1. law, govt and politics
2. law enforcement
3. police

EPA
PE
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ASEAN+ : CHINESE SURGEONS’ SELFIE BACKFIRE ✪7
First INDEPENDENT English daily
www.elevenmyanmar.com
WEDNESDAY, December 24, 2014
INSIDE
A deadly protest
NATIONAL
A woman was killed in Letpadaungtaung clash, marking the first recorded death in the dispute over the land around the mine
Myanmar migrants
haunted by memory of
tsunami missing in
Thailand
✪3
BUSINESS
Despite challenges,
foreign investment
in energy sector set to
surge
✪4
ASEAN+
MYANMAR ELEVEN
A woman in her fifties was
killed and several others were
injured in the latest clash
between police and protestors at
the Letpadaungtaung coppermine in Sagaing Region on
December 22.
Violence erupted when police
and Myanmar Wanbao Mining
Copper Co’s workers tried to
erect a fence on land for which
local villagers claim they have
not received compensation.
“They have been here since
morning. They came along with
bulldozers and materials to put
up a fence on our land. The
police started firing their guns in
the afternoon as villagers tried to
stop them. They used catapults
and beat up the villagers. Many
villagers had their eyes injured
by the catapults. The woman
shot to death was Khin Win Oo
from Moegyopyin village,” said a
local protester.
The villagers said they tried to
stop the fencing around
Moegyopyin and Sede villages
using whatever weapons they
could get, including sticks,
swords, catapults and rocks, in
order to prevent their lands from
being seized.
The local witnesses said the
police deployed a 1000-strong
force as well as Chinese security
guards during the fencing.
This is the first recorded death
in the dispute over the lands
around the Letpadaungtaung
mine.
“We see it as a sad moment
because a woman died during
this conflict,” information minister Ye Htut told AFP.
He said police had opened fire
but did not immediately confirm
that their bullets killed the
woman. The minister said he
believed some protesters had
used slingshots to attack workers
at the mine and had briefly
detained 10 members of staff.
“We will review how the police
handled (the clash),” Ye Htut
said.
State media reported Monday
that nine protesters and 11 police
officers had also been injured
during the protest.
In November 2012, police
used smoke bombs to disperse
demonstrators and carried out
EMG
Security forces were seen earlier this month, guarding the mine.
night raids on villages nearby.
Earlier this month, there was a
clash with security forces and
rubber bullets injured two villagers.
The clash occurred on the day
that Myanmar Wanbao released
a statement, saying that it would
commence with the project following a two-year delay. The
company, a joint venture of
China’s Wanbao and militarycontrolled Myanmar Mining
Enterprise, said that it has
undertaken necessary social and
environment procedures. It estimated that the project, once
operational, would generate an
annual US$140 million in taxes,
royalties, and production share,
and an additional $150 million
per year in local procurement.
In a statement issued after the
tragic event, Wanbao insisted
that the construction could commence because of approval from
the vast majority of villagers near
the project.
“You should know that 71 per
cent of consulted villagers in 35
villages have given us the green
light to continue our project and
they support it and that 91% of
impacted villagers in 27 villages
who were consulted through door
to door consultations have also
supported us. So we have
achieved great strides in our
community relationships…This is
what makes this senseless death
even more painful and poignant.
The mining project is there to
help people like the lady who has
passed away,” it said.
While expressing condolences
to her family, the company urged
police to start investigating the
events leading up to her death.
“This event is especially awful
given the great turnaround in our
relationship with our community.
We have achieved amazing progress because we received popular approval for our project
through two large community
consultations carried out from
May until November 2014,” it
said. “We are unwavering in our
commitment to peaceful dialogue, and we oppose any violent
and dangerous activity that jeopardises the safety of the villagers,
the protestors, our staff or the
police.”
✪ A6: Wanbao starts project
Vietnam’s caviar aims to
make a splash in Russia
✪9
LIFESTYLE
Rich and poor donate
gold for next life
✪10
2
NATIONAL
Suu Kyi tells young
to engage or fail
MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Forum fears
for congested
Yangon
EMG
Kyaw Htin
MYANMAR ELEVEN
Aung San Suu Kyi marks 100 years of her father’s birth.
Aung Zaw Tun
MYANMAR ELEVEN
CORRUPTION and apathy
cannot be tolerated if Myanmar
is to become a modern democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, the chairperson of the National League for
Democracy,
th told a crowd ahead
of the 100 anniversary of the
birth of her father, Bogyoke Aung
San.
“The young are of great
importance to any country.
Bogyoke Aung San started taking
up duties as the leader of the
state and Tatmadaw when he was
young. Age is not the main factor.
Goodwill and responsibility
towards the people are what is
important. If the young and the
old work together, success will be
achieved,” Suu Kyi told a crowd
in People’s Square, Yangon, on
December 20.
Bogyoke Aung San was born
on February 13, 1915.
“Now is the most important
time for us. Our country is moving forward on the path of
democracy, but we have not
reached the destination yet. All
of us need to try. If everyone
tries, success will be certain.
Democracy is meant for the
interests of others. If we only
work for one person or an organisation, we go against democratic
spirit.
“The most important thing is
responsibility. If everyone has a
sense of responsibility, we will
develop. The important characteristic of Bogyoke Aung San was
responsibility and constant learning. We must understand how
much we have left to learn.
“The ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of
Bogyoke Aung San’s birth is to
teach good manners to the
young. We want to teach the
young about the qualifications
useful to the country and the
leaders who served the interests
of the country. The importance of
service is the main factor. Some
people want to be leaders, but
don’t want to take up the duties
that go with it. If a leader doesn’t
have a sense of responsibility,
there can be no success.
“If we work for the country
honestly, we will see development. The young need to take an
interest in politics.
“I repeatedly urge the young
to take interest in politics, as did
my father. Politics concerns us
all. My father said politics itself
was honest, but the people were
dishonest. All of us should do
clean politics. We need to take
pride in doing politics,” Suu Kyi
added.
She also urged society to fight
against ecstasy which is widespread among Myanmar youths.
“Parents and teachers should
take more responsibility for the
issue. Police have information
about it so everyone should work
together in the fight,” Suu Kyi
said.
In August, police working with
the military seized more than 2
million ecstasy pills after an
inspection of a boat off
Myanmar’s southern coast.
Suu Kyi also had a meeting
with officials from the General
Administration Department in
her Kawhmu Township constituency, where she demanded
improved services and policing
for the area.
She focused on better public
transport and roads, water supply, education, health and regional development.
“Renewed efforts should be
made to improve relations in our
township with the police. The
police must have proper authority so as to assist the people. We
should not see only one side of
the situation, as it is not balanced. Only when there is harmony between the people and
police can there be stability and
tranquillity, in addition to security.
“Public relations and policing
courses funded by the European
Union are being provided to the
police in some major cities.
Strenuous efforts must be made
to conduct courses for the police
in rural areas like Kawhmu,” Suu
Kyi said.
She also complained on the
checking of passports of foreigners who visited the opening of a
hotel management school programme at the Daw Khin Kyi
Foundation.
“I welcome foreign visitors as
they are here for development.
We would like visitors to know
the situation of our township and
then we would like to know how
they could contribute to our
development. Upsetting visitors
has negative effects not only on
our township but also on our
country,” Suu Kyi said.
Officials said their passport
checks were in accordance with
regulations and discussed ways
to avoiding upsetting visitors.
Yangon has suffered from
traffic jams, a shortage of
parking spaces and sewage
overflows because of flaws in
the management system,
according to the Save
Yangon Forum.
Due to rapid urbanisation,
the country’s commercial
hub is now overpopulated
and the mismanagement of
drainage and traffic systems
is bothersome for the inhabitants, the forum heard.
“It’s usual that a city of
more than 6 million people
should face problems like
congestion, pollution and
overflows in the rainy seasons. The city needs immediate attention,” an expert
said.
In some townships, the
people to land ratio is
approaching 1,000:1 hectare.
“Even in Hong Kong, there
are only 600 people in one
hectare,” argued Hla Su
Myat from the Association of
Myanmar Architects (AMA).
She also pointed to the
lack of pavements in some
streets.
Moe Moe Lwin, the director of Yangon Heritage Trust,
said historic buildings in
Yangon were under threat as
people had little interest in
preserving them.
Insensitive building
designs were marring the
sacred image of Shwedagon
Pagoda, Moe Moe Lwin
added.
Maw Lin, deputy chairperson of AMA, said: “Yangon
was once known as the
cleanest city in Southeast
Asia. But the situation is
upside down now. The city is
overly crowded and becoming more exhausted each
day. Parking lots have taken
up the pedestrian areas and
people find it difficult to walk
while watching out for vehicles.”
MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
National
3
NEWS
DIGEST
Myanmar national and
migrant workers sort
fish by size in Ban Nam
Khaem village.
AFP
University student
quota cut
Myanmar migrants haunted by memory
of tsunami missing in Thailand
A decade after towering waves
wrenched her newborn baby
from her arms, Mi Htay remains
haunted by memories of the children she lost in the tsunami
whose bodies, like hundreds of
other Myanmar migrants in
Thailand, were never identified.
No one knows exactly how
many foreign labourers died
when the tsunami cut into southwestern Thailand as most lacked
official work permits and their
relatives did not come forward in
the days and weeks after the
December 26, 2004, disaster
fearing arrest or deportation.
An estimated 2,000 migrants
from neighbouring Myanmar are
thought to have perished, deaths
that went almost unnoticed as
the television cameras focused
on foreign tourists and Thai victims.
Among them were Mi Htay’s
eight-day-old baby - too young
even to have been given a name two of her other children, both
toddlers, as well as her mother
and a nephew.
Despite the aching reminders
of her loss, Mi Htay returned
around a year later to the small
coastal village of Ban Nam
Khem, in Thailand’s worst-hit
Phang Nga province, in search of
work in the area’s fisheries.
“When I am working, I can forget what happened,” the now
40-year-old told AFP, pointing
out the spot where the waves
pulled her newborn away from
her grasp.
“But when I see other families
with their children going to eat, I
feel so sad. If they were alive, we
would be like that. I can’t forget it
for one day.”
In 2006 Mi Htay - whose two
oldest children survived the disaster - was informed that the
bodies of her mother and nephew had been identified as part of
what was, at the time, the biggest global forensic investigation.
The Indian Ocean tsunami,
which was sparked by the thirdlargest earthquake on record,
claimed more than 220,000 lives
in one of the world’s deadliest
and most geographically widespread disasters.
More than 3,000 bodies were
identified and returned to families across the world by Thai and
international experts in the years
after the tsunami using dental
records, DNA or fingerprints.
But Mi Htay’s three missing
children were not among them.
“I presume they are dead. But
maybe they are alive as they
haven’t found the bodies. Maybe
they are with other people. I keep
thinking like that,” she said.
Migrants return
There are more migrant
labourers in Phang Nga province
than before the tsunami and now
most are registered, says Htoo
Chit, director of the Foundation
for Education and Development
charity.
recorded around 400 people still
missing, a quarter from
Myanmar.
An estimated two million
Myanmar nationals work in
Thailand, where they make up
part of a vast migrant labour
force often working in low-paid
jobs and poor conditions, subject
to exploitation.
Htoo Chit recalls the difficulty
in identifying the decomposing
bodies of undocumented victims
with no official records, a problem compounded by the mass
deportation of over 2,500
migrants in the aftermath of the
tsunami.
“Most of them (the deported)
lost their relatives. They didn’t
want to come back to Thailand
again to claim the dead,” he said.
Htoo Chit estimates around
1,000 Myanmar migrants were
killed or missing in Phang Nga
alone. Human Rights Watch estimates the overall figure at some
2,000 for all six tsunami-hit Thai
provinces.
Some of these deaths are
accounted for in Thailand’s official toll of 5,395. The national
police forensic department has
Remains finally returned
AFP
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Ban Nam Khem, Thailand
Depa Dhaurali rings a bell at the Shree Bhagawat Dhaam
Sanatan Mandir temple in Phuket.
At the nearby Bang Muang
cemetrey, 369 bodies lie unidentified beneath concrete
headstones labelled simply with
serial numbers on laminated
cards. Authorities believe the
majority are Myanmar nationals
but have no DNA samples to
check against.
Up until last month it had
been the resting place of Nepali
tailor Rajan Dhaurali, whose
body was identified through a
DNA match with his sister two
years after he died in neighbouring Khao Lak.
But, without the documents
to show he was a Myanmar
national, like others in his family who hold Myanmar passports
but are Nepali by origin, police
refused to release the body,
according to the Phuket ThaiNepali Association.
It helped track down
Dhaurali’s children and the documents required to retrieve the
remains after it was alerted to
the case by media outlets
ahead of the tsunami anniversary.
At the house where she now
works as a live-in nanny in
Patong town, his daughter
Depa, 20, said her family’s deep
grief was tinged with relief after
finally cremating their father in
November.
“I couldn’t believe it after 10
years... It felt bad, but in some
ways it’s a relief. I would like to
find my sister and mother too,”
Depa said of the two family
members who died the same
day and whose bodies remain
unidentified.
For now she, like Mi Htay, is
focused on building her life
anew in Thailand, learning to
live with unanswered questions
as best as she can.
The six universities under the
Ministry of Science and Technology will
reduce the number of new enrolments
of students from self-administered
zones and faraway regions in the 20142015 academic year.
The universities are Yangon
Technological University, Mandalay
Technological University, Myanmar
Aerospace Engineering University,
Yatanarpon Cyber City, Yangon
Computer University and Mandalay
Computer University.
The parents of the students,
eligible for free education, must be
Myanmar citizens. The students must
be permanent residents in the regions
and seek jobs in the respective regions
which cover self-administered zones of
Naga, Pa Oh, Danu, Palaung, Kokang
and Wa and other faraway regions.
A source from the ministry said
that it is estimated that 3 per cent of
the applicants will be granted access.
Pandemonium broke
out in Chaungtha
village
Villagers and township officials
halted construction of the controversial
AMBO hotel and housing project in
Pathein, Ayeyawady Region, owned by
presidential adviser Nay Zin Latt, on
December 20.
The project is built on coconut
farms, confiscated from four villagers
in 1997 without confiscation. The land
was later sold to Nay Zin Latt. His
agent, Thant Zin Aung, has carried out
drainage, fencing and platform building
in the project area despite obstruction
from the township administrator, an
official of township development affairs
committee and the village
administrator.
The original villagers lodged a
complaint to Lower House’s Farmlands
Investigation Commission in an effort
to stop the project. The commission
has not yet made a decision on the
case.
On December 20, about 50 people
tried to stop the project and demanded
the return of the land. They faced
opposition from some 50 workers in
the area. Police and local officers
appeared to settle the dispute.
Aye Aye Aung, a villager, said later
that more than 30 people were charged
under Section 447, including Myint Soe
Aung, who was not in the village on
that day.
Govt criticised for
giving away public
land
Critics attacked Yangon
government’s decisions to transfer
public land including Theinbyu,
Myakyuntha, Yadana and Myathida
public parks to private companies.
“A parking building is being built on
the land of Yadana and Myathida public
parks. Public lands are being used
inappropriately. To save Yangon City,
land use shall be considered,” said
Myint Mo Swe, a retired staffer at the
Human Settlement and Housing
Department, said at the Save Yangon
Forum.
Moet Moet Lwin, another speaker
at the forum, also demanded public
organisations open access to parks and
recreation areas along the Yangon
River.
KYAT EXCHANGE
BUSINESS
Buy
Sell
US $
1,026
1,036
Euro ¤
1,246
1,265
773
785
Singapore $
Source: KBZ Bank
4
MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Despite challenges, foreign investment
in Myanmar energy sector set to surge
Myanmar to
establish Credit
Guarantee
Corporation for
SMEs
Khine Kyaw
MYANMAR ELEVEN
MYANMAR ELEVEN
EMG
WHILE Myanmar faces a host
of challenges, like other developing nations, its oil and gas sector
is likely to win more foreign
investment in the years to come,
participants in the “Offshore E&P
Summit Myanmar 2014” were
told.
Aung Kyaw Htoo, deputy
director of the Energy Planning
Department, said foreign investments in the nation’s energy sector would surge thanks to the
ministry’s reforms and the
upcoming 2015 bidding round,
which would invite expression of
interest for both onshore and offshore blocks.
“Many production-sharing
contracts are yet to be signed,
and more players will enter the
market after the bidding round
next year,” he said.
Saw Sein, project manager
(oil and gas services) of Myanma
Precious Resources Group, echoed Aung Kyaw Htoo’s view.
He told Myanmar Eleven in an
interview that foreign investments in the sector would contribute to the real gross-domestic-product growth rate.
The International Monetary
Fund sees an 8.5-per-cent real
GDP growth rate this fiscal year.
According to Saw Sein, the
trend will continue in the coming
years. He said the outlook was
brighter than before as the government has invited investments
in many blocks – onshore and
offshore – in the bidding round
this year.
“A company needs to invest
about US$20 million-$50 million
if it wins the tender for an
onshore block. A firm which wins
the tender for an offshore block
needs to invest at least $100 million.
“Mathematically speaking, if
10 firms win the tender for offshore blocks, their total investment will hit one billion dollars.
Likewise, if 10 firms operate an
offshore block each, their total
investment will be about $500
million. So, just imagine the
amount of investment inflows in
the years to come,” he explained.
At the summit, foreign business
people were of the same opinion
as local speakers in commenting
on the industry’s outlook.
From left to right, Edwin Vanderbruggen, partner of VDB Loi, Htu Htu Aung, director of Asia Guiding
Services Co; Lynn Myint, vice president and chief geologist of North Petro-Chem Corporation Ltd;
Govinder Singh Chopra, managing director of SeaTech Solutions International Pte; and Jason
Waldie, associate director of Douglas Westwood, at a panel discussion during the Offshore E&P
Summit Myanmar 2014.
Govinder Singh Chopra, managing director of Singaporebased SeaTech Solutions
International, sees the oil and
gas industry as the most promising sector thanks to surging
power generation and oil refining.
In his opinion, capital from
foreign investors will contribute
to the nation’s sustainable
growth.
“Myanmar is not going too
fast. Instead, they [the government] are doing things gradually.
They have already announced
the bidding for 20 blocks. I heard
they are thinking of announcing
the bidding for other 15 blocks
next year.
“They want to see how the
results will be, and what their
problems are. They will try to
take care of such problems.
Every block is likely to win millions of dollars of investment,” he
said.
Chopra is optimistic about the
nation’s future economic outlook.
“Myanmar has just started to
win a lot of foreign investments.
Its economy will grow very rapidly in the coming 10-15 years. In
the rest of the world, the economy is not growing well. Yet, I
believe the growth momentum
will continue in Myanmar,” he
said.
When asked about the political risk, a major concern for foreign investors, Chopra said:
“People already know the elections will be held next year. I
think the momentum is already
there. It is very difficult to reverse
or go backwards. I am guessing
its direction will continue, as everybody sees it as the right direction.”
According to Chopra, the government needs to prioritise on
infrastructure developments
before the 2015 presidential elections, which could raise more
challenges for the nation.
“Without the infrastructure
[development], foreign investment cannot come in. Only when
an investor ensures that the business climate is worth investing
in, will he put in the money.
Otherwise, it will be very difficult,” he said.
Myanmar needs to learn what
other Asian countries such as
Singapore and China have done
Myanmar Eleven permit is blocked
MYANMAR ELEVEN
The Ministry of Information has
again suspended the publishing permit
for Myanmar Eleven, the Englishlanguage publication of Eleven Nation
Media Co Ltd (ENM), despite several
applications this year.
ENM is a joint venture of the
Eleven Media Group and the Nation
Multimedia Group in Thailand.
The permit application was first
submitted in January 2014. Different
reasons were given.
In February, Aung Kyaw Oo,
director of the Information and Public
Relations Department (IPRD), said
that as the joint venture has a foreign
partner, it application fell under the
Foreign Investment Law.
Upon the Ministry of Information’s
notification that ENM had all
documentation needed, the
application was re-filed in February.
On April 5, Aung Kyaw Oo said
that such would need to wait till the
Printing and Publishing Law, freshly
signed by the president, took effect.
Some permits given to two
newspapers, including the Myanmar
Eleven, 17 journals, three magazines
and seven general publishing permits
were subject to review.
ENM reapplied for a permit on
November 17 but Kyaw Htay, from the
IPRD, said the application had been
to improve their infrastructure for
attracting more foreign investment, he added.
As Myanmar has many things
to do, the government needs to
decide which it should do first,
he said. It needs to prioritise on
improving infrastructure because
if it is satisfactory, all the others
can be done easily, he explained.
“They should start with
announcing some ideas on how
to have infrastructure improved.
Once they announce the ideas
and their plans, things will
become better. Secondly, the
government needs to be more
transparent,” said Chopra.
In his view, Myanmar should
also concentrate on the oil and
gas industry’s outcomes, and
should encourage local business
people to go into the sector.
He also highlighted the need
for more skilled labour to support the industry, particularly on
drilling sites.
Htu Htu Aung, director of Asia
Guiding Star Services, expressed
the same opinion.
He called for the development
of infrastructure, such as supply
bases and training centres.
rejected without a permit from the
MIC.
“When we tried to reapply for the
permit, they said we needed to
submit the whole new application.
When we submitted the new
application, they asked us for the
Myanmar Investment Commission’s
approval. The ministries have
informed each other about the
approval from the MIC. Has this
notification letter become useless
within a year? I see this as an
attempt to delay the process,” said
Dr Thein Myint, managing director of
ENM.
Myanma Insurance plans to
establish the Credit Guarantee
Corporation using Japanese aid for
small and medium enterprises
(SMEs), said Sett Aung, Vice
Chairperson of the Central Bank of
Myanmar on December 20.
“Although a credit guarantee
scheme exists, we plan to establish
a corporation with the aid of a
Japanese bank. Japan sent
analysts to aid us. If SMEs want to
borrow money, the corporation will
be able to determine the amounts
they can guarantee,” he said.
Although the insurance
business once thrived in Myanmar,
knowledge of how to run insurance
businesses was almost completely
wiped out when they were
nationalized by the Socialist
Programme Party in 1964.
At present, the government has
granted insurance licenses to 12
private insurance companies in an
attempt to transform Myanmar’s
insurance sector. Many foreign
companies, especially Japanese
insurance companies, are opening
representative offices in Myanmar
and waiting for insurance licenses.
“It is true that SMEs need the
money for survival. But this is not
their only problem. They face many
problems, such as finding
customers. Although banks have
loaned them money, they still
cannot survive, as there is no
market for them. Another issue is
that despite the loans they receive,
many products of SMEs are still
low-quality and not lucrative. We
need to resolve these issues to
capitalise on existing markets.
SMEs from other countries face the
same problems we do,” said Sett
Aung.
Furethermore, impediments to
gathering information on SMEs
constitutes a setback to their
receiving financial assistance.
“If a bank wants to lend money
to a company, it needs to gather
information on the company.
Companies cannot borrow money
easily if the bank doesn’t know how
much they can trust in the
company. In our country, if
someone wants to borrow money,
they must have collateral. Other
countries are not like that.
Everyone can borrow money
whether they have collateral or not.
They can borrow money with
project financing. It’s because the
borrowers can provide genuine
information to the banks,” he said.
Currently, the main obstacles to
SMEs’ success are lack of property
and lack of financial sources.
MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
5
Business MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
6
Wanbao proceeds with Letpadaungtaung
project despite conflicts
MYANMAR ELEVEN
MYANMAR ELEVEN
The tripartite team – government, civil society organisations and companies –
responsible for implementing Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative (EITI)
in Myanmar will open tender
next month to select an
independent auditing agency
from abroad.
The auditing agency will
have to review the revenue
from extraction of resources
in accordance with international criteria.
“The team members are
drawing up the responsibilities of the auditing agency,”
said Min Zarni Lin, an official
from the tripartite team.
The team has slated to
include oil and gas sector,
and minerals in EITI report
which is supposed to submit
to EITI Secretariat by
January 2, 2016.
The EITI Board admitted
Myanmar as a candidate
country during its 27th EITI
meeting held in Mexico on
July 2 this year.
said acid and metal generation
arising from waste rock pose
extremely high environmental
risks to surface and groundwater.
A total of 92,500 tonnes of ore
will be mined and placed onto
the leach pads on a daily basis.
This is expected to produce
100,000 tonnes of copper per
annum.
“Failure to heed these require-
ments, from commencement of
construction through operations
and closure of the facilities, will
leave a residual risk and legacy
beyond closure of the operation,”
the report said.
In a statement, MWMCL estimated that once the mine is
operational, it will generate an
annual US$140 million in taxes,
royalties, and production share,
and an additional $150 million
per year in local procurement.
Two per cent of the project’s net
profit will go towards community
development, the statement said.
The company's latest statement also said the environmental
and social impact assessment
(ESIA), formulated by Knight
Piesold, is in its final approval
stage and being overseen by the
Ministry of Environmental
Conservation and Forestry
(MOECAF) of Myanmar. It also
stressed that the report was produced using International
Finance Corporation’s (IFC)
standards to predict environmental, social and health outcomes
from the mine's operations.
The ESIA concludes that “the
development of the Letpadaung
Copper Project will have a limited and acceptable impact on the
environment when compared to
the benefit that the community
and the nation may derive from
the project, provided the management measures described in
the ESIA document are implemented."
“At Wanbao, we believe that we
have been working very hard at
addressing the community concerns with our contribution payments, our employment policies,
our SME development programmes and our CSR investment. And we will continue maximising the developmental returns
from this project in consultation
with all stakeholders for our community,” the company stated.
Contradicting some villagers’
complaints that they were not yet
paid for land confiscated for the
project, the company said it paid
out subsidies three times.
Farmers were given between Ks
1.812 million and Ks 3.25 million
per acre, according to MWMCL.
Japanese oil company eyes refinery investment in VN
VIET NAM NEWS
Hanoi
A memorandum of understanding was signed between JX
Nippon Oil & Energy Corp and
the Vietnam National Petroleum
Group (Petrolimex) late last
week in Ha Noi.
The agreement paved the
way for co-operation between
the two parties in Vietnam’s oil
sector, Dau Tu (Investment)
newspaper reported.
JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp,
Japan’s largest oil firm, was
reportedly looking at the Nam
Van Phong oil refining petrochemical complex project and
the petrol and oil retail market.
Nguyen Van Khanh, a representative from Petrolimex, was
quoted by the newspaper as
saying a month ago that JX
Nippon Oil and Energy Corp
could become a major partner
of Petrolimex in the Nam Van
Phong project, and that the
negotiations were expected to
be concluded this year.
The Nam Van Phong refinery
project in the central Khanh
Hoa Province got a nod from
the government in 2008. It has
an estimated capital of US$4.4
billion to $4.8 billion.
Petrolimex was assigned to set
up the project and call for
investments.
The construction of the project was initially scheduled to
start in 2011, and it was to
become operational at the end
of 2013. However, the project
missed the deadline and the
VNS
Tender to
select
auditing
agency for
EITI report
EMG
Myanmar Wanbao Mining
Copper Ltd (MWMCL) begin
operating the Letpadaungtaung
copper mine, despite simmering
conflicts with local residents.
In a statement, the company,
which is a subsidiary of China’s
Wanbao, said that it will extend
the working area in the
Letpadaungtaung copper mine to
comply with requirements of its
investment permit granted by the
Myanmar Investment
Commission. The statement was
released on December 22, the
same day when a clash occurred
and left one woman dead.
The project has been delayed
for two years due to environmental concerns and disputes over
land compensation.
“Construction is proceeding
as a result of broad community
support for the project,” the
company insisted.
The company hopes that by
beginning operations, it can
share the benefits of the project
with the surrounding community
and the whole of Myanmar.
Local villagers have complained about pollution created
by the project, which is located
in Salingyi Township, Sagaing
Region.
A report released earlier this
year by Australian consultancy
firm Knight Piesold Consulting
The Letpadaungtaung
copper project seen in
May 2014.
The Nam Van Phong oil refining petrochemical complex project.
total estimated capital was
hiked to $8 billion.
Currently, only the ongoing
Nghi Son oil refinery has foreign
partners. The government
allowed foreign partners to set
up distribution only after the
plant was put into operation,
with the condition that the minimum capital contribution from
the Vietnamese side was 51 per
cent.
According to the newspaper,
Petrolimex could issue additional shares to its foreign partner
to reduce the State’s stake.
Petrolimex, with a charter
capital of VND10.7 trillion
($504.7 million), operates under
a joint stock company model
after launching an IPO in July
2011, with the State holding a
94.99 per cent stake.
Petrolimex’s market share in the
petrol and oil market ranges
between 48 per cent and 55 per
cent.
In August, Reuters reported
that JX Nippon Oil & Energy
Corp was looking at building
refineries and petrol stations in
Indonesia and Vietnam, seeing
the two markets as the most
promising locations for investment amid declining fuel consumption at home.
ASEAN+
7
MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Thais on right track with rail expansion
THE STRAITS TIMES
If anything is unfinished business in Thailand and its neighbourhood, it is rail. The Greater
Mekong Sub-region has more
than 860,000km of roads, but
less than 19,000km of railways.
The length of the road network has grown by more than 37
per cent since 2005, but the
length of rail by just 10 per cent
since 2001.
Now, China is going to finance
two separate lines in Thailand,
starting in 2016. And Thailand is
turning to Japan to help with
three new lines connecting
Bangkok with the rest of the
country.
Combined, the plans could
see Thailand’s creaky, loss-making, narrow-gauge railway system
catch up with the rest of the
world. Analysts have applauded
this, but with residual scepti-
cism.
“It was realised about 10 years
ago that we need to invest in rail
to reduce transport costs, but
governments have been slow,”
said academic Saksith
Chalermpong of the department
of civil engineering at Bangkok’s
Chulalongkorn University.
Political turmoil, changes of
government and, above all,
bureaucracy, have delayed the
plans.
In an agreement signed last
weekend in Bangkok, to smiles
from Thai Prime Minister Prayuth
Chan-o-cha and Chinese Premier
Li Keqiang, China will in effect
build Thailand’s first standardgauge tracks.
One route covering 734km will
run from Nong Khai province on
the border with Vientiane in
Laos, to the Map Ta Phut deepsea port in Thailand’s Rayong
province. The second, 133km line
will connect Bangkok with the
first line at Kaeng Khoi district in
Saraburi province.
Also at the weekend, Thai
Transport Minister Prajin
Junthong said Bangkok would
look to Japan to help build three
separate lines. Two will connect
the Thai-Myanmar border to the
Thai-Laos border and also with
Rayong; the third will run from
Bangkok to the northern city of
Chiang Mai.
The lines built by China have
to be seen in the context of Laos,
where China wants to finance
and build a railway line connecting its southern border with the
Thai border at Nong Khai. This
offers China seamless rail connectivity to the Gulf of Thailand.
But according to reports, the
Lao line will cost US$7.2 billion,
and there remain doubts over the
financing of such a huge sum.
For Thailand, questions
remain over connectivity; the
country’s system is metre gauge,
while the new lines by China will
be a broader, standard gauge.
The specifications of the new
internal lines to be developed
with Japan will not be clear until
the actual agreements are made.
Connectivity between different
transport modes, and how new
railway lines would support
development, did not seem to
figure in the government’s discussions, said Dr Ruth
Banomyong, head of the department of international business,
logistics and transport at
Bangkok’s Thammasat
University.
Whether the new railway projects will create jobs in Thailand
and for whom, is a looming question as well. Thailand already has
more than a million - some estimates range up to three million migrant workers, mostly from
Myanmar and Cambodia.
Bringing in Chinese labour - as
has been done for Chinese projects in Sri Lanka and Africa would be unprecedented for
Thailand, said Professor Saksith.
Another question is whether
the developments will extend
China’s reach, converting mainland Southeast Asia into a vast
Chinese backyard. Hence the
effort, analysts say, to keep
Japan willingly engaged as well.
Certainly, investing in
Thailand’s railway network is
overdue. With no incentive to
upgrade, the state railway has a
cumulative debt of nearly 100
billion baht (US$3.04 billion),
said Professor Saksith. Even
given the new plans, he was not
particularly optimistic. But he
acknowledged that “putting the
emphasis on rail is heading in
the right direction”.
Vietnamese
youth urge
access to sex
education
Chinese surgeons taking selfies backfire
Doctors take group selfies next to a patient inside an operating room in Xi’an Fengcheng Hospital on Aug 15, 2014.
CHINA DAILY
After a set of surgeons’ selfies taken next to a patient
undergoing surgery in a Xi’an
hospital went viral online and
stirred heated debate, the
health bureau of the city
announced on Sunday that
three officials of the hospital
have been removed from their
posts.
The three are deputy president of the hospital, the dean
and the nurse head of its anesthesiology department. The
executive president and all the
medical workers in the photos
have been given a demerit in
their record, an administrative
punishment in China.
According to the bureau, the
photos were taken on August 15
in an operating room that was
going to be disbanded and the
medical workers of Xi’an
Fengcheng Hospital, a private
hospital, took the photos to
keep the memory of the room
alive.
The selfies were posted on
Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, on Saturday by
a user who claimed to be a
friend of one of the doctors.
The photos show the doctors
smiling and posing in front of
an unconscious patient lying on
the operating table.
“What are you medical workers doing during the operation?
No wonder there are so many
medical disputes with the
patients,” the user said in his
post with the photos.
Though he deleted the post
later, the photos were already
circulating on social media and
soon became one of the hot
topics during the weekend.
As of 2pm on Monday, the
photos had been viewed 9.9
million times and had generated more than 12,000 comments.
Some Weibo users were furious at the doctors’ behaviour,
blaming them for not being
professional.
Another user “Lin’an chuyu”
said: “Where are the professional ethics of these medical
workers?”
At the same time, some
users, including many insiders,
expressed their understanding.
“Baiyishanmao”, a user
identified as a surgeon by Sina,
said after successfully finishing
a challenging operation, the
doctors would be happier than
the patient and it was fine to
take photos by the side of the
operating table.
His comment got more than
10,000 likes during the weekend and many users expressed
the same thoughts and supported the doctors.
Still, some think it would be
more acceptable if they waited
until the patient was removed
from the operating room.
After Xi’an health bureau
announced the punishment,
new wave of comments began
appearing on the Internet, with
some supporting the decision
and the rest considering it too
harsh.
When an operation is taking
place, cell phone signals are
restricted and photos taken
inside the room can only be
used for internal communication with the patient’s face hidden, Xi’an Evening News quoted
Ma Kangxiao, a section chief of
the Ninth Hospital of Xi’an, as
saying.
SINA WEIBO
VIET NAM NEWS
A workshop on the sexual and
reproductive health rights of young
people as stipulated in the draft
revised law on young people took
place in Ha Noi on Sunday, focusing
on the rights of disadvantaged
groups.
Officials from ministry of
justice, ministry of home affairs,
the UN Population Fund and
experts in the field joined 60 young
people representing students, the
disabled, migrant workers,
homosexuals, bisexuals and
transsexuals living and working in
the capital city.
Participants urged improving
sex education at school to counter
limited access to sexual and
reproductive health information.
They also voiced concerns
about discrimination in family and
schools, calling for more specific
regulations in sub-law documents
to prevent discrimination.
Representatives also
underscored that while accounting
for 60-70 per cent of the workforce,
migrant labourers usually had
unstable jobs with low income.
As a result, most of them
lacked basic knowledge of sexual
and reproductive health, putting
them at high risk of violence,
unsafe abortions and sexually
transmitted diseases.
Organised by the ministry of
home affairs’ youth affairs
department, the forum aimed to
connect young people directly with
policy makers and give them an
opportunity to contribute ideas to
the Youth Law.
ASEAN+
8
MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
GLOBAL
BRIEFS
Climate change raises
dengue risk
Aquino signs $59-bn
budget for 2015
Philippine President Benigno
Aquino Tuesday signed a 2.6-trillionpeso (59-billion-dollar) national
budget for 2015, which he said further
limits opportunities for corruption.
Aquino said the budget includes
specific targets for government
departments to achieve with the
money allocated for them.
“The targets are clear,” he said.
“For example, the Department of
Public Works and Highways aims to
complete the repairs of national
roads by 2016, including 4,219
kilometres of road to be rehabilitated
in 2015.””We cleaned and clarified
the process to reduce the space for
corruption,” he added. “Now, all
heads of agencies must also comply
with a requirement to report about
their budget; those who fail to
comply will face sanctions.”
The budget includes a 10-billionpeso allocation for rehabilitation of
areas devastated by typhoon Haiyan,
the world’s strongest cyclone that hit
the Philippines in 2013.
The 2015 budget is up 15 per
cent from the 2.26 trillion pesos
allocated in 2014.
—DPA
More than 21,000
evacuated in
Malaysian floods
More than 21,000 people were
holed up in evacuation centres in
eastern Malaysia Monday after
flooding that started last week,
officials said.
The coastal states of Kelantan,
Terengganu and Pahang were the
worst hit, with the meteorological
department warning that strong
north-easterly winds would continue
to drive waves of up to 5.5metres in
the area until Wednesday.
The department also warned of a
storm swell until Wednesday in those
three states as well as the southern
part of Johor state, and Sabahand
Sarawak on Borneo. Four people
have died in Kelantan since the
flooding started on December 16.
The state has also seen the highest
number of displaced at 16,125 on
Monday.
—DPA
AFP
Half of the world’s seven billion
people will be at risk of getting
dengue if minimum temperatures
in certain regions continue to rise,
warned the first ever global
mapping report on dengue
vulnerability.
According to Mapping Global
Vulnerability to Dengue using the
Water Associated Disease Index,
while Southeast Asia and South
Asia already faced the highest levels
of vulnerability to dengue, western
and central Africa, as well as parts
of Europe and the mountainous
regions of South America would be
affected if minimum temperatures
there continue to rise.
“The increase due to climate
change alone would more than
double the number of those at risk
to an estimated 3.5 billion,” said
the report published by the United
Nations University’s Canadianbased Institute for Water,
Environment and Health (UnuInweh) on the university’s website.
—THE STAR
A worker checks the coal to evenly cook roasted pigs in Manila. “Lechon”, or roasted pig, has always been a regular fare at
Philippine festivities, especially during Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Pope to meet Muslim, Buddhist
leaders in Philippines visit
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Manila
POPE Francis will meet with
leaders of various religions when
he visits the Philippines next
month, pushing a message of tolerance in order to combat global
religious conflicts, a church official said Monday.
The pontiff will hold a 10 to
15-minute dialogue with the dean
of the Philippines’ largest Islamic
studies centre and a Taiwanbased Buddhist leader on January
18, according to Father Carlos
Reyes, a member of the committee organising the Pope’s visit.
He will also meet with the
Hong Kong-based regional head
of the Greek Orthodox Church, as
well as a Hindu leader, Protestant
bishops, and a Manila-based
rabbi, Reyes told reporters.
The dialogue will be held at the
400-year-old church-run
University of Santo Tomas in
Manila, where the pontiff will also
address a crowd of 25,000
youths.
“The church is Catholic, it is
universal, we are in dialogue with
the world,” Reyes said.
“It is our job as men and
women of religion not to allow the
fundamentalists or extremists to
hijack the religion.”
The event comes as the largely-Catholic Philippines is implementing a peace deal signed last
March with its main Muslim rebel
group to create an autonomous
area for the Muslim minority in
the southern islands.
It also comes as the government fights a small band of hardliners that have reportedly
pledged allegiance to the Islamic
State group, which has taken control of a swathe of territory across
Iraq and Syria.
The military has in recent
weeks intensified offensives
against the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu
Sayyaf, which is holding several
hostages, including foreigners, in
the troubled south.
Pope Francis will arrive in the
country amid tight security on
January 15 for a four-day visit
highlighted by a mass in Tacloban
City, ground zero for Super
Typhoon Haiyan last year.
Haiyan’s monster winds
spawned tsunami-like storm surges that wiped out entire towns
and left more than 7,350 killed or
missing.
The pontiff’s visit has the
theme “mercy and compassion”
and is expected to draw millions
of the faithful to the public events.
Malaysia and China hold first-ever joint military exercise
THE STAR
The Malaysian Armed Forces
and China’s People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) began their firstever bilateral military exercise
yesterday to mark 40 years of
diplomatic relations between
the two countries.
The five-day tabletop exercise at the Armed Forces’ Joint
Warfare Centre (Pesama) saw
20 officers from Malaysia combining their expertise with
PLA’s 21-men delegation to
develop a common framework
for humanitarian and disaster
relief operations.
The exercise, opened by
Armed Forces chief Jen Zulkifeli
Mohd Zin, will be the start of
many joint drills that is expected to culminate in a field tactical exercise next year.
“We seek to enhance cooper-
ation between the two armed
forces, especially in disaster
relief operations, and to a certain extent, on counter-hijacking in the open seas,” Jen
Zulkifeli told reporters.
The PLA team was led by
Operations Department deputy
director-general, Senior Captain
(Navy) Jiang Ke.
“It (joint exercises) will
develop into something that is
more current. Basically it will
be non-war related operations,”
he said when asked if the joint
exercises could evolve into
offensive-type operations.
Senior Capt Jiang added that
the tabletop exercise was a historic moment for both militaries
as it symbolises the expansion
of Malaysia and China’s defence
cooperation.
“China and Malaysia share
common strategic interests in
this region, and a good foundation to jointly tackle major natural disasters, as well as the
obligation to safeguard regional
stability and security of international sea lanes.”
In September 2005, Malaysia
signed a memorandum of
understanding on bilateral
defence cooperation with China
– the first of its kind between a
Southeast Asian country and
China.
The memorandum paved the
way for the establishment of
working groups under the
Security Defence and Strategic
Consultation in September
2012, reciprocal high-level visits involving PLA’s deputy Chief
of the General Staff and
Malaysia’s defence minister,
and a Defence Working Group
Meeting in March 2012.
Indonesia to
ban virginity
test
DEUTSCHE PRESSEAGENTUR
Jakarta
Indonesia will abolish virginity tests at the state-run
college for would-be civil
servants following criticism
of a similar practice in the
police force, media reports
said Tuesday.
Home Affairs Minister
Tjahjo Kumolo said Monday
he was seeking an end to virginity tests as part of
requirements to join the
Institute of Public
Administration, a college for
aspiring civil servants and
regional administrators, the
Kompas daily reported.
“A woman is not a virgin
can be due to several reasons, such as a fall,” Tjahjo
was quoted as saying. “This
should not be a measure.”
“It is a pity that just
because of that a woman
fails to qualify, even though
she is competent,” he said.
New York-based Human
Rights Watch said in a report
last month that the police
force required female applicants to undergo “degrading” virginity tests despite a
promise to end the practice
years ago. Human Rights
Watch said virginity tests are
“a discriminatory practice
that harms and humiliates
women.” The national police
have denied they require
applicants to undergo virginity tests, saying they administer reproductive organ
examinations as part of
health checks to detect diseases such as cervical cancer.
MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
9
ASEAN+
Vietnam’s caviar aims to
make a splash in Russia
GLOBAL
BRIEFS
Japan eyes eco-car
tax break for
minicars
The Japanese government and the
ruling parties will likely add the
minivehicle tax to the list of taxes
subject to reduction for eco-friendly
cars, starting in fiscal 2015,
government sources said.
The Liberal Democratic Party and
Komeito plan to include the
programme in the outline of tax
revisions for fiscal 2015, after they
discuss the rate of reduction. The
outline is set to be compiled on
December 30.
The government is likely to support
a plan to provide a 75 per cent of tax
break for fuel efficiency 20 per cent
higher than the standard and a 50 per
cent tax break for efficiency 10 per cent
above the standard.
Minicar sales from January through
November rose by 7.9 per cent to about
1.68 million units from the same period
last year, accounting for about 40 per
cent of total car sales.
The tax hike on minicars was
decided in the fiscal 2014 revision of
the tax system. But due to the slow
economic recovery in regional areas,
concern has been growing over heavy
tax burdens.
—THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Dalat, Vietnam
Muslim-friendly
restaurant
guidebook published
Le Anh Duc prepares
to taste fresh caviar.
AFP
At a sturgeon farm on a pristine lake near southern Dalat
town, a worker hoists a large
white fish out off the water. “It’s
an albino,” says Vietnam’s eccentric ‘Caviar King’ Le Anh Duc
adding triumphantly, “Gold
eggs!”
Not only are the eggs from the
rare sturgeon - Duc has just 40
albinos out of half a million fish an off-white ‘gold’ colour but
they are also a money-spinner.
Albino caviar can sell for up to
$100,000 per kilogramme, compared to black Beluga caviar, a
snip at just $5,000 to $10,000 a
kilo according to industry figures.
Duc, a jovial Russian-educated
businessman with a love of risky
ventures, is a man with a mission: to get Made In Vietnam caviar onto dinner tables across the
world at a reasonable price starting with the country best
known for its penchant for the
salted fish-eggs.
“If we can sell our caviar to
Russia - where really, they know
about caviar - then people will
understand this is a top quality
product,” said the 36-year-old
entrepreneur, who already has a
slew of other projects, from real
estate to sea planes, under his
belt.
His company, Caviar de Duc,
has already signed an agreement
with a Russian importer to sell
between two and four tonnes of
caviar to Russia in 2015 although some Vietnamese seafood producers are already warning the collapse of the Russian
ruble could hit exports.
Long beloved of the rich and
famous, caviar is an expensive,
high-end delicacy, but one now
in crisis - wild caviar production
has fallen from a high of some
3,000 tonnes per year in the
1970s to almost zero.
Rampant over-fishing and pollution in caviar’s birthplace, the
Caspian Sea, mean the wild
beluga sturgeon is now critically
endangered.
Duc currently has some
500,000 sturgeon spread across
six farms in Vietnam, all in
hydroelectric dam reservoirs
leased from the communist government.
This year his fish produced
some five tonnes of caviar. Duc
wants to more than treble his
output by 2017 and is ultimately
dreaming of producing 100
tonnes of high-quality caviar a
year.
“Now, caviar is like a hyperluxury product... but it’s also a
healthy, delicious product. More
people should eat caviar,” he said.
Most of the 250-400 tonnes of
caviar on the global market each
year now comes from farmed
sturgeon, according to World
Sturgeon Conservation Society
(WSCS) estimates.
In Russia, previously one of
the most biggest suppliers, “the
natural population (of sturgeon)
has practically disappeared,”
said Paolo Bronzi, vice president
of the WSCS.
Vietnam already boasts a big
aquaculture, with large export-
orientated prawn and catfish
industries - although these have
been sometimes hit by food safety concerns.
Duc’s sturgeon farming experiment began in 2007 with
50,000 fingerlings after he
defied expert advice and decided
that sturgeon could live in
Vietnam’s warmer waters.
But his first caviar harvest
was in 2013, as sturgeon take
years to mature.
“The scientists they told me I
was crazy,” he said, adding that
the Russian experts he had hired
all flew home in disgust when he
insisted the fish would thrive in
Vietnam’s reservoirs, some 10
degrees celsius warmer than the
sturgeon’s favoured habitat.
Now, he has more customers
than he can handle in Vietnam —
as the communist country’s burgeoning elite develop a taste for
global delicacies.
In Vietnam, Duc already supplies many of the country’s five
star hotels and regularly provides
caviar for high-end parties - from
soiries hosted by the French
Ambassador in Hanoi to a birthday party for the daughter of
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen
Tan Dung.
“The quality is very good,”
said Sakal Phoeung, executive
chef at the Sofitel Saigon Plaza,
which uses Caviar de Duc.
“Of course the eggs are smaller than caviar we can find in
Russia or Iran but in terms of
quality, taste, it is really close to
that,” Sakal said.
Philippines biggest beneficiary of falling oil prices
PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER
Oil-importing Philippines is
the biggest beneficiary of sliding oil prices but there is little
reason to be overly optimistic
over crude prices because
some windfall may be negated
by waning exports, according
to Swiss investment bank UBS.
In a research note dated
December 18 written by economist Edward Teather, the bank
said “Of the 42 countries estimated, the Philippines came
out as the number one beneficiary of lower oil.”
It noted that the Philippines
was a great beneficiary of
lower oil prices, which meant
that a more benign inflation
trajectory would ease pressure
on the Bangko Sentral ng
Pilipinas to raise policy rates,
in turn boosting growth. A
decline in global oil prices to
$65 a barrel from more than
$100 could boost the country’s
GDP growth by 1.4 percentage
points.
“However, we are cautious
about the benefits of lower oil
prices, not least because glob-
al demand must be playing a
role, and think that ultimately
the maturing credit cycle will
dominate the outlook in 2015
and 2016,” the report said.
UBS’ 2015 GDP growth forecast for the Philippines is 6 per
cent, described as still “lively”
but slowing down from the peak
of 7 per cent average growth in
2012 and 2013.
The state-run Korea Tourism
Organisation has released a guidebook
on Muslim-friendly restaurants to help
Muslims in South Korea find halal
cuisine more easily.
The guidebook, available only in
English for now, classifies 118 selected
restaurants into five groups according
to their degree of Muslim-friendliness.
The five groups are halal-certified,
self-certified, Muslim-friendly, Muslimwelcome and pork-free. Halal-certified
restaurants are those that meet halal
criteria set by the Korea Muslim
Federation, which was established as
an Islamic missionary organisation in
1967. The KMF certifies restaurants
that meet its strict requirements for
halal food.
—THE KOREA HERALD
Laos, China inks deal
on hydropower
project
The Lao government has agreed
for Guangdong No.3 Water
Conservancy and Hydroelectric
Engineering Board to undertake the
development of Huay Palay
upstream hydropower project in
Champassak province.
The project is situated in
Pakxong and Bachiang
Chaleunsouk districts with
generators to be located in
Bachiang district.
The planned feasibility study of
the 26 megawatt hydropower
project is expected to be complete
within 18 months, and if viable
construction of the power plant will
take three years at a total cost of
around US$53 million.
The project will produce around
603 million kilowatt hours per year
when operational.
Deputy Minister of Energy and
Mines Khammany Inthirath and
representatives from related
sectors of the Lao and Chinese
sides also witnessed the signing.
—VIENTIANE TIMES
ARTS&CULTURE
10
MYANMAR ELEVEN, Wednesday, December 24, 2014
hopes of improving their fortune
in the next life.The country’s
gross domestic product per capita is just US$1,105, according to
a World Bank report published
this week, and the poverty rate is
among the highest in Southeast
Asia at 37.5 per cent. But many
Foundation.
The religion and culture play a
role, with Myanmar’s more than
500,000 Buddhist monks essentially supported by individuals’
donations, the report said.
Some 91 per cent of Myanmar
people donate money, more than
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EPA
A worker fixes a gold plate.
Buddhist monks walking past as the holy Shwedagon pagoda is covered with bamboo scaffolding
for the renovation of its gold plates.
Gold for next life
PERCHED high on the wall of
U Zaw Win’s shop in Yangon is a
small, unassuming tin.
The 41-year-old car accessories salesman, who runs a modest business in the city’s
Mayangone township, has for the
past 15 years religiously allocated a share of his daily profit to
the tin.
“I never forget to save money
for donation,” he says, pointing
to the box on an altar beside a
small statue of the Buddha and
two vases full of flowers.
He estimates that the tin has
collected almost 30,000 US dollars over the years, all of it going
toward renovations at the
Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar’s
holiest Buddhist site. The 100metre stupa, which towers over
Myanmar’s most populous city, is
currently wrapped in bamboo
scaffolding as workers touch up
its gold leaf covering and replace
some of the solid gold plates that
The devotees wait in front of a gold plates donation counter.
adorn its upper reaches. Zaw
Win, his face beaming, says he
has donated gold weighing a
total of 45 kyattha to the pagoda.
With a kyattha corresponding
to just over 16 grammes, one
kyattha of gold is currently worth
about 600US dollars.
“By saving just a small
amount of money at a time, I
donate at least3 kyattha a year
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DEUTSCHE PRESSE-AGENTUR
for the renovation of the
Shwedagon Pagoda,” he said.
Renovations are funded by
individual donations from ordinary people, as well as from religious associations across
Myanmar.
Many people in the majorityBuddhist country give a large
portion of their income to religious causes or to charity in
families still manage to find the
$600 to $3,600 needed to buy a
gold plate, depending on the
size, for the Shwedagon.
“There are renovations every
year, but this year we are undertaking a major renovation that
only happens every five years,”
said Sein Win Aung, head of the
Trustees of the Shwedagon
Pagoda.
At least 15,000 of the pagoda’s 22,000 gold plates are being
replaced, requiring about 735 kilogrammes of gold, he said.
“So people are very eager to
donate this year,” he added.
Aung Tun, secretary of the
Yadanataya Thamagga Religious
Association in Yangon’s
Sanchaung Township, said the
group had placed more
than1,800 small tins in stores
and tea shops around the township to askf or donations for the
Shwedagon this year.
The association in total donated more than 3.2 kg of gold, he
said. “Our donations have mainly
come from saving boxes for decades now,” he said, adding that
the association has been donating to the pagoda annually for 64
years.
The citizens of Myanmar and
the United States spend the most
money and time on charitable
causes in the world, according to
a report released last month by
the Britain-based Charities Aid
any other country. It said 51 per
cent volunteered time to good
causes and 49 per cent gave help
to strangers.
Some of the donations go to
monastic education or religiousbased social services, but much
of it simply goes into the gold
that brightens the country’s
thousands of pagodas.
Donating money is an important tenet of Theravada
Buddhism, said prominent
Myanmar monk Sitagu Sayadaw
Ashin Nyanissara. The faith is the
country’s dominant religion, and
its proponents believe that when
people die, they are reincarnated
as humans or animals.
“As merit is one essence of
Buddhism, giving donations is
common practice in our country,
Myanmar,” said the monk.
“Making merit means making
good karma, which brings good
luck to you now, and also in your
next life.”
However, small monetary
donations are only the lowest
form of merit making, Nyanissara
said, emphasising that other
good deeds were also required to
guarantee favourable reincarnation.
“But most of our people are
poor, so they just collect money a
little bit at a time, which we call
asanna kan (or daily merit).
Asanna kan is like saving money
for the future,” he said.
ASEAN FOCUS
VIETNAM NEWS
Ha Noi
During Japanese Literature
Week in Hanoi (December 26 to
January 8), Japanese books will
be promoted at seminars, film
screenings and exhibitions. The
grand opening will be held at
10am at the Japan Foundation
Centre for Cultural Exchange in
Viet Nam, kicking the event off
with the awards ceremony of a
fan fiction contest.
The nationwide contest,
which opened on November 4,
asked Vietnamese readers to
create fan fiction based on
works by prestigious Japanese
authors such as Haruki
Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto,
Ogawa Yoko and Higashino
Keigo.
A book of 20 shortlisted
works by contestants will be
given free of charge to attendees.
A seminar on Japanese
detective literature will take
place on December 27 at the
Japan Foundation Centre with
the participation of critic Pham
Xuan Nguyen and reader Do
Hoang Nam, administrator of a
group of Japanese detective literature lovers.
The speakers will talk about
the panorama of Japanese
detective literature and
exchange opinions with the
LOVEDORAMA.RU
Japanese literature to entertain capital
Touching: A scene from ‘Life
Back Then’ (‘Antoki no Inochi’)
to be screened at the Japanese
Literature Week 2014.
audience about eminent
authors of this genre.
The seminar will focus on
the work of Higashino Keigo, an
award-winning author who has
had two books translated into
Vietnamese, “The Devotion of
Suspect X” and “Byakuyako”
(“Into the White Night”).
He has published nearly 100
novels and books of short stories, many of which have been
translated into foreign languages and adapted into movies in
Japan, South Korea and France.
Two screenings of “Life Back
Then” (“Antoki no Inochi”) will
be offered for Vietnamese audiences on December 28.
Directed by Takahisa Zeze in
2011, the film was adapted
from the novel by Masashi
Sada published in 2009. It
stars actor Masaki Okada and
actress Nana Eikura.
The film is about Kyohei
Nagashima, who shuts away
the world as he was the target
of bullying during his high
school days. As a young adult,
Kyohei works for a company,
where he meets Yuki, who also
experienced a traumatising
event as a teen and has also
shut herself away from the
world. The two young people
with fragile psyches gradually
open up to each other, and in
the process, to the world.
Free tickets for the screenings will be distributed at the
opening ceremony of the event.
About 40 books by 10
authors in Japanese and
Vietnamese published by Nha
Nam Publishing and
Communications Company will
be displayed at the Japan
Foundation Centre at 27 Quang
Trung Street, Hoan Kiem
District.