Myanmar update

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States slapped additional sanctions against alleged key financial backers of the Myanmar military regime Thursday, citing the country's imprisonment of democracy advocates.

The US Treasury Department announced its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had added two people and 14 companies to its lists of sanctions targets for Myanmar, which the US government identifies by its pre-junta name of Burma.

"Congress and the administration have made clear the need to apply vigorous sanctions against the Burmese junta as long as it continues to suppress democratic dissent," said OFAC director Adam Szubin in a statement.

Let's have a Mission Of Burma! Get it?!

Myanmar update

YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar's opposition party led by Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday labeled a recent visit by a UN envoy "a waste of time" as the ruling junta continued to trumpet its own vision of democracy.

Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nations' most senior negotiator with Myanmar, left the country Saturday after failing to secure a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, who is kept under house arrest by the ruling generals.

The junta said that the Nobel peace prize winner had refused to see Gambari, and on Sunday printed pictures in its New Light of Myanmar newspaper of his entourage waiting in vain outside her lakeside home in Yangon.

What's wrong with a little visit?

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I apologize for the last few posts. They were created out of necessity for É2.0.

Ben's last Myanmar update

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The party of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is ``very concerned'' about her health after she failed to show up yesterday for a meeting with a United Nations envoy, said National League for Democracy spokesman Nyan Win.

Like any enemy of the Myanmar state, she apparently doesn't get much health care...

The junta stopped allowing her physician to visit her home for monthly medical checkups earlier this year, NLD member Soe Aung said by telephone today from Thailand.

``It's been quite a long time since her doctor visited her,'' said Soe Aung, who was elected as a lawmaker in 1990 elections that were rejected by the junta when the NLD won. ``She's not getting proper care.''

Myanmar update

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Thousands of sapphires, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, jade and other gems glitter in long glass display cases as merchants haggle with professional buyers — most of them foreigners — and tourists.

Business is good here at the sales center of the Myanmar Gems Museum, despite legislation signed by President Bush last month to ban the import of rubies and jade into America. Yangon gem sellers dismissed the sanction against their government as a symbolic gesture unlikely to have much impact on their lucrative trade.

Well, so much for THAT declaration of support for human rights.

Myanmar update

House arrest sucks, especially if it's because the dictatorship that governs your nation imprisoned you for your call for democracy.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has met with her lawyer for the first time in five years, one of her colleagues said Sunday.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, said she consulted her lawyer about the detention law under which she has been confined without trial for more than 12 of the past 19 years. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been detained continuously since May 2003, most of the time under house arrest.

Nyan Win quoted the lawyer as saying that Suu Kyi appeared to be in very good health when they met Friday. She was last seen by her doctor in May.

Her house arrest was extended by one year in May, even though the action seemed to defy a law that stipulates that no one can be held longer than five years without being released or put on trial.

But a commentary in June in the state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper, which closely reflects government opinion, said detentions are permissible for as long as six years under a 1975 "Law Safeguarding the State from Dangers of Subversive Elements."

The conditions under which the meeting with lawyer Kyi Win was arranged were unclear, since Suu Kyi is allowed virtually no contact with outsiders, aside from occasional meetings with fellow party executives.

Myanmar update

More than six weeks have passed since Cyclone Nargis swept through the Irrawaddy Delta in southern Myanmar, leaving a trail of flattened villages and broken lives and arousing international sympathy that turned to anguish as the military government obstructed foreign aid.

Now doctors and aid workers who have gained access to remote areas of the delta are returning with a less pessimistic picture of the human cost of the delay in reaching survivors.

Good to know that these people are doing better, though their government still deserves more than a slap on the wrist.

Myanmar update

YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar insisted Wednesday that visas were being granted to aid workers and no food shortages were imminent in an apparent bid to deflect criticism that it has not done enough after Cyclone Nargis.

Myanmar gets a cookie after weeks of misbehavior.

Myanmar update

YANGON, Myanmar: The U.S. military ordered its navy ships away from the coast of Myanmar on Wednesday, after the country's ruling junta refused to give them permission to help survivors of the cyclone that devastated the country more than a month ago.

This junta really needs to stop pretending that there's no world outside of Myanmar.

Myanmar update

June 2 (Reuters) - A month after Cyclone Nargis struck army-ruled Myanmar, up to 2.4 million people are struggling to rebuild their lives.

No thanks to their psychotic government...

Myanmar update

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's ruling junta lashed out Thursday at aid donors who promised millions of dollars for cyclone relief, saying survivors didn't need "bars of chocolate."

At least they got some food.

Myanmar update

KYAUKTAN, Myanmar--A woman whose village was devastated by Cyclone Nargis early this month whispered about food shortages out of earshot of a government official.

Way to go, junta.

Myanmar update

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — After weeks of international pressure, Myanmar agreed to let in medical teams from neighboring countries and give the Association of Southeast Asian Nations some oversight of foreign aid distribution, the regional bloc announced Monday.

THANK you!

Myanmar Update

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After concerns that Myanmar authorities improperly took some previous relief supplies, Myanmar is now allowing U.S. government aid workers to give aid directly to private aid groups.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday there have been questions about whether supplies have reached victims of the cyclone that ravaged the southern part of the nation two weeks ago.

"We are doing our best to make sure that what is delivered in Yangon makes it down to the affected areas to those who need it," he said at his midday briefing in Washington.

"Given the current circumstances, you can't construct a perfect system for doing that."

"We have four C-130 relief flights that landed in Yangon today. Two of the shipments were handed over directly to NGOs," he said, using the shorthand for non-governmental organizations, or private relief groups. "That is the first time that has happened."

'Bout time.

Myanmar update

YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar's military regime dug in its heels Thursday two weeks
after a deadly cyclone, saying it would not bow to pressure to let in foreign
aid workers as the United Nations called an emergency summit.

If the world was a classroom, Myanmar would be that loner.

The secretive generals, who built a remote town from scratch two years ago and
then moved the capital there almost overnight, have long spurned the outside
world -- and tightly controlled anything that could weaken their power.

Myanmar update

YANGON, Myanmar — The directors of several relief organizations in Myanmar said Wednesday that some of the international aid arriving into the country for the victims of Cyclone Nargis was being stolen, diverted or warehoused by the country’s army.

Again...why?

The government said there were no outbreaks of disease or starvation among the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the cyclone.

You sure about that?

Thousands die in Burmese cyclone

YANGON, Burma --Almost 4,000 people were killed and nearly 3,000 others are
unaccounted for after a devastating cyclone in Myanmar, a state radio station
said Monday.
Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats at a briefing
that the death toll could reach 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on
condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed
doors.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as
Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph, leaving hundreds of thousands
of people homeless.
The government had previously put the death toll
countrywide at 351 before increasing it Monday to 3,939.
The radio station
broadcasting from the country's capital, Naypyitaw, said that 2,879 more people
are unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country's low-lying
Irrawaddy River delta area where the storm wreaked the most havoc.
"Reports
are coming out of the delta coast, particularly the Irrawaddy region, that in
some villages up to 95 percent of houses have been destroyed," said Matthew
Cochrane at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies' Geneva headquarters.
The situation in the countryside remained
unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the
storm.
"Widespread destruction is obviously making it more difficult to get
aid to people who need it most," said Michael Annear, regional disaster
management coordinator for the federation.
In Washington, the State
Department said the U.S. Embassy in Yangon had authorized an emergency
contribution of $250,000 to help with relief efforts. But it added that the
Myanmar government initially had refused to allow a U.S. Disaster Assistance
Response Team into the country to assess damage.

Can you say, "Katrina"?

Myanmar update

Yangon - A veteran activist who staged a solo protest last year against Myanmar's military junta has been sentenced to life in prison for sedition, his lawyer said on Thursday.

In other countries, that's what you get for speaking your mind.  Be grateful you live in America.

Myanmar update

The violence in Myanmar has died down, but the military junta is still waging war against human rights.

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar's draft constitution perpetuates military domination
of politics and protects junta members from prosecution for past actions,
according to a copy of the document obtained Monday.
The draft was completed
in February and will go before voters in a May referendum. It has not yet been
made public, but a copy of the 194-page text was obtained by The Associated
Press.
The draft charter allots 25 per cent of seats in both houses of
parliament to the military.
It also effectively bars pro-democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president or a lawmaker because she was married
to a foreigner, maintaining a controversial clause from guidelines used to draft
the charter.

Undersecretary of State criticizes Myanmar's junta

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Myanmar's junta has rejected taking any steps toward democracy since pledging to open talks with the opposition after September's anti-government protests, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said.
While the regime ``made a few unremarkable gestures,'' such as appointing a minister to meet with opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, ``it has since halted even this hint of progress and, in fact, has moved backward,'' Burns wrote in an article for the Washington Post yesterday.

Myanmar is run by madmen who are all alone in their fight against democracy.

Myanmar update

More than 2,000 foreign buyers flocked to a gem auction in Myanmar, government media said Tuesday, despite international calls for a boycott after military leaders brutally crushed pro-democracy demonstrations.

Who knew that Myanmar produces up to 90 percent of the world's rubies, as well as a lot of other gems? The 2,000 foreign buyers who'd rather have these gems than support human rights.