Landslide at Myanmar jade mine kills at least 162 people

HPAKANT, Myanmar (AP) — At least 162 people were killed Thursday in a landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar, the worst in a series of deadly accidents at such sites in recent years that critics blame on the government’s failure to take action against unsafe conditions.

The Myanmar Fire Service Department, which coordinates rescues and other emergency services, announced about 12 hours after the morning disaster that 162 bodies were recovered from the landslide in Hpakant, the center of the world’s biggest and most lucrative jade mining industry.

The most detailed estimate of Myanmar’s jade industry said it generated about $31 billion in 2014. Hpakant is a rough and remote area in Kachin state, 950 kilometers (600 miles) north of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon.

“The jade miners were smothered by a wave of mud,” the Fire Service said. It said 54 injured people were taken to hospitals. The tolls announced by other state agencies and media lagged behind the fire agency, which was most closely involved. An unknown number of people are feared missing.

Those taking part in the recovery operations, which were suspended after dark, included the army and other government units and local volunteers.

The London-based environmental watchdog Global Witness said the accident “is a damning indictment of the government”s failure to curb reckless and irresponsible mining practices in Kachin state’s jade mines.”

“The government should immediately suspend large-scale, illegal and dangerous mining in Hpakant and ensure companies that engage in these practices are no longer able to operate,” it said in a statement.

At the site of the tragedy, a crowd gathered in the rain around corpses shrouded in blue and red plastic sheets placed in a row on the ground.

Emergency workers had to slog through heavy mud to retrieve bodies by wrapping them in the plastic sheets, which were then hung on crossed wooden poles shouldered by the recovery teams.

Social activists have complained that the profitability of jade mining has led businesses and the government to neglect enforcement of already very weak regulations in the jade mining industry.

“The multi-billion dollar sector is dominated by powerful military-linked companies, armed groups and cronies that have been allowed to operate without effective social and environmental controls for years,” Global Witness said. Although the military is no longer directly in power in Myanmar, it is still a major force in government and exercises authority in remote regions.


Thursday’s death toll surpasses that of a November 2015 accident that left 113 dead and was previously considered the country’s worst. In that case, the victims died when a 60-meter (200-foot) -high mountain of earth and waste discarded by several mines tumbled in the middle of the night, covering more than 70 huts where miners slept.

Those killed in such accidents are usually freelance miners who settle near giant mounds of discarded earth that has been excavated by heavy machinery. The freelancers who scavenge for bits of jade usually work and live in abandoned mining pits at the base of the mounds of earth, which become particularly unstable during the rainy season.

Most scavengers are unregistered migrants from other areas, making it hard to determine exactly how many people are actually missing after such accidents and in many cases leaving the relatives of the dead in their home villages unaware of their fate.

Global Witness, which investigates misuse of revenues from natural resources, documented the $31 billion estimate for Myanmar’s jade industry in a 2015 report that said most of the wealth went to individuals and companies tied to the country’s former military rulers. More recent reliable figures are not readily available.

It said at the time the report was released that the legacy to local people of such business arrangements “is a dystopian wasteland in which scores of people at a time are buried alive in landslides.”

In its statement Thursday, Global Witness blamed the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, which came to power in 2016, for failing “to implement desperately needed reforms, allowing deadly mining practices to continue and gambling the lives of vulnerable workers in the country’s jade mines.”

Jade mining also plays a role in the decades-old struggle of ethnic minority groups in Myanmar’s borderlands to take more control of their own destiny.

The area where members of the Kachin minority are dominant is poverty stricken despite hosting lucrative deposits of rubies as well as jade.

The Kachin believe they are not getting a fair share of the profits from deals that the central government makes with mining companies.

Kachin guerrillas have engaged in intermittent but occasionally heavy combat with government troops.

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Pyae Son Win reported from Yangon, Myanmar.

Associated Press

Myanmar doctor-turned-model hits back at ban over revealing photos

YANGON, Myanmar — A Myanmar doctor and model who had her medical license revoked for posting lingerie photos of herself blasted the government for "interfering" with personal freedoms, vowing Saturday to appeal against the medical council's decision in a deeply conservative country.

Nang Mwe San frequently updates her Facebook—the main mode of online communication in Myanmar—with photos of herself dressed in swimsuits and lingerie, mimicking US model Kendall Jenner's sheer outfits, as well as form-fitting Myanmar traditional wear.

But while the country's youth have embraced modern clothing and pop culture, attitudes are slow to evolve and the conservative society still frowns on any depictions of overt sexuality.

Her risque outfits ran afoul of the Myanmar Medical Council, who issued her a letter dated June 3 revoking her license for "her dressing style which is against Myanmar culture and tradition."

The notice came after a warning in January, making her promise to take down the Facebook posts, Nang Mwe San said, which she signed but did not comply with.

The 29-year-old, who worked for five years as a general practitioner before pursuing a modelling career in 2017, said there are no specific restrictions on dress code in medical ethics.

"I am not dressed like that when I am treating patients," Nang Mwe San said, adding that this was "unacceptable" and she plans to appeal the council's decision within the month.

"I don’t think they should interfere with personal freedoms and it is not their business," she said, adding that she still hopes to return to medicine in the future.

Myanmar currently faces a "critical shortage" of trained health workers, according to the World Health Organization.

The medical council members could not be reached for comment.

But local netizens had plenty to say, with some harpooning her for criticizing a lack of human rights and democracy in Myanmar.

"Human rights is not about exposing your body," said commenter Shwe Thu Razza. "You should maintain Myanmar culture."

But others came down on the model's side.

"What she wears... outside of work should not matter to her profession," said Swa Win Kyaw.

source: philstar.com

Four days in Yangon

Yangon today reminds me of China in the early ’90s when the latter had just decided to open up to capitalism and the West.  Just 20 years ago the main form of transport for the average Beijing resident was a bicycle and the tallest buildings in Shanghai were the colonial structures along the Bund.  Then, one could look up and see a great deal of clear sky, walk around and peek into centuries-old streets and homes still populated by their original communities.  One could still immerse oneself in a type of living that was not frantic as we like it now in more developed places in Asia, but unhurried and far more in tune with a human being’s real needs-food, shelter, light company. Similarly, the urban landscape of Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar (once Burma) and still its largest city, is one I had never thought to see again, harking back, as it does, to an era I associate with the East India Company and the author of The Jungle Book.

Development is coming to Yangon — you can tell by the rising levels of dust — but so far, newer and less interesting block buildings are still outnumbered by British colonial buildings, government, religious or residential, alternating between the refurbished and crumbling.  Driving around the city, one passes brick villas succumbing to the small forests that have overrun abandoned estates, towering bright red and white cathedrals, confections of perfectly turned out colonial era government buildings and squat, sturdy and still useful early twentieth century hospitals and schools.  Walking back to my hotel from a meeting by the river, I meandered through streets lined with colorful four-, even five-story high pre-war residential structures, their upper floors accessible only by narrow steep stairs, their pocked balustrades covered with drying clothes, ropes and potted plants.

One evening I had dinner at a small restaurant, run by a street children foundation, located on the second floor of one of these buildings. I was the only one there and the young men in charge thoughtfully set my table on the small terrace overlooking the street.  As I chewed on my traditional Burmese tea leaf salad and wondered whether I would go into anaphylactic shock from the peanuts I was sure were in it, I gazed on the pretty toddler in a white dress trying to clamber onto or through the green stone balustrade bordering the terrace just opposite mine and the groups of people squatted down in low stools and tables at the yoghurt restaurant which had taken up much of the street below.

The streets of downtown Yangon are arranged in a grid and seemed each to be devoted to one or other good or trade; one was dominated by graphic design shops, another to metal tools, still another was home to a wet market and another to a large structure filled with every kind of cloth — cloths for blankets, towels, or traditional longyis. The streets to the north of the city are more winding, taking one around cool, leafy suburbs of sprawling hotels, golf courses and palatial mansions which would not look out of place in Singapore.  The latter, bordered by high walls covered by rows of lethal-looking razor wire, reminded me that, as is true for most beautiful things, Yangon, for all its grace and charm, has much darker stories to tell.

It is in this area, close to the smaller of the city’s two lakes, that the Bogyoke Aung San Museum is located.  Once open only for three hours a year on Martyr’s Day, the white and black colonial-era villa was the last home of General Aung San, founder of the country’s modern army, author of its freedom from British colonial rule and father of its most famous dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi.  Built on top of a terraced hill, one which the general apparently farmed himself, the museum houses old photographs of the family, of the General himself, a strikingly handsome man with a resolute gaze in his 30s, and, idiosyncratically, a replica of the kind of simple meal he liked to eat and a small collection of his books, including a full list of them posted on a piece of paper tacked to the wall above the locked glass book shelf.  It made sense that the list was made up mostly by books on strategy and war.  At the bottom of the hill is a small green pond where, not long after the General’s assassination, his second son drowned.



 I have saved a description of the most awe-inspiring sight in Yangon for last, seeing as the sight of what Rudyard Kipling called “Burma’s greatest pagoda” blazing in the night was the thing I saw of Myanmar before my plane wheeled away for home.  The Shwedagon Pagoda is built on top of a hill and dominates the skyline of Yangon.  Guarded at one of its four gates by two colossal lions from which issued the longest murmuration I had ever seen, it can only be reached by a waterfall of of steep stairs (there are also now escalators).  At the end of the climb one finds oneself on a platform of white stone surrounded on all sides by hundreds of Buddhas, stupas and lesser pagodas, ranging from the dazzling and filigreed to the simple and elegant, throwing in a few garish ones for good measure.   And towering above everything, gilded in actual gold, its top encrusted with thousands of diamonds, including a 70-carat one, is that, as Kipling described it, “beautiful winking wonder that blazed in the sun,” that “golden dome (which) said ‘This is Burma, and it will be quite unlike any land you know about.’”

source: philstar.com

Myanmar leaps ahead of the Philippines in creation of ICT ministry

MACTAN, Cebu — And now it’s down to three.

Myanmar recently became the latest ASEAN member country to install its own ICT department as announced by its ICT Minister during the 12th ASEAN Telecommunications Minister (TelMin) Conference here on Thursday, leaving only Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines as the remaining three countries without a cabinet-level ICT agency.

The formal announcement was made by Myanmar’s U Thein Tun during his speech as the outgoing ASEAN TelMin chair.

“Effective November 9, Myanmar’s ICT agency’s name has been changed from Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraph to Ministry of Communications and Information Technology,” Tun told an audience composed of ICT and telecommunications leaders from various ASEAN nations.

The announcement was met with hushed surprise from some of the delegates, with one Philippine executive even exclaiming: “Napag-iwanan na tayo ng Myanmar!” (The Philippines is already trailing behind Myanmar!)

Once isolated by decades of military rule, Myanmar is slowly transitioning into a burgeoning democracy, marked by the gradual opening of the country to global trade and the recent release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in 2010.

Newly reelected US President Barack Obama is also scheduled to visit Myanmar this week as part of a three-country ASEAN tour, the first ever US head of state to do so.

Vice President Jejomar Binay, representing President Benigno Aquino III during the conference, said as of the moment the administration sees no need to establish a separate Department of ICT since the Department of Science and Technology is capable of handling the country’s ICT affair.

“Kapag nagtatag ka kasi ng bagong departamento (When we create a new department), it means new budget, new employees, new offices. But in the mean time, where we are, kaya pa naman ng present department iyong (the current department is still able [to provide]) demands ng ICT,” Binay told reporters at the sidelines of the meet.

The vice president, however, added that eventually the country may need to have its own central ICT agency: “Bukas makalawa siguro, kapag ang pangangailangan ay dumating ay magtatayo din tayo ng sariling Department of ICT.”

In past interviews, Malacañang has reiterated that a DICT will only “bloat bureaucracy,” with the DOST formally withdrawing support for the agency’s creation after supporting it a few years back.


In earlier reports, sources at the ICTO have noted that the usual backers of the DICT in the industry have turned lukewarm following the promise of funding from the newly created ICT office.

“They don’t want to risk losing that support,” the source said. “Sure, the DICT is a bigger name and could possibly get bigger appropriations, but it would still boil down to who would eventually be sitting at the helm of the DICT.”

Earlier, House Committee on ICT Chairman Sigfrido Tinga, one of the key proponents of the DICT bill that had already passed in both houses of Congress, noted how Malacañang sees the DICT as an “unnecessary bureaucracy” whose functions can already be performed by the ICTO.

“We are at a point in time when people see it’s important but don’t think it’s the end all and be all,” Tinga said, underscoring the wide gulf separating the legislative and executive branches of government in terms of their respective ICT goals for the country.

For the Information and Communications Technology Office, however, everything is business as usual, as they prepare to promote the next-wave cities of the Philippines, a project pioneered by the now-defunct CICT.

While the Congress bill seeking to create the DICT has already been passed by both chambers, bicameral conferences to consolidate both versions of the bill is still at a standstill, presumably due to Aquino’s lukewarm perception toward its creation.

source: interaksyon.com

Myanmar Goes Plastic With First Debit Cards

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar launched its first debit cards on Friday, giving customers the chance to use plastic for shopping, dining and travel for the first time in the latest leap forward for its cash-dominated economy.

The central bank announced the formation of the Myanmar Payment Union (MPU), in cooperation with 17 banks, which will let customers take out cash from any ATM machine nationwide and make payments in a small number of shops, restaurants and offices.

"Now we still have a cash society, but we're heading towards a cashless one," Ye Min Oo, secretary of the MPU, said at the launch in the commercial capital, Yangon.

Debit and credit cards have been available for years in most neighboring countries but the arrival of plastic in Myanmar is a significant step for an economy lumbered with an antiquated banking system after decades of Western sanctions and disastrous fiscal policies under a military regime.

Even ATM machines were virtually unheard of in Myanmar a year ago, when cash had to be used for almost every transaction.

The military regime gave way in March 2011 to a quasi-civilian government under President Thein Sein, who has introduced a series of political and economic reforms.

These have included the introduction of a managed float of the kyat currency in April this year, when a system of multiple exchange rates began to be dismantled.

ATM cards were launched this year, but holders were only able to use the machines of their own bank.

Plans are in place to offer credit cards in coming months after MasterCard Inc reached an agreement with Co-Operative Bank Limited, which has 24 ATMs, to issue the country's first branded cards.

Foreign banks are still not allowed to offer banking services in Myanmar. A growing number have opened representative offices.

Use of the new debit cards will be restricted at first to 14 places in Yangon, including shopping malls, airline offices, computer shops, one hotel and two restaurants.

Withdrawals from ATM machines will be limited to 1 million kyat ($1,152) per day, the central bank said.

(Reporting by Thu Rein Hlaing; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan Raybould and Robert Birsel)

source: nytimes.com