It will take more than the arrest of one drug lord to convince the world that Burma has kicked its habit Something is cooking in the Burmese sector of the Golden Triangle, but the verdict is still out on what any of it means for the future of the country’s opium politics and insurgencies.
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Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, and other Communist party leaders have argued convincingly that they need to address China’s severe environmental and social challenges as well as simply promoting economic growth. Desertification, water pollution and urban smog make the idea of greening China both laudable and long overdue.
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October 29
United Nations: The outgoing U.N. envoy for Myanmar said Friday he is pessimistic that a longtime diplomatic standoff with the military junta will get any better if the West continues its tough approach.
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Bangkok: Ignoring warnings of “far-reaching and extremely serious consequences”, Myanmar’s military rulers have told the International Labor Organization (ILO) the country will be quitting the United Nations organization.
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It’s hard to feel good about a person described as an absconder, an insurgent and an opium-smuggling terrorist–unless the group doing the name calling is the military junta that runs Burma (Myanmar) and the person being defamed is Dr. Cynthia Maung. Since 1988, Maung has been building and running a thriving medical clinic on the treacherous Thailand-Burma border, providing badly needed health care for 70,000 people a year and facing down one of the most oppressive dictatorships in the world to do it.
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October 29
A recent meeting of the Shan State Army ‘North’ leaders had resolved to attend the constitutional convention to be held by Burma’s generals before the end of the year, according to ceasefire sources.
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October 27
A veteran Burmese politician advised all opposition groups within, without Burma including the National League for Democracy (NLD), to actively seek the ‘sympathy’ of neighbouring government of China as soon as possible.
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A new armed opposition group in Kachin State has created internal and external divisions within the region as the currently unnamed fledgling organization attempts to deal with Rangoon.
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Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy called on the UN Security Council on Monday to consider urgently the human rights and political situation in Burma and support the report prepared by former Czech president Vaclav Havel and retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
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October 29
Yangon: Myanmar’s military government on Saturday said it would resume a key meeting to draft a constitution, the first step on the country’s self-set path to democracy, state radio and television reported.
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