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HEADLINES
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AP - Myanmar police arrest protester calling for freedom of political prisoners
AP - Myanmar cyclone survivors held tough against feared 2nd wave of deaths
AFP - Myanmar journalist arrested for burying cyclone dead: watchdog
AFP - Myanmar confirms detention of 14 Suu Kyi supporters
AFP - China not cracking down on firms violating UN sanctions: US
Reuters - G8 pushes Myanmar to accept foreign cyclone aid
Reuters - Bangladesh seeks Myanmar farm land on lease
Kyodo News - Japan's Komura, UK's Miliband To Meet, Discuss DPRK, Burma at 1st Talks
CNA - S’pore hands over airport ground handling equipment to Myanmar
Express India - ULFA preparing to generate power in Myanmar
Straits Times - Myanmar sticks to 2014 drugs-free target despite opium gains
Business Standard India - UBI signs MoU with three Myanmar banks
Moldova.org - Myanmar blocks telecom relief
Nasdaq - Emergency Telecom Agency Leaves Myanmar Over Government Block
Times - Flash mob for Burma hits London
Irrawaddy - Bush Discusses Burma with UN Ambassadors
Mizzima News - Junta's drug control claim irrelevant to ground situation: Researcher
DVB News - Amnesty International calls for prisoner release
DVB News - NLD continues aid operations in delta

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Myanmar police arrest protester calling for freedom of political prisoners
AP - Thursday, June 26

YANGON, Myanmar - Police in Myanmar arrested a woman protester on Wednesday who was calling for the release of political prisoners, including detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The woman shouted slogans for ten minutes on a busy street in downtown Yangon, the country's biggest city, before police dragged her away, said witnesses who asked not to be identified for fear of official harassment. The identity of the woman was not immediately known.

The afternoon protest took place near City Hall.

The ruling junta tolerates little public dissent, sometimes sentencing dissidents to long jail terms for violating broadly defined security laws.

A veteran activist who staged a solo protest against Myanmar's military government last year was sentenced in April to life in prison for sedition.

Ohn Than, a member of detained pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy was arrested for standing outside the U.S. Embassy on Aug. 23 with a placard calling for the military regime that has controlled the Southeast Asian nation since 1988 to give up power.

The ruling junta held general elections in 1990 but refused to hand over power to the National League for Democracy when it won.

His solo protest came the same week that anti-government activists launched a series of street protests against fuel price increases and mismanagement of the economy. The protests evolved by September into the largest anti-government demonstrations in almost two decades before they were violently quashed by the military.

On June 19 this year, 13 members of Suu Kyi's party were arrested after holding a small public demonstration calling for her release from house arrest on the occasion of her 63rd birthday. Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi has been in detention for more than 12 of the last 19 years for her political activities.

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Myanmar cyclone survivors held tough against feared 2nd wave of deaths
By GRANT PECK,Associated Press Writer
AP - Thursday, June 26

BANGKOK, Thailand - Dire warnings that cyclone survivors in Myanmar might fall prey to disease and starvation failed to take into account the survival instincts of those affected, aid agencies and disaster experts say.

The resilience of the people _ along with the skills of Myanmar citizens working for local and international humanitarian agencies _ proved to be the most critical survival weapons and helped mitigate the limited access allowed to foreign disaster experts, they said.

U.N. agencies and private humanitarian groups agree a feared second wave of post-cyclone casualties did not take place. And barriers the junta put in the way of foreign aid appear not to have caused a measurable increase in deaths from illness and lack of food.

"These parts of Myanmar are visited by cyclones almost every year, although not of the same scale," said Ramesh Shrestha, the UNICEF representative in Myanmar. "Hence people were quite able to adapt to this sudden impact."

Myanmar's government said this week that a survey undertaken jointly with the U.N. and the regional Association of Southeast Asia Nations found no post-cyclone deaths related to lack of assistance, though the findings are preliminary.

No one is saying Cyclone Nargis was not a tragedy of epic proportions or that Myanmar's military government was justified in turning aside offers of outside aid.

The images of swollen bodies lying unattended weeks after the May 2-3 storm and lines of desperate refugees camped along roadsides waiting for food handouts testify to the failures of the initial relief effort.

The government's official death toll now stands at 84,537 dead, with 53,836 missing.

But almost all the casualties appear to have been caused directly by the cyclone _ surprising in view of warnings circulated immediately after the storm, when most foreign assistance and foreign aid workers were kept out of the disaster zone.

"The stories that were coming out after the disaster were very focused on what wasn't getting in," said Melanie Brooks, a spokeswoman in Bangkok for the humanitarian agency CARE.

Journalists could not get permission to enter the country, and those who sneaked in faced tight restrictions in reporting. Consequently, much of the news came from Thailand, where the main story was how the junta was rejecting outside aid.

The media were able to quote some important people to make the case that a second disaster was in the making in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "We have an intolerable situation, created by a natural disaster. It is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act."

And U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "Unless more aid gets into the country _ quickly _ we face the risk of an outbreak of infectious diseases that could dramatically worsen today's crisis."
But relief experts now acknowledge the risks were probably overstated.

"Predictions by some agencies of epidemics were not borne out by the facts," said two London-based disaster researchers, Ben Ramalingam and John Mitchell. "Some agencies may well have overreacted. "

There is a reason why "aid agencies jump up and down and warn of a secondary wave of deaths or an outbreak of disease," said CARE's Brooks. "We do need to get in there and make sure that people have access to clean water and proper sanitation."

But she and others in the relief community acknowledge that the worst-case scenario didn't come to pass.

"There are no signs of second wave of death as a result of Nargis," said UNICEF's Shrestha. "The incidences of diseases seen are not different from the usual disease burdens seen in the country."

Aid organizations, wary of jeopardizing relations with Myanmar's military regime, point out that any government would have had trouble coping alone with a disaster of such scale.

But independent observers speak more frankly.

"The local populations were probably not expecting much and they probably did not receive much," said Ramalingam and Mitchell, who work for the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action but were commenting in a personal capacity.

"In terms of accepted humanitarian standards and principles, assistance was clearly not proportional to need," they said in an e-mail. International aid couldn't have saved those who died in the storm, "but aid could have helped speed up recovery if properly managed."

The issue of foreign aid workers being denied visas overshadowed the work of the many Myanmar nationals working for U.N. and private agencies, the aid agencies said.

When the storm struck, the U.N. Development Program in Myanmar already employed more than 1,000 staff, mainly Myanmar nationals. World Vision, the largest private foreign humanitarian group, had 580 local staff, and like most groups, quickly hired more.

"It was the national staff that really led the response," said CARE's Brooks. "They speak the local language, they know the area, they know how to get things done."
Filling the gaps were the survivors themselves.

"They weren't just waiting around for help to come and bemoaning their fate, they were going out and picking up the pieces of their thatch houses, and they were starting to rebuild," said Brooks. "This idea of disaster survivors being helpless victims is just simply not true. These are some of the most resilient people that you'll ever meet."

When outside assistance came, said Ashley Clements, a spokesman in Yangon for World Vision, "it gave them an extra leg up and helped them avoid the worst of the crisis."

Past experience, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, shows that "virtually all the life saving work in the first 48 hours or so after a sudden impact emergency like this one is undertaken by the survivors," according to the researchers in London.

The concept of "helpless victims" is a myth the disaster relief community has been trying to dispel since at least the 1990s, said Alistair Henley, regional head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies based in Malaysia.

"We talk a lot about lessons learned, but I think there's also lessons forgotten or lessons rediscovered, " he said.

Although the immediate threat may have passed, relief workers warn against complacency.

"The destruction in terms of loss of public and private infrastructure, including continued flooding of cultivable land, contamination of thousands of drinking water wells and destruction of thousands of schools causing more than a million children to stay out of schools, are all very serious concerns," warned UNICEF's Shrestha.

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Myanmar journalist arrested for burying cyclone dead: watchdog
AFP - Thursday, June 26

BANGKOK (AFP) - - A Myanmar editor has been arrested and his magazine closed after he travelled to the cyclone-hit Irrawaddy Delta to help bury people killed in the storm, media rights watchdogs said Thursday.

Aung Kyaw San, editor of the Myanmar Tribune, was arrested on June 15 along with 16 other people who had volunteered to help bury the cyclone dead, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association said in a statement.

His group of volunteers had buried more than 400 bodies, following Red Cross procedures, but were arrested as they returned to the main city of Yangon to collect more burial sacks, the groups said.

Five of them, including Aung Kyaw San, are being held in the notorious Insein Prison north of Yangon, the statement added.

"It is now essential to get the junta to stop preventing civil society, including the press, from participating in the relief effort," the groups said.

At least 10 journalists and a blogger are now detained in Myanmar, they added.

More than 138,000 people are dead or missing after Cyclone Nargis hit the country nearly eight weeks ago. The United Nations estimates 2.4 million people need humanitarian aid.

In a report released Wednesday, experts from the UN and Southeast Asia said that only 45 percent of survivors are receiving humanitarian aid, leaving most to fend for themselves or seek help from local donors.

Myanmar's military, which has ruled the country formerly known as Burma since 1962, sparked global outrage in the weeks after the storm by refusing to allow a major international relief effort.

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Myanmar confirms detention of 14 Suu Kyi supporters
AFP - Thursday, June 26

NAYPYIDAW (AFP) - - Myanmar's police chief Thursday confirmed that 14 supporters of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been detained for nearly one month after protesting against the extension of her house arrest.

Brigadier General Khin Yee, the police chief, also told AFP that six journalists had been deported for entering the country on tourist visas to report on deadly Cyclone Nargis. He did not identify the journalists.

The activists were detained on May 27 after leading a small protest against the military's decision to confine the Nobel Peace Prize winner for another year.

She has already spent more than 12 years inside her Yangon home, where she is kept in total isolation.

The group tried to march from the headquarters of her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), but were stopped just minutes after beginning their protest.

"We told them they can hold a ceremony without harming the state's peace and tranquility, " Khin Yee told AFP on the sidelines of a ceremony in the capital Naypyidaw, marking the UN's international day against drugs.

"But their act harmed the peace and tranquility, even though we prohibited it," he said. "That's why we are questioning them about why they did it. They were not arrested. They are just being questioned."

His remarks were the first official confirmation of the arrests.

Khin Yee also said the military regime had deported six journalists for entering the country on tourist visas to report on the cyclone that left more than 138,000 dead or missing when it struck southwestern Myanmar nearly eight weeks ago.

"Some people enter the country with tourist visas and don't act like tourists," the police chief said.

"Some people overstep the boundaries by working as journalists. Those who overstep the boundaries were deported. Actually, we should take legal action against them, but we didn't do anything to them," he said.

"About six people were deported because they overstepped the boundaries," he added.

Myanmar maintains tight control over all media in the country and has only granted journalist visas to a handful of reporters covering events attended by international officials, such as last month's trip by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

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China not cracking down on firms violating UN sanctions: US
by P. Parameswaran
AFP - Thursday, June 26

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Beijing is reluctant to launch a full crackdown on Chinese firms conducting business in violation of UN Security Council sanctions, the Pentagon's Asia chief said Wednesday.

"The US government has asked Beijing to halt commercial transactions by Chinese firms that violate UN sanctions, nonproliferation norms, and PRC (China's) law but our efforts are met with mixed results," said James Shinn, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs.

"China's willingness to cooperate on these is uneven," he said at a hearing on security developments by the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

Shinn was particularly concerned over China's sale of conventional weapons to Iran, accusing the Islamic republic of supporting militant groups in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan "that target and kill Americans and our allies."

The United States and allies have also accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons but Tehran says its atomic program is for peaceful purposes.

However, Iran is defying UN demands that it stop uranium enrichment, a technology that could be used to make nuclear arms.

UN Security Council sanctions block the sale to Iran of equipment and technology related to nuclear activities and also of so-called dual-use items, which can have either a military or civilian purpose.

"We look to China to act responsibly and restrict conventional arms sales that promote instability and violate international norms," Shinn said.

Similarly, Shinn said, the Pentagon "still observe Chinese firms and individuals transferring a wide variety of weapons-related materials and technologies to customers around the world" -- including to Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Sudan and Syria.

In April, a ship belonging to a Chinese state-owned shipping firm was forced to abandon plans to deliver a shipment of arms to Zimbabwe amid fears they could be used to crack down on opposition supporters.

China is a major supporter of beleaguered Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe.

Shinn also said that the United States was "troubled" by China's lack of openness and transparency in military affairs.

"This opacity raises questions as to China's true intentions and compels outside observers to compare China's behavior and capabilities against its declaratory policies," he said.

Shinn said the United States looked forward to China's upcoming submission of its defense expenditures to the United Nations, saying it had so far significantly underreported its military budget.

China's announced defense budget for 2007 was 45 billion dollars and 58 billion dollars in 2008 but the Pentagon said it did not include expenditures for big items such as foreign acquisitions, expenses for strategic forces and military-related research and development.

The Pentagon estimates China's total military expenditures in 2007 to be between 97 and 139 billion dollars.

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G8 pushes Myanmar to accept foreign cyclone aid
26 Jun 2008 15:35:52 GMT

KYOTO, Japan, June 26 (Reuters) - The Group of Eight wealthy nations put pressure on Myanmar to let in more foreign relief workers after a devastating cyclone last month, after accusations it had obstructed aid, a Japanese official said on Thursday.

The G8 foreign ministers, meeting in Kyoto, agreed to maintain support for reconstruction in Myanmar after the cyclone left more than 138,000 dead or missing, the official said.

Foreign leaders have accused Myanmar's military rulers of worsening the storm death toll by stalling on foreign aid, and Italy said it had pushed at the talks for more involvement by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"We proposed a formal appeal by the G8 to the U.N. asking that Ban Ki-moon insist on transparency regarding the sums donated by the international community," Frattini told reporters after talks with his fellow ministers.

"We also hope that China can play a stronger role," he said, referring to a country that has been a steady friend of Myanmar's junta.

Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said there was agreement that the G8 would press Myanmar to accept more relief workers from the outside world.

Many of the G8 ministers also expressed concern about how to achieve a transition to civilian rule in Myanmar, he added.

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's confinement to her home in Yangon was extended in May despite international pleas to Myanmar's military rulers to free her. Pro-junta thugs last week broke up a rally marking Suu Kyui's birthday.

The G8 ministers agreed that any signs of progress towards civilian government should be encouraged, Kodama said.

"In order to improve the current situation, it is also important for us the G8 to apply not only pressure but if Myanmar side shows any forward looking movement it is also important to provide an incentive," he said.

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Bangladesh seeks Myanmar farm land on lease
Reuters - Thursday, June 26

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh urged Myanmar on Thursday to lease it farm land near the border for rice cultivation to meet its growing food demand, an official said.

Vast lands have been left untilled in Myanmar's Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh's Cox's Bazaar district, as Myanmar produces enough rice to feed its 54 million people, officials in Bangladesh said.

On Thursday, Fakhruddin Ahmed, head of the country's military-backed interim government formally made the request during a farewell call by Myanmar's ambassador Nyan Lynn.

"We are interested to sign an agreement with Myanmar on farming as soon as possible," a spokesman for Fakhruddin quoted him as telling the envoy.

But no details were given.

Bangladesh, which has a population of nearly 150 million people, produces some 30 million tonnes of rice annually, but it often faces scarcity due to natural calamities. The country lost around 3 million tonnes of its main staple rice due to flooding between July and September last year and from Cyclone Sidr in November which killed around 4,500 people, displaced millions and damaged infrastructure worth billions of dollars.

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Japan's Komura, UK's Miliband To Meet, Discuss DPRK, Burma at 1st Talks
By Janice Tang

Kyoto, June 26 Kyodo -- Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband are set to discuss regional issues such as North Korea and Myanmar as they met for their first official talks on Thursday ahead of the Group of Eight foreign ministerial meeting in Kyoto.

Komura and Miliband are also likely to exchange views on climate change and African development, and to affirm both sides' hopes to further bilateral exchanges as this year marks the 150th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Japan and Britain.

The two ministers are also expected to confirm cooperation at the July 7-9 G-8 summit, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said earlier.

On North Korea, Komura plans to call for Britain's understanding and cooperation to keep the pressure on North Korea to come clean on its past abductions of Japanese nationals.

Unlike Japan, Britain has diplomatic relations with North Korea. Tokyo hopes that Britain and other European nations that have delegations in Pyongyang will continue to take up the abduction issue in their engagements with the North, the official said.

Komura and Miliband will be joined by their counterparts from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and United States at the G-8 ministers' meeting from the evening.

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S’pore hands over airport ground handling equipment to Myanmar
Channel NewsAsia - Friday, June 27, 2008

SINGAPORE: The Singapore government has handed over airport ground handling equipment to the Myanmar government.

The equipment will assist the post—Cyclone Nargis relief and recovery efforts by facilitating the unloading of international assistance arriving at Yangon international airport.

On behalf of the Singapore government, Mr Robert Chua, ambassador to Myanmar, handed over the equipment to Myanmar’s Deputy Minister of Transport, Colonel Nyan Tun Aung.

The Singapore government had earlier offered assistance in the form of the deployment of medical teams, logistics support, heavy lift helicopters and water purification units.

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ULFA preparing to generate power in Myanmar
Express India
Posted online: Thursday , June 26, 2008 at 02:23:19

Shillong, June 26: ULFA members staying in a Myanmar border town were preparing to set up a generator powered by paddy husk to supply electricity, according to a monthly Bangladesh monthly journal with a web edition.

“The group is now setting up a generator in Maungdaw town and will start the distribution of electricity from July or August,” the journal, Narinjara News, published by the Arakanese in exile, said on Thursday.

The generator would provide power to Maungdaw for five to six hours a day.

The report which also appeared on another portal, Indo Burma News, said that town leaders welcomed the move as they would receive five to six hours of electricity instead of the current two hours provided by the government.

“The government only gives two hours of electricity per four days in our town. We need more electricity in my house so I support the plan of ULFA,” a town elder was quoted as saying.

The journal said there are about 20 ULFA members in Maungdaw, living in Aung Mye Dodi Ward, Bomu Ward, and Out Wra Ward in Maungdaw who ran businesses like cosmetic shops, a computer cafe, and a telephone booth.

It quoted a town elder as saying “The relationship with the authorities is very good, including officials from the Army Intelligence Unit in Maungdaw so they can do business in Maungdaw."

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Myanmar sticks to 2014 drugs-free target despite opium gains
The Straits Times - June 26, 2008 

NAYPYIDAW - MYANMAR officials on Thursday said the military-ruled nation was on track to be drugs-free by 2014 despite warnings from the UN that opium production here has again soared.
In a ceremony marking global anti-drugs day, Home Affairs Minister Maung Oo said their 15-year eradication programme was working, although he cautioned more work needed to be done to tackle new trends.

'The marked decline in the production of both opium and heroin is the outcome of this programme we have adopted and put into action,' he said in Myanmar's remote new capital Naypyidaw.

'However, synthetic drugs such as ATS (amphetamines) tablets, Ketamine, Ice and Ecstasy that are manufactured chemically are found to be replacing opium and heroin... drastic measures are being taken against the new production trends.'

Police chief Khin Yee told reporters that Myanmar would stop at nothing to meet its 2014 target.

'We will do what we have to do to be successful,' he said without elaborating.

Myanmar's mountainous and lawless border regions once hid swathes of poppy fields which fed most of the world's opium habit well into the 1990s.

Under pressure from governments including close ally China, Myanmar eventually began a campaign in the 1990s to eradicate the crop, and soon Afghanistan took its mantle as the world's top opium producer.

But after a few years of steep decline, opium production in Myanmar has risen once again, with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reporting last year that it had gone up 46 per cent in 2006/2007.

The UN blamed high-level collusion and corruption for the rise, while activists across the border in Thailand say the crop substitution programmes for poor farmers have not been successful.

The military-ruled nation, meanwhile, has become a hub for methamphetamine production, with convoys of high-tech trucks ferrying chemicals and mobile laboratories under the cover of Myanmar's dense jungle, experts says. -- AFP

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UBI signs MoU with three Myanmar banks
Business Standard India
Press Trust of India / Kolkata June 26, 2008, 18:38 IST

United Bank of India (UBI) has entered into an agreement with Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, Myanmar Investment & Commercial Bank and Myanmar Economic Bank for routing border trade transactions.

A Union Bank of India release said today that the agreement was signed in Myanmar in presence of Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh in Yangon on Tuesday.

UBI would be the designated bank in India for routing border trade transactions with Myanmar through the Moreh-Tamu point in Manipur.

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Myanmar blocks telecom relief
Moldova.org - Publication date: 25 June 2008

An international aid organization providing telecom support says it has been forced to leave cyclone-ravaged Myanmar.

Members of Telecoms Sans Frontieres left the Asian nation after attempts to reach affected areas were blocked by government officials, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Telecoms Sans Frontieres reached Myanmar June 1 after waiting nearly a month to be granted visas to enter the closely controlled country. But the aid group was not granted access to areas hit hard by Cyclone Nargis on May 2.

The frustration is that we were allowed into the country but not allowed to deploy, organization spokesman Oisin Walton was quoted as saying.

The group's request to visit affected areas such as the ravaged Irrawaddy Delta were ignored by officials, he said.

We got no reply at all, Walton said.

Walton said he believes Telecoms Sans Frontieres was blocked because of the nature of its work.

They obviously didn't want us in the affected areas with telecommunications equipment, he said.

As for other aid groups, he said they are helping in Myanmar despite the limited assistance they get from country's military junta.

Aid agencies are doing a wonderful job but the government is not helping, Walton said.

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Emergency Telecom Agency Leaves Myanmar Over Government Block
Nasdaq - 25 June 2008.

(RTTNews) - Members of the Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF), a charity agency that specializes in providing communication support in disaster struck areas around the world, left Myanmar on Wednesday after being blocked repeatedly from entering the worst affected areas, said officials.

The group said that it's requests for deploying its units in the two most seriously affected areas of Yangon and the Irrawaddy delta were blocked by the country's military regime, leaving it with no option but to return.

TSF arrived in Myanmar following a UNICEF request after Cyclone Nargis struck the south Asian country on 2 May. The charity group finally arrived in the country on 1 June, after a month-long wait to get visas.

However, the group members were help up in the capital city of Rangoon after Burma's military junta refused them permission to deploy in the worst affected areas, said agency officials.

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Flash mob for Burma hits London
From Times Online - June 25, 2008
Joanna Sugden

A “flash mob” for Burma will hit London tonight as campaigners urge commuters to remember victims of the cyclone and decades of human rights abuses in the country.

Fifty-three days after cyclone Nargis tore through Burma, a British human rights organisation is gathering crowds to watch a video, beamed onto Waterloo station, that highlights the plight of the victims trapped in the dictatorship.

The Burma Campaign UK will use slick advertising with celebrity endorsement to focus attention on the junta’s appalling human rights record, which it says led to thousands of deaths after the cyclone.

Johnny Chatterton, of the campaign said: “The crisis in Burma has been going on for decades. It comes as no surprise that the regime denied aid to the victims, they have routinely denied aid in the country.”

He added that tonight’s “flash mob”, a spontaneous gathering of people arranged via the internet, was hastily organised but would be high impact and include videos and posters, designed by ad giants Ogilvy.

The animated advert features the voice of actor and comedian Ricky Gervais who tells viewers “In Burma there are no fairy tale endings, because the government is a military dictatorship that tortures and kills people. Please use your freedom to gain theirs.”

A giant video of it will be projected onto Waterloo station in London at 9.45pm tonight, when it is dark enough for it to be seen.

The campaign’s slogan, “The real disaster in Burma is the government”, focuses on a character called Khin Mar a five-year-old girl victim of the junta’s apathy to the cyclone and abuse of human rights.

Mr Chatterton said: “If the Burmese regime cared about its people they wouldn’t leave storm victims to die, shoot at peaceful protestors and rape 5 year-old-girls, like Khin Mar.

“The regime in Burma turned a natural disaster into a man-made catastrophe, even as victims were dying in the Irrawaddy Delta the Burmese army were continuing their atrocities in Eastern Burma, burning villages and raping women.”

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Bush Discusses Burma with UN Ambassadors
The Irrawaddy - Thursday, June 26, 2008
By LALIT K JHA / UNITED NATIONS

US President George W Bush, in a meeting with the ambassadors of the permanent members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, discussed the Burmese junta, the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the political stalemate on the restoration of democracy in the country.

Few details were available about what was discussed at the meeting. The political stand off in Zimbabwe is said to have dominated the proceedings.

"We talked about the UN Security Council role for Darfur and Burma," Bush told reporters at the White House following the meeting.

It is well-known that the Bush administration along with France and Britain has called for a stronger effort by the Security Council towards the restoration of democracy in Burma. However, China and Russia have been resistant to stronger actions by the Security Council.

The Bush administration has placed the Burmese generals and many of their business cronies under a series of economic sanctions. During the past year, the first lady, Laura Bush, has been very outspoken on the Burma issue.

Recently, statements coming from top Bush administration officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have reflected frustration with the role of the Security Council on Burma.

In a recent interview on CNN, Rice said the US would like to see the Security Council play a more active role, but because of China and “some other countries,” she said: "We were never able to get a strong resolution to deal with it."

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Junta's drug control claim irrelevant to ground situation: Researcher
Mizzima News - Thursday, 26 June 2008 21:51
Mungpi    

New Delhi – The Burmese military junta has claimed that its drug eradication campaign has brought about a drastic decline in opium cultivation in the country. It has decreased from 140,000 hectares to 27,700 hectares within a decade.

Burma's Minister for Home Affairs and Chairman of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control, Maj-Gen Maung Oo, on Thursday said the drug eradication programme has effectively brought down cultivation of opium in Burma, regarded as the second largest producer after Afghanistan by the United Nation.

"Thanks to the drug elimination efforts, opium cultivation has dramatically decreased from 140,000 hectares to 27,700 hectares in a decade ending 2007 and won praise from the world," Maung Oo said during a commemorative function of 'International Day Against Drug', on Thursday.

While Burma's ruling junta claims that the Drug Elimination Programme, initiated in 1998 by the UN Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), has yielded good result in bringing down the volume of opium cultivation in Burma, independent researchers said Burma has not really made progress in the over all drug production and consumption scenario.

Khunsai, an editor of the Thailand based Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N), who independently conducted research on drug production said Burma has not made any progress in the over all production of drugs and cultivation of opium poppy.

"Our research showed that while in a few areas, people have stopped cultivating opium poppy, these people have just shifted to other parts where the Drug Elimination Programme does not focus," Khunsai told Mizzima.

S.H.A.N has independently published several reports on the situation of poppy cultivation and drug production in Burma's Shan state, which is one of the major state's that produces and cultivates opium poppy.

Khunsai said, while the remarkable decrease in the number of people involved in cultivating poppy does not indicate the over all decline, it shows that a new system of monopolizing the cultivation has emerged in areas, which the Burmese junta has targeted.

According to him, the junta's failure is mainly because of the political instability and administrative corruption in the military.

While several villagers, who earn their living by cultivating poppy, have given up cultivation, another emerging threat is an increase in the clandestine production of Amphetamine and Methamphetamine pills. 

"Lately, since 2005, there is a remarkable increase in the production of Yaba (Amphetamine and Methamphetamine) ," said Khunsai, adding that the failure to provide efficient substitution for the livelihood of former cultivators has given rise to the increase in producing such pills.

Meanwhile, the Transnational Institute (TNI), a non-governmental research institute on drug policy, said the UNODC is rewriting history in its 2008 World Drug Report to hide its failure to curb increasing drug production and cultivation.

The world is not any closer to achieving the 10-year target set by the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs, instead global production of opium and cocaine has significantly increased over the last ten years, TNI said in a press statement on Thursday.

"There is overwhelming evidence that the current approach to drug control has failed," Martin Jelsma, coordinator of the TNI Drugs & Democracy Programme said in the statement.

"Instead of setting unrealistic targets, we need to introduce a more rational, pragmatic and humane approach to the drugs phenomenon," added Jelsma.

While acknowledging that there is useful information in the World Drug Report, TNI's coordinator said, "Drug control policies should be based on evidence, fully respect human rights and take a harm reduction approach."

"Otherwise we will see another ten years of failure." Jelsma added.

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Amnesty International calls for prisoner release

Jun 26, 2008 (DVB)–Rights group Amnesty International has called on the military regime in Burma to release political prisoners Myo Yan Naung Thein and U Ohn Than immediately to allow them to seek urgent medical attention.

In an urgent action released last week, the group said that Myo Yan Naung Thein was partly paralysed after being tortured and was being held in solitary confinement in poor conditions, while U Ohn Than had reportedly contracted cerebral malaria, which is almost always fatal if left untreated.

“They both are innocent and shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place,” said Haider Kikabhoy from AI’s Southeast Asia team.

“Myo Yan Naung Thein is almost paralysed in the lower part of his body and U Ohn Than is suffering from cerebral malaria,” Kikabhoy continued.

“They haven’t been given proper treatment even though they are in need of urgent medical attention, and that’s why we are calling for their immediate release.”

Myo Yan Naung Thein is a member of the 1988 Generation Students group which played a leading role at the start of the mass protests in Burma in August 2007.

He has been held in Burma’s notorious Insein prison since he was arrested on 14 December 2007 for his links to activists who filmed the demonstrations and spoke to media outside the country.

Myo Yan Naung Thein was hospitalized for two weeks in May. However, the treatment failed to improve his condition, and when he asked to see a neurologist, he was punished by being placed in solitary confinement.

Authorities sentenced U Ohn Than to life imprisonment on 2 April after a grossly unfair trial for staging a solo protest in front of the US Embassy in Rangoon on 23 August 2007.

U Ohn Than was initially held in Insein prison, but since his sentencing he has been moved three times. He is now in Khamti prison in Sagaing Division in north-western Burma.

He is suffering from cerebral malaria, which is said to be at an advanced stage. During his detention, U Ohn Than has also suffered from hypertension and kidney stone problems.

Haider told DVB that as well as calling on the military regime for the immediate release of Myo Yan Naung Thien and U Ohn Than, Amnesty International would increasingly advocate to the international community including the UN Human Rights Council, China, Russia and ASEAN countries for the release of all political prisoners in Burma.

Reporting by Moe Aye

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NLD continues aid operations in delta

Jun 26, 2008 (DVB)–U Ohn Kyaing, chair of the National League for Democracy’s Cyclone Relief Committee says the party is currently focusing its efforts on roofing houses and cleaning ponds for drinking water for cyclone survivors.

U Ohn Kyaing said the NLD planned to continue its work on relief efforts in the Irrawaddy delta.

“In the first phase, we plan to clean 20 ponds in villages inside Latputta township within two weeks,” he said.

“Latputta MPs-elect Dr Aye Kyu and U Kyi Win, NLD organising committee members and party members from villages will cooperate in this effort.”

With the help and cooperation of local NLD members, the relief committee is continuing its aid operations for cyclone victims in various areas of Bogalay, Mawlamyaing Kyne, Latputta and Ngaputaw townships.

“In villages in the lower part of Mawlamyaing Kyne, which were severely affected by the cyclone, we provided people with materials for shelter, money and clothes on Monday,” said the chairperson.

“In Bogalay, township organising committee members and NLD supporters are taking care of distributing relief supplies to locals in different villages,” he went on.

“For Bogalay and Ngaputaw, we plan to provide each village with 200 canvas sheets for roofing,” he continued.

The NLD formed the Cyclone Relief Committee on 8 May after Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma.

The Committee has been collecting donations and has taken an active role in relief operations since then.

U Ohn Kyaing told DVB that aid distribution to cyclone survivors should continue for at least another six month and so the committee was looking for further financial and material donations.

“We want to ask private donors to support us more. We are a political organisation so, even though we want to help those who are in desperate need, we have limited relief supplies,” U Ohn Kyaing said.

“Cyclone survivors still need aid so please help us to save their lives,” he implored.

Reporting by Khin Hnin Htet

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