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HEADLINES
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AP - Myanmar junta threatens action against opposition
AP - Myanmar will destroy Chinese milk powder
AP - Myanmar junta rules roost 1 year after crackdown
AFP - Six injured in Myanmar bomb blast: police
AFP - S Korean Court Says Myanmar Refugees Can Stay
AFP - Search intensifies for crewmen missing off Macau: officials
Xinhua - Myanmar steps up control of trans-border animal diseases
The Independent - Burmese democracy activist: 'I don't know how I kept my sanity'
Mizzima News - Rangoon General Hospital confirms receiving four injured from bomb blast
The Irrawaddy - Security Clampdown Follows Rangoon Bombing

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Myanmar junta threatens action against opposition
From AP on 2008-09-25 12:08:00 (posted on 2008-09-25 12:07:13)

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's military government has threatened the party of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi with legal action unless it retracts a statement criticizing the country's new constitution.

A spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, Nyan Win, said police chief Maj. Gen. Khin Yi and two other officials delivered the warning to six senior party leaders at a meeting Thursday.

The police chief said that a recent party statement saying that ``the majority of the people do not accept this constitution, which was illegally approved by force'' amounts to inciting the public, according to Nyan Win.

The party's statement charged that the authorities used coercion, intimidation, deception and misrepresentation to get voters' approval for the constitution in a national referendum held in May this year. The junta claimed the constitution won approval of 92 percent of the voters.

``The police chief told the party leaders that the facts mentioned in the recent party statement amount to instigating the people and legal action can be taken,'' Nyan Win said.

The party leaders refused to withdraw the statement, he said.

Suu Kyi's party also said that the constitution was not written by elected representatives but ``unilaterally drawn up by the delegates hand-picked by the authorities. ''

The ruling generals had billed the May constitutional referendum as an important step in their ``road map to democracy.''

The plan promises voters in Myanmar first chance for voters to cast ballots since 1990. The country had been without a charter since the current junta seized power in 1988 and threw out the last constitution.

The National League for Democracy won elections in 1990, but the military refused to hand over power. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi has been detained for 13 of the last 19 years.

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Myanmar will destroy Chinese milk powder
AP - Friday, September 26

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's authorities said it would destroy 17 1/2 tons (16 metric tons) of powdered milk made by one of 22 Chinese dairy companies found to have produced chemically tainted products, a newspaper said Thursday.

The privately run Bi-Weekly Eleven journal said the milk powder made by China's Yili Industrial Group Co. had not yet been distributed in Myanmar.

An official at Myanmar's Food and Drug Administration said the milk powder was worth about US$50,000 and would be destroyed on Sept. 30, according to the Myanmar-language paper. The report did not identify the official by name and did not explain how the administration planned to destroy the powder.

Cheap Chinese dairy goods are widely sold in impoverished Myanmar, but state media have issued no official warnings on the tainted milk crisis in China that has killed at least four babies and sickened tens of thousands.

There have been no reported cases of sickness from toxic Chinese dairy products in Myanmar.

Investigations are under way into other Chinese dairy brands available in the military-ruled country, the paper said, quoting the FDA official. The report did not elaborate on what other measures would be taken.

The latest food safety scandal began when baby milk formula produced by Sanlu Group Co. was found to be tainted with the toxic industrial chemical melamine. The crisis his since expanded to include products from 22 Chinese dairy companies, and several countries have banned food imports containing Chinese dairy produce.

In 2006-2007, military-ruled Myanmar imported more than US$995 million of goods from China, its largest trading partner, according to government statistics.

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Myanmar junta rules roost 1 year after crackdown
By GRANT PECK,Associated Press Writer
AP - Friday, September 26

BANGKOK, Thailand - As the crowd marching through the streets of Myanmar's biggest city swelled to 100,000, the question wasn't what did they want, but when would the government crack down.

The answer came days later, on Sept. 26, 2007, when truckloads of heavily armed soldiers and riot police flooded Yangon's streets, hurling tear gas, beating and shooting at Buddhist monks and other pro-democracy protesters. In three days of mayhem, at least 31 people were killed, according to a U.N. estimate.

A year later, Myanmar's "Saffron Revolution" _ named after the color of the robes worn by the militant young monks spearheading the protests _ is a bitter memory.

"I have lost hope in the future of the country. A regime that can kill monks will not give up its power easily. There could only be more bloodshed if people go out on the streets again," Maung Maung, a 52-year-old electrician, said in Yangon this week.

An explosion injured seven people near Yangon's City Hall on Thursday, indicating some remnants of the violence may remain. Riot police poured into the area where the explosion occurred and sealed it off with yellow tape, adding to the already tight security in place around the city since late August.

After putting down the biggest and most sustained demonstrations since 1988 _ when a popular uprising failed in an attempt to end 26 years of army-backed rule _ the military now looks set to proceed virtually unchallenged with its so-called road map to democracy.

Having pushed through a new constitution that enshrines the military's leading role in politics _ engineering a 92 percent "yes" vote in a national referendum in May _ the junta, formally known as the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, is preparing to hold a general election in 2010 totally on its own terms.

Provisions of the new constitution would also bar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from holding any kind of political office in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

"It is hard to envisage the planned elections being disrupted in any significant way at all. People will largely vote as instructed, just as they agreed to hand in pre-marked voting cards to endorse the new constitution, " said Monique Skidmore, a University of Canberra professor and an expert on Myanmar.

"Fear is an incredibly powerful weapon in Burma and the population knows well when the SPDC will brook no resistance."

The number of political prisoners in Myanmar has roughly doubled, to about 2,000 from 1,000 a year ago, according to the United Nations and Amnesty International. The prisoners include most of the country's smartest and most dedicated activists.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi, detained for 13 of the past 19 years, remains a lonely and isolated figure under house arrest, forced to threaten a hunger strike to get such concessions as being allowed to receive mail from her sons in England.

Her National League for Democracy party, meanwhile, ponders the unappealing choice of taking part in the 2010 election under what are certain to be onerous conditions, or boycotting the polls, leaving them even further out in the cold. The party won a 1990 election, but the military refused to let Parliament convene.

The regime has not been able to snuff out all defiance.

Win Tin, a 78-year-old stalwart of Suu Kyi's party, was unbending in his conviction after being released this week following 19 years imprisonment.

"I will have to continue the unfinished task, which is to achieve democracy in the country," he told reporters.

Those who remain behind bars are said to be equally resolute.

U Gambira, one of the most prominent activist monks arrested last year, insists he be tried under Buddhist clerical law rather than by the military authorities, according to his lawyer, Aung Thein.

Activists of the Generation 88 Students group, who organized most of the major nonviolent protests of recent years, are demanding they be tried in open court, without handcuffs and with the media present.

Last year's protests began on Aug. 19, 2007, after the government sharply raised fuel prices in what is one of Asia's poorest countries. Economic troubles underpinned the protests.

A sharp increase in poverty levels combined with a health and education system in ruins _ along with the lack of any kind of welfare system _ meant that spikes in commodity or fuel prices put an unbearable strain on people, said Skidmore.

"These issues combined to create a peaceful uprising of people not normally involved in pro-democracy causes," she said.

But the protests over economic conditions were faltering until the monks took the leadership and assumed a role they played in previous battles against British colonialism and military dictators.

"By 2007, a new generation of monks had come of age since the nationwide failed democracy uprising in 1988," said Skidmore. "Young, frustrated and seeing the suffering of the people on a daily basis, they were unafraid to mobilize."

At first the monks simply chanted and prayed. But as the public joined their marches, the demonstrators demanded a dialogue between the government and opposition parties and freedom for political prisoners, as well as adequate food, shelter and clothing.

When the government hesitated to confront them _ aware of the taboo on attacking the revered representatives of the country's Buddhist religion _ people were emboldened to come out.

The tipping point came on Sept. 24, 2007, when a stunning line of some 100,000 marchers stretching as far as the eye could see, wound its way across town, cheered on by onlookers.

A day later, a curfew was declared. Then, on Sept. 26, 2007, the guns came out.

In the following weeks, thousands of people were detained. The government continues to methodically track down and arrest dissidents. Nilar Thein, a prominent member of the 88 Generation Students group, was arrested earlier this month, as was a well-known activist monk, Ko Nge _ also known as Shin Sandimar.

Leaving little to chance as the anniversary approached, the junta has tightened security in Yangon since late August.

As many as nine truckloads of riot police holding assault rifles and tear gas and carrying shields and batons cruise the streets daily, while others are stationed inside the compounds where a number of monasteries are located.

To many, the lengths to which the ruling junta would go to quash the protests were revealed when monasteries were raided in the early morning hours of Sept. 27, 2007.

"I still hear the sound of soldiers swearing and monks groaning in pain when soldiers raided the monastery and beat the monks," said Soe Myint, a resident who lives near the Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery in a northern Yangon suburb. "There is little chance for a peaceful protest to take place again this year."

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Six injured in Myanmar bomb blast: police
AFP - Friday, September 26

YANGON (AFP) - - Six people suffered minor injuries in a small bomb blast Thursday in Myanmar's main city Yangon, a police official said, despite tight security on the one-year anniversary of mass anti-junta protests.

The blast hit at a bus stop outside City Hall in the downtown area and was the latest in a series of explosions in the military-ruled country this month.

"It was a small bomb blast. Altogether six people were slightly injured... They were sent to the hospital," said the police official, who did not want to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Military and police officials swiftly sealed off the area, and urged crowds gathered at the scene to disperse.

"I heard the blast," said one vendor near the park. "It was very loud."

Security has been tight around Yangon for days as the city silently marks the anniversary of anti-government demonstrations, which saw more than 100,000 people led by Buddhist monks flood the streets of Yangon a year ago this week.

Sporadic protests first broke out in late August 2007 over a hike in fuel prices, and slowly escalated. The military regime finally launched a crackdown on September 26, opening fire on the crowds.

The United Nations has said that 31 people were killed in the crackdown, while 74 people remain missing.

There has been no mention in Myanmar's tightly-controlled press of the anniversary of the protests.

Thursday's blast comes after two similar incidents this month.

On September 11, two people were killed and another 10 wounded by two bomb blasts at a video cafe northeast of Yangon, near a region hit by an ethnic insurgency, state media reported.

Those blasts followed an explosion days earlier on Yangon bus which injured three people.

Myanmar's junta has in the past blamed similar blasts on armed exile groups or ethnic rebels who have been battling the military rulers for decades, but the regime has also started pointing the finger at democracy activists.

State-run media earlier this month accused two members of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) of bombing pro-government offices in July.

The NLD won a landslide victory in elections in 1990, but the junta never allowed it to take office and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest almost constantly since.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by claiming the need to fend off ethnic rebellions.

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S Korean Court Says Myanmar Refugees Can Stay
09-25-080455ET

SEOUL (AFP)--South Korea's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that eight men from Myanmar should be granted refugee status since they were likely to face political persecution if returned home.

The men, including Maung Zaw, filed for refugee status in 2005 after South Korea's Justice Ministry ordered them to leave the country.

A district court and the high court rejected their bid, saying they didn't have a "well-founded fear of persecution" as required by the U.N. convention.

The Supreme Court reversed the ruling because of their support for an underground opposition movement while in Myanmar and in South Korea, Yonhap news agency said.

"It feels like we caught the stars in the sky," it quoted Maung Zaw as saying. "I am so glad, except for the fact that some of my friends had to leave because the ruling came too late."

He said one of the eight left Korea before Thursday's decision in hopes of better luck in another country.

Maung Zaw, 39, is a former member of a student organization supporting the opposition movement led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

He came to Korea in 1994 on a forged passport and visa amid an increasing crackdown by the military junta, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962.

He and other compatriots formed a Seoul branch of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, often staging protests outside the Myanmar embassy.

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Search intensifies for crewmen missing off Macau: officials
From AFP on 2008-09-25 02:46:45 (posted on 2008-09-25 02:46:45)

SEOUL, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - The search for 17 crewmen missing after a South Korean freighter capsized off the Chinese territory of Macau intensified Thursday with China's help, South Korean officials said.

"We asked the Chinese authorities through the consulate in Guangzhou to dispatch more ships for the search," foreign ministry spokesman Moon Tae-Young told a briefing. "I understand the search has intensified. "

Eight South Koreans, eight people from Myanmar and one Indonesian were aboard the 4,000-ton Zeus-ho that lost radio contact after sending a distress call early Wednesday.

The capsized ship was found Wednesday afternoon 57 kilometres (36 miles) southwest of Macau but a typhoon in the area was hampering the search for the crew.

The ship, carrying 6,200 tons of glass materials, left Vietnam Sunday and was due to arrive at the South Korean port of Masan this coming Sunday.

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Myanmar steps up control of trans-border animal diseases
www.chinaview. cn  2008-09-25 10:32:47

YANGON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is making arrangements to establish more animal quarantine laboratories in two areas bordering Thailand as part of its bid to step up control of trans-border animal diseases under the two countries' cooperation program in the aspects, the local 7-Day News reported Thursday.

The two border areas are Myawaddy and Kawthoung in southeastern Kayin state.

The Myanmar side is to offer building and health workers, while the Thai side is to provide technical knowhow and materials, the report said, adding that a Thai delegation from the Animal Development made a study trip to Myanmar last week as a preparatory move.

Myanmar has been placing emphasis on control of trans-border animal diseases, introducing animal quarantine laboratories in border trading areas with neighboring countries.
Under an agreement between the Livestock Breeding Veterinary Department (LBVD) of Myanmar and the Agriculture Department of China's Yunnan Province reached in 2006, animal quarantine labs inareas such as Muse, Lashio, Kengtung and Myitkyina, where border trade activities are carried out, are being built.

These labs will help transfer information speedily and test thesafety of live animals and animal byproducts intended for export and import through border trade, experts said.

In December 2007, under an agreement signed between the LBVD and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the latter will provide aid worth of 102 million Japanese yen (about 829,000 U.S. dollars) to Myanmar to help the country fight five animal diseases including avian influenza by setting up laboratories, exchanging information and conducting refresher courses for the diseases control, according to an earlier report.

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Burmese democracy activist: 'I don't know how I kept my sanity'
After two decades behind bars, Win Tin tells of life in one of the world's toughest jails
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent
The Independent - Thursday, 25 September 2008

He spoke against a noisy background of friends celebrating his release, but the Burmese journalist Win Tin – freed after spending more than 19 years in one of the world's most notorious jails – said he was thinking of those he left behind. "I am free, but I would like to say that I feel very sorry for my colleagues who have died in the prison," he said on a crackling phone line from Rangoon.

"Many, many of my friends are dead. I saw them die. And there are many people left inside. The leaders of [the pro-democracy movement] are all still there," he said. Win Tin, 79, was among more than 9,000 prisoners who Burma's military government on Monday announced were in line to be set free as part of an amnesty. Campaigners say more than 2,000 other political prisoners remain behind bars.

Win Tin, who is also known for his poetry, was frail but in remarkably good spirits after spending 19 years and three months in solitary confinement. After walking out of Rangoon's Insein jail on Monday, he vowed to continue his struggle against the regime that jailed him.

His arrest in 1989 was almostcertainly due to his seniority in the National League for Democracy (NLD) and his close relationship with its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest.

For a long time he was kept in a cell originally designed as a kennel and was refused bedding. "The first three or so years were horrid, like hell," he said. "I was tortured, I was interrogated and asked about my activities ... On one occasion they questioned me for five days and five nights non-stop. I was not allowed to sleep or eat, just to have a small cup of water."

On other occasions during Rangoon's damp, misty winters he was handcuffed to a seat in the prison yard and left there overnight. "I was there from 7pm to 3am and then I would be interrogated early in the morning ... Sometimes I was hooded and I could not see who was interrogating me. Then they would beat me. I complained to theofficers but they denied it and said I must have been hallucinating, yet I said I had been hit on the ears. Not just once but many times."

The release of Win Tin and seven other political prisoners comes exactly a year after last September's protests, which became the largest uprising against the country's military rulersfor 20 years when up to 100,000 Buddhist monks and ordinary members of the public took to the streets.

The regime said it was releasing the prisoners so that they could take part in an election, scheduled to be held in 2010.

Campaigners have welcomed the release of Win Tin and the other political prisoners, but have called for the remaining detainees to be freed. Among those still in jail are the leaders of the 88 Students Generation group, whose protests early last summer preceded the September uprising.

Benjamin Zawacki of Amnesty International, said: "While the release of Win Tin and his fellow prisoners is certainly the best news to come out of Burma for a long time, unfortunately they don't even represent 1 per cent of the political prisoners there."

Win Tin, whose original sentence was increased in 1996 after he wrote aletter to the UN revealing the conditions inside the prison, used to pen poems and stories for other prisoners. He said he spent all his time in solitary confinement. Younger inmates would sneak to his cell door to talk to him and the 15-minute visit he was allowed every fortnight was his only way of keeping up with news of what was happening outside the prison walls. He kept mentally strong by focusing on work to be done for his country's future, he said. "I don't know how I kept my sanity, but I knew I had to work."

Remarkably, he said he bears no personal grudge against the junta or its leader, General Than Shwe. But he added: "If we stay passive there is absolutely no hope for the future. This is why we are going to continue to struggle."

19; The number of years Win Tin spent in solitary confinement at Insein jail.

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Rangoon General Hospital confirms receiving four injured from bomb blast  
Mizzima News - Thursday, 25 September 2008 17:42

Rangoon general hospital's emergency ward said while there were no death, it has receives four injured from the blast in front of the City Hall, opposite the Bandoola Park.

The blast took place at about 10:40 a.m (local time) on Thursday morning.

"There is no death. But four people were injured. I don't know their names," an official at the General Hospital told Mizzima. But the official declined to provide further details, citing that he was not authorize to speak to the press.

Earlier, an eyewitness told Mizzima one person died and three were severely injured from the blast.

But the Rangoon general hospital said the blast caused four injured with no death.

But a restaurant owner near the Bandoola Park said he heard the blast and saw at least three people were injured.

""I heard a loud explosion, and when I rushed to see, I saw about three people injured," the restaurant owner told Mizzima over telephone.

The injured people included roadside vendors and people waiting for bus. Police immediately arrives the scene and cordon-off the Bandoola street.

But the Kyauktada police station, under whose jurisdiction occurred the blast, when contacted by mizzima said, "We heard the loud explosion, but we are not sure whether it was a bomb or not, we are still investigating the incident."

A policeman who arrived at the scene to investigate the blasts said the explosions were the result of time-bombs. He also confirmed that another unexploded bomb was recovered.

The policeman added that a fellow police officer found a tape recorder which contained the unexploded time-bomb. But fortunately, he said, the police were able to defuse the ordinance five minutes before it was set to go off.

Mizzima correspondent in Rangoon said police unknowingly brought the unexploded time-bomb, which was hidden in a tape recorder, into Rangoon's City Hall. However the anti-explosion squad, which noticed the presence of the bomb, defused it five minutes before it was timed to detonate.

"We nearly got a reward of ten million kyat," a policeman humorously told his colleagues after the bomb had been defused. The policeman was citing the words of Burma's Police Chief, Khin Yee, who during a press conference said a border-based opposition group had announced a reward of ten million kyat to anyone who successfully bombed Rangoon's City Hall.

Hours later, commander of the Rangoon Military Division, Maj. Gen. Win Myint, and the Mayor of Rangoon, Maj. Gen. Aung Thein Linn, arrived on the scene to inspect on the blast.

A roadside vendor who witnessed the blast said it scattered the dust bin in the air.
 
And an official of the Rangoon Division Bus Registration Office, who was stationed in front of Bandoola Park at the time of the blast, said the sound of the explosion still deafens his ears.

A report from Reuters cited police as saying four people were injured.

"It seems to have been a small bomb, but we are still carrying out our investigation, " Reuters quoted a policeman as saying.

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Security Clampdown Follows Rangoon Bombing
The Irrawaddy - By SAW YAN NAING
Thursday, September 25, 2008

More than 7,000 police were deployed throughout Rangoon on Thursday in a security clampdown that followed a bomb blast near the former capital’s City Hall.

A police source disclosed the extent of the clampdown to The Irrawaddy and said there were plans to raid the homes of dissidents, particularly youth members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).

Travelers at Rangoon bus stations who could not provide identification documents in police checks were being arrested, said one source.

Another source told The Irrawaddy that a cordon of trucks carrying armed police had been deployed around the blast site, near the City Hall in Kyauktada Township. Ten trucks manned by riot police were patrolling downtown Rangoon, he said.

At least eight people were injured in Thursday morning’s bomb explosion, which occurred at a bus stop outside the Maha Bandoola Garden.

Security in the downtown area, already tight, was immediately stepped up, particularly near the Shwedagon and Sule Pagodas, rallying points in last September’s mass anti-government demonstrations.

Workers in government offices were told to return home early and several shops were ordered to close as rumors spread of another planned bombing. The government-run passport office also closed early.

The rumors were accompanied by speculation that the bombing could have been orchestrated by the regime to justify a security clampdown in anticipation of an anti-government demonstration on Friday, the anniversary of the violent crackdown on last year’s mass protest.

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