• PRESIDENT WANTS TO HAND OVER ROHINGYAS TO UN!
• JUNTA CHIEF’S MAN TO BECOME VP!
• BRITS RETURN TO BURMA!
• OBAMA LIFTS INVESTMENT BAN!
• JOURNAL OF SIAM SOCIETY CAN BE READ ONLINE!

Cartoon
Tips for the President: That’s why middlemen must be chosen very carefully!

Think Piece
One final issue is the question of why many Arakan Buddhists (and pro-democracy luminaries such as Ko Ko Gyi) hate the Rohingya so much, rather than the regime. If they would fight against the Tatmadaw as forcefully as they do against the Rohingya, the dictatorship would fall in short order.

Roland Watson, Dictatorship Watch, 2 July 2012

As a soldier fighting these armed groups, I saw them as “the enemy”. But when I became President, I realized the death of a Kachin soldier is the same as the death of a national army soldier. It is the death of a Myanmar citizen and therefore a loss to the country. Now I no longer see (rebel forces) as part of the enemy but part of the solution.

President Thein Sein, Financial Time report, 12 July 2012

The World
13 July 2012

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announces $ 50 million allocation to help increase prosperity in lower Mekong countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) launched in Phuket 2008 to cover a wide range of cooperation including infrastructure, environment, education and health issues. (Bangkok Post)

13 July 2012
For the first time in 45 years, no joint state from the Asian Foreign Ministers Meeting, which ends today. No accord could be made on South China Sea dispute. (AFP)

International Relations
8 July 2012

Retired Vice Senior General Maung Aye flies to Singapore for treatment. (Irrawaddy)

10 July 2012
President Thein Sein meets visiting Chinese state councilor and minister of public security Meng Jianzhu, vowing to strengthen security and law enforcement cooperation. Meng also meets home minister Ko Ko to discuss further cooperation in Mekong River region. He later meets Shwe Mann and Min Aung Hlaing. (Xinhua)

11 July 2012

President Obama announces lifting investment ban on Burma, allowing companies to enter Burma’s lucrative energy sector, above the objections of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. He also signs a new executive order expanding sanctions against human rights violators in the country. (Foreign Policy)

11 July 2012
Presidential office release statement saying it wants to “hand over Rohingya people” to the UNHCR in Arakan State, adding it is also “willing to send the Rohingyas to any third country that will accept people them,” that “it is impossible to accept people who are not ethnic to the country and who have entered illegally.” It goes on to say the Rohingya migration is a “threat to national stability and peace.” (Irrawaddy) Rohingyas number around 800,000. (AFP)

12 July 2012
Aung San Suu Kyi, in response to US decision to further ease sanctions, describes the move as “nothing significant” and repeats call for the international community to press Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), closely linked to the former junta, for increased transparency. (AFP)

12 July 2012
Speaking to the UN Security Council, Saw Albert, Field Director, Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), says Burma’s reforms have little impact in the ethnic states with human rights abuse still ongoing often at the hands of the military. (KIC)

12 July 2012
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres rejects suggestion by President Thein Sein, saying it is not the UN’s job to resettle the Rohingya. UNHCR’s Asia spokeswoman Kitty Mckhinsey says the solution is for the Rohingyas to get Myanmar citizenship. (Mizzima)

13 July 2012

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talks to President Thein Sein for an hour in Siem Reap. Later American business delegation including Coca Cola, Food, General Electric, General Motors, Goldman Sachs and Google meet them. She also presses him on human rights issue, calling Rohingyas “internally displaced persons.” (AP)

13 July 2012
UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming says criminal charges have been brought against 3 Myanmar nationals who are UN staff. It is not clear what the charges are. Out of 7 other detainees, 3 work for World Food Programme and 4 for Doctors Without Borders (MSF). (Reuters)

The prestigious Journal of the Siam Society, that used to publish scholarship on neighboring countries by G.H. Luce (in Burma), Nai Pan Hla (on Mon) and Sao Saimong (on Shan), can be accessed via http://www.siam-society.org/OJS/index.php/JSS/index. (Bangkok Post)

10 July 2012
New Light of Myanmar says 9 women and 52 men detained in southern border region face charges. (Bangkok Post)

12 July 2012

Labor minister Padermchai Sasomsap says he will go ahead with plans to deport pregnant migrant workers despite mounting resistance to the idea. (Bangkok Post)

Politics/ Inside Burma
6 July 2012
NLD spokesman Nyan Win, sued by Election Commission in response to allegations he made about the body’s complicity with voter fraud, goes to court. (DVB)

9 July 2012
Military parliamentary members nominates Rangoon Region Chief Minister Myint Swe to succeed Tin Aung Myint Oo who resigned earlier. (Mizzima)

9 July 2012
Aung San Suu Kyi makes historic debut in parliament. (Agencies)

11 July 2012
Article in Myanmar Alin newspaper announces Martyrs’ Monument in Meikhtila will be open on 19 July to members of the public. Since the military takeover in 1962, ordinary citizens were barred from attending official events. (Irrawaddy)

11 July 2012

President Thein Sein tells Singapore’s Straits Times the armed forces “have a limited role within the constitution” and “are not involved in any way in the direct affairs of government or government policy.” (Reuters)

Ethnic Affairs
6 July 2012
Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) elects 15 member new central committee headed by Aye Tha Aung. It had won 11 seats in the 1990 elections. (Narinjara)

Shans/ Shan State
9 July 2012

Elected Shan leader Hkun Tun Oo returns to Burma after medical treatment. (SHAN)

Economy/ Business
9 July 2012
British businesses, including oil giants BP and Shell, arrive in Burma for the first government sponsored trade delegation to the country in 2 decades. (The Independent)

9 July 2012
Latest IDC report, Myanmar ICT Market 2012-2016 Force cast and Analysis, predicts 15% year-on-year growth in IT spending this year, with the market reaching $ 268.45 million by 2016 as IT propels Burma’s reintegration into the global economy. (The Register, UK)

11 July 2012
Marubeni, one of Japan’s leading companies, awarded contract to overhaul Ywama thermal power plant, about 20 km northwest of Rangoon. (Japan Times)

14 July 2012
General Electric (GE) secures medical equipment deal with 2 hospitals in Burma becoming first US company to restart business in the country. (Reuters)

Human Rights
6 July 2012
About 1,500 residents of Panghsai, Muse township, driven back into Burma after they crossed into China upon the order to evacuate their villages by the Burma Army. (DVB)

7 July 2012
About 150 families of 800 people living on land owned by Light Infantry Battalion # 283 in Three Pagodas Pass told to leave within 1 November. They are families of ex-servicemen and civil servants. That price of land had gone up more than 5 fold since it was announced an industrial zone would be set up and the “Death Railway” rebuilt in the area. (Mizzima)

9 July 2012
A coalition of 31 international NGOs, including top Burma lobbyists and funders, issues statement calling for the repeal of the 1982 Citizenship law which is “not compatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or with Burma’s legal obligations under international treaties.” (Irrawaddy)

10 July 2012
State-run media reports full-page copies of home ministry document detailing procedures for holding a demonstration:

• Citizens have right to protest under Chapter 8 of 2008 constitution
• Must inform township police at least 1 week in advance
• Authorities cannot reject permission if the gathering “does not threaten national security, rule of law, or state peace and development”
• Anyone wishing to speak at the rally must submit a personal biography

(Irrawaddy)

12 July 2012
Two Rangoon-based journals, Venus and Yangon Times, that carried reports about the health of retired Vice Senior Gen Maung Aye, warned they would be shut down for violating censorship rules. This came after the Voice and Snapshot had been sued. (Irrawaddy)

Drugs
12 July 2012

Thailand’s deputy national police chief Pansiri Prapawat says he was informed by Chinese investigators that Naw Kham had confessed to the murders of 13 sailors that took place on 5 October on the Mekong. (Bangkok Post)

15 July 2012
Thai authorities are considering whether to designate Om Koi district in Chiangmai province to allow controlled poppy cultivation. It will reduce government expenses in destroying the fields, said an official. In addition, it will also save the government’s treasury from having to buy opium from other countries to manufacture much needed medicines. (TPBS, 19:00 News)

War
27 June 2012
Burma Army’s IB 1 enters Thandaung township, Karen state. A 2 minute shootout with Karen National Liberation Army. (KIC)