BurmaNet News, January 8, 2009

[Editor]

January 8, 2009  Issue # 3627


QUOTE:

“When Cyclone Nargis hit, I told them that while the international
community was ready to provide humanitarian assistance, they must look to
the future of their country through democratization. I'm willing to visit
Myanmar again to urge them to accelerate the process and release all
political prisoners--particularly Aung San Suu Kyi.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
TIME Magazine, January 12, 2009


INSIDE BURMA
Narinjara: New party distributes manifesto among Arakanese for 2010 election
Mizzima: Pro-junta group announces formation of political

ON THE BORDER
IANS (via The Hindu): BJP wants NSC to deal with terror, infiltration

HEALTH / AIDS
IRIN (UN OCHA): Polio campaign targets 7.4 million children

REGIONAL
Japan Times Online: Tourists to Myanmar dip
Irrawaddy: NGOs Question Thai Government Freeze on Migrant Registration
New Straits Times (Malaysia): Local boost to South-South cooperation

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Top Bush Aide Hopes Obama Will Push Burmese Cause
Inter-City Press: At UN, Nigeria Gives Myanmar $500,000, Bypassing UN
Programs

OPINION / OTHER
Outlook India.com: The Marxist leader tells Smita Gupta about growing up
in Rangoon
Galesburg.com (US): Score one for the first lady – Cokie and Steve Roberts

PRESS RELEASE
FAO: Increasing vegetable production in Myanmar


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 8, Narinjara News
New party distributes manifesto among Arakanese for 2010 election

Pauk Taw - A new political party the Amyo Thar ye party, National party,
has distributed some pamphlets in Burmese regarding its party policy among
Arakanese people for the 2010 election, said a village elder from Pauk taw
Township.

"Three strangers came to our village last week and distributed many
pamphlets among the villagers. They told us to read the pamphlets
carefully and study the party policy. One day the party leaders will visit
the village to explain the party policy in relation to the 2010 election,"
he said.

In the pamphlets most of the content has to do with the 2010 election.

"The party explained through the pamphlets why it has decided to contest
the 2010 election . It is the only way to democracy in Burma, the pamphlet
says," the elder said.

The party seemed to be pro Burmese military junta because they can move in
the villages freely without any hindrance.

According to local sources, the people came to Pauktaw Township from
Sittwe, the capital of Arakan state, to distribute the policy pamphlets
for 2010 election.

The so called Amotha Ye party may be led by pro SPDC's Aye Lwin group
which was formed in the name of 88 generation students.

A political source from Sittwe said that two political groups United
National Party (UNP), known as Tasanya, and Amothr Ye Party are now
mobilizing people from Sittwe to join the two political outfits.

Some educated and middle class wealthy people in Sittwe are reportedly
considering joining the party hoping for business opportunities.

The United National Party which was formed by former Burma Socialist
Programe Party (BSPP) members has started its organizational work in
Arakan and some people in 17 townships in Arakan are reportedly selected
in the township level committee.

In Sittwe, the issue of the 2010 election is being discussed among the
people and some politicians are waiting for an opportunity to form
political parties to contest the elections.

____________________________________

January 7, Mizzima
Pro-junta group announces formation of political parties - Salai Pi Pi

New Delhi  - A pro-junta group, the 88 generation students (Union of
Myanmar), has said it is all set to contest the upcoming 2010 general
election as drawn up by the ruling junta.

Aye Lwin, a former 88 generation student and leader of the group, said
they will have two parties to contest the election, believing the process
could set Burma on the road to political reform, though democracy in Burma
will admittedly require more time to evolve into a mature and stable
political institution.

"We will have two parties to contest the election," Aye Lwin told Mizzima
on Tuesday. While he will be leading the National Political League (Union
of Myanmar) as its chairman, the 88 generation students (Union of Myanmar)
will be led by other former students who participated in the 1988 general
uprising.

"We are waiting for the announcement of the Election Law and specifics
regarding the registration of political parties," he said.

Aye Lwin added that the election is the only way forward for Burma, which
has remained in a virtual political stalemate for the past 20 years.

"We have begun campaigning in at least six divisions and three states and
will continue with it," commented Aye Lwin, a former Rangoon Institute of
Technology student and a colleague of detained student leader Min Ko Naing
during the 1988 pro-democracy uprising.

Aye Lwin, who later switched political stands and criticized fellow
student leaders and the mainstream opposition movement, including Aung San
Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, said he
believes that democracy can be best and earliest achieved through the
junta's roadmap.

Meanwhile, NLD spokesperson Nyan Win said his party has not yet decided on
whether or not to contest the upcoming election, saying, "We would like to
first observe the situation."

The NLD and other opposition groups have condemned the junta's roadmap and
criticized the constitution as a tool to cement military rule in Burma.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

January 8, Indo-Asian News Service (via The Hindu)
BJP wants NSC to deal with terror, infiltration

Agartala - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday demanded the
formation of a Northeast Security Council (NSC) to tackle the region's
twin challenges of terrorism and infiltration.

"The NSC should be formed in line with the National Security Council (NSC)
to effectively tackle insurgency and infiltration from across the border,"
said P. Chandra Sekhar Rao, BJP's northeast zonal secretary.

"The proposed NSC can be formed comprising security experts and analysts
from the central and state armed forces, state and central intelligence
officials, who are familiar with the numerous problems of the region," he
told journalists.

The BJP leader accused the the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government of failing to combat terrorism in the country.

"Formation of the NSC would get top priority and it would be constituted
within 100 days, if the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comes
to power at the centre," Rao said.

The BJP leader also demanded fencing of India's border with Myanmar and
China.

"The region's militants have been using Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar
soil for training and shelter, while getting arms from China," Rao said.


_____________________________________
HEALTH

January 8, IRIN (UN OCHA)
MYANMAR: Polio campaign targets 7.4 million children

YANGON - The Myanmar Ministry of Health, with the UN Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO), will immunise more than
seven million children against polio.

"About 7.4 million children under-five will benefit from the campaign," Ye
Hla, a consultant for UNICEF’s expanded programme on immunisation told
IRIN in Yangon, the former Burmese capital.

The campaign will cover the whole country, including those areas affected
by Cyclone Nargis, which struck in the first week of May, leaving almost
140,000 people dead or missing, and affecting more than two million.

Some 46,000 health workers and volunteers will take part in the
community-based effort.

The first three-day round will begin on 10 January, followed by a second
round on 7 February.

"According to our assessment, there were some children in the
hard-to-reach areas who missed our previous polio vaccination due to
issues of transport,” a health official from the department of health told
IRIN. “However, this year we will try to reach every area," he said.

Special measures must be taken to ensure that no children of mobile
populations or vulnerable children in hard-to-reach areas, such as mines,
petroleum exploration and logging areas were excluded, he said.

Cases to date

Myanmar launched its first nationwide anti-polio campaign in 1996 after
the detection of four wild polio virus cases in Muse Township along the
2,000km-plus border with China.

Three years later, two wild poliovirus cases were detected in Maungdaw
Township and two in Buthhidaung Township in the northern Rakhine state
bordering Bangladesh.

In 2000, the virus spread to Kyauktaw and Pauktaw townships where two more
cases were isolated.

Myanmar declared itself polio-free in 2003, only to lose that status in
2006 when another case was reported in Pyin Oo Lwin Township in Mandalay
Division. In 2007, 10 wild poliovirus cases were detected in Maungdaw and
one in Buthidaung townships, with the last positive polio case detected on
15 May 2007.

Myanmar’s Department of Health reported 15 confirmed cases in 2007, while
no cases were reported in 2008.

Risk factors

According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI), a Geneva-based
country support group, under-fives are at high risk of the highly
infectious disease, which invades the nervous system and can cause total
paralysis in hours. The virus enters the body through the mouth and
multiplies in the intestine. Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue,
headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs.

One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the
legs). Among those paralysed, 5 to 10 percent die when their breathing
muscles become immobilised, it added.

Moreover, the virus can spread rapidly among unimmunised populations.
Between 2003 and 2005, 25 previously polio-free countries were re-infected
due to imports, WHO reported.

According to the UN health body, polio remains endemic in four countries
in the world today: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

The wild polio-virus type 1 found in Myanmar represented a local spread of
the virus introduced from Bangladesh, which in turn was infected by
imports from India in 2006.

"As long as neighbouring countries cannot eradicate polio, Myanmar will be
vulnerable to the imported virus," Ye Hla said. "However, we'll make every
endeavour to stop virus entry and local spread."

Four-pronged counter-attack

The PEI advocates a four-pronged eradication strategy against polio.

First, routine immunisation at six weeks, 10 weeks and 14 weeks. Full
coverage with routine immunisation ensures the continued protection of new
birth cohorts of children and maintains the population’s immunity.

In addition, national immunisation days. Third, monitoring where and how
the polio virus is circulating or spreading.

The fourth is mopping-up in areas where the virus is endemic or still
occurring, routine immunisation coverage is low, and mobile and migrant
populations dwell. Such activities are carried out house-to-house,
child-to-child, boat-to-boat and mountain-to-mountain, Ye Hla said.

According to WHO, global polio cases have decreased by more than 99
percent since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases to 1,997 reported
cases in 2006.

lm/ds/mw

(This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis
service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.)

____________________________________
REGIONAL

January 9, Japan Times
Tourists to Myanmar dip

YANGON (Kyodo) Japanese tourists who visited Myanmar in the first nine
months of 2008 declined 68 percent compared with the same period in 2007,
official figures showed Thursday.

Japanese nationals who arrived in the country on tourist visas from
January to September last year numbered 2,960, compared with 9,319 for the
same period in 2007, according to figures from Myanmar's National Planning
Ministry.

During the period, 188,931 international tourists visited the country,
down 25 percent on the previous year.

Tourism suffered due to the military crackdown on monk-led antijunta
protests in September 2007, during which Japanese video journalist Kenji
Nagai was killed by soldiers, and Cyclone Nargis, which hit in May 2008,
leaving more than 130,000 people dead or missing.

____________________________________


January 8, Irrawaddy
NGOs Question Thai Government Freeze on Migrant Registration – Lawi Weng

A Thai government decision to suspend registration of new migrants for one
year has come under fire from Thai non-government organizations.

Sompong Srakaew, a director of the Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN),
based in Mahachai, Samut Sakhon province said the decision, prompted by
rising unemployment in Thailand, was discriminatory.

Jackie Pollock, a founding member of the Thailand-based Migrant Assistance
Programme (MAP) said some officials feared that Burmese migrants, if
registered, might not return home because of the deteriorating economic
situation in Burma.

The Thai government freeze on new registrations might lead to exploitation
by employers, Pollock said.

A commentary in the English-language daily Bangkok Post on Thursday said
most migrant workers preferred to “remain underground, thus keeping the
human trafficking rackets alive and well with support from corrupt
police.”

Instances of police corruption in dealing with non-registered migrants are
common.

Nai Jon Dae, a Mon migrant in Mahachai, claimed unregistered Burmese
migrants pay the police 300 baht (US $8) a month to work unhindered. Some
are asked to pay 1,000 baht ($28) in spot checks.

Min Zaw, a Burmese migrant working on a rubber plantation in southern
Thailand, said he and his wife paid a total of 2,600 baht ($74) a month to
the police.

According to the Thai Labor Promotion Network, about 76,000 Burmese
migrants are registered to work in Thailand, while about 224,000 migrants
are waiting for registration.

It is estimated that more than 2 million migrants work in Thailand, only
about 500,000 of whom are registered.

Burma’s economic woes, inflation and unemployment drive an increasing
number of Burmese to seek work in neighboring Thailand, and the flow of
migrants was boosted still further by Cyclone Nargis.

In April, 54 Burmese migrants suffocated to death while being transported
in a container truck from Ranong, near the Burmese border town of
Kawthaung, to the Thai resort island of Phuket.

Although the tragedy prompted officials to step up efforts to stem the
tide of illegal migrants into Thailand, Burmese continue to make the trip
in a desperate bid to find jobs to support themselves and their families.

_____________________________________

January 8, New Straits Times (Malaysia)
Local boost to South-South cooperation - Sulaiman Mahbob

Despite our small economy and still modest technological capabilities, we
have made some significant progress in enhancing South-South economic and
technical cooperation to help reduce the divides between nations, in
particular among developing economies.

Our Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP), launched in 1980 at
the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in New Delhi to help share
our experiences with other developing countries, has enhanced cooperation,
especially in capacity building.

Capacity building, especially in the areas of human capital and human
resource development, is essential to mobilise other resources and factors
into the production and wealth-creation processes.

It is for this purpose that the MTCP has focused on skills training, study
visits, attachments and providing facilities for higher education in very
specialised fields. Currently, 138 countries are members of the MTCP and
they include nations from Africa, South Asia, Latin America, Middle East,
Central Asia and, of course, Asean.

The MTCP has also undertaken specific capacity-building projects where no
such capacity existed before. Such capacity is critical and important. One
project we set up was Smart schools in Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and
Vietnam. They have been established to expose students to the use of
information and communication technology (ICT) in learning and in
education. The project entails setting up special classes with computers,
servers, overhead LCD projectors and printers. It further entails the
training of teachers or trainers who will impart skills and develop more
content based on the skills they have acquired.

It is heartening that the authorities in these countries have accepted the
importance of these projects and incorporated them into their overall
social development efforts. Myanmar has escalated the programme to cover a
greater number of schools, while Vietnam has incorporated Smart schools
into their overall ICT master plan.

The Lao PDR authority has created several community-based programmes
leveraging on the Smart schools, while Cambodia has enlarged its trainers
programme for teachers.

Malaysia also ensures that local capacity for maintenance and repair work
is built so that once the assistance is completed, the projects are
sustained and can be expanded or scaled up.

The recent United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Seminar on
South-South Cooperation and Exposition in New York on Dec 18, last year
picked our Smart school project as one of the projects worthy of being
recognised and rewarded for its contribution to South-South Cooperation.

Indeed, this is a recognition of our efforts to share our development
experiences with other developing nations in capacity building in diverse
fields such as business, public administration and economic management,
trade, diplomacy, central banking, livestock and fisheries, information
technology, and even in the area of fire-fighting, archiving and prison
management.

Altogether, more than 100 programmes are available under the MTCP, and to
date we have trained about 20,500 personnel from more than 130 countries.

These programmes are our contribution to the overall social and economic
development of developing countries under the South-South cooperation
initiative. We wish we could do much more for our friends in the other
areas of cooperation technology development. Perhaps we can move into this
area in the future.

We are happy to note that there is an increasing demand for participation
in the programmes. At present, resource constraints - especially the
budgetary allocation for the programme - makes it difficult for us to
expand the MTCP much more. In the future, we will explore more
opportunities for third-party assistance or multilateral assistance, like
the UNDP and JICA, through cost-sharing arrangements, to support the MTCP.
Indeed, I must acknowledge, they have begun to support us already.

It is in this spirit that we feel honoured with the UNDP award for our
Smart school project. What is also important to us is that the programme
and others like it have made significant contributions to capacity
building among participating countries in their striving for social
betterment.

The MTCP will continue to have a special place in our international
relations consistent with our policy of prospering our neighbours and
others, too.

The writer is director-general of the Economic Planning Unit in the Prime
Minister's Department

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

January 8, Irrawaddy
Top Bush Aide Hopes Obama Will Push Burmese Cause – Lalit K Jha

Washington - A top aide to US President George W Bush said on Wednesday
that he hoped the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama
would continue to push for democracy and protection of human rights in
Burma.

“I hope the new administration will continue pushing the cause of human
rights and freedom in Burma,” said Bush’s national security advisor,
Stephen Hadley, in his valedictory speech at the prestigious Center for
Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

During its eight years in power, the Bush administration led the
international community in imposing sanctions on the Burmese military
regime and calling for the restoration of democracy and release of all
political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

Although it was not able to achieve any of these objectives, the Bush
administration was successful in putting Burma on the agenda of the UN
Security Council.

First Lady Laura Bush also took a strong interest in the people of Burma
and often encouraged the administration to take measures against the
country’s ruling junta.

Since becoming the president-elect, Obama has remained largely silent on
foreign policy issues. Although he and his team have occasionally
expressed their views on critical foreign policy issues, they have said
nothing so far on Burma.

____________________________________


December 25, Inner City Press
At UN, Nigeria Gives Myanmar $500,000, Bypassing UN Programs, Also
UN-Transparent - Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS - Two days before Christmas, Myanmar's mission to the UN
got a gift with no strings attached. In the dimly-lit Indonesia Lounge
next to the General Assembly chamber, Nigeria's Permanent Representative
Joy Ogwu handed her counterpart from Myanmar Kyaw Tint Swe a check for
$500,000. This was Nigeria's response to the UN's plea for funds to
continue to respond to Cyclone Nargis, which hit in May. The UN has been
exposed, first by Inner City Press, for allowing the military government
of Myanmar to take 25% of aid funds through currency exchange. Nigeria
gave its money directly, in U.S. dollars, and apparently with no
requirement to report back on how the funds are used.

This is the type of hard currency for which Senior General Than Shwe is
desperate. Later on December 23, Inner City Press asked a South Asian
diplomat active on the UN budget why he thought Nigeria gave direct. "You
make more friends that way," he said. "If you give through the UN, you
don't know how your money's used. If you give it direct, you can ask for
reports if you want. And if you don't want, that's fine to. You just have
a new friend." There are at least two possible explanations of Nigeria's
direct "south to south" contribution. One is that there's a lack of
confidence in the UN system as a transmitter of funds. For example, the UN
has not even committed to disclosing, in the Consolidated Appeals that it
issues, how much it loses in government-required currency exchange. The
second is that Nigeria wants a friend in Myanmar, perhaps even a piece of
the resources for which China and India, along firms such as Total and
even Lloyds, and South Korea's Daewoo, are competing. Ambassador Ogwu's
statement, a copy of which Inner City Press obtained and puts online here,
professes Nigeria's "unflinching support for the government" of Myanmar.
In the half-light on December 23, there were only two reporters present.
Inner City Press asked Ambassador Ogwu if the UN's envoy to Myanmar,
fellow Nigerian Ibrahim Gambari, had played any role in this donation. No,
she insisted. She had previous told Inner City Press that her government
had invited Gambari to try to mediate the Niger Delta conflict not as a UN
official -- that would "internationalize" the conflict, she said -- but
rather as a Nigerian personality. The Myanmar government, too, opposes
internationalization, not only in the form of UN peacekeepers, but even
election monitors. Ban Ki-moon was told to leave the country when voting
in the run-up to the controversial elections, which exclude Aung San Suu
Kyi, was held. The other reporter asked an aide to Kyaw Tint Swe how much
the check was for. "None of your business," he replied. Hardly an
auspicious beginning to transparency in aid use.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

January 12, Outlook India.com
Monks & Football:  The Marxist leader tells Smita Gupta about growing up
in Rangoon in the 1950s

It wasn't the most propitious start to the life of a man who, in the years
to come, was to become a powerful Communist leader in the world's largest
democracy. But in the autumn of 1948, when he was barely six months old,
Prakash Karat fled his birthplace—Letpadan, 100 miles north of the Burmese
capital, Rangoon—in a truck, to escape advancing Communist insurgents. It
was the year Burma, now Myanmar, gained independence from the British on
January 4, only to be engulfed in successive insurgencies by the Red Flag
Communists and the White Flag Communists, led by army rebels calling
themselves the Revolutionary Burma Army.

"That, ironically enough, was my first brush with Communism," recalls an
amused Karat.
"My mother, sister and I were evacuated from Burma, along with other
Indians. We went to Palakkad, in Kerala, where I spent the next four and a
half years, before returning to Rangoon to rejoin my father."

For Karat, the next four years in Rangoon, spent in a railway enclave—his
father, Chundoli Padmanabhan Nair, was a clerk in the Burma Railways—are
bathed in the golden glow of an idyllic childhood. Home was a wooden
bungalow with polished teak floors. The neighbourhood was filled with
children. Karat learned to speak Hindi at the Indian school he attended
and Burmese from his friends. Those were magical years—watching football
matches, for instance, at the nearby 40,000-seat Aung San Stadium with his
father (football remains Karat's favourite sport, which he follows to this
day). "I remember an Indian team once playing a Burmese team, but I was
rooting for the Burmese. I had a certain feeling for Burma already," says
Karat. Or playing with friends on the empty platforms of the newly-built
Rangoon Central Station. "Very few trains passed through the station,
thanks to the continuing insurgency," says Karat, "so we children had the
free run of the place, which was walking distance from my home." And then
there was the food: while the meals at home were traditional Malayali,
there was wonderful Burmese street food in the bazaars waiting to be
sampled. And finally, he recalls, the lazy Sunday picnics with other
Indian and Burmese families at the lakes that dot Rangoon.

"One of my most abiding memories of that time is the Shwedagon pagoda, one
of the most sacred Buddhist temples," says Karat. As he sits in his
spartan office at the CPI(M) headquarters, it is evident that more than 50
years later he is still mesmerised by the memory of the radiance that
emanated from the pagoda, its great golden stupa dominating the Rangoon
skyline. But it was not just the dazzling beauty of the pagoda that drew
Karat to it. "People would throng the place not just for worship; it was a
meeting place—things happened there." Indeed they did: in 1920, students
held a protest strike here against the new University Act which they
believed would only benefit the elite and perpetuate colonial rule; and in
1938, oilfield workers established a strike camp here. In January 1946,
Gen Aung San addressed a mass meeting at the pagoda, demanding
"independence now" from the British. (Forty-two years later, in 1988, his
daughter Aung San Suu Kyi too would address an enormous crowd here,
demanding democracy from the military regime.)

Of course, Karat didn't witness any of these events—he had only heard
about them. But one afternoon, just outside his home, he saw a large body
of monks clash with the police, who charged them with their batons. "That
afternoon still remains vivid in my memory. I stood there bemused, I had
never seen anything like that before." In the years to come, once he
joined politics as a student, clashes with the police would, of course,
become commonplace.

So how did Karat's parents come to be in Burma, so far from their native
Kerala? "It was an old British colony and many people from India,
particularly Bengal and Kerala, went to Burma for white-collar jobs, like
my father's elder brother had—he worked in the accountant-general's office
there. So my father too moved there in the 1940s." In the case of his
mother, Karat Radhabai, she had been adopted by her elder sister and
brother-in-law, who was a doctor in Rangoon. "My mother grew up in Burma
and when she met my father, she decided to marry him," Karat says.
That four-year idyll came to an abrupt end, when Karat's sister Kamala,
four years his senior, tragically died in 1957. Shattered, the family left
Rangoon and returned to India. His father then took up a job with the
Burma Oil Pipeline Project, which took him to different places in Bihar
and Bengal. Another tragedy struck the family four years later—his father
died. Coping with the gaping holes in his family was hard enough;
forgetting his beloved Burma made it harder on Karat. "I was used to a
certain way of life—a placid, quiet life," he says. "It took me quite some
time to get used to the new life."

But that "feeling" which made him cheer the Burmese football team as a
child hasn't quite left him. His current interest in Myanmar—he keeps in
touch with Burmese students and activists involved in the restoration of
democracy in that country—goes beyond the political: "I have a special
empathy for the Burmese people. It's a rich rice-growing country, rich in
natural resources and precious stones. Its people were exploited by their
colonial rulers and by Chettiar moneylenders."

So has he been back? "Burma is a country which doesn't leave you," says
Karat. "I always wanted to go back—and I finally managed to do so as a
tourist, on a private trip, only as recently as 2002. Once I landed there,
it all came back to me. I took a taxi straight to the Aung San Stadium and
from there directed him to the railway enclave I had lived in as a child.
But sadly, today, all but one of those old wooden bungalows has been
pulled down." Describing his five-day-long personal pilgrimage to the land
of his birth as "fantastic", he says, "Rangoon city has not changed
much—it still retains its old-world charm. I visited the lakes, Mandalay,
the temples in Bagan on the Irawaddy. And Bahadur Shah Zafar's tomb, where
I left a donation." And that was how a commissar paid homage to an
emperor.
____________________________________

Jan 7 galesburg.com (US)
Score one for the first lady: Cokie and Steve Roberts

Vast areas of the Pacific Ocean will be protected as national monuments,
thanks to an 11th-hour proclamation by President Bush. Score one more for
Laura Bush.

Perhaps because she came after Hillary Clinton, Mrs. Bush's power has
often gone unnoticed. But over her years in the White House -- years when
her approval rating was often double that of her husband's -- she came to
understand that when she spoke people listened. She then determinedly used
her position to further causes she cared about. And those causes could be
surprising.

For the oceanic monuments, Laura Bush pulled out of her quiver a first
lady's most powerful weapon: the ability to influence her husband. The
president rejected the advice of his vice president, according to the
Washington Post, and listened instead to his wife, who had studied the
issue by "soliciting input from outside scientists, asking for briefings
on the proposed monument designations." Deeply involved in public policy,
Laura Bush is somewhat bemused by people's perceptions of her. 

"I read in this morning's newspaper that I was prim," she laughed to a
group of historians and journalists she invited to the White House shortly
before the presidential election. But she admitted that it had taken her
some time to understand how powerful she could be. "I can't believe how
dense I was," she joked. 

The initial glimmer came after she substituted for the president on the
radio, the first person to ever do so. It was soon after Sept. 11, 2001,
and she was calling on the world to rally around the women of Afghanistan.
"The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of
women," she said. 

After the broadcast, she went shopping at a Texas department store where a
salesclerk told the first lady how much her words had meant. "That's when
I realized I had a podium," Mrs. Bush later remembered, but even so it
took time for her to use it. "I grew in both my realization that I had a
podium but also in my expertise about some international issues that I
didn't come to the White House with," she said.

International issues moved to the top of the first lady's agenda after
Sept. 11. Within weeks, she was working with the women of Afghanistan on
education, entrepreneurship and equal rights, eventually traveling to the
country three times. In all, she visited 76 countries, delivering AIDS
treatment, fighting malaria, and breaking the deadly taboo against talking
about breast cancer in the Middle East.

On the home front, she continued her lifelong work on literacy and stocked
whole school libraries on the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast; and she tackled
heart disease, again using the president's radio time to warn women of the
danger signs. All were important causes, but causes that could be
pigeonholed as "women's issues" -- issues that Laura Bush might have
worked on in her former life as a librarian. Not so Burma.

In May 2008, it was no "prim" first lady who broke all precedent by going
to the White House press room herself to condemn the military regime in
the wake of the terrible cyclone and in anticipation of a sham election,
asking "the world to put pressure on the military regime." By that time,
Mrs. Bush had spent many months relentlessly calling for the overthrow of
the repressive Burmese government -- ever since she had read a book by
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning woman held under house
arrest by the junta for most of 17 years. 

As Laura Bush learned more about the country, making contact with
human-rights activists on the Burmese-Thai border, she started her
campaign to overthrow the generals -- writing op-eds in the Wall Street
Journal, lobbying Congress to enact economic sanctions, pressing the U.N.
Security Council to deal with Burma, and persuading her husband to focus
on that country in his address to the General Assembly.

The first lady leaves office disappointed that the generals are still in
power but determined to keep working on their ouster, along with her
continued support for the women of Afghanistan. But Laura Bush knows it
won't be the same. "When the first lady is interested, all the wheels are
greased a lot faster. You really can call attention to things that the
general public may not pay that much attention to, or members of Congress
may not pay that much attention to." And she has -- for the sick, the
uneducated, the repressed and the abused. And don't forget the oceans.

Cokie Roberts' latest book is "Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our
Nation" (William Morrow, 2008). Steve and Cokie Roberts can be reached at
stevecokie at gmail.com.

_____________________________________
PRESS RELEASES

January 7, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
Increasing vegetable production in Myanmar

Yangon – The availability of vegetables in Myanmar is less than 50 percent
the recommended daily dietary intake of vegetables (300 g/day). An FAO
assisted project provides the platform to highlight this key issue and
initiating remedial action at national level.

With US$2.9 million funding provided by the European Commission, an FAO
project in Myanmar plans to support most needy people in the Northern
Rakhine State through food, nutrient and livelihood security and natural
resource management.

"The development of new technologies and their integration into farmers’
social systems are of paramount importance in predominant agricultural
economies such as Myanmar", said Imai Shin, the FAO representative in the
country.

The project is providing modern scientific technologies for vegetable
production, seeds and improved cultivars, and building stronger extension
networks for the effective dissemination of relevant technologies.

Last year, the project distributed 15 MT of potato tuber seeds and 245 kg
of vegetable seeds to farmers. Farmers were also given 12.5 MT of
bio-compost (organic manure) for vegetable production. Farm yard manure,
compost, green manure and other steps relate to increase the organic
carbon content in the soil.

500 litres of bio-pesticide (Neem) and 15 knap sack sprayers were handed
out for pest and disease management in vegetable crops, although
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is the preferred plant protection
technology. Chemical insecticides and fungicides were procured strictly
for judicious use by the farmers, under the guidance of project
scientists.

A workshop on vegetables for sustainable food and nutritional security was
held at the Seed Division Compound in Yangon on 22 and 23 December 2008.
Fifty participants attended, drawn from concerned departments of the
Myanma Agriculture Service (MAS), international non-governmental
organizations and private seed companies, the World Food Programme and
FAO.

The workshop drew up an action plan for upgrading technical knowledge and
skills for fresh vegetable production and promoting local seed production;
understanding the important role of and processes in vegetable-based small
scale enterprise development; emphasizing people’s participation to
improve rural livelihoods; and improving stakeholders’ skills in forming a
functioning group, with effective communication and technology use.

Bir Mandal, FAO’s chief technical advisor of the project Support for
sustainable agriculture and rural livelihoods in Northern Rakhine State,
noted that other parameters are important too, such as the provision of
sufficient irrigation water, the development and utilization of modern
vegetable seed varieties as well as selective small farm mechanization.

The project, which runs from November 2007 until the end of 2010, aims to
empower farmers, landless poor and women headed household to produce more
food; generate income through crops (rice, pulses, rape-seed mustard,
groundnut and vegetable crops), livestock (poultry, duck and goat), oil
mills and fruit tree nurseries; reduce ecological imbalance through the
use of biogas plants; and develop and strengthen local capacities and
institutions to ensure sustainability.

Vegetables are rich sources of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and
minerals. An estimated two billion people in the world suffer from the
lack of vitamins and essential minerals; most of them are women or
children, particularly in the developing world, resulting in ill health,
lack adequate physical and mental development and liable to various
diseases including blindness.

For more information, contact Bir.Mandal at fao.org