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Sports writer arrested after aiding Myanmar cyclone victims
In cyclone-hit Myanmar, rain drenches children in roofless school
Burma arrests 245 drug traffickers
Another aid worker arrested in Burma
UN: Burma Donations Too Little
Burma's Propaganda Machine
Burma Gives 'Cronies' Slice of Storm Relief

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Sports writer arrested after aiding Myanmar cyclone victims
AFP
2 hours, 36 minutes ago

A popular sports writer who helped deliver aid to victims of the cyclone in Myanmar has been arrested, the second aid volunteer detained in two weeks, his wife told AFP on Monday.

Zaw Thet Htwe, 42, was arrested Friday by special branch police in the central town of Minbu, where he was visiting his ailing mother, his wife said.

He had organised five trips to deliver aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta, but police said that was not the reason for his arrest, his wife Khaing Cho said.

No reason was given for his detention, she said, adding that police had searched their home in Yangon and seized his computer and cell phone.

"We went to his mother's home in Minbu because she had a stroke," Khaing Cho said.

"I cannot imagine what they suspect him of doing. He is only interested in his career, because we have to provide for our 14-month-old baby," she said.

"I hope he will come back soon."

The week before Zaw Thet Htwe's arrest, Myanmar detained the country's most famous comedian, Zaganar, who had also been delivering aid to cyclone victims.

Cyclone Nargis left more than 133,000 dead or missing when it struck Myanmar six weeks ago, with 2.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

The international relief effort has been hampered by restrictions imposed by the ruling junta, but private donors have tried to fill the gap, creating their own grassroots networks to bring desperately need food and other supplies.

Zaw Thet Htwe had previously been arrested in July 2003, after publishing a story questioning how authorities were spending a four-million-dollar grant meant to develop football in Myanmar.

He had been sentenced to death after authorities charged him with treason over claims that he had plotted to overthrow the government. The Supreme Court commuted his sentence and he was released after 18 months.

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In cyclone-hit Myanmar, rain drenches children in roofless school
AFP
Sun Jun 15, 12:39 PM ET

Teacher Hlang Thein gently admonishes a group of primary school children to carefully repeat the alphabet after her so they can wrap up the lesson before the heavy rains drench them again.

Hlang Thein, in her immaculate white teacher's blouse, is trying to bring some semblance of normality back to the children in her community.

Many remain traumatised after Cyclone Nargis flattened the impoverished farming village of Mawin, which is in Kawhmu township in a remote corner of the Irrawaddy Delta only accessible by a small motorized boat.

"But how can they not remember? We are studying in a house without a roof and walls and every time the rain comes, they get wet," Hlang Thein told AFP. "Our books and notepads are still damp."

The children sit on the wooden floor, and while some have managed to save their green and white uniforms when the cyclone struck in early May, many are wearing clothes donated by private relief agencies.

Hlang Thein said she has to be very patient with her pupils. Many of them do not want to study until the school house is rebuilt -- and that will take time.

Building materials are difficult to come by. All of the 275 houses clustered in this village were blown away, except Hlang Thein's. It is, however, heavily damaged, and only the wooden frame and floor were left behind.

It is here where she has decided to teach the children.

"I do not want them to miss any lessons, even under these conditions," she said.

The village's brick schoolhouse was destroyed by Nargis, and a broken blackboard and a tiny Buddha statue are the only reminders that the rubble was once classrooms.

None of the village's 100 registered primary school pupils were injured or killed "but their minds are stuck on Nargis," she said.

Myanmar's military rulers insisted that schools around Yangon open on schedule on June 2 after a long holiday, despite the cyclone that left 133,600 dead or missing, with 2.4 million people in need of food, shelter and medicine.

Schools in the hardest-hit regions of the delta were given another month to open, but UNICEF says 3,000 schools were wiped out by the cyclone. About 500,000 children have no classrooms at all.

In Mawin, village chief Zaw Win, 46, said little aid had arrived so far, blaming intermittent heavy rains which make it hard to navigate the narrow tributary that connects the hamlet to the nearest port upriver.

The tributary itself is still littered with debris, including uprooted, centuries-old birch trees and bloated animal carcasses.

"This is only accessible through the river. But only small motorized boats can get through," Zaw Win said. "And they are too small to carry loads of relief supplies or building materials."

He said the remaining food supplies will only be enough for 90 families, leaving 1,100 more families without any rations for the next few days.

The cyclone has also wreaked havoc on the fields, with the flood waters washing away what would have been a bountiful harvest in early May. Now it is between planting seasons, and while the fields are ripe for ploughing and there is enough irrigation, the rice seedlings have been spoiled.

"We have vast rice fields, but no rice to eat," Zaw Win said. "I am asking for donors to bring rice seedlings so we can again plant in the June-July season. Rice for cooking is also very essential."

"There is nothing left on the fields," he said, adding that government officials and medical personnel had visited once since the cyclone struck, but despite promising more rations have not returned.

Many of the other villages lying along the tributary are in the same condition. What once were houses are now just mounds of broken wood and debris.

Kitchen wares, trash and plastic containers line the shore and bamboo bridges that connected communities on both sides have not been repaired.

Thein's students meanwhile are distracted by a distant rumbling of thunder. The sky is dark, and she decides to call off lessons for the day.

"We will try to get them to sing nursery rhymes tomorrow," she said smiling, but with a concerned look in her eyes.

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Burma arrests 245 drug traffickers
aap
http://au.news.yahoo.com//080616/2/17ash.html
Monday June 16, 03:37 PM

Authorities in Burma arrested 245 drug traffickers in May, state media said, as the world's second-largest opium producer sought to show it was cracking down on narcotics.

Military, police and customs officers also seized 76.78kg of opium, 1.19kg of heroin, 3.43kg of marijuana, 93,867 stimulant tablets and other narcotics, a state-run newspaper said.

"Action was taken against 245 persons - 201 men and 44 women in 158 cases," the New Light of Myanmar reported ahead of the United Nations anti-drugs and trafficking day on June 26.

Burma is the second largest opium-producing nation after Afghanistan.

The military government has promised that Burma will be opium free by 2014, and regularly burns drug hauls to convince the world it is tackling rampant drug production.

But after years of sharp decline, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported last year that opium production in 2006 jumped by 46 per cent, blaming high-level collusion, corruption, and porous borders.

The United States, a vocal critic of the junta, has also said several hundred million amphetamine tablets are produced in Burma every year and shipped by gangs to neighbouring China and Thailand.

Even China, one of Burma's few allies, has publicly pressured the regime to crack down on narco-trafficking.

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Another aid worker arrested in Burma
http://au.news.yahoo.com//080616/2/17asb.html
Monday June 16, 03:34 PM

A popular sports writer who helped deliver aid to victims of the cyclone in Burma has been arrested, the second aid volunteer detained in two weeks, his wife says.

Zaw Thet Htwe, 42, was arrested on Friday by special branch police in the central town of Minbu, where he was visiting his ailing mother, his wife said.

He had organised five trips to deliver aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta, but police said that was not the reason for his arrest, his wife Khaing Cho said.

No reason was given for his detention, she said, adding that police had searched their home in Rangoon and seized his computer and mobile phone.

"I cannot imagine what they suspect him of doing. He is only interested in his career, because we have to provide for our 14-month-old baby," Khaing Cho said.

The week before Zaw Thet Htwe's arrest, Burma detained the country's most famous comedian, Zaganar, who had also been delivering aid to cyclone victims.

Cyclone Nargis left more than 133,000 dead or missing when it struck Burma six weeks ago, with 2.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

The international relief effort has been hampered by restrictions imposed by the ruling junta, but private donors have tried to fill the gap, creating their own grassroots networks to bring desperately need food and other supplies.

Zaw Thet Htwe had previously been arrested in July 2003, after publishing a story questioning how authorities were spending a grant meant to develop football in Burma.

He had been sentenced to death after authorities charged him with treason over claims that he had plotted to overthrow the government. The Supreme Court commuted his sentence and he was released after 18 months.

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UN: Burma Donations Too Little
TIME / Friday, Jun. 13, 2008
By AP

(RANGOON, Burma) — Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Gates, J.K. Rowling and a clutch of Hollywood stars have all given generously to help Burma's cyclone victims, but the United Nations says government donations for its relief effort are falling short.

The United Nations said Thursday it has received just over half the money it requested for cyclone relief in Burma, with some nations apparently delaying their donations because of concerns about the junta's restrictions on foreign aid workers.

The U.N. set a goal of $201.6 million for its relief efforts but has received only $88.5 million, or 44 percent, from government donors, it said. Some $51 million in pledges has yet to delivered, the U.N. said.

Funding shortfalls were particularly great for emergency food operations and education, said the world body.

"Funding is clearly not coming in at the rate we would hope," said Amanda Pitt, a U.N. spokeswoman in Bangkok, Thailand. "Funding is urgently needed to sustain the pipeline for food and assistance."

Aid donors representing dozens of countries and regional organizations met last month in Rangoon and agreed to provide some cyclone aid, but warned the junta they would not fully open their wallets until international aid workers are provided access to the hardest-hit areas.

The junta promised to allow foreign workers into the Irrawaddy delta, but continued to hinder access to the area.

Humanitarian and rights groups said the government distributed a new set of guidelines for relief operations at a meeting of U.S. agencies and private aid groups Tuesday that could further complicate and delay recovery efforts.

The guidelines require repeated contact with national and local government agencies and large amounts of paperwork.

"The government should be streamlining aid efforts to cyclone victims, not slowing down aid with these new rules," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Friday.

Other agencies are faring better. The private, Christian-oriented group World Vision says it has raised over $19 million and expects to get at least $6 million more.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says it has raised 96 percent of the $50.8 million it is currently seeking, largely because it is able to tap a network of national agencies in 186 countries.

Private agencies — which play a large part in relief operations — raise much of their funds from individuals.

"Obviously people see images on television of people in great need. I think there's a natural desire to give in that situation," said World Vision spokesman James East.

He noted that the U.N. has different sources for its funds, primarily governments. "What governments are interested in is access and accountability — they want to be sure that their money is going to be spent wisely and that the aid can be monitored."

Celebrities have also played a part in raising money.

Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee — a consortium of 13 humanitarian aid agencies — says Queen Elizabeth II and Harry Potter author Rowling both contributed "significant donations" to Burma relief.

The committee, which says it has raised $20.8 million, would not reveal the size of their donations.

In the United States, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $3 million for relief efforts and offered software to help reunite family members separated in the cyclone.

The donations were given to the private groups Mercy Corps, World Vision and Care "so they can go in there and help as quickly as possible," according to Gates.

Hollywood is doing its part, most notably through the nonprofit humanitarian organization Not On Our Watch — founded by actors Don Cheadle, George Clooney, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, producer Jerry Weintraub and human rights lawyer David Pressman.

The group awarded $250,000 to Save the Children, and offered to match every additional dollar given to the aid group up to $250,000.

The U.N. hopes that funding will increase after June 20, when it finishes a comprehensive assessment of the needs of the estimated 2.4 million cyclone survivors.

It estimates more than 1 million survivors, mostly in the delta, still need help more than five weeks after the cyclone. The May 2-3 storm killed more than 78,000 people and left 56,000 missing, according to the government.

* Find this article at:
* http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1814264,00.html

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Burma's Propaganda Machine
TIME / Friday, May. 16, 2008
By Andrew Marshall/the Irrawaddy Delta

Burma's state-run media continues to portray a well-oiled state relief campaign: soldiers unloading relief supplies from helicopters, generals inspecting neat rows of refugee tents. Government propaganda is also used to justify the curtailment of most foreign assistance. This week the junta has ejected almost every expatriate aid worker from the disaster area. The people of Burma will "accept any kinds of foreign aid with appreciation," comments The New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece of the ruling junta. "However, they will not rely too much on international assistance and will reconstruct the nation on [a] self-reliance basis." The same article trumpets Burma's prompt delivery of aid to the delta before noting that, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, "many people died of starvation" due to U.S. government neglect.

Propaganda will not change the deteriorating conditions in the delta. "There is an increase of people in the camps," writes an aid worker via satellite phone from the refugee-choked town of Laputta. "Heavy rain has caused flooding and worsened conditions and sanitation." There have been some cases of cholera, although so far the rate is "no greater than the background rate that we would be seeing in Myanmar during this season," a World Health Organization representative said today. Nearly 78,000 people are dead and 56,000 are missing, announced state television, almost doubling the previous count.

Meanwhile, foreigners — including aid workers, diplomats and undercover journalists — trying to enter the delta have been turned back at police checkpoints. Burmese citizens who have traveled down to the stricken Irrawaddy delta to distribute aid are aghast. "If our government really sympathized with these people," says travel agent Chin Chin, who traveled down to deliver aid herself, "it would be helping them more effectively."

Sometimes, the propaganda appears even more starkly as if coming from a parallel reality. On Thursday, the junta announced the barely credible results of its referendum on a new constitution that would extend its hold on the country. The vote had been held in the cyclone's aftermath. More than 92% of voters supposedly said "yes," with a turnout of 99%. The plebiscite was delayed in Rangoon and the delta, but apparently the junta still expects the region's stricken people to vote on May 24. But the true sentiment of the country cannot be masked by propaganda. If you want to gauge the support for Burma's military leaders, just ask anyone who has seen their neglect of the cyclone's victims. "We have hated our government for 20 years," says travel agent Chin Chin, as she prepares for a second relief trip. "Now we hate them more."

* Find this article at:
* http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1807353,00.html

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Burma Gives 'Cronies' Slice of Storm Relief
On Magazine's List of Junta's Chosen Tycoons Are Some Facing U.S. Sanctions
The Washington Post
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 13, 2008; A16

Just seven days after Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma last month, the ruling military junta parceled out key sections of the affected Irrawaddy Delta to favored tycoons and companies, including several facing sanctions from the U.S. Treasury, according to a Burmese magazine with close ties to the government.

Some of the most notorious business executives in Burma, including Tay Za and Steven Law, also known as Tun Myint Naing, were given control of "reconstruction and relief" in critical townships, under the leadership of top generals. Tay Za was identified by Treasury as a "regime henchman" this year when it slapped economic sanctions on hotel enterprises and other businesses he owns.

All told, more than 30 companies and 30 executives are to divide up the business in 11 townships in areas affected by Nargis, according to the report.

The document in the magazine is dated May 9, a time when the United Nations, aid groups and many countries were pleading with the Burmese government to allow access to affected areas in the aftermath of the storm, which killed as many as 130,000 people and left 2.5 million without homes. Despite promises of greater openness, the Burmese rulers have continued to impose restrictions on aid relief, including new and onerous identification requirements for aid workers, according to reports from the region.

The document, which includes the cellphone numbers for many of the executives, was published in the Voice, a weekly journal published by Nay Win Maung. A translation was provided by BIT Team, a group of India-based Burmese who try to promote information technology in the xenophobic country.

Nay Win Maung is a son of a military officer and was brought up among Burma's military elites, giving him good connections to military insiders. His magazines can access government-related news and exclusive information.

"The Treasury is targeting the regime's cronies, and the regime wants its cronies to get the money," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "They see it as an opportunity to profit from the international community's compassion. But these are not experts in providing relief; they are experts in running guns and drugs and making a lot of money."

Efforts to reach Burmese representatives in Washington last night were unsuccessful. The cellphone number listed for Steven Law in the Voice was answered by an associate who said he was not available.

While some of the executives awarded contracts are well known to human rights activists and financial-crime experts, others are less prominent, potentially making the document a guide to the individuals currently in favor with the military leadership.

The government estimated it needed more than $11 billion in reconstruction aid shortly after the May 2-3 cyclone, a figure that met with a cool reception at an international donors conference in Rangoon three weeks ago. Burma, also known as Myanmar, is rich in natural resources, but much of the country is desperately poor. The junta has enriched itself with natural gas fields that bring in about $2 billion in annual revenue, as well as trade in jewels, heroin, amphetamines, timber and small arms.

Some of the conglomerates given business in the delta, such as Law's Asia World and Tay Za's Htoo Trading, were also tasked with building the country's new capital at Naypyidaw, more than 200 miles from the old capital of Rangoon. With little notice three years ago, the junta uprooted the capital to a remote area, requiring massive construction of new government buildings, hotels and housing for civil servants.

Much of the country, in fact, is a forced labor camp, with more than 60 prisons, labor camps and detention centers, according to a report this year by the Burma Fund, an anti-government activist group. People forced into construction are paid minimal wages, if at all.

Hlaing Sein, an officer with the London-based Burma Campaign UK, said that Htoo Trading, which was given control of Heingigyum and Ngaopudaw townships, forced cyclone victims to work for 800 kyat a day, roughly 70 cents, in order to meet a government order to reopen schools by June 2. But a quart of water in the delta now costs the equivalent of $1.50, she said.

The Treasury sanctions against Tay Za, Law and other junta cronies -- and some of their companies -- freezes their assets and prohibits all financial and commercial transactions by U.S. entities with the designated companies and individuals, as part of an effort to break up their financial networks. The Treasury has released detailed charts about the financial links among the junta and Tay Za, Law and related associates.

Tay Za, whose businesses include timber, palm oil and aviation, is said to be close to Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the junta leader, in part because of his habit of hiring the children of powerful generals. The Bangkok Post recently reported that though no public warnings were made about the approaching cyclone, air force fighters and private passenger planes from Bagan Air -- believed to be a joint venture between Tay Za and Than Shwe's family -- were moved the evening before the storm from Rangoon airport to Mandalay, which was not in its path.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/12/AR2008061203782.html

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