John Yettaw on CNN on Wednesday

The Springfield News-Leader, Missouri

John Yettaw, the Laclede County man arrested in Burma while attempting to liberate a detained democracy leader, will tell his story on CNN on Wednesday, according to a news release issued by Yettaw’s attorney Chris Allen.

Yettaw, from the tiny town of Falcon — about 70 miles northeast of Springfield in Laclede County — returned to Missouri last Wednesday after generating global headlines for swimming to the home of Suu Kyi, then getting arrested and sentenced to hard labor.

Yettaw, 53, was deported Sunday from Burma after the intervention of U.S. Sen. Jim Webb.

The incident led to a trial that sparked global condemnation in which Suu Kyi was sentenced to an additional 18 months of detention for breaching the terms of her house arrest. She has already spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention.

Despite the additional penalties, Yettaw has told reporters he does not regret his actions and he believes he helped save her life.

Chris Allen, whose law practice is based in Lebanon, echoed those sentiments in the news release.

“The more I am around John, and listen to the details of his story, the more I am convinced that he did in fact save Aung Sann Suu Kyi’s life, and that his actions will effect positive and lasting change in Myanmar. I am excited for John to have this opportunity and I am looking forward to being with him in New York City when he tells CNN and the whole world his story,” Allen said in the release.

Allen and Yettaw are traveling to New York City for the Tuesday interview, which is expected to air on Wednesday, according to the news release.

Yettaw on Myanmar detention

With the arrival of over 60 army trucks carrying Burmese troops, fresh tension has flared up between ethnic Kokang rebel groups and the Burmese Army in northeastern Shan State with the ruling junta issuing an arrest warrant for the Kokang leader Peng Jiasheng, sources said.

Spurt in tension between Burmese Army and Kokang rebels

Tuesday, 25 August 2009 22:46

New Delhi (Mizzima) – With the arrival of over 60 army trucks carrying Burmese troops, fresh tension has flared up between ethnic Kokang rebel groups and the Burmese Army in northeastern Shan State with the ruling junta issuing an arrest warrant for the Kokang leader Peng Jiasheng, sources said.

Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Sino-Burma border based military analyst, said the tension between the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) also known as Kokang Army and the Burmese troops had risen to a new level and that there could be a fresh clash between the two anytime.

“The tension is high and there are possibilities of a fresh conflict. But as of now both sides seem to be restrained,” Aung Kyaw Zaw said.

The tension, according to Aung Kyaw Zaw, began since the MNDAA like many other ceasefire armed groups, rejected the junta’s proposal to transform its army into a ‘Border Guard Force’, an army to be maintained and managed by the ruling junta.

However, the Burmese Army wants to avoid a confrontation with the Kokang Army and is using various tactics to win the group to their side by infiltrating into the groups’ leadership and breaking their unity, Aung Kyaw Zaw said.

KIO/KIA’s entire manpower was sought by Maj-Gen Soe Win, local chief negotiator of the ruling junta and commander of the Northern Regional Command (Ma-Pa-Kha) based in Kachin State’s capital Myitkyina during a meeting with KIO delegates in the capital on August 22,

Written by KNG
Tuesday, 25 August 2009 18:34
In a reminder Burma’s military junta has demanded handing over of the manpower of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the main ethnic Kachin ceasefire group and its armed wing, in northern Burma and one of the strongest ethnic armed groups in the country before the October deadline set by the regime, said local sources.

KIO/KIA’s entire manpower was sought by Maj-Gen Soe Win, local chief negotiator of the ruling junta and commander of the Northern Regional Command (Ma-Pa-Kha) based in Kachin State’s capital Myitkyina during a meeting with KIO delegates in the capital on August 22, said KIO officials in Laiza headquarters on the Sino-Burma border in Kachin State.

This meeting followed when the KIO submitted the list of over 10 organizational departments to the junta on August 12.

According to KIO delegates, Commander Soe Win kept repeating to the KIO at the meeting to convert its armed-wing the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to a battalion of the Border Guard Force (BGF) under the control of the Burmese Army. The KIO has rejected the proposal.

The eight KIO delegates led by Vice-president No. 1 Lt-Gen Gauri Zau Seng told the commander that it cannot provide the list of men and women in service in the KIO and KIA by the October deadline. On the contrary, it would like to keep discussions on the issue going with the new government after next year’s general elections, said KIO sources.

On July 8, the KIO clearly submitted its two organizational demands— the KIA to convert to a self-controlled Kachin Regional Guard Force (KRGF) and power sharing in the new Kachin State government with direct participation of KIO people after next year’s general elections.

The KIO’s demands are yet to be considered by the junta. But it has been increasingly pressurizing it to accept the Burmese Army-controlled BGF, said KIO officials in Laiza headquarters.

At the moment, both the Burmese Army and the KIA are sending more and more troops to Hpakant jade mining land following a face off between them two weeks ago, said KIA sources. The military stand off was resolved by commander Soe Win and KIO Vice-chairman Lt-Gen N’ban La Awng.

The KIO/A has forged an alliance with four ethnic ceasefire groups in Shan State to defend themselves if any group is attacked by the Burmese Army. The allies are the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N), United Wa State Army (UWSA), Kokang ceasefire group and Mongla-based National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA-ESS), said KIO officials.

The KIO has accepted in principle the transformation of its armed-wing proposed by the junta to all ethnic ceasefire groups in the country last May because it would like to resolve the political problems between them by political means through dialogues, said KIO officials.
Kachin news

Unless Burma’s military regime releases political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and amends the 2008 constitution, the 2010 general elections will be meaningless and will not usher in any kind of change, the National League for Democracy has said.

by Mungpi
Tuesday, 25 August 2009 18:12

New Delhi (Mizzima) – Unless Burma’s military regime releases political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and amends the 2008 constitution, the 2010 general elections will be meaningless and will not usher in any kind of change, the National League for Democracy has said.

The 2010 general election, proposed by the ruling junta, is based on the 2008 constitution, which enshrines the role of the military. It cannot provide an opportunity for change unless the regime considers reviewing the constitution, Dr. Win Naing, a spokesperson for the NLD said.

“The 2010 elections cannot be an opportunity for change in Burma unless the junta reviews and amends the constitution,” he said.

It has been 20 years now, and the junta is aware that it cannot continue ruling the country in an illegitimate manner. Since the junta is not prepared to make any kind of drastic reforms, it drafted the constitution to legitimize its role, he added.

Dr. Win Naing’s remarks came in response to the recent report released by the International Crisis Group, which urged all stake holders in Burmese politics to prepare to seize an opportunity of change that is likely to be a fall out of the 2010 elections.

The ICG in its report released on Thursday said the 2010 election is an opportunity for change and urged the international community, the Burmese opposition including the NLD, the military government and other stake holders not to squander the opportunity.

“All stakeholders should be alert to opportunities that may arise to push the new government towards reform and reconciliation,” the report, titled “Myanmar: Towards the Elections”, said.

The report also argues that boycotting or opposing the election would only push things into the hands of the military as it would not prevent the elections from taking place.

But Dr. Win Naing said if the elections take place without any consideration for the opposition’s demands, it would only produce a result that is predictable – continued military rule – and the only difference this time would be “a legitimized military rule”.

The New World Order vdo by Bipolar Buddha

In Myanmar business circles, the most talked about businessman is Tay Za, who owns the Htoo Trading Company Ltd, also known as the Htoo Group of Companies

On the march to do business in Myanmar

The debate over United States and European Union-led sanctions against doing business in Myanmar is set to intensify in the wake of US Senator Jim Webb’s recent high-profile meeting with Senior General Than Shwe and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Webb spoke out against the sanctions and Myanmar’s junta echoed that call through state media. As US policymakers weigh the pros and cons of economically re-engaging the ruling junta, the process will necessarily take into account that a handful of military linked businessmen, many allegedly involved in illegal activities, including drug trafficking, dominate Myanmar’s underdeveloped economy.

For US investors eyeing business opportunities that the cessation of sanctions would present, dealing with Myanmar’s top military and business leaders would be key to gaining market access. Myanmar is one of the world’s most corrupt countries, according to Transparency International, an independent corruption watchdog, and US businesses would enter Myanmar at great risk to their corporate reputations.

In Myanmar business circles, the most talked about businessman is Tay Za, who owns the Htoo Trading Company Ltd, also known as the Htoo Group of Companies. Htoo maintains large logging, construction, property development, import-export, aviation, transportation, shipping and mining operations. Tay Za has also made recent forays into telecommunications and banking, and established Myanmar’s first privately invested airline, Air Bagan.
The US Treasury Department placed five of those companies, along with Tay Za, his wife, and eldest son, Pye Phyo Za, on a sanctions list in October 2007 because of their financial connections to the regime and Tay Za’s alleged role as an arms broker. In February 2008, the US stepped up those sanctions by putting several more companies and Tay Za’s business associates in both Myanmar and Singapore on a black list, including Tay Za’s brother and business partner Thiha. Htoo Trading Company Ltd, which includes Ayer Shwe Wah Company Ltd, Myanmar Avia Export Company Ltd and Pavo Aircraft Leasing Company Ltd, are all currently under US sanctions. continue
On the march to do business in Myanmar

Ayeyar Delta Agri Export Co.Ltd news by JACBA

ၾသဂုတ္၂၅
ဧရာ၀တီတိုင္း ဘိုကေလးျမိဳ ့နယ္။ကဒံုကနိေက်းရြာအုပ္စု ဓနိေခ်ာင္းေက်းရြာ မွရာအိမ္မွဴး ဦးေဌးတင္ေအာင္
ဆိုသူက ေဒသခံနာဂစ္ဒုကၡသည္မ်ားႏွင့္ လယ္သမားမ်ားထံမွ မတရားေခါင္းပံုျဖတ္စီးပြားရွာေနေၾကာင္းသိ
ရသည္။နာဂစ္သင့္ျပည္သူမ်ားအတြက္ နိုင္ငံတကာအင္ဂ်ီအိုမ်ားႏွင့္ျပည္တြင္းျပည္ပတို ့မွလွဴဒါန္းေသာ အလွဴ ပစၥည္းမ်ားကို တစ္ကိုယ္ေကာင္းအလြဲသံုးစားျပဳလုပ္လ်က္စီးပြားရွာေနေၾကာင္း လယ္သမားတစ္ဦးကေျပာသည္။ continue

Ayeyar Delta Agri Export

Policy Analysis-Burma and North Korea: Smoke or fire? by Andrew Selth

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Yadanabon Market bur

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Monk Leaders Call for Third Sangha Boycott

Several exiled Buddhist monk leaders have told The Irrawaddy that Burmese monks across Burma are preparing to launch another boycott of military personnel and their families due to ongoing abuses against Buddhist principles by the ruling military junta.

Known as a “pattanikkujjana” in Pali, a Buddhist monks’ boycott involves refusing morning alms from those said to have violated religious principles.Burmese monks have declared a pattanikkujjana against the military regime and their cronies twice in recent history: the first time in 1990 following the suppression of Aung San Suu Kyi and her opposition party, the National League for Democracy, after they had won a national election by a landslide; and again in 2007, the so-called “Saffron Revolution,” when monks led demonstrations against price hikes in Rangoon that turned into a national uprising against the government.

Monk Leaders Call for Third Sangha Boycott