************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
HEADLINES
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
AP - Myanmar junta dismisses Suu Kyi victory
AP - UNICEF praises Myanmar for recovery from cyclone
AFP - Bush urges Myanmar to free Suu Kyi
AFP - Myanmar PM promises better homes for cyclone victims
Bernama - Four Myanmar nationals detained over murder
Bernama - Myanmar Stepping Up Prevention Against Dengue Fever
Khaleej Times - Cyclone Nargis leaves at least 400 orphans in Myanmar
People's Daily - U.N. sets up emergency telecommunication center in Myanmar
Hartford Courant - Myanmar's Storm Survivors Cobble Together a Meager Future
AllAfrica.com - Nigeria: Gambari Haunted By His Past
ReliefWeb - Myanmar to build special cattle breeding zone in cyclone-hit areas
Bkk Post - Third of Burmese fail to return home
Mizzima News - Security beefed up in Rangoon on July 7 Anniversary Day
Mizzima News - Chindwin River flowing six feet above danger level
DVB News - U Win Tin marks 19 years in prison

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Myanmar junta dismisses Suu Kyi victory
AP - Monday, July 7

YANGON, Myanmar - The overwhelming election victory by Aung San Suu Kyi's party in 1990 has been nullified by the approval of a military-backed constitution and her National League for Democracy party should prepare for a new vote in 2010, Myanmar's state-run newspaper said Sunday.

Myanmar's ruling junta said the passing of its constitution in a May referendum _ widely dismissed by critics as unfair _ shows the public no longer cares about the electoral success by the detained Nobel laureate.

Suu Kyi's party won 392 out of 485 seats in the election, the first freely contested poll in nearly three decades. However, the ruling military refused to hand over power, insisting a new constitution was needed before this could be done.

The military drafted a much-maligned constitution that reinforces its iron grip on power. The constitution was approved in May by 92.48 percent of the vote, but critics say it was marred by irregularities, including reports of citizens being forced to vote yes.

Rather than fighting to get the 1990 results recognized, the Myanma Ahlin newspaper called for the National League for Democracy to spend its energy preparing for a new 2010 election.

"The NLD should prepare for the forthcoming elections instead of clinging onto the 1990 election results, which have already gone down the drain," the commentary said.

The constitution guarantees 25 percent of parliamentary seats to the military and allows the president to hand over all power to the military in a state of emergency.

It also bars anyone who enjoyed the rights and privileges of a foreign citizen from holding public office. This would keep Suu Kyi out of government because her late husband, Michael Aris, was a Briton and their two sons are British.

Last month, the newspaper said the referendum showed citizens have forsaken Suu Kyi and were ready to give the military a "political leadership role."

The military, which has held power since 1962, has been widely condemned for suppressing democracy and committing human rights abuses. Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, has spent more than a dozen of the last 19 years in detention.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
UNICEF praises Myanmar for recovery from cyclone
AP - Monday, July 7

YANGON, Myanmar - Disaster recovery and relief efforts are progressing well in Myanmar's cyclone-hit areas, despite logistical obstacles, a United Nations agency said Monday.

"The government has allocated a lot of money to relief and recovery," UNICEF spokeswoman Zafrin Chowdhury told The Associated Press, praising individual volunteers as well for their work.

Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3 cut a swath of destruction through the Irrawaddy delta and the country's largest city of Yangon, killing 84,537 people and leaving 53,836 missing.

Chowdhury said the logistics of providing relief were daunting.

"It's a very challenging situation. Access is quite difficult and most places in the delta are reachable only by boat," she said. Helicopters chartered on behalf of the U.N. World Food Program are also being used to airlift essential supplies where trucks cannot go.

"From our own observations, assistance has reached many of the remote areas," said Chowdhury.

The casualties from the storm were on a scale experienced by other countries from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which largely spared Myanmar.

An Indonesian expert compared Myanmar's recovery effort favorably to the one made by his own country after the tsunami.

Heru Prasetyo of Tsunami Rehabilitation and Reconstruction for Aceh and Nias spoke at a meeting last week to review post-disaster response and recovery. It looked at the work and future duties of the Tripartite Core Group, comprising representatives of the government, U.N. agencies and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nation, ASEAN — of which Myanmar is a member.

"Judging the progress at the eighth week so far, the TCG efforts in managing response and preparing the recovery has placed Myanmar Nargis in much more advanced stage compared to the Aceh tsunami then," Heru said at the meeting.

But he warned that the work remaining "will be uphill and arduous."

An ASEAN-led Post-Nargis Joint Assessment Team that surveyed cyclone-hit parts of Myanmar issued preliminary findings late last month indicating that a feared wave of post-cyclone deaths and disease had not occurred.

The team's full report is supposed to be released at a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers on July 20-21 in Singapore.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Bush urges Myanmar to free Suu Kyi
Sun Jul 6, 1:33 PM ET

TOYAKO, Japan (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Sunday renewed his call for Myanmar's military regime to free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.
Bush said he intended to raise concerns about Myanmar as he opened talks in Japan ahead of a summit of the Group of Eight major powers starting on Monday.

"I'm deeply concerned about that country," Bush told a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the host of the summit.

"And we urge the regime to free Aung San Suu Kyi," Bush said.

The junta, defying international pressure, in May extended the house arrest of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last 18 years confined to her home.

The military government also came under criticism for waiting weeks before accepting international relief workers after Cyclone Nargis, which left more than 138,000 dead or missing when it pounded ashore on May 2.

"Their response to the recent natural disaster was unwarranted, at best," Bush said.

The Group of Eight includes Britian, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Myanmar PM promises better homes for cyclone victims
AFP - Monday- July 7

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar's premier promised better housing for cyclone victims in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta, where many people have received only a plastic sheet to use for shelter, state media said Monday.

Cyclone Nargis left more than 138,000 people dead or missing when it struck Myanmar on May 2, washing away entire villages. Another 2.4 million people are in need of food, shelter, or other aid.

"Plans are under way... to accommodate (the homeless) at better houses than the previous ones they lived (in)," Prime Minister Thein Sein said in the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

He also said the military government was working to restore the livelihoods of those in the delta, one of Myanmar's most important farming regions.

"Officials concerned are to supervise cultivation tasks," Thein Sein said during a tour of the delta on Sunday, adding that seeds and tools would be distributed to help survivors replant their destroyed vegetable crops.

Myanmar's junta has come under fierce international condemnation for its slow response to the cyclone and for imposing restrictions on aid workers that have delayed the delivery of relief supplies.

Two weeks ago, an assessment team led by the United Nations, regional experts and government officials estimated that 59 percent of houses in the storm zone were severely damaged.

The report said new homes being built from bamboo would last at most two years, and called for sturdier housing for the storm victims.

So far, 428,000 plastic sheets have been distributed to victims, according to the United Nations, leaving families to huddle under their stretch of tarp for more than two months as almost daily monsoon rains sweep through.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
FOUR MYANMAR NATIONALS DETAINED OVER MURDER
Bernama - Tuesday, July 8

KUALA LUMPUR, July 7 (Bernama) -- Four Myanmar nationals have been arrested in connection with the murder of a Myanmar woman whose body was found at a shophouse in Jalan Pasar Borong here on May 18.

The men, aged between 18 and 23, were picked up at a house in Taman Pelangi, Rawang on Saturday were remanded until Thursday, said City deputy police chief Datuk Abdul Samah Mat.

"Police seized a revolver, 15 rounds of ammunition, three knives and a machete from a room in the house," he told reporters here today.

Nan Ju @ Fatimah Yusuf, 36, was found dead with her throat slit in a room on the third flood of the shophouse.

The victim, who had the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)'s protection status, was believed to have been murdered at about 4am.

POLICE-MURDER 2 (LAST) KUALA LUMPUR

Meanwhile, police have also arrested four foreign nationals in connection with the break-in at the Agro Bank branch office in Bandar Baru Utara Selayang near the Selayang Wholesale Market here over the weekend.

Four computers worth about RM10,000 and RM100 cash were found missing from the office on the second floor of the four-storey building.

The break-in was realised by an employee of the bank when she arrived for work at 8am today after noticing two cups on a table and the glass window behind the office shattered.

Police screened 15 Indonesian and Myanmar nationals including three women and two children who stayed next door before releasing 11 of them.

Sentul police chief ACP Ahmad Sofian Md Yasin confirmed the arrests.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Myanmar Stepping Up Prevention Against Dengue Fever

YANGON, July 7 (Bernama) -- Myanmar is stepping up prevention against dengue fever, especially in two populated suburban townships in Yangon division, following reports on the outbreak in some wards in the townships.

Preventive measures are being carried out at basic education primary schools and wards in Thakayta and Dagon Myothit-South townships with medical inspection teams giving educative talks and demonstration on the measures, China's Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying on Monday.

Fresh dengue fever occurred in late last June in Dagon Myothit (North and South) and Hlaingtharya townships in Yangon division, affecting children of five years of age and above.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), in cooperation with the Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association and the Myanmar Red Cross, launched a US$700,000 anti-dengue- fever campaign in 11 storm-hit townships in Yangon and Ayeyawaddy divisions, giving priority to the two areas where disease-carrying mosquitoes have become a major concern.

According to the WHO, there registered 781 dengue patients in Yangon division and 481 in Ayeyawaddy division as of the end of May.

Meanwhile, the state media reported no outbreak of other contagious and epidemic diseases in the storm-hit areas, saying that a total of 206,039 storm patients had received medical treatment during a month after the cyclone storm hit the country on last May 2 to 3.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Cyclone Nargis leaves at least 400 orphans in Myanmar
Khaleej Times -
7 July 2008

YANGON - Two months after Cyclone Nargis smashed into Myanmar's central coast leaving at least 138,000 dead or missing, the number of children still searching for their parents exceeds 400, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced on Monday.

"The most serious issue in child protection in the aftermath of the cyclone is the problem of separated and unaccompanied children," said UNICEF, one of a host of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations that have participated in the Cyclone Nargis relief operation.

"There were 428 children separated from their parents by the cyclone, of whom 15 have been reunited with their families," said UNICEF's spokesperson Zafrin Chowdhury.

According to government figures Cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar on May 2-3, killed more than 84,000 people and left 54,000 missing, most of them washed away by a tidal wave that accompanied the storm.

UNICEF identified children left orphaned or separated from their parents as the most vulnerable victims of the natural disaster.

The UN agency, in collaboration with the social Welfare Ministry, has set up 51 child-friendly spaces in temporary settlements to help children find their parents and aims to establish 100 in the Yangon and Irrawaddy provinces, that weret hit by the storm.

Remarkably, to date there has been no major outbreak of dengue, cholera or typhoid in the cyclone-hit region, despite the tardiness of the international relief efforts that were initially delayed by the government's reluctance to allow aid and foreign experts in to the areas.

UNICEF claimed to have distributed medical supplies including oral rehydration salts, antibiotics, infusion, vaccines and Vitamin A enough to treat 600,000 people, including children, against diarrhea, malaria and dengue over the past two months.

"We anticipated outbreaks in the affected areas and tried out best to prevent them," said Chowdhury. "I was also impressed by local communities' response to the disaster, especially by the monks who helped to organize the villagers," she added.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
U.N. sets up emergency telecommunication center in Myanmar
People's Daily -
+-14:19, July 07, 2008

The United Nations has set up an emergency telecommunication center (ETC) in Myanmar's biggest city of Yangon to improve quick communication access in disaster relief and restoration works, reported the local Biweekly Eleven journal.

Some Myanamr staff have been trained by the UN Emergency Communication Group operating the center, the report said.

The UN group has been rendering assistance for some social organizations based in Bangkok to bring in their relief aid supplies to cyclone-hit areas in Myanmar's Ayeyawaddy division and Yangon division, the report added.

Meanwhile, the World Food Program (WFP) of the U.N., in cooperation with the UN Development Program (UNDP) and some international non-governmental organizations, has been distributing ration aid supply to such storm-hit areas as Laputta ,Bogalay, Phyapon, Mawlamyinegyun and Pathein soon after the cyclone storm hit Myanmar in early last May.

According to the WFP, a total of 29,000 survived population of 9 village tracts out of 50 in Ayeyawaddy's Laputta alone have been benefited by the UN program, earlier report said.

Laputta township suffered the biggest damage out of those in the Ayayawaddy delta, a preliminary assessment of a tripartite core group involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Myanmar and the U.N. said.

Deadly cyclone Nargis, which occurred over the Bay of Bengal, hit five divisions and states -- Ayeyawaddy, Yangon, Bago, Mon and Kayin on last May 2 and 3, of which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon inflicted the heaviest casualties and massive infrastructure damage.

 

Myanmar estimated the damages and losses caused by the storm at10.67 billion U.S. dollars with 5.5 million people affected.

The storm has killed 84,537 people and left 53,836 missing and 19,359 injured according to the latest official death toll.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Myanmar's Storm Survivors Cobble Together a Meager Future
Hartford Courant
Washington Post - July 6, 2008

BOGALAY, Myanmar — - Two months after a cyclone ravaged the fertile Irrawaddy Delta, in Myanmar's southwest, the bones of drowning victims still clutter the muddy banks of waterways.

One bamboo stick at a time, survivors in hundreds of flattened villages are struggling to rebuild their homes. For shelter, they squeeze several families into a single tent. For drinking water, they collect monsoon rainwater that trickles off tarpaulin roof coverings into buckets or salvaged ceramic vases. For food, they cook communal meals with rice, beans and oil from handouts. Sometimes it is spoiled.

On a recent visit, one village looked as if it had been carpet-bombed, a craterous landscape of muddy pools, debris and the remains of water buffaloes. A few hundred feet away, villagers sawed and hammered at planks salvaged from the wreckage. A teenage boy in an oversize shirt donated by a Buddhist monastery picked through piles of smashed wood.

"To work is to be busy, and to be busy helps them forget," said Soe, the village leader.
Nine hundred and forty-three people used to live here, he said. In the storm that came ashore the night of May 2, 660 of them disappeared. Across the vast, maze-like delta, an estimated 130,000 people were killed and 2.4 million affected.

Persistent obstruction by the country's military rulers has kept aid at tragically meager levels. International efforts to quickly dispatch emergency assistance were delayed as the country's xenophobic military rulers rebuffed offers of help, denied visas to foreign aid workers and required permits for travel within the country.

Aid workers say that the majority of survivors of Tropical Cyclone Nargis have received at least some help but that few are even remotely equipped to make their way in coming months. Some communities have only recently been reached by aid teams, who had journeyed for hours on foot, by motorcycle and by boat.

Many of the restrictions have been eased, but relief workers say they still operate under erratic and constantly shifting constraints. The logistical challenges remain formidable as they scramble to dispatch seed, tractors and tillers to farmers before the rice-planting season ends this month.

"We have time to farm, but no tractors, no buffaloes and no seed," Soe said.

To reach his village required a seven-hour drive along a potholed, tire-shredding road from Rangoon to the rural hub of Bogalay, past four police checkpoints where documents were rigorously scanned. Against a backdrop of peaceful rice paddies, strange touches stood out: A patchwork of blue and red tarpaulins stretched across delicate palm-thatched huts; decapitated golden pagodas; and peaked iron roofs blown like dead leaves onto the roadside.

From Bogalay, where electricity has barely crackled back to life, the journey continued aboard a motorized boat loaded with supplies. The riverbanks form a cemetery for cyclone victims whose bodies floated for weeks along the waterways and whose remains, at low tide, now whiten in the mud.

A boatman pointed to an empty stretch of riverbank interspersed with bare-branched betel and coconut trees. "That used to be a village," he said. "There, too," he said minutes later, gesturing at the opposite bank.

In Soe's village, about four hours south of Bogalay, survivors gathered to greet a rare foreign visitor. About 30 crowded into a newly built hut to hear the headman tell their story.

During the storm, 26 entire families vanished, he said. None of their bodies has been recovered.

The rest of the villagers clutched floating wreckage or grasped at tree trunks or piled into a leaking boat and fled to a monastery in a distant village. Days later, local authorities told them to leave, handed them the equivalent of $10 per household and ferried them in military boats to another village hours upriver. Almost 300 have now made it back.

No one was supposed to be living here. The village is located in an area marked as uninhabited, a forest reserve, on the government map used by aid agencies. But field workers have discovered about 12,000 survivors in 60 villages across the area, all of them almost entirely wiped out. An estimated 20,000 people died.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
AllAfrica.com - Nigeria: Gambari Haunted By His Past
Vanguard (Lagos), 5 July 2008
Posted to the web 7 July 2008

Professor Ibrahim Gambari is a special UN envoy to Myanmar. The UN may have picked him for that job because of his relationship with Nigeria's military juntas. The UN may even be satisfied with Gambari's performance in Myanmar.

Curiously, in his native Nigeria, his people in the Niger Delta do not want him as chairman of the Steering Committee of the federal government planned Niger-Delta Summit. His fellow intellectual, Professor B.I.C. Ijomah, says Gambari is not schooled in the fauna and flora of the Niger-Delta ecology and "so cannot adumbrate and apotheosize on matters that affect the region".

Indeed, Gambari's past seems to be catching up with him. His description, 13 years ago, of the late Ogoni civil rights leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa, hanged by the regime of the late General Sani Abacha, which he served then as Minister of External Affairs for demanding for the rights of his people, is now his undoing.

Gambari was quite friendly when he spoke to Saturday Vanguard on arrival to the country, last month, to meet with President Umar Yar'Adua on his appointment as chair of the Summit. But given the animated controversy that his appointment has generated in the creeks of the Niger-Delta, Gambari is reportedly reconsidering his acceptance of the offer to chair the summit.

The diplomatic is quoted to have said it was a "patriotic job" he wanted to do and that he was released for it on the grounds that he would not be paid for it by the Federal Government. Gambari is said to have asked why there would be so much animosity against him when he is not even a negotiator or mediator but appointed to help streamline the reports and suggestions on the way forward for the region.

However, the Gambari controversy today did not start with his appointment as the chairman of the Steering Committee of the Summit. Way back in 1995, there was a brewing crisis between members of the Nigerian community in New York and the authorities of Medgar Evers College in New York City over its planned invitation to Professor Ibrahim Gambari and another top UN official, Kofi Annan . He was billed to deliver a lecture at the college in celebration of Medgar Evers, the late civil rights leader. Medgar Evers College is one of the numerous colleges of the City University of New York network. It prides itself as a liberal college. The college, with a sizeable population of Nigerians, is located in Brooklyn, New York.

According to informed sources, Professor Ibrahim Gambari had accepted the institution' s invitation to deliver a lecture on June 12, 2005 as part of week-long activities in remembrance of the late civil rights advocate, Medgar Evers.

The Nigerian community received news of this event and leaders of the US based pro-democracy group, Nigeria Liberty Forum (NLF) mobilized against the programme. They were miffed by the choice of Gambari as the person to give a civil rights lecture, considering the significance of June 12th. Members of the Nigerian pro-democracy community considered Gambari a part of the cabal that truncated Nigeria's march to democracy under the regime of General Sani Abacha.

The NLF, accordingly, sent letters of protest to the college president, Dr. Edison Jackson, to "de-invite" Gambari who was Nigeria's Permanent Representative to the United Nations during the Abacha era. They alleged that Gambari's career and credentials are at odds with what the late civil rights leader, Medgar Evers lived and died for. The NLF highlighted Gambari's role in misinforming the international community about the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow Ogoni compatriots, his defence of the prolonged detention of Chief M.K.O Abiola, and the general oppression of the Nigerian people.

They also mentioned instances where Gambari had defended the closure of media houses, the promulgation of draconian decrees that limited freedom of association, free speech, labour, and students rights.

This protest letter, which was signed by Omoyele Sowore, was also addressed to other civil rights groups like Amnesty International, USA.

The forum reminded the Medgar Evers College authorities of the significance of the day-"June 12th"-to Nigerians. June 12, 1993 was the day the presidential election, still regarded as the freest and fairest election in the history of Nigeria, was held. The election was annulled by the then ruling military junta led by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. It was won by international businessman and friend of Babangida, Abiola.

Two years after the elections were annulled, Abiola was detained by Gen. Sani Abacha, who overthrew the hastily assembled Interim National Government, led by Ernest Shonekan. Abiola died in prison in 1998 under mysterious circumstances. The NLF has vowed to mobilise every Nigerian in New York to disgrace Gambari in the event that the university went ahead with the lecture as planned.

A similar event organized by the Chicago State University in 2001, in honour of General Abdulsalam Abubakar was disrupted by pro-democracy activists in Chicago. The former Head of State was served with a court summons. The suit accused him of gross human rights violations. The matter which was decided in May is being appealed. An official of the university later denied ignorance of the event following the hullabaloo it generated.

If the axe forgets, the tree remembers. So it was when Niger-Delta leaders got wind of the shielded information that Gambari was to chair the summit. Initially, the government officials denied the information, saying that he was only being considered and had not been appointed.

Decision that ended Gambari's chair of the summit

Gambari's end of the road to chair the proposed Niger Delta summit took place at the meeting held in Aso meeting by the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan with leaders of the region. After listening to a speech from Senator Uche Chukwumerije, one of the leaders from Baylesa state, identified as Lioness, was said to have reminded the guests that the Vice President told them that the fault of picking

Gambari should be placed at his doorsteps because he and two other persons conferred and took the decision on behalf of the people even though he never knew Gambari very well.

The Bayelsa delegate was said to have given the analogy of the Queen, who he said is never wrong. Lioness said the statement that the Queen is never wrong does not mean that the Queen is infallible but that she always does the right thing. He said he was, therefore, shocked that the Vice President did not do proper research on Gambari before nominating him.

In fact, the Vice President's team allegedly did a poor job of the Gambari appointment.

Saturday Vanguard scooped that when the name of Gambari was first mooted by somebody in the Vice President's office, some people raised objection over the suggestion. Instead of throwing the matter open for debate, those behind it strategically withdrew only to include it in the minutes of a meeting, as something that was deliberated upon and agreed. Jonathan was reportedly not in the know about the intrigues but he assumed that Gambari's choice was good and pushed the decision to President Yar'Adua. It was at this point that some Niger-Delta leaders were informed about the game plan, our source said.

A top official at the Presidency who Saturday Vanguard met after Gambari's appointment at that time denied that the diplomat had been appointed, saying that it was all speculation. But he went ahead to defend the decision.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
ReliefWeb - Myanmar to build special cattle breeding zone in cyclone-hit areas

YANGON, Jul 07, 2008 (Xinhua via COMTEX News Network) -- Myanmar will build a special cattle breeding zone between two cyclone-hit areas in the Ayeyawaddy delta region, a local weekly journal reported Monday, quoting the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department.

The 800-acre (324-hectare) zone will be built between Latputta and Myaungmya, the Voice said.

Dissemination of knowledge on ploughing land with draught cattle will also be done by the department, the report added.

Meanwhile, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has planned to donate 600 cows and cattle for four cyclone-hit regions in Myanmar to help restart agricultural cultivation, the department said.

The four cyclone-hit regions, to be donated with such cows and cattle under the FAO program involving Myanmar Livestock Breeding Association and the UNAID, are Kungyankon, Mawlamyinegyun, Ngaputaw and Phyapon.

The FAO purchased the cows and cattle from lesser-cyclone- hit region of Bago and cyclone-free northern region of Mandalay.

According to the journal's earlier report, altogether nearly 1, 400 draught buffaloes and cows, donated domestically, have been distributed to the cyclone-hit areas for recultivation.

These cattle were supplied by wellwishers from other divisions and states of Kayin, Mon, Bago, Rakhine, Shan.

According to official statistics, during the cyclone storm, more than 200,000 heads of cattle including buffalo, cow, sheep and pig, and over 2.27 million livestocks including chicken and ducks were killed in two divisions of Ayeyawaddy and Yangon.

Deadly cyclone Nargis, which occurred over the Bay of Bengal, hit five divisions and states -- Ayeyawaddy, Yangon, Bago, Mon and Kayin on last May 2 and 3, of which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon inflicted the heaviest casualties and massive infrastructure damage.

 

Myanmar estimated the damages and losses caused by the storm at 10.67 billion U.S. dollars with 5.5 million people affected.

The storm has killed 84,537 people and left 53,836 missing and 19,359 injured according to the latest official death toll.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Third of Burmese fail to return home
Bangkok Post - Monday July 07, 2008
IMMIGRATION
SUPAMART KASEM

TAK : Nearly one-third of the Burmese who entered Thailand through Mae Sot district this year did not return to their home country.

The provincial immigration office reported that 298,847 Burmese nationals crossed from Myawaddy to Mae Sot district over the Friendship Bridge in the first half of this year, and 86,517 had not gone back.

In May and June alone, a total of 29,150 Burmese people did not go back through the same checkpoint.

The two-month period coincided with the disaster caused by Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Irrawaddy delta and Rangoon in May.

Provincial immigration chief Pol Col Tassawat Boonyawat said some of them might have crossed back through other checkpoints or outside normal channels. Others might have overstayed their border pass and faced being arrested and deported.

"Illegal immigrants will remain an issue so long as the two countries differ economically and politically. We don't have enough funding, manpower or equipment to properly guard the border, which is more more than 500 kilometres long," he said.

In the first six months the province deported 72,124 Burmese who entered Thailand illegally, worked without a permit or overstayed their border pass.

A border security officer, who asked not to be named, said most illegal Burmese were fleeing economic hardship at home.

He attributed the rise in illegal Burmese to the government policy to bring long-term illegal residents into the house registration system.

Deputy district chief Kowit Kruewong said the project, approved by cabinet in January 2006, was aimed at addressing the unresolved status of those living in Thailand prior to January 2005.

Village heads and kamnan would list the name of eligible residents in their communities and present the list at a public hearing by September, before seeking the Interior Ministry's approval.

"Illegal immigrants may submit an application, but they must pass a strict screening process," he said.

The education office responsible for Mae Sot area said foreign students in five border districts rose from 7,000 to 10,000 after the cyclone struck Burma.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Security beefed up in Rangoon on July 7 Anniversary Day
Mizzima News - Monday, 07 July 2008 19:45
Phanida

Chiang Mai – The authorities in Rangoon have beefed up security in townships today on the occasion of the July 7 Anniversary Day.

The government backed 'Swanahshin' has been deployed at crowded junctions, near the university campuses and in front of the NLD headquarters today the 46th anniversary July 7 day. Soldiers are patrolling the city in vehicles.

"The security is tight today. But we could not find the police. There were about 50-60 'Swanahshin' personnel in front of the NLD headquarters in four Toyota Dyna light trucks.  There were another 30-40 'Swanahshin' personnel at the Sule pagoda", Ko Naing Ngan Linn, a NLD Youth in-charge said.

"The soldiers have been patrolling the city since last night in police cars. Today security personnel were deployed in an unusual move in mufti by the 'Swanahshin' at many crowded junctions and key places in the city," an undercover reporter of Mizzima said.

About 20 'Swanahshin' personnel were deployed at the town hall in the city centre today by the Police Col.  in a Mazda jeep and a riot police truck, he added.

Police personnel, soldiers and 'Swanahshin' in plain clothes were deployed at many crowded junctions such as Kokkai, Shwegondaing, Sule, Thingangyun, Kyimyindine, Sanchaung, Hledan, South Okkalapa, Lanmadaw and Latha townships, a Rangoon local resident said.

The Dawbon Township 'Peace and Development Council' (PDC) asked for about 80 'Swanahshin' from the township to deploy them at Dagon University and 'Tarwa' University campuses in Rangoon Division for security, it is learnt.

The Revolutionary Council led by Gen. Ne Win who grabbed power in a coup brutally killed unarmed students who were staging demonstrations for freedom in education on July 7, 1962 -- 46 years ago.

"They are always scared of student demonstrations. The 'All Burma Federation of Student Union' (ABFSU) launched a poster campaign in almost all university campuses today," Ko Myo Tayza, spokesperson of ABFSU, said.

The copies of  the ABFSU statement called 'Revolting against enslavement by military, Let's fly fighting peacock flag' were found pasted on the walls of Arts and Science University, Computer College, Government Technical College (GTC), Government Technological University campuses.

"The best and smoothest way for a breakthrough in the current political impasse is to release all political prisoners including students, monks and nuns who are unfairly imprisoned unconditionally and immediately, and enter into a dialogue with the opposition", the statement said.

"Education is politics. Without freedom of education, we cannot achieve political freedom. We are at the forefront of this struggle and leading the students to encourage them to express their will and desire freely and for freedom of education", Ko Myo Tay Za said.

"Resolving the current political crisis through coercion and bullying unilaterally by using arms and thugs will not be successful and will exacerbate the situation in the future. It will also ensure many more protests, calamities and unrests which will lead the country to utter devastation and finally to a failed state," the ABFSU statement added.

The University Student Union building which was a historical monument of anti-colonial and anti-fascist struggles was dynamited by the 'Revolutionary Council" led by Gen. Ne Win in the early morning of July 8, 1962.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
Chindwin River flowing six feet above danger level
Mizzima News - Monday, 07 July 2008 18:44
Than Htike Oo

The water level in Chindwin River was flowing six feet above the danger level in some places, the Meteorology and Hydrology Department in Rangoon said.

The water level will rise another three feet within 24 hours, an official from the Hydrology department said on condition of anonymity.

The water flowing above danger level is a usual phenomenon these days, he said but declined to talk about damages and casualty in the floods.

Places near Khamti market were flooded with the water four feet deep. People living in low lying areas had to be evacuated, reliable government sources told Mizzima.

Though Monywa and Kalemyo have not yet been flooded, downtown areas in Homlin and Maulaik are inundated, travellers passing through these towns told local residents in Monywa, Mizzima learnt.

Homlin and Maulaik could not be contacted for confirmation but the Monywa based Meteorology Observation station said that there were no casualties in Maulaik.

The water level in Kalaywa has touched 1415 cm and will reach 1550 cm within 24 hours, the Monywa Meteorology and Hydrology Department said.

There are observation stations in Kamti, Homlin, Maulaik, Kalaywa and Monywa along the Chindwin River.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
U Win Tin marks 19 years in prison

Jul 7, 2008 (DVB)–Supporters of U Win Tin have called for his release from prison as the veteran journalist and National League for Democracy member marked 19 years behind bars on 4 July.

Ludu Sein Win, a close friend and colleague of U Win Tin, paid tribute to his friend’s integrity and commitment.

“I want to see him freed as he is my co-worker and he is like a brother to me. Also, prison life is not suitable for someone of his age,” Ludu Sein Win said.

“He is a man with high moral values – he has never in his life looked for personal gain. He devoted his whole life to his country and to journalism,” he said.

“There has been no one else as good and as clever as him in his lifetime. I'm only worried that I will never see him alive again.”

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association issued a statement last week urging the military regime to release U Win Tin to allow him to seek medical treatment.

“The government, which has a responsibility to protect the life of its citizens, should now release him,” the groups said.

“He should be moved to a hospital as soon as possible.”

U Win Tin was born on 12 March 1931 in Kyo Pin Hout township, Bago division, to U Tu and Daw Ahmar, and is the nephew of Bo Min Khaung, one of the 30 comrades.

After graduating from Rangoon University, he was sent to Amsterdam as a scholar as part of a Burmese encyclopedia project.

In October 1969 U Win Tin became chief editor of Mandalay’s Hantharwaddy newspaper, and was jailed when the newspaper was shut down by the government.

He was jailed again by the State Law and Order Restoration Council in 1989, and has been sentenced to three, ten and seven years’ imprisonment by successive secret tribunals held inside Insein prison.

He has suffered heart problems during his time in prison, and underwent a hernia operation earlier this year.

He is currently having difficulties eating and sleeping due to lung problems and severe asthma attacks.

U Win Tin has been the recipient of press freedom awards from UNESCO in 2001 and from Reporters Without Borders in 2006.

Reporting by Htet Aung Kyaw

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *