burma Human Right Day..

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2009 March 13 is Burma Human Right Day..
We are remember for Naung Taw Gyi Ko phone Maw and other Human right fighter.
Who need to give their life for Human right.
At 1988 March 13 and At 1996 Dec 2 Human right fighter will come again from RIT,And then at 2007 Human right fighter come again over the road…
At our country history we can see Human Right Fighter are born till to now…
We never stop for Human Right for Our Country(BURMA)….

“The people from the Three Mile, Five Mile and Yadanar Dipa camps have been allowed to stay in villages near Laputta Township,” said one woman in her 30s living in the village of Painmwe Taung.

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Villages Reluctant to Take in Roadside Refugees

More than a thousand people whose homes were destroyed by Cyclone Nargis are still taking refuge in villages along the Laputta-Myaungmya road, nearly a year after the cyclone struck, and months after being forced to leave roadside camps.

“The people from the Three Mile, Five Mile and Yadanar Dipa camps have been allowed to stay in villages near Laputta Township,” said one woman in her 30s living in the village of Painmwe Taung.“But the authorities don’t want us to stay near the road because they are afraid people driving by will see us,” she added.
Although the World Food Program (WFP) continues to provide assistance to victims of the disaster, many say that they are still struggling to survive without jobs or permanent places to live.

“WFP provides about 6 pyi (around 1.5 liters) of rice once a month, along with some beans and a little oil and salt, but the government has already stopped supporting us,” said one man who lost 10 members of his family in the cyclone.

“It has been almost a year, but we still have no work and nowhere to live, and we are afraid the authorities will keep forcing us to move from place to place,” he added.

Most of the former camp residents have been living in simple structures covered with tarpaulin sheets. However, as Burma enters its hottest season, many are finding life in these makeshift shelters almost unbearable. continue http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=15300

2 NEW LIES JOURNALS IN BURMA_Seinle Shwe Pyi Journal will now include coverage of the 2010 election while Shwe Naing-ngan Journal will broaden its coverage to include more political and military affairs issues, including publishing directives of the Tatmadaw (the armed forces).

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Ad Appears for USDA Political Journals
An advertisement for two journals that will broaden their coverage to include political affairs in Burma, published by a junta-backed mass organization, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), appeared in The New Light of Myanmar, a junta-backed newspaper, on Friday.

Seinle Shwe Pyi Journal will now include coverage of the 2010 election while Shwe Naing-ngan Journal will broaden its coverage to include more political and military affairs issues, including publishing directives of the Tatmadaw (the armed forces).

The ad said the Seinle Shwe Pyi Journal, Volume VI, No. 8 and Shwe Naing-ngan Journal, Volume VII, No. 21, were published on Thursday.

The office location for both journals is at Panchan Tower in Myaynigone in Sanchaung Township in Rangoon, according to the ad.

An official at the office told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the journals are published by the USDA. He declined to provide further information.

The USDA reportedly plans to publish a daily prior to the 2010 election. Reporters have been told by the organization that it will pay a competitive salary—150,000 kyat (US $150) per month—at the new daily, which does not yet have a name.

USDA members attended a journalism training course in Rangoon in February which was held under the direction of Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, according to journalists in Rangoon.

Kyaw Hsan once vowed that he “will fight back against the media using media.”

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15298

Six family members of Ashin Gambira, a well-know organizer in the 2007 monk-led pro-democracy uprising, were each sentenced to five years imprisonment on Thursday in the North Dagon Myothit court, according to family members.

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gambira_family_305px

Monk’s Family Members Sentenced in Reprisal
Khin Thu Htay, a sister of Ashin Gambira, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that Aung Ko Ko Lwin, 27, a brother of Ashin Gambira, and five family members were charged under Immigration Act 13/1.

Aung Ko Ko Lwin; Moe Htet Hlym, Gambira’s brother-in-law; and four cousins, Kyaw Myo Seck, Hlaing Myo, Soe Lwin and Ye Nyunt, all received prison terms.

“They didn’t do any anti-military or anti-government activities, and they don’t know politics,” said Khin Thu Htay, whose husband was among the group.

Her husband, Moe Htet Hlym, was arrested on September 9, 2008, after he launched balloons in Rangoon to mark the one-year anniversary of the September uprising.

Khin Thu Htay said the military government made the charges in reprisal for Ashin Gambira’s activities.

Ashin Gambira organized monks across the country to boycott alms offered by security forces that brutally suppressed peaceful demonstrations on September 5, 2007, in Pakokkuk Township.

Ashin Gambira was arrested along with his father by military intelligence officers while hiding in Sintgyaing Township and subsequently disrobed by authorities without consultation with the Sangha institution.

He was sentenced to 68 years imprisonment in November 2008 by the Insein Prison special court under charges generally having to do with threatening the stability of the state. Ashin Gambira is now in Hkamti Prison in Sagaing Division.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15299

Biofuel Gone Bad: Burma’s Atrophying Jatropha

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My friend in Rangoon is a busy man. He manages a couple of companies in Burma’s commercial capital, helps raise his children and regularly makes merit at a Buddhist temple. He also spends time tending to a plant that he knows is only grown to die. In Dec. 2005, Burma’s economically inept junta — one of its leaders once decided to denominate the national currency by multiples of nine because he liked the number — decided that the country’s future lay in a shrub called jatropha.
My friend in Rangoon is a busy man. He manages a couple of companies in Burma’s commercial capital, helps raise his children and regularly makes merit at a Buddhist temple. He also spends time tending to a plant that he knows is only grown to die. In Dec. 2005, Burma’s economically inept junta — one of its leaders once decided to denominate the national currency by multiples of nine because he liked the number — decided that the country’s future lay in a shrub called jatropha.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885050,00.html?xid=rss-world