O-Burma And Its Regional And Global Message – Analysis

By: Keshav Prasad Bhattarai   
November 25, 2012      

Both Burmese and international media were stirred at the mood of national jubilation experienced in Burma for the first time visit to the country by a sitting U.S. President.

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Reforms in Myanmar: hype and realities

 Maung Zarni, The Nation   
Publication Date : 19-11-2012   

US President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive in Myanmar tomorrow - perhaps the world's hottest destination at the moment. He should "see" the ugly realities of the country's reforms that lie just beneath the surface and hear the cries of the wretched of Myanmar such as the Muslim Rohingya and the Christian Kachins.
These days Myanmar's coming out party is talk of the town since President Thein Sein's government has embarked on reforms, ending the country's international pariah status and half-century of isolation, both self-imposed and externally-maintained.

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Obama Arrives in Myanmar, Marking First Visit by US President to Long-Isolated Country

YANGON, Myanmar November 18, 2012 (AP)   

 

Obama arrives in Myanmar, marking first visit by US president to long-isolated country.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/obama-arrives-myanmar-marking-visit-us-president-long-17751425#.UKmm54Z6Vf0

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Myanmar to deepen relations with China

China Daily, November 19, 2012    

Myanmar cherishes the "special" links it has had with China since ancient times and will further strengthen and deepen its "time-honored and time-tested" friendship during the country's current reforms, the top political adviser to the Myanmar president told China Daily in an exclusive interview during a recent visit to China.

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Myanmar train accident kills 25

November 10, 2012 9:42 am

Yangon - A train transporting petrol to north-western Myanmar overturned and caught fire, killing 25 people and injuring 62, state media reports said Saturday.

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Myanmar, Unicef To Cooperate On Child Development

November 10, 2012 16:00 PM      

YANGON, Nov 10 (Bernama) -- Myanmar government and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) have agreed on cooperation for the development of children in the country, official media reported Saturday.

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EDITORIAL: Engaging with Myanmar

Published: November 10, 2012 12:00AM, Today   

As part of what The New York Times aptly calls a “geopolitical chess game,” next week President Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the southeast Asian nation of Myanmar.

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REFILE-UPDATE 2-Obama to make landmark visit to Myanmar this month

By Matt Spetalnick and Aung Hla Tun    

WASHINGTON/YANGON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama later this month will become the first U.S. leader to visit Myanmar, marking the strongest international endorsement so far of the fragile democratic transition in the once-isolated Southeast Asian country after decades of military rule.

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Myanmar's gov't welcomes Obama's historic visit

Nov 9, 1:11 AM EST     

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's government says it "warmly welcomes" President Barack Obama's decision to visit the country this month, noting it will increase the momentum of democratic reform.

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Myanmar government welcomes Obama’s historic visit, saying it will increase momentum of reform

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, November 9, 1:13 PM   

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s government says it “warmly welcomes” President Barack Obama’s decision to visit the country this month, noting it will increase the momentum of democratic reform.

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For Dawei, taxpayers won't pay

State says its role is to coordinate investors   

Bangkokpost,  9/11/2012 at 12:00 AM    

The Dawei deep-sea port and industrial zone project took a new twist Thursday, as the Thai government insisted it cannot spend taxpayer money for private gains in Dawei.

Somchet: ‘We’re just waiting for money’

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Myanmar’s Suu Kyi, ethnic lawmakers call for government action on communal unrest

By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, November 8, 1:09 AM    

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and lawmakers from ethnic minority parties are calling on the government to deploy more troops to restore peace and stability in a western state hit by recent deadly violence between Buddhists and Muslims.

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Mobius sees opportunities in Cambodia and Myanmar

Mobius sees opportunities in Cambodia and Myanmar - investing 201 (5:17)   

The dean of emerging markets, Franklin Templeton’s Mark Mobius, picks stocks and sectors on the Asian frontier. NagaCorp has more than doubled in 12 months.

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Britain gives mixed report on Myanmar

Published: Nov. 6, 2012 at 12:44 PM     

VIENTIANE, Laos, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- The British government is concerned about violence in eastern Myanmar and the subsequent humanitarian crisis there, the foreign secretary said.

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UN food agency appeals for $11 million to feed displaced people in western Myanmar

By Associated Press, Published: November 6     

SITTWE, Myanmar — The United Nations food agency has issued an urgent appeal for $11 million to feed more than 110,000 people displaced by violence between Buddhists and Muslims in western Myanmar.

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Shan acknowledge growing drug scourge in its part of Myanmar

November 7, 2012 3:51 pm    

Myanmar's Shan ethnic group has acknowledged that opium production and sales as well as drug addiction have increased in its areas in past years, making eradication of the narcotics trade a priority in the peace process with the government.

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Analysis: Foreign insurers enter Myanmar market with hope, caution

Clare Baldwin Reuters    

2:55 a.m. CST, November 7, 2012    

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The world's top insurance firms are setting their sights on Myanmar, steeling themselves for a fight with corruption and ghosts from the nation's political past.

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CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Cambodia says Obama to visit, raising Myanmar chances

Wed Nov 7, 2012 4:43am EST    

(Corrects 2nd paragraph reference to half a century)  

Nov 7 (Reuters) - Newly re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama will go to Cambodia on Nov. 18 to attend an Asian summit, a Cambodian minister said on Wednesday, adding to speculation he may use the opportunity to visit nearby Myanmar.

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Cambodia says Obama to visit, raising Myanmar chances

Nov 7, 2012       

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Newly re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama will go to Cambodia on November 18 to attend an Asian summit, a Cambodian minister said on Wednesday, adding to speculation he may use the opportunity to visit nearby Myanmar.

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Four get death penalty for Chinese sailor deaths

Published: 6/11/2012 at 03:48 PM     

Bangkokpost - Four members of a gang accused of masterminding the murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River last year were sentenced to death by a court in southwest China on Tuesday.

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Parts of Myanmar 'very tense'

 Published: Nov. 5, 2012 at 1:11 PM    

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- The situation in the Myanmar state of Rakhine remains "very, very volatile" after October violence left at least 89 people dead, a U.N. official said.

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Weapons seized at Myanmar border

Bangkokpost,  Published: 4/11/2012 at 06:03 PM    

TAK - Thai soldiers on Sunday seized many heavy firearms, including rifles and machine guns, and more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition in Tak's Mae Sot district, near the Thai-Myanmar border.

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The two ills of Myanmar

EDITORIAL, Published: 6/11/2012 at 12:00 AM    

Bangkokpost - Myanmar is showing the face of reform to the world. But our western neighbour is also displaying what a long, tough road still lies ahead. President Thein Sein and the elected parliament are rightly celebrating a new foreign investment law. At the same time, the country is at the centre of controversies over its failure to deal with drug trafficking, and is being rightly condemned around the world for its treatment of Rohingya people.

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From Myanmar to Bangalore, on business

Rhik Kundu, TNN | Nov 6, 2012, 06.51AM IST   

BANGALORE: They have come all the way from Myanmar to the IT capital to take back home some new ideas on doing business. The visit has been worth it, said the 21 MBA students from Mandalay University.

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MSF medical care affected by violence in Myanmar

China.org.cn, November 6, 2012     

As Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical teams work to reach communities affected by the violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar, they face ongoing antagonism generated by deep ethnic divisions, according to MSF.

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Scott Leckie: ‘Burma could very easily become the displacement capital of Asia’

By DAVID STOUT   
Published: 5 November 2012   

Displacement Solutions founder and director Scott Leckie.

Following the publication of Displacement Solutions recent report on housing, land and property rights in Burma, DVB’s David Stout spoke with the organisation’s founder and director Scott Leckie about land disputes and new legislation in the country

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Burma: Continued Violations of Fundamental Freedoms and New Forms of Control Expose the Empty Façade of Reforms

Mon, 2012-11-05 14:23 — editor   

 

Preliminary Findings of FORUM-ASIA’s Fact-Finding Mission

Rangoon/Bangkok, 05 November, (Asiantribune.com):   

 

Human rights protection in Burma will remain illusory if fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association are not properly safeguarded in the current legal reforms in Burma, warned the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) after concluding a fact-finding mission in Burma.

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Leading rights activist declines to speak out on behalf of Myanmar's Muslims

First Published: 2012-11-04

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi causes disappointment among international supporters for her muted response to violence that has swept Rakhine state.

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World Bank returns to Myanmar

Nov 6, 2012     
By Carey L Biron     

WASHINGTON - The World Bank has approved a major new development package for Myanmar, marking the first time the Washington-based development institution has lent to the country in a quarter century.

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Four Projects to Boost Myanmar Gas Supplies

November 03rd, 2012 6:49pm      

Myanmar’s ministry of energy has said that the country will produce about 700 billion cubic foot of natural gas a year from four projects by 2013, reports in the local media have suggested.

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OIC To Hold Special Meeting On Myanmar Developments

November 05, 2012 15:30 PM      

ANKARA, Turkey, Nov 5 (Bernama) -- Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)announced that a special meeting of its Council of Foreign Ministers will be held in Djibouti from Nov 15-17 to review the recent developments in Myanmar, Iran's IRNA reported.

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Norway opens embassy in Myanmar

Nov 5, 2012 - Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (photo) on Sunday opened Norway's first embassy in Myanmar (Burma). Her also had talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

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Britain urges Myanmar to resolve Rohingya issue

05 November 2012, 06:32 CET       

(VIENTIANE) - Britain on Monday called on Myanmar to resolve the citizenship status of Rohingya Muslims caught up in deadly sectarian violence in a flashpoint western state.

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Myanmar minister warns off opportunists

A senior Myanmar minister said the government will crack down on anyone taking advantage of the communal unrest in Rakhnie state for their own ends.                

Published: Nov. 5, 2012 at 12:12 AM     

YANGON, Myanmar, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- A senior Myanmar minister said the government will crack down on anyone taking advantage of the communal unrest in Rakhine state for their own ends.

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Norway, Denmark Open Embassies In Myanmar

November 05, 2012 12:20 PM    

YANGON, Nov 5 (Bernama) -- Norway and Denmark have opened embassies in Yangon in light of Myanmar's rapid political and economic reforms, official media said Monday.

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ASEAN concerned by Myanmar unrest: Indonesia

05 November 2012, 04:12 CET    

(VIENTIANE) - Deadly sectarian violence rocking western Myanmar is "an issue of concern" for the whole of Southeast Asia, Indonesia's foreign minister said Monday.

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Myanmar investment law a major step

Bangkokpost:  2/11/2012 at 02:48 PMOnline news: News    

Myanmar President Thein Sein has signed an eagerly awaited foreign investment bill after lawmakers removed protectionist measures inserted in earlier drafts.

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Myanmar News Update on Nov 2

- ရခိုင္ပဋိပကၡ ကုလသမဂၢ အထူးစိုးရိမ္ click
- အေနာက္သံတမန္မ်ား ရခိုင္ သြားေရာက္ေလ့လာ click
- ေက်ာင္းသားတပ္မေတာ္ ၂၄ ႏွစ္ျပည့္ အခမ္းအနား click
- ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအတြင္း လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈအေျခအေန အစီရင္ခံစာထြက္ရွိ click

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UNHCR: Accept Myanmar refugees

Bangkokpost, 1 Nov 2012 at 02:58 PM      

KUALA LUMPUR - Myanmar's neighbours should prepare to let in refugees from the country's Rohingya minority who may try to flee abroad to escape bloody communal violence, refugee organisations said Thursday.

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Myanmar News Update on Nov 1

- ၾကံ႕ဖြံ႔အစုိးရ သမၼတ႐ံုးက အၾကမ္းဖက္သည့္ ဘက္ ၂ ဘက္ရွိေၾကာင္း ထုတ္ျပန္ click
- ရခုိင္ျပည္နယ္ဆူပူမႈ ေနာက္ကြယ္က ႀကိဳးကိုင္သူေတြကို အေရးယူမည္ click
- ရခိုင္ပဋိပကၡမွာ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းေတြ ေနာက္ကြယ္က ပါ၀င္ click

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India, US, Japan discuss Africa, Myanmar, Afghanistan

New Delhi, Oct 31, 2012, DHNS:     

Key aspects of developmental co-operation in Myanmar, Afghanistan and Africa came up for discussion at the third round of India-US-Japan Trilateral dialogue held here on Monday.

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Myanmar: New Frontline for East-West Oil Rush

By Jen Alic | Thu, 01 November 2012     

Welcome to Myanmar, formerly Burma. A gateway to the Indian Ocean for China and the home of massive oil and gas wealth that is an important element of America’s Asia policy and China’s energy policy. It is also run by a brutal military junta (renamed), is rife with sectarian violence, and has just seen an entire community burned to the ground at a key hub of Chinese operations.

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Myanmar foreign investment bill in parliament again

Aung Hla Tun Reuters     

11:59 p.m. EDT, October 31, 2012    

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's new foreign investment bill was with parliament on Thursday, after amendments to address concerns of foreign firms eager to enter the country, and it could be quickly approved and sent to the president to be signed into law, lawmakers said.

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ADB announces short-term goals for Myanmar

Nov 01, 2012    

The Asian Development Bank has approved a strategy to guide its work in Myanmar for the year 2014.

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UN reports huge rise in Myanmar opium production

Bangkokpost, 1/11/2012 at 12:03 AM    

Myanmar drug lords have increased the size of opium fields by 17 per cent in the past year, despite claims by the government of successful drug eradication to meet a goal of an opium-free country, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported Wednesday.

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