Blast in Rangoon suburbs

by Mizzima News
Thursday, 26 March 2009 22:47

New Delhi (Mizzima) – A minor explosion occurred on Thursday in the suburban town of North Okkalapa in Rangoon, police and sources said.

There were unconfirmed reports of two people having died.

Officers of the Rangoon division police station said, they were alerted that a blast had occurred in a guest house in North Okkalapa. They refused to elaborate saying the explosion is still under investigation.

But an official at the General Hospital in North Okkalapa said the blast occurred at about 4: 30 p.m. (local time) in a guest house.

“I heard that two people died,” the official said, but he declined to confirm it as he had not witnessed the incident.

The North Okkalapa Police, when contacted, denied knowledge of the blast.

Sporadic blasts have occurred in Rangoon, Burma’s former capital and commercial city. And in many cases, the government has pointed fingers at dissidents and armed rebels, who are based along the Thai-Burma border.

On March 3, two explosions occurred on the same night at a busy bus terminus and near a park in Sanchuang Township. However, no casualty was reported.

Suspected bomb blast in Burma

There are reports a suspected bombing has killed one person and injured two others in Burma’s commercial hub Rangoon.

Official sources say the explosion happened at a guest house in the city’s North Okkalapa township, killing a man and wounding two women.

Military ruled Burma has been rocked by a series of small bomb blasts in recent months, with two small bombs exploding in Rangoon in early March, causing minor damage but no injuries. http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/200903/2527459.htm?desktop

China is secretly spiriting away Molybdenum (Mo) metal, also called Mukuang in Chinese from Burma’s northern Kachin State while working in several hydropower projects, said local sources.

Molybdenum is a very hard silver-coloured metallic element used especially to make steel stronger.
Currently, Molybdenum is being taken by Chinese companies from the mountains near the Chipwi (Chibwe) hydropower project in N’Mai River (N’Mai Hka in Kachin) east of Kachin State and two hydropower projects in Taping River also called Ta Hkaw Hka in Kachin and Dapain in Chinese in Bhamo district, said local people near the project sites.

People in Chipwi city said the Chinese government’s China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) employees arrived for the construction of the hydropower project since early 2007. The company started digging mines in the mountains around the project site and began taking away Molybdenum secretly to their country in trucks.

A high-level US official told the Committee Representing People of Parliament (CRPP) on Wednesday that some existing economic sanctions may be withdrawn while other targeted sanctions may remain in place.

Changes Proposed on US Economic Sanctions

Aye Thar Aung, secretary of CRPP, said that Stephen Blake, the director of the US State Department’s Office of Mainland Southeast Asia, made his remarks at a meeting in Rangoon. No details of the new policy were available.

The CRPP was formed following the 1990 election and is made up of elected members of parliament and various opposition groups.

Meanwhile Nyan Win, a spokesperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD), said that the NLD urged the US government to initiate talks with the Burmese regime to help move the reconciliation process forward.

During a four-day visit, Blake also met with Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win at the administrative capital of Naypyidaw.

update/nckarenout Kwekalu News

http://www.kwekalu.net/update/nckarenout.html

Myanmar introduces first ever audio-visual mobile phone

YANGON, March 26 (Xinhua) — Myanmar authorities has introduced the first ever world’s up-to-date audio-visual mobile phone of 3-G WCDMA-system in the country’s six townships in a bid to upgrade its telecommunication links, sources with the Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) said on Thursday.

A total of 5,000 such audio-visual mobile phones will be distributed as the initial stage to Yangon area only due to limited network service area, the sources said.

The introduction of the 3-G WCDMA system marked Myanmar’s entry into a new phase of its mobile phone system, users said.

According to the latest official progress-indicating figures, the number of GSM mobile phones in Myanmar hit 375,800 in 2008, up from 211,812 in 2007.

Other phones such as CDMA stood 205,500 in number as of the year, while auto-phones went to 153,344, the figures show.

GSM phones have been extensively used in Myanmar since it was introduced in 2002 after cellular ones in 1993 and the DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication) and CDMA in 1997.

The GSM (global system for mobile) phones in Myanmar can auto-roam over two dozen townships far up to the border areas and mainly cover all other major cities in addition to Yangon and Mandalay.

Summary Report on Military Engagements in KNLA Areas 01.February-28.2009

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13505064/Battle-2-09

The relief for the Rohingya is certainly welcome. But Jakarta’s warm reception for Sein shows that Indonesia and its colleagues in ASEAN, of which Burma is a member, are not really committed to doing anything about democracy and human rights in Burma — nothing, anyway, that would breach ASEAN’s culture of non-interference, a principle that is to be codified in the body’s proposed human rights charter.

Indonesia: Obama’s New Buddy Keeps Bad Company

On her recent Asian tour, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made Jakarta a key stop. The move signaled a new direction for American foreign policy in the region following that of the Bush administration — which was accused by critics of having neglected Southeast Asia, and of having alienated Indonesians with its military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While insiders and policy wonks might point out that the U.S. and Indonesia worked well together on counterterrorism issues during the Bush era — successfully undermining Jemaah Islamiyah, for instance — the perception lingers that Washington did not regard Indonesia, and Southeast Asia in general, as significant. That opened the way for China to forge intensified trade and diplomatic links in the region — both with its former enemies, such as Vietnam, as well as with strong U.S. allies, such as the Philippines, with whom China has unresolved territorial disputes.

While the UN’s Ban Ki-moon is said by his advisors to be close to announcing a visit to Myanmar, as early as next month’s ASEAN meeting, with U.S. support, the situation in Myanmar, particularly for minorities like the Rohingya and the Karen people, continues to deteriorate.

On Myanmar, a Tale of Three Browns, Gordon at UN, Two in Foggy Bottom

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, March 25 — While the UN’s Ban Ki-moon is said by his advisors to be close to announcing a visit to Myanmar, as early as next month’s ASEAN meeting, with U.S. support, the situation in Myanmar, particularly for minorities like the Rohingya and the Karen people, continues to deteriorate.

Meanwhile, at the US State Department on March 25, a visit to Myanmar by one US official named Brown was denied, while another was confirmed but downplayed. A rapprochement appears to be afoot, not based on any human rights improvement by the Than Shwe military regime, but out of lack of imagination or hunger for natural gas.

continue http://www.innercitypress.com/usukun1myanmar032509.html

The Arakan National Newspaper Vol;3 No.3 March

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13631634/The-Arakan-National-Newspaper-Vol3-No3-March