Families surviving on remittances hit by global recession
Wednesday, March 25, 2009Mar 19, 2009 (DVB)–Burmese families relying on remittances from overseas relatives have suffered as the global recession has caused an unfavourable exchange rate for foreign currency entering Burma.
A usually weak Burmese kyat has gained strength recently as much of the world has suffered a general devaluation in currency since the onset of the global recession.
This has meant that Burmese nationals, who previously horded foreign currencies due to their comparative stability, were favouring the kyat.
A Burmese national in Bangkok who ran a private money transfer service for Burmese workers abroad said several other firms doing the same business were forced to shut down after the currency market was upset by the recession.
“There used to be about eight different Burmese firms in Bangkok doing the same money transfer business between Burma and Thailand,” he said.
“Now only about three are left as the rest of them had run out of Burmese kyat in their offices in Rangoon due to high demands.
“The problem is, they couldn’t sell out Thai Baht and other foreign currencies they had in their Bangkok offices because the prices for those are too low at the moment to make profit.”
The weakening value of foreign currencies is also hampering the lives of Burmese nationals who work abroad, as they can only send their families comparatively smaller amounts of money in remittances.
“Now 100,000 kyat is worth about 3500 Thai baht and it used to be only about 2500 baht in the past,” said a Burmese woman working in Thailand’s northern capital Chiang Mai.
Most of the private money exchanging businesses in Burma’s border areas had also stopped due to low demand of foreign currencies, said business owners in the border towns.
Khin Maung Nyo, a Burmese economist in Rangoon, said the situation was a regular phenomenon that occurs when demands on foreign currencies are low.
“This is not a strange thing in marketing theory, because of low demand on foreign currencies,” said Khin Maung Nyo.
“Now nobody wants to own US dollars and even those did want to sell them desperately because its value is falling down.”
read more “Families surviving on remittances hit by global recession”
A usually weak Burmese kyat has gained strength recently as much of the world has suffered a general devaluation in currency since the onset of the global recession.
This has meant that Burmese nationals, who previously horded foreign currencies due to their comparative stability, were favouring the kyat.
A Burmese national in Bangkok who ran a private money transfer service for Burmese workers abroad said several other firms doing the same business were forced to shut down after the currency market was upset by the recession.
“There used to be about eight different Burmese firms in Bangkok doing the same money transfer business between Burma and Thailand,” he said.
“Now only about three are left as the rest of them had run out of Burmese kyat in their offices in Rangoon due to high demands.
“The problem is, they couldn’t sell out Thai Baht and other foreign currencies they had in their Bangkok offices because the prices for those are too low at the moment to make profit.”
The weakening value of foreign currencies is also hampering the lives of Burmese nationals who work abroad, as they can only send their families comparatively smaller amounts of money in remittances.
“Now 100,000 kyat is worth about 3500 Thai baht and it used to be only about 2500 baht in the past,” said a Burmese woman working in Thailand’s northern capital Chiang Mai.
Most of the private money exchanging businesses in Burma’s border areas had also stopped due to low demand of foreign currencies, said business owners in the border towns.
Khin Maung Nyo, a Burmese economist in Rangoon, said the situation was a regular phenomenon that occurs when demands on foreign currencies are low.
“This is not a strange thing in marketing theory, because of low demand on foreign currencies,” said Khin Maung Nyo.
“Now nobody wants to own US dollars and even those did want to sell them desperately because its value is falling down.”
Report urges more relief funds for Burma
by Salai Pi Pi
Friday, 20 March 2009 22:08
New Delhi (Mizzima) –The international community should take up the opportunity of the ongoing relief process in Burma to inject more funds needed for humanitarian assistance of the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, a new report urged.
US-based Refugee International (RI), in its new report, entitled ‘Burma: Capitalizing on the Gains’ released on March 18, urged the global community including the United States, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Burma is a member, to increase funding for development work in Burma.
Jake Kurtzer, who conducted the assessment on Burma’s humanitarian situation, in the report said, though Burma’s ruling military junta initially blocked humanitarian aid, with relief now being mobilized in Cyclone Nargis hit areas of the Irrawaddy delta, the international community should take advantage of the opportunity to inject more funds for humanitarian aid, in other parts of the country.
In its recommendation, the report urged the United States to join other donor nations in making a significant appropriation for humanitarian aid in Burma.
“It should allocate USD 30 million for FY10, with plans to increase its contribution to USD 45 million in FY11 and USD 60 million in FY12,” the report said.
The report said, while the Irrawaddy Delta remains the main focus of humanitarian assistance, after it was hit by Cyclone Nargis, other regions also need similar attention as they too were reeling under humanitarian crisis.
The report said it was necessary that the funding for INGOs’ operation to do assessment in the areas, outside the delta regions, such as drought prone areas of Magwey, Mandalay, Bago Division and the home of Rohingya people in northern Arakan state and the southern part of Chin state, which faces a shortage of food due to being infested by rats.
According to the report, northern Arakan State in Burma, which is home to the Rohingya Muslim minority, continues to be one of the areas of greatest concern.
“Deteriorating living standards, news of increased forced relocations, continuous restrictions on all aspects of normal life, and the expulsion of Rohingya refugees from asylum countries in the region, have focussed the attention of the international aid community there,” the report explained.
The report also urged ASEAN to apply the Tri-Partite Core Group model for use in the discussion of other issues of concern regarding Burma, such as the Rohingya.
RI also urged Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, by hiring a senior humanitarian advisor to strengthen support to the UN Country Team to receive support and adequate guidance.
read more “Report urges more relief funds for Burma”
Friday, 20 March 2009 22:08
New Delhi (Mizzima) –The international community should take up the opportunity of the ongoing relief process in Burma to inject more funds needed for humanitarian assistance of the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, a new report urged.
US-based Refugee International (RI), in its new report, entitled ‘Burma: Capitalizing on the Gains’ released on March 18, urged the global community including the United States, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Burma is a member, to increase funding for development work in Burma.
Jake Kurtzer, who conducted the assessment on Burma’s humanitarian situation, in the report said, though Burma’s ruling military junta initially blocked humanitarian aid, with relief now being mobilized in Cyclone Nargis hit areas of the Irrawaddy delta, the international community should take advantage of the opportunity to inject more funds for humanitarian aid, in other parts of the country.
In its recommendation, the report urged the United States to join other donor nations in making a significant appropriation for humanitarian aid in Burma.
“It should allocate USD 30 million for FY10, with plans to increase its contribution to USD 45 million in FY11 and USD 60 million in FY12,” the report said.
The report said, while the Irrawaddy Delta remains the main focus of humanitarian assistance, after it was hit by Cyclone Nargis, other regions also need similar attention as they too were reeling under humanitarian crisis.
The report said it was necessary that the funding for INGOs’ operation to do assessment in the areas, outside the delta regions, such as drought prone areas of Magwey, Mandalay, Bago Division and the home of Rohingya people in northern Arakan state and the southern part of Chin state, which faces a shortage of food due to being infested by rats.
According to the report, northern Arakan State in Burma, which is home to the Rohingya Muslim minority, continues to be one of the areas of greatest concern.
“Deteriorating living standards, news of increased forced relocations, continuous restrictions on all aspects of normal life, and the expulsion of Rohingya refugees from asylum countries in the region, have focussed the attention of the international aid community there,” the report explained.
The report also urged ASEAN to apply the Tri-Partite Core Group model for use in the discussion of other issues of concern regarding Burma, such as the Rohingya.
RI also urged Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, by hiring a senior humanitarian advisor to strengthen support to the UN Country Team to receive support and adequate guidance.
Gems earn Myanmar $288m
--PHOTO: AP
YANGON (Myanmar) - MYANMAR has earned more than 140 million euros, (S$288 million), from sales of jade at its latest government-sponsored gem auction, despite a US ban on their import, a merchant said.
More than 3,500 lots of jade were sold at the Jade, Gems and Pearl Emporium, said the merchant who participated in the auction but spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal.
Revenue figures for gemstones and pearls were not available.
Organized by the Mines Ministry, gem auctions are a major revenue earner for Myanmar's ruling junta, which faces economic and political sanctions from the West because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.
The government, which takes a 10 per cent tax from the sales, does not release official sales figures from the auction.
The sale ran from March 8-20 in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, and drew more than 3,000 gem merchants, mostly from China and Hong Kong. Attendance and revenue was roughly the same as at previous auctions, despite the sanctions and the global financial crisis.
Last year, the United States banned the import of gems from Myanmar, which already was the voluntary policy of retailers such as Tiffany's and Bulgari. US officials said at that time that Myanmar has been evading earlier gem-targeting sanctions by laundering stones in other countries before they are shipped to the United States.
Because of US economic sanctions imposed on Myanmar in July 2003, which froze all US dollar remittances to the country, international business transactions including the gem sales are done in euros.
Myanmar gem sellers say the sanctions have little impact on their business because their major buyers are gem merchants from Asia. -- AP
Burma's generals are afraid of telephones and the internet
By HTET AUNG KYAW
Published on March 24, 2009
LAST WEEKEND, the Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a report entitled "Enemies of the Internet", which named Burma as one of 12 countries that actively practices censorship and restricts freedom of speech on the Internet.
"The 12 enemies of the Internet … have all transformed their internet into an intranet in order to prevent their populations from accessing 'undesirable' online information," the RSF report said.
As I work for a daily news service, this report is nothing surprising for me. But I was surprised when I learned that a group of hackers from the jungle capital of the low-speed intranet country attacked high-speed websites in the world's richest country.
"Yes, this cyber attack was made by Russian technicians. However, they are not in Moscow but in Burma's West Point cyber city", claimed Aung Lin Htut, the former deputy ambassador to Washington and a former spy for ousted Burmese prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt. (Many Burmese observers compare the country's Maymyo Academy of Defence Services to the US Army's West Pont academy).
Last September, which was the anniversary of the "saffron revolution" led by Buddhist monks, the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) website and two others leading websites (of the Chiang Mai-based Irrawaddy magazine and Delhi-based Mizzima) were attacked by unknown hackers.
"We can easily say that the Burmese government is behind this attack," said a DVB statement. They used DdoS, or distributed denial-of-service, which overloads websites with an unmanageable amount of traffic."
But the DVB technicians doubt that the attackers are government-backed hackers who are based in Russia. "Technically, it is of course difficult to say who is behind the attack," the statement said.
According to Aung Lin Htut, thousands of Burmese army officers are studying Defence Electronic Technology at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), and hundreds of them return to Burma each year to work in Maymyo after they receive the four-year Masters Degrees. The subjects for Burmese officers studying there are computer software programs, nuclear technology, short range and long range missiles, and aeronautics and engineering.
"There is full-scale electricity supply and hi-speed Internet connections at Napyidaw (the country's official capital city) and the West Point cyber city. The cyber attack is just the beginning of their plan to attack the democracy movement," the former spy told this correspondent in an electronic conversation from Washington.
I asked how these officers would be able to apply their knowledge in Burma, where the electricity supply is intermittent.
Although the two VIP locations are very advanced in IT, the rest of the country is still in the dark. There is not enough electricity, telephone lines, or hi-speed Internet connections for the general population.
"Our office telephone line has been cut for over two years. There is no response from the authority whenever we ask the reason," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy.
"To open an e-mail address for the NLD may lead me to Insein (prison)" he added.
The junta recently arrested dozens of students and activists, including Min Ko Naing's 88 Generation students' group, which took part in the September 2007 uprising and who were involved in distributing relief after Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country last year. A number of the students and activists were sentenced to 65 years in prison for violations of the electronic law, meaning that they had used cellphones, cameras, e-mail and the internet without permission from the authorities.
"I'm very interested in IT and so I learned something about it on the Internet. This is only my guilt that will send me to Insein," said one activist named Zagana as a judge sentenced him to jail.
A recent UN report says that 6 out of every 10 people in the world use a mobile phone.
"But I think the NLD is the only political party in the world that has no telephone, no Internet or website in the 21st century," Nyan Win lamented to me during a cellphone (which he rents from friends) conversation from Rangoon. The NLD members and activists have no permission to buy a cellphone, and are not permitted to own or even use an Internet line or a laptop computer in Burma. If you live in Burma, you need permission from the authorities to buy a cell or land phone, a fax machine, an Internet line, computer, camera, satellite TV, or short-wave radio.
"This is an unacceptable condition for the party that won the 1990 election, while the junta allows everything for the USDA - the pro-government Union Solidarity Development Association - for the 2010 election campaign," said Soe Aung, a spokesman for exiled 88 Generation students and the Forum for Democracy in Burma.
"Cellphones and the Internet are daily basic necessities for politicians and the party," he said to this correspondent in a text message from his Blackberry. "This is very useful and you will see how US President Obama does his daily job using this phone," he added from Bangkok.
But in Burma, the ageing NLD leadership in Rangoon and the army generals in Napyidaw have no Blackberry or cellphone. The generals have banned cellphones in the capital for security reasons, while the NLD leaders have not been able to get either a land phone, a cellphone or an e-mail account.
"This is not just the nature of a generation gap between Obama and Than Shwe. Burma's politics is wrong indeed," Soe Aung added.
Htet Aung Kyaw is a senior journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma.
read more “Burma's generals are afraid of telephones and the internet”
Published on March 24, 2009
LAST WEEKEND, the Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a report entitled "Enemies of the Internet", which named Burma as one of 12 countries that actively practices censorship and restricts freedom of speech on the Internet.
"The 12 enemies of the Internet … have all transformed their internet into an intranet in order to prevent their populations from accessing 'undesirable' online information," the RSF report said.
As I work for a daily news service, this report is nothing surprising for me. But I was surprised when I learned that a group of hackers from the jungle capital of the low-speed intranet country attacked high-speed websites in the world's richest country.
"Yes, this cyber attack was made by Russian technicians. However, they are not in Moscow but in Burma's West Point cyber city", claimed Aung Lin Htut, the former deputy ambassador to Washington and a former spy for ousted Burmese prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt. (Many Burmese observers compare the country's Maymyo Academy of Defence Services to the US Army's West Pont academy).
Last September, which was the anniversary of the "saffron revolution" led by Buddhist monks, the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) website and two others leading websites (of the Chiang Mai-based Irrawaddy magazine and Delhi-based Mizzima) were attacked by unknown hackers.
"We can easily say that the Burmese government is behind this attack," said a DVB statement. They used DdoS, or distributed denial-of-service, which overloads websites with an unmanageable amount of traffic."
But the DVB technicians doubt that the attackers are government-backed hackers who are based in Russia. "Technically, it is of course difficult to say who is behind the attack," the statement said.
According to Aung Lin Htut, thousands of Burmese army officers are studying Defence Electronic Technology at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), and hundreds of them return to Burma each year to work in Maymyo after they receive the four-year Masters Degrees. The subjects for Burmese officers studying there are computer software programs, nuclear technology, short range and long range missiles, and aeronautics and engineering.
"There is full-scale electricity supply and hi-speed Internet connections at Napyidaw (the country's official capital city) and the West Point cyber city. The cyber attack is just the beginning of their plan to attack the democracy movement," the former spy told this correspondent in an electronic conversation from Washington.
I asked how these officers would be able to apply their knowledge in Burma, where the electricity supply is intermittent.
Although the two VIP locations are very advanced in IT, the rest of the country is still in the dark. There is not enough electricity, telephone lines, or hi-speed Internet connections for the general population.
"Our office telephone line has been cut for over two years. There is no response from the authority whenever we ask the reason," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy.
"To open an e-mail address for the NLD may lead me to Insein (prison)" he added.
The junta recently arrested dozens of students and activists, including Min Ko Naing's 88 Generation students' group, which took part in the September 2007 uprising and who were involved in distributing relief after Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country last year. A number of the students and activists were sentenced to 65 years in prison for violations of the electronic law, meaning that they had used cellphones, cameras, e-mail and the internet without permission from the authorities.
"I'm very interested in IT and so I learned something about it on the Internet. This is only my guilt that will send me to Insein," said one activist named Zagana as a judge sentenced him to jail.
A recent UN report says that 6 out of every 10 people in the world use a mobile phone.
"But I think the NLD is the only political party in the world that has no telephone, no Internet or website in the 21st century," Nyan Win lamented to me during a cellphone (which he rents from friends) conversation from Rangoon. The NLD members and activists have no permission to buy a cellphone, and are not permitted to own or even use an Internet line or a laptop computer in Burma. If you live in Burma, you need permission from the authorities to buy a cell or land phone, a fax machine, an Internet line, computer, camera, satellite TV, or short-wave radio.
"This is an unacceptable condition for the party that won the 1990 election, while the junta allows everything for the USDA - the pro-government Union Solidarity Development Association - for the 2010 election campaign," said Soe Aung, a spokesman for exiled 88 Generation students and the Forum for Democracy in Burma.
"Cellphones and the Internet are daily basic necessities for politicians and the party," he said to this correspondent in a text message from his Blackberry. "This is very useful and you will see how US President Obama does his daily job using this phone," he added from Bangkok.
But in Burma, the ageing NLD leadership in Rangoon and the army generals in Napyidaw have no Blackberry or cellphone. The generals have banned cellphones in the capital for security reasons, while the NLD leaders have not been able to get either a land phone, a cellphone or an e-mail account.
"This is not just the nature of a generation gap between Obama and Than Shwe. Burma's politics is wrong indeed," Soe Aung added.
Htet Aung Kyaw is a senior journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma.
Is Burma stumbling towards another disaster?
Source: The Irrawaddy Date: 23 Mar 2009
By Yeni
Nearly a year after Cyclone Nargis caused catastrophic destruction in Burma's Irrawaddy delta, the road to recovery remains as bumpy as ever, despite claims of "unprecedented cooperation" between the country's ruling junta and international aid agencies.
Less than a month ago, Burma's regional neighbors were welcoming the junta's announcement that it would extend the mandate of the Tripartite Core Group (TCG), the main body responsible for coordinating the Nargis relief effort.
But even as it was giving the TCG—which consists of representatives of the regime, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)—a new lease on life, the junta was moving to limit its effectiveness.
The first sign of trouble came in early February, when the TCG's chairman, former Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu, was reassigned to head the Civil Service Selection and Training Board, an inactive ministerial position.
This worried many aid workers involved in the Nargis relief effort, because Kyaw Thu was seen—uncharacteristically for a senior member of the Burmese government—as cooperative and open to pragmatic solutions.
Last week, the concerns of aid workers proved well-founded, after it was revealed that the regime had halted a program introduced by Kyaw Thu to expedite visa applications for foreign aid workers involved in Nargis-related projects.
The move means that foreign employees of international NGOs must now follow the complicated and time-consuming visa application process that was in place before Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta last May.
The decision to tighten visa restrictions on foreign experts is seen as a serious setback for the relief effort, which is already hobbled by tight controls on the activities of local aid workers.
"We must submit information about every step of our activities to them," said a Burmese relief worker.
Meanwhile, there are growing calls for the international community to press Burma's military government towards greater transparency and accountability in receiving assistance.
A recent report titled "After the Storm: Voices from the Delta"—a joint project of aid workers from the Thai-Burma border and US-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health—accuses the regime of numerous abuses, including interference in assistance, confiscation and resale of aid, arrest of aid workers, discrimination in aid along ethnic lines, forced labor and confiscation of land.
Last week, a protest by Nargis survivors in Twante Township, Rangoon Division, echoed widespread dissatisfaction with the junta's role in the relief effort.
The protesters, from the village of Zeekone, appeared at the local cyclone reconstruction committee office to voice complaints that they were still without homes, even as the rainy season approaches.
The protest was small, but it should be considered a sign that much more needs to be done to speed up the unnecessarily slow pace of reconstruction.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the failure to rebuild the delta nearly a year after Nargis is the fact that Burma still has no effective disaster prevention system.
No one can predict when another deadly storm will hit again, but if the regime is allowed to continue to put its own priorities ahead of the safety and well being of the public, it is safe to say that many more people will die needlessly.
read more “Is Burma stumbling towards another disaster?”
By Yeni
Nearly a year after Cyclone Nargis caused catastrophic destruction in Burma's Irrawaddy delta, the road to recovery remains as bumpy as ever, despite claims of "unprecedented cooperation" between the country's ruling junta and international aid agencies.
Less than a month ago, Burma's regional neighbors were welcoming the junta's announcement that it would extend the mandate of the Tripartite Core Group (TCG), the main body responsible for coordinating the Nargis relief effort.
But even as it was giving the TCG—which consists of representatives of the regime, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)—a new lease on life, the junta was moving to limit its effectiveness.
The first sign of trouble came in early February, when the TCG's chairman, former Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu, was reassigned to head the Civil Service Selection and Training Board, an inactive ministerial position.
This worried many aid workers involved in the Nargis relief effort, because Kyaw Thu was seen—uncharacteristically for a senior member of the Burmese government—as cooperative and open to pragmatic solutions.
Last week, the concerns of aid workers proved well-founded, after it was revealed that the regime had halted a program introduced by Kyaw Thu to expedite visa applications for foreign aid workers involved in Nargis-related projects.
The move means that foreign employees of international NGOs must now follow the complicated and time-consuming visa application process that was in place before Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta last May.
The decision to tighten visa restrictions on foreign experts is seen as a serious setback for the relief effort, which is already hobbled by tight controls on the activities of local aid workers.
"We must submit information about every step of our activities to them," said a Burmese relief worker.
Meanwhile, there are growing calls for the international community to press Burma's military government towards greater transparency and accountability in receiving assistance.
A recent report titled "After the Storm: Voices from the Delta"—a joint project of aid workers from the Thai-Burma border and US-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health—accuses the regime of numerous abuses, including interference in assistance, confiscation and resale of aid, arrest of aid workers, discrimination in aid along ethnic lines, forced labor and confiscation of land.
Last week, a protest by Nargis survivors in Twante Township, Rangoon Division, echoed widespread dissatisfaction with the junta's role in the relief effort.
The protesters, from the village of Zeekone, appeared at the local cyclone reconstruction committee office to voice complaints that they were still without homes, even as the rainy season approaches.
The protest was small, but it should be considered a sign that much more needs to be done to speed up the unnecessarily slow pace of reconstruction.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the failure to rebuild the delta nearly a year after Nargis is the fact that Burma still has no effective disaster prevention system.
No one can predict when another deadly storm will hit again, but if the regime is allowed to continue to put its own priorities ahead of the safety and well being of the public, it is safe to say that many more people will die needlessly.
Myanmar: Homeless Cyclone survivors demonstrate
Source: The Irrawaddy Date: 23 Mar 2009
By Lawi Weng
More than 20 homeless survivors of Cyclone Nargis demonstrated at the cyclone reconstruction committee headquarters in Twante Township in Rangoon on Friday.
The protesters, from Zeekone village, appeared at the cyclone reconstruction committee office about 10 am to voice complaints that they are still without homes and the rainy season is drawing near, according to a NLD youth member in Twante Township.
"They are real cyclone victims," he said. "But they didn't get their houses [rebuilt] like other people. They were neglected and abandoned. The committee only takes care of their relatives." He charged that the committee has misused reconstruction funds.
The protesters, accompanied by NLD youth members, stopped the demonstration about 4:30 pm when members of the Myanmar Red Cross (MRC) met with the group.
The MRC has promised to rebuild houses at a cost of 400,000 kyat (US $400) each, according to the Red Cross.
Reconstruction committees were formed in each township to coordinate the rebuilding effort, along with a committee in each village.
read more “Myanmar: Homeless Cyclone survivors demonstrate”
By Lawi Weng
More than 20 homeless survivors of Cyclone Nargis demonstrated at the cyclone reconstruction committee headquarters in Twante Township in Rangoon on Friday.
The protesters, from Zeekone village, appeared at the cyclone reconstruction committee office about 10 am to voice complaints that they are still without homes and the rainy season is drawing near, according to a NLD youth member in Twante Township.
"They are real cyclone victims," he said. "But they didn't get their houses [rebuilt] like other people. They were neglected and abandoned. The committee only takes care of their relatives." He charged that the committee has misused reconstruction funds.
The protesters, accompanied by NLD youth members, stopped the demonstration about 4:30 pm when members of the Myanmar Red Cross (MRC) met with the group.
The MRC has promised to rebuild houses at a cost of 400,000 kyat (US $400) each, according to the Red Cross.
Reconstruction committees were formed in each township to coordinate the rebuilding effort, along with a committee in each village.
Myanmar builds over 8,000 more basic education schools for past 20 years
Tuesday, March 24, 2009www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-23 10:47:50
YANGON, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar built 8,748 basic education schools for the past 20 years, bringing the total to 38,162 as of 2008 since 1988, according to the latest official progress-indicating figures published in Monday's New Light of Myanmar newspaper.
These basic education schools include primary, middle and high schools, of which the primary schools stood the most with 31,329 and schools with multi-media classrooms being 1,829.
A total of 20 teacher ship education colleges were introduced over the two decades.
Relating to higher education, 17 university colleges were built over the period, bringing the total to 44 in 2008.
Other figures revealed that the number of teachers and students went to over 260,000 and 8.83 million respectively as of 2008.
With regard to science and technology education, 30 technological universities, 4 such colleges and 26 universities of computer studies were constructed with one each of Aerospace Engineering University and maritime university added over the period.
Meanwhile, Myanmar has been striving for the increase of the country's adult literacy rate annually with the figures attaining 94.83 percent in 2008, up from 83 percent in 1996.
The Ministry of Education, international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, regional and local authorities and the communities reportedly made the efforts.
In the formal education sector, endeavors for 100 percent enrollment for all school age children and all students to complete basic education were exerted as a mass movement.
The education authorities urged more active participation in the literacy campaign to improve the education and socio-economic life of the people.
Moreover, Myanmar is also striving for the rural schools to keep pace with urban ones to reduce the development gap of education between the two areas.
read more “Myanmar builds over 8,000 more basic education schools for past 20 years”
YANGON, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar built 8,748 basic education schools for the past 20 years, bringing the total to 38,162 as of 2008 since 1988, according to the latest official progress-indicating figures published in Monday's New Light of Myanmar newspaper.
These basic education schools include primary, middle and high schools, of which the primary schools stood the most with 31,329 and schools with multi-media classrooms being 1,829.
A total of 20 teacher ship education colleges were introduced over the two decades.
Relating to higher education, 17 university colleges were built over the period, bringing the total to 44 in 2008.
Other figures revealed that the number of teachers and students went to over 260,000 and 8.83 million respectively as of 2008.
With regard to science and technology education, 30 technological universities, 4 such colleges and 26 universities of computer studies were constructed with one each of Aerospace Engineering University and maritime university added over the period.
Meanwhile, Myanmar has been striving for the increase of the country's adult literacy rate annually with the figures attaining 94.83 percent in 2008, up from 83 percent in 1996.
The Ministry of Education, international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, regional and local authorities and the communities reportedly made the efforts.
In the formal education sector, endeavors for 100 percent enrollment for all school age children and all students to complete basic education were exerted as a mass movement.
The education authorities urged more active participation in the literacy campaign to improve the education and socio-economic life of the people.
Moreover, Myanmar is also striving for the rural schools to keep pace with urban ones to reduce the development gap of education between the two areas.
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