HealtH fears for letpadan detaineesNews 6

iCrC warns of ‘CatastropHe’ in YemenwORLD 16

survivors saY Captain saved russians first eXLUsIVe 4

Path cleared for six-way talksPresident agrees to meet house speakers, NLD leader and commander-in-chief on April 10 following a three-hour meeting with 48 political leaders yesterday that was dominated by debate on constitutional change. News 3

ReLateD RepORt News 2

www.mmtimes.com DAiLY eDitioN issUe 24 | thUrsDAY, ApriL 9, 2015

500Ks.

Heartbeat of tHe nation

Indonesia to probe slavery allegationsTHE Indonesian government has an-nounced it will form a special team to investigate allegations of slavery in the fishing industry, as officials pre-pare to return hundreds of foreign crewmen to their homelands, includ-ing Myanmar.

The head of the fisheries ministry’s illegal fishing task force, Mas Achmad Santosa, said several fishermen had claimed that an Indonesian company, which employed more than 1000 for-eigners from several Southeast Asian nations, engaged in slavery and tor-ture in the remote east of the country.

The issue was a priority when Pres-ident Joko Widodo chaired a cabinet meeting late on April 7, with fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti declaring af-terward Indonesia must show it is se-rious about tackling the problem and stamping out illegal fishing.

“We must solve this. It should nev-er happen again, because it is embar-rassing for Indonesia,” she said.

The International Organization for Migration has estimated up to 4000 fishermen may be stranded in remote parts of Indonesia, mostly dumped by illicit fishing operators.

Mr Santosa said more than 350 mainly Myanmar fishermen were transferred over the weekend from Benjina island, off the coast of West Papua province, for their safety. – AFP

Hundreds of rescued fishermen, most from Myanmar and Thailand, leave a vessel after being rescued by Indonesia’s illegal fishing task force during an operation in a remote Indonesian island on April 4 that was launched following allegations of slavery. Photo: AFP/Ugeng Nugroho/Ministry of Fishery

Pharmacies pledge not to sell sexual stimulants

NO sex pills please – this is Nay Pyi Taw. Pharmacies throughout the capi-tal have pledged to clear their shelves of amphetamines and sexual stimu-lation drugs for the duration of the Thingyan water festival, Police Colonel Zaw Khin Aung, deputy head of Nay Pyi Taw Police Force, said yesterday.

“We want to avoid taking action if possible, so we asked for their under-taking. We’ve already given briefings. We arrested three people in Tatkon township and we’ve conducted checks in Pyinmana, Lewe and Zabuthiri. Anyone who breaks their guarantee will face a one-year prison sentence,” he said, warning that spot checks would be carried out.

Though last year’s festival was al-most trouble-free except for scattered car accidents and street fights, the po-lice say they are ready to ensure secu-rity throughout the holiday.

“It seems young people think they are officially permitted to take drugs and consume alcohol if pandals are authorised. We have noted a year-on-year increase in the spread of

narcotics among young people,” said Pol Col Zaw Khin Aung.

One chemist in Pyinmana told The Myanmar Times that he had heard drugstores that are suspected of sell-ing illicit drugs were called to a meet-ing with the authorities.

“Our store was clearly told what kinds of drugs could not be sold when we applied for pharmacy registration. But until now, we have never had to undergo a police check,” he said.

However, young people say that despite the crackdown, they antici-pate no difficulty in getting hold of drugs and booze at pandals and restaurants.

– Translation by Zar Zar Soe

Hsu Hlaing Htunhsuhlainghtun.mcm@gmail.com

Cultural, environment protections promised for Amarapura project

A MODEL village project that would recreate an ancient community will preserve the environment and re-spect history, a development company spokesperson assured journalists yes-terday. Executive consultant U Soe Myat Thu, of the Taungthaman Thit-sar company, told a press conference that the three-year, K10 billion project would avoid felling trees and would not obstruct views of the lake.

The 40-acre site on former farm-land near the historic U Bein Bridge is situated well beyond the 120-foot (40-metre) clearance area around the structure prescribed by the Ministry of Culture, he said.

The Taungthaman village resort will showcase traditional stalls, a ser-vice area, a site map area for tourists and a garden.

U Bein Bridge spans Taungtha-man Lake in Amarapura, Mandalay Region. Once the capital of the Kon-baung Dynasty, Amarapura is home to several historic sites, including Pahtodawgyi, Bagaya Kyaung, Maha Gandhayon Kyaung and Kyautawgyi Paya.

“It will feature Amarapura-era model buildings, show the production of edible oil, and bullock carts,” said U Soe Myat Thu.

“The highest building is two sto-reys, and will not obscure the beauty of the lake. No trees will be cut down.”

Mandalay writer Sue Hnget said

transparency was important in view of rumours that the environment might be at risk because of the pro-ject. “Amarapura is the centre of our cultural heritage,” he said.

U Soe Myat Thu said the developer was a Myanmar-owned company set up last April.

KHin su Waijasminekhin@gmail.com

A man rows a boat across

Taunthaman Lake, below U Bein Bridge. Photo:

Phyo Wai Kyaw

‘Until now, we have never had to undergo a police check.’

Pyinmana pharmacist

6 News THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

Student arrests highlight prison woes

OUTSIDE Letpadan Township Court on April 7, worried parents gathered to follow the proceedings of a trial against their children who had par-ticipated in a protest against the Na-tional Education Law. But most of the parents’ concerns were not about the legal system, in which they have lit-tle faith, but about the health of the young activists.

“My son was beaten badly and his head still hurts,” said the mother of Ko Mar Naw, a student from Kachin State who had joined the sit-in in Letpadan on March 10. The worried mother feels powerless as all she can do is bring her son medicine in prison. “Medicine will not help him; he needs to see a doctor,” his mother said, while nervously keeping her eyes on the prison van that was about to take her son back to prison.

Other parents expressed similar worries. U Khin Maung Kyi, father of student Ko Than Swe, said his son was taken to hospital last week. “He cannot see with one eye because he was beaten a lot on his head,” U Khin Maung Kyi said. “He is one of the boys on the photo who loses his longyi when he was running, you know?”

Photos of students being beaten by police officers have circulated on so-cial media and on the covers of news-papers for weeks. In the first weeks after the crackdown, when parents were not allowed to visit their chil-dren, they were desperately trying to gather information through released students and people who had wit-nessed the violent crackdown in the small town north of Yangon.

Ko Than Swe was sent to hospital last week, three weeks after he sus-tained his head injury. He was taken back to Tharyarwady Prison the same day. His father had heard rumours that his son would be sent to hospi-tal in Yangon but has been unable to confirm this. Prison authorities are not forthcoming with informa-tion and most of the time friends and family are left worrying about their

well-being.The lack of access to healthcare

is not unique to this case. Prisons in Myanmar are infamous, one apparent reason being the lack of medical care.

“The Ministry of Home Affairs needs to address long-standing con-cerns over poor health, sanitation and nutrition for regular and po-litical prisoners. Burma’s prisons are routinely referred to as hellholes, and this is directly the government’s fault,” said David Mathieson, senior researcher for Asia for Human Rights Watch.

Convicts and political prisoners alike are often not allowed to see a

doctor and rarely get permission to visit a hospital.

“To receive proper medical treat-ment, common prisoners need to pay bribe money and political prisoners need approval from intelligence offic-ers to visit a public hospital outside the prison,” said Ko Bo Kyi, general secretary of the Assistance Associa-tion for Political Prisoners.

He added that with the approval of intelligence services, some political prisoners had received proper treat-ment lately.

The lack of healthcare for the in-jured students in custody is a viola-tion of the United Nations Standard

Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which states, “Sick prison-ers who require specialist treatment shall be transferred to specialised in-stitutions or to civil hospitals.”

Not only injuries sustained during the crackdown are bothering the stu-dents. Some of them are developing health complaints from sleeping on the hard beds in prison and the heat, which will only get worse in the com-ing month. The medicine provided by their parents will only be able to al-leviate their complaints, not prevent or cure them.

Many students at the court yes-terday looked skinny, a result of their

deteriorating health under the harsh prison conditions, the lack of good food and the stress of their pending trial.

Parents and other visitors ar-rived with bags of food that had been pouring into the court compound all morning. Bags of rice, fruit and water were lifted over the gate of the court-house all day. One mother quickly was handed two bags of grapes before she went to see her son. “Take it, your son should eat it,” the man who hand-ed it to her said.

The parents have been allowed to visit their children each Wednesday and Thursday, and every time they bring food and medicine.

This is essential, because in the Myanmar prison system food and medicine supplied by the authorities is far from sufficient.

“In some prisons, there is no pris-on hospital but even if there is, there is not enough medicine or doctors,” said Ko Bo Kyi. “The family needs to provide medicine when they visit prisons.”

While the prisoners receive meals in prison, Human Rights Watch said that there are systematic reports of dirty rice and haphazard food sup-ply. “By all accounts it’s a culinary dungeon, far below what minimum standards of nutrition should be sup-plied to prisoners,” Mr Mathieson said.

The activists standing trial were taken back to prison on April 7 after the hearing was adjourned due to the prosecution’s request for the trial to be transferred to the Tharyarwady District Court. The next hearing has been brought forward to today, and a decision on the location has not yet been made.

None of the police officers who acted with extreme violence in the March 10 crackdown on the students and local activists who supported them has been charged.

Eighty-one students and activists have been charged under five sec-tions of the Criminal Procedure Code, which could amount to prison terms amounting to dozens of years each if they are found guilty.

Yola Verbruggenyverbruggen@gmail.com

A relative of one of the Letpadan detainees cries outside court on March 25. Photo: Zarni Phyo

IN DEPTH

Lack of medical care for those arrested at Letpadan on March 10 symptomatic of a prison system woefully behind international standards

naY PYi taW

News 7www.mmtimes.com

ViewsFear, favour infect the region’s media

RogeR mittonrogermitton@gmail.com

WHEN pondering media repression in this region, it is not the blatant cases of molesting, detaining and jailing journalists that inflame us most, but the craftier controls en-forced by backroom bureaucrats and company bagmen.

Consider a typical example that occurred some years ago when the then-leader of South Africa, Presi-dent FW de Klerk, paid a state visit to Singapore.

Local reporters who were as-signed to cover the event were sent to the foreign ministry to receive a briefing about the itinerary and other details concerning the visit.

The official giving the briefing, Bilahari Kausikan, was a high-flyer in the ministry and a favourite of the late former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Indeed, he was soon made an ambassador and later became permanent secretary, the ministry’s topmost bureaucrat.

Much like his mentor, Bilhari never minced his words and regard-ed political correctness as a rather effete Western affectation that tough little Singapore could not afford to indulge in.

So, in his usual blunt style, he told members of the press how to report de Klerk’s trip, stressing that it was highly sensitive, even more than the recent visit of United States President George HW Bush.

It must be covered in a re-strained way, he said, so that it would not upset Singapore’s neigh-bours, “who are friends with the coons”.

Bilahari routinely referred to the South Africans as coons. Actually, he often used far cruder terms for blacks and other minorities.

We both once attended a private dinner given by Peter Mackler, who was then the AFP bureau chief in Singapore, and I was later told by Peter and his wife that they had wanted to ask Bilahari to leave because of his offensive racist language.

But that is another issue. The point here is that Bilahari ordered the media to play down the visit – keep it off the front page, put a picture on page 3, and do not say Singapore PM Goh Chok Tong played golf with de Klerk.

Of course, the Singapore journal-ists obeyed; they did not want to get sacked. Some of them, however, told their visiting colleagues about the onerous reporting rules and the South Africans were shocked.

De Klerk was livid. He fumed that even in apartheid South Africa they did not do such things and he let the Singapore government know how he felt.

That’s when the offal hit the fan. The local journalists were ques-tioned to try to discover who had spoken to the South Africans about Bilahari’s strictures and the utter contempt for the media that they betrayed.

Really, it was nothing special. It happened, and continues to happen

all the time, as readers of the recent memoir of Cheong Yip Seng, the group editor-in-chief of the Singa-pore Straits Times, made clear.

Many good journalists left the paper because of that kind of nonsense, most of it due to Lee’s unflinching dictum, “The freedom of the press must be subordinated to the integrity of Singapore.”

Or more bluntly: You will write what I say because I, and my min-ions like Bilahari, will decide what is best for Singapore.

What is most offensive about this dismissal of the media’s ability – in fact, its duty – to make up its own mind about the government’s integ-rity is that it has become pervasive across the region.

Often done in underhand but crass ways like the Singapore exam-ple above, it is more often commit-ted shamelessly in full public view, thus displaying disregard for the general public as well as the fourth estate.

In Vietnam, for instance, perhaps the most media-repressive society in all of ASEAN, every single publica-tion is owned directly or indirectly by the dictatorial and long-ruling Vietnam Communist Party.

As a former deputy minister of culture, Do Quy Doan, said, “The press in our country is under the party’s control and is used to pro-tect the point of view, direction and leadership of the party.”

And that’s just what it does, with fear and favour. The fear is of summary sacking or prompt jailing; the favour comes in white envelopes with local currency inside worth about US$5 or $10 - not a lot, but it soon adds up.

When first given such an envelope at an event in Danang, I handed it back - and upset local re-porters, who needed the money and, like many of their colleagues in the region, were accustomed to skipping to the party’s tune.

In Thailand, it was recently revealed that one of the largest and most well-connected companies, Charoen Pokphand Foods, routinely did the same kind of thing.

Except that, as might be expected from a profit-oriented conglomerate, CPF formally set up a department to purchase the loyalty of journalists.

As the Bangkok Post noted when it ran parts of a leaked CPF report, the company rated journalists as “relatively familiar” (cannot be or-dered to publish stories), “familiar” (can be told to run certain stories), or “close” (can be instructed to do anything).

The department had an annual budget of about $70,000 and made monthly payments to reporters to carry CPF-positive stories or to prevent CPF-unfavourable stories appearing.

Three years ago, when a CPF staffer committed suicide by jump-ing into a crocodile pool, the com-pany report noted, “We paid 30,000 baht [about $1000] to successfully prevent this story from being published.”

That is how it is across the region: Reporters are ordered or paid to carry or not to carry certain stories, or to write them in a certain way, or to place them on a certain page. And they do it.

No journalist likes to admit it, but as George Orwell said, “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And that includes fel-low journalists.

What is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi worried about?

“WE don’t think boycotting the elec-tion is the best choice. But we’re not ruling it out altogether. We are leav-ing our options open.”

So said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in an interview with Reuters news agency on April 3.

Her comments have been the hot-test news among political analysts and the public.

She also said in the interview that she is worried that President U Thein Sein may delay the election, citing the need to finalise peace talks with ethnic armed groups.

On January 12, the president called a meeting in Nay Pyi Taw together with the two parliament speakers, Commander-in-Chief Sen-ior General Min Aung Hlaing, Na-tional League for Democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, other po-litical leaders and ethnic affairs ministers.

In the meeting, President U Thein Sein expressed his attitude toward amending the constitution, saying, “I always believe that a constitution must be amended under [particular] circumstances. I believe we have to do the constitutional amendment if we are to build a federal union that ethnic people have continuously demanded and ensure the imple-mentation of the democratic transi-tion. But this should be done based on possible outcomes of political

dialogue that will develop from the current peacemaking process as well as in accord with legal procedures stated in the 2008 constitution.

“Trying to change the constitu-tion without legal procedures has a tendency to overtake the rule of law so we have to do the constitutional amending in accord with the provi-sions of the constitution,” he added.

Now negotiators from the govern-ment and armed ethnic groups have reached a draft nationwide ceasefire accord and it is expected that they will sign the agreement in May. After that, political dialogue should start within 90 days, as stipulated in the agreement.

The president’s speech indicates that he only wants to change the constitution after political dialogue is complete. What the president said contradicts Pyidaungsu Hlut-taw Speaker Thura U Shwe Mann’s promise that the constitution amending process will start during the 12th session of parliament, which is taking place now, and a referen-dum will be held in May to approve proposed amendments.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi seems anxious about this contradiction. She’s right to be.

But I don’t think it’s fair to blame

the president alone. The plan of the two Speakers is not totally different from what the president wants to do.

On February 12 – Union Day – ethnic leaders met the president and commander-in-chief in Nay Pyi Taw. They also held separate discus-sions with the two Speakers. Amyo-tha Hluttaw Speaker U Khin Aung Myint spoke about the connection between peace and constitutional change.

“Parliament gives serious consid-eration to implementation of consti-tutional amendments and has also prepared to start the process,” he said.

“Constitutional change is essen-tial for building peace. After signing a nationwide ceasefire agreement, political dialogue will take place and its outcome will be taken into con-sideration when implementing con-stitutional change.”

He added, “Some constitutional provisions need just 75 percent of support from MPs, while others also need approval from the public at a referendum.”

Given that point, President U Thein Sein is not alone in wanting to prolong the constitutional amend-ment process as long as possible. Both Speakers and Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hla-ing want to do exactly the same.

If they continue with this ap-proach, this year’s general election will take place under the 2008 con-stitution. If so, it cannot be free and fair.

In conclusion, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s fears over the election are reasonable. Unless the president, the two speakers and the commander-in-chief get the constitution amend-ment process under way, the threat of conflict and instability will hover over Myanmar’s political future.

– Translation by Zar Zar Soe

Sithu Aung myintnewsroom@mmtimes.com

National League for Democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi attends a meeting hosted by President U Thein Sein in Nay Pyi Taw yesterday. Photo: AFP

President U Thein Sein is not alone in wanting to prolong the constitutional amendment process as long as possible.

Reclaiming the rice bowl title

8 THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

Business

DRESSED in Chelsea football shorts and a wide-brimmed hat, U Than Tun toils away in his paddy field on the outskirts of Yangon, sweat pouring down his sinewy arms.

Gruelling work that once helped Myanmar become the world’s largest rice exporter is today a Herculean and often lonely job for farmers striving to return the impoverished nation to its former grain prowess.

“No one comes here and asks about the difficulties we face,” the 40-year-old said during his break, citing vo-racious insects, crumbling irrigation channels and greedy middlemen as just some of the challenges preventing him making a profit.

For much of the early 20th cen-tury Myanmar was Asia’s rice bowl. But after a nominally socialist junta seized power in 1962, decades of mismanagement shattered the agri-culture industry in a nation where 70 percent of inhabitants still live in the countryside.

The quasi-civilian reformist gov-ernment, which took over from the military in 2011, is determined to res-urrect the country’s reputation as a rice producer.

But rotting stocks, creaking infra-structure, heavily indebted farmers and minimal foreign investment are among the hurdles it faces.

Still, many economists believe helping farmers like U Than Tun of-fers Myanmar one of the fastest ways to both alleviate poverty and turn around the country’s fortunes.

“Improvements in agriculture are one of the genuine ‘low-hanging fruit’ of reforms that could do much, re-markably quickly,” said Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar’s economy at Australia’s Macquarie University.

“This is not just theory – we can see Vietnam as a wonderful example of what is possible. A country that could barely feed itself in the 1980s now dominates various food and com-modity categories,” he added.

Sergiy Zorya, a Bangkok-based

expert on rice production at the World Bank, agrees it is high time Myanmar and the international community did more to invest in rice farmers. “A significant increase in rice productivity and yields over the next decade would offer a major opportu-nity to drive GDP growth, increase farming incomes, increase exports and reduce poverty,” he said.

Rice is a good poverty alleviation tool, he explains, because money ac-tually filters down to poor farmers rather than resting in the hands of corporations or middlemen.

He points to Cambodia, which has heavily invested in improving rice pro-duction and exports. Over the past 10 years each 1 percent increase in GDP has resulted in reducing the country’s poverty rate by 5.2 percent.

“But in Laos, an economy dominat-ed by hydro-power and mining, a 1pc growth in GDP results in just a 0.5pc poverty reduction,” he adds.

Myanmar is fortunate to have both huge natural resources and farming potential. But it is the former that has piqued the interest of foreign inves-tors scrambling to access the sector as the country opens up.

On the northwestern outskirts of Yangon lies Shwe Pyi Tar, a dusty sub-urb of wooden shacks overshadowed by huge warehouses, where most of Myanmar’s rice harvest is milled.

U Kyaw Win, who owns one of the area’s larger processing plants, is des-perate for the government to clear the hurdles for foreigners to invest in the rice industry.

“Our farmers need more knowl-edge about how to harvest more effi-ciently. At the moment we are creat-ing a lot of waste,” he says, as workers haul heavy sacks of unmilled rice be-hind him.

Lack of good storage facilities means most farmers are forced to sell their rice shortly after the harvest – when prices are at their lowest.

Meanwhile, local mills are noto-riously inefficient – some are still steam-powered – and produce low-quality rice that is hard to export and sold on the cheap.

In one of U Kyaw Win’s warehouses

a group of Japanese technicians install a gleaming new US$3-million mill controlled by a complicated bank of computers.

The rice wholesaler is one of the few businessmen with hard cash to buy new equipment in an industry where most find restrictive financial rules prevent them investing in mod-ern mills.

U Kyaw Win says the largest loan he can access locally is around $1.5 million, which he would need to pay off within a year. But the entrepreneur is among the luckier ones already ex-panding his business.

“We have plans for a bigger plant, which we’ve already ordered. That will cost $5-6 million,” he said, adding that foreign investment would help other companies like his bring Myanmar’s

rice production back on track.U Than Tun is also dreaming of

a better future, but he has smaller goals, starting with decent irrigation.

The system for his paddy fields, only 20 kilometres (12 miles) from fast-developing downtown Yangon, was built in his grandfather’s time while his village Htaw Bo still lacks electricity.

“The government is not helping the farmers much. We have to take care of the irrigation system our-selves,” he said.

U Than Tun said he has never voted and taken little interest so far in the landmark election slated for later this year.

“From what I can tell there’s noth-ing offered for us,” he concludes. “We just have to be on our own.” – AFP

‘This is not just theory – we can see Vietnam as a wonderful example of what is possible.’

Sean Turnell Economist

Rice workers fill bags for export on the outskirts of Yangon. Photos: AFP

9BusinEss Editor: Jeremy Mullins | jeremymullins7@gmail.com

Exchange Rates (April 8 close)

Currency Buying SellingEuroMalaysia RingittSingapore DollarThai BahtUS Dollar

K1152K290K780

K32.5K1075

K1172K297K790

K33.5K1086

digital entrepreneur takes to the web to spread his message

india’s Modi to woo European investors during trip

BuSineSS 10 BuSineSS 12

A Telenor employee gives away branded items during a visit to Hpa-an, Kayin State. Photo: Aung Htay Hlaing

THE Directorate of Investment and Company Administration is regis-tering companies to trade futures online, but it is not responsible for oversight of the business, according to deputy director Daw Nilar Mu.

A number of companies have set up futures brokerages in Myanmar. They allow clients to trade through online platforms on international futures markets though some say the legal situation of some of these businesses are unclear and should be more strictly regulated.

Brokerage companies have said they are cleared to run in Myanmar as they have business registration from the Directorate, but Daw Nilar Mu said yesterday that this is not strictly the case.

“Our department only provides permits for a company’s name and then completes registration. If they want to run their business, they must apply for permission from the

relevant government organisation,” she said.

In the case of financial services companies, this generally means permission from a body such as the Central Bank of Myanmar or the Se-curities and Exchange Commission of Myanmar.

The Securities and Exchange Com-mission of Myanmar is currently pre-paring policies and reviewing appli-cants for the planned Yangon Stock Exchange, which is to launch later this year. Senior commission mem-bers could not be reached for com-ment yesterday.

Businesses involved in online fu-tures trading say they have permis-sion to operate through their Direc-torate of Investment and Company

Administration licences.Ma Myat Myat, an assistance busi-

ness manager with Asian E-Trade Consultant Company, a company al-lowing Myanmar people to trade on the New Zealand futures market, says it has both a business licence from the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration as well as an authorisation letter from New Zealand.

She also said that her firm is not a broker, but merely providing a ser-vice for the financial market.

“If someone has K10 million, it is not enough to set up a company. But in our business, it’s enough to invest,” she said. “If clients are able to con-trol their desire, they might profit by K200,000 or K300,000 a day – but it’s not a sure thing.”

Ma Myat Myat said that some of her clients have lost all of their de-posit money, as much as US$10,000.

“Some of our clients power off their phone or switch to silent mode, so we can’t tell them market informa-tion. At that moment, they lose,” she said. “But we also provide avenues to recover money. It is an advantage of our business.”

She also declined to reveal how many customers she has.

DICA licences not enough to allow futures trading, official saysKyaw Phone Kyawk.phonekyaw@gmail.com

‘They must apply for permission from the relevant government organsation.’

Daw nilar Mu diCA official

STATE-OWNED SME Develop-ment Bank has disbursed K7 bil-lion (US$6.8 million) to 237 small and medium enterprises in 2014-15 fiscal year through a government program.

It aimed to offer loans of up to K20 billion for 2014-15, but as of March 24, only one-third of that amount has been lent out, according to a government official.

“The government has paid out loans of about K7 billion for the 2014-15 fiscal year for SME development,” said Daw Yi Yi Khaing, director of the SME Development Department at the Ministry of Industry.

“The SME Development Depart-ment is also helping SME owners with information and loans,” she said.

The biggest destinations for in-vestment were Mandalay Region, with 37 recipients, 25 in Magwe Re-gion and 39 in Bago Region. Daw Yi Yi Khaing said there are a number of areas with growing quantities of SMEs that need funding, including Yangon and Mandalay.

Funding provided through the program, which is administered by the SME Development Bank, has slowly grown. In 2012 and again in 2013 fiscal years, loans totalled K5 billion.

The vast majority of local pri-vate enterprises are SMEs. There were 30,538 small enterprises and 8471 medium enterprises registered in Myanmar as of 2015, according to the SME de-velopment centre website. This means 68.28 percent of firms are small businesses and 18.93pc are medium businesses, according to statistics.

Daw Yi Yi Khaing said access to finance is only part of the barriers to SME development, adding lack of technology, low productivity, poor information access and weak busi-ness development services also hold small business back.

Although the government has been working to increase lending to SMEs, some small-business owners say it is tough to borrow from pri-vate or state-owned banks.

“Still now, there are some restric-tions on borrowing money from banks,” said MTE restaurant owner Ko Zaw Zaw. He said that without proper documentation showing land ownership, the bank will not accept his property as collateral.

The government’s 2014 Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Devel-opment Bill defines medium-sized firms as having capital between K50 million and K1 billion.

This program is not the only one which is providing loans to SMEs in-side Myanmar.

Government extends one-third of K20 billion in SME loans

THE three mobile operators are launching bonuses ahead of water festival, a further sign of growing competition for the country’s mo-bile subscribers.

Competition has been increas-ing in the market since Telenor and Ooredoo entered the market last year, and MPT began a significant revamp with support from Japa-nese firms KDDI and Sumitomo.

MPT has extended promotional prices for users of its Swe Thahar plan, offering half-priced internet beginning in March. It also allows MPT users to call three other MPT

numbers at K25 a minute, a dis-count from its usually K35.

Last year, MPT provided a 20 percent bonus from April 12 to 21, though it currently does not plan a similar bonus for its non-Swe Tha-har users this year.

MPT deputy general manager U Thein Hote said there are currently no announced plans to give a bonus for MPT customers who have not switched to Swe Thahar, though that may change closer to water festival.

Its customers say they are hoping for promotions, like last year’s 20pc bonus, which was one of the first such instances of MPT discounting.

“Last year we received extra call-ing time – I hope we do this year as well,” said MPT customer Ko Min Khint Soe.

MPT’s two rivals have already announced promotions over the Thingyan period.

Ooredoo will provide a 30pc bo-nus to all users who top up with K3000 or more from April 8 to 11, it said in a press release late on April 7.

The firm has also announced it has lowered the cost per minute of a call from K25 to K20 with its Red plan.

Telenor has also announced a plan for water festival, offering top-up bonuses from April 8 to 10 that increase the larger the size of the top-up. A K10,000 top-up during the period will result in a K5000 bonus, while a K3000 top-up gener-ates a K600 bonus.

Telcos roll out their Thingyan bonuses

aung Kyaw

nyuntaungkyawnyunt28@gmail.com

pErCEnt

30size of bonus ooredoo is giving to its

customers topping up between April 8 and 11

ko ko aung pmkokoaung@gmail.com

Sorghum. Photo: Bloomberg

10 Business THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

A MARINE engineer by training, Ko Aung Kham, 23, has followed his per-sonal interests into blogging and in-formation technology. He is now chief editor and team leader at Yo Yar Lay online news and program manager at Phandeeyar Myanmar Innovation Lab.

He also studied in Singapore to be a Microsoft Certified Technology Spe-cialist and has received many online certificates for networking and infor-mation technology.

“I won lots of academic prizes, including at the Myanmar Mercan-tile Marine College in Yangon, which awarded me a diploma,” he said.

“But after I finished college, there was no opportunity to become a sea-man, so I decided to move into infor-mation technology.”

Blogging began for Ko Aung Kham as a pasttime, something he had been doing since he was 18.

“I got into digital marketing at the same time. I will open a digital mar-keting company this year. Digital mar-keting will do well, and I’m interested it. But now I’m a program manager at Phandeeyar and I won’t give up that job. I will try and make a success of Phandeeyar, Myanmar Innovation Lab and then start my own digital market-ing company.”

Blogging has been something of a boom business for Ko Aung Kham. His first job after leaving college was with Media Lane, a creative agency, where he quickly became familiar with the internet.

He began a blog called International

News for Myanmar and posted four or five news items a week, which quickly grew into gigs with large companies.

“After I wrote two blogs, many for-eign companies invited me to write blogs for them. I didn’t need a job, so I wrote blogs like www.blog.techspace.com.mm, www.colay.com.mm, and others, and also joined with Ideabox Myanmar and Rocket Internet like www.house.com.mm.”

All of Ko Aung Kham’s blogging commitments require him to be pro-ductive, but he says his interest in his work sees him through.

“I’m really interested in reading

and writing, so I don’t find it hard to write 10 news stories a day. I always read one article a day from Wikipedia, where I learn a lot,” he said. “Young people should read Wikipedia articles. We should use the internet usefully, and not waste time.”

“When I was younger, my first pri-ority was money, but now money is not so important for me. I want to try to develop the IT sector, and digital marketing,” he said. “I want people to change and be active as a result of my articles, my words. I particularly want to encourage people who are depressed.”

Digital future for online pioneer

Ko Aung Kham, 23, chief editor and team leader at YoYarLay Online News. Photo: Aung Htay Hlaing

PROFILE

tin Yadanar htunyadanar.mcm@gmail.com Su PhYo Win

suphyo1990@gmail.com

FORESTS must be exploited for the country’s development, while care must be taken to protect the natu-ral environment, the Union Minis-ter for Environmental Conservation and Forestry told an expert work-shop this week.

Minister U Win Tun told partici-pants in the National Workshop on Community Forestry Timber Legal-ity at the International Business Centre, Yangon, that 70 percent of the population was dependent on the nation’s forests for a portion of their livelihood.

While increased demand for de-velopment had led to the exploita-tion of timber and forest products, “At the same time, they [forests] are very instrumental in biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation,” he said.

The workshop is the culmina-tion of the project for Improved Legality, Governance and Trade for the Community and Smallholder Timber, which began in January 2014 and ends next month.

Over the past 15 months, similar workshops have been held across the country as government officials, NGOs and local residents discussed the balance between fair exploita-tion and environmental conserva-tion for the country’s forests.

The discussions took place in Kachin and Shan states and Tan-intharyi, Magwe and Ayeyarwady regions.

Topics under discussion includ-ed the sustainable utilisation of for-est products, opportunities, chal-lenges, and countermeasures for legal trade and sustainable forestry management in line with national policy, and rules and regulations governing the export of forest prod-ucts in accordance with interna-tional standards.

The project forms part of the National Forest Master Plan (2001-02 to 2030-31), under which 826 groups have received authorisation to establish community forestry projects totalling in area more than 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres).

In an attempt to combat illegal logging, Myanmar joined the EU FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) process.

Once Myanmar and the EU have signed the agreement, Myanmar timber products will be eligible for export to Europe, the minister said.

But the movement has its critics. U Saw Aye Kyaw, who attended the workshop, said large workshops are annexing large swathes of the for-est for development.

“Before the new plants are cul-tivated, they would definitely clear all the forest and our mountains are almost clear near the villages. Like the time they did the oil palm projects, too many villages have to be reallocated,” he said.

“This is not at all what the com-munity wants.”

Last year, Myanmar also banned the export of unprocessed logs in an attempt to capture more added value.

Forestry exploitation must be done carefully

ACROSS the Great Plains, Ameri-can farmers are turning to a little-known grain called sorghum for relief from a two-year slump in ag-riculture prices.

A kernel-yielding stalk that’s na-tive to Africa, sorghum has three things going for it right now. It’s cheap to plant; it holds up better in drought-like conditions than other crops; and most importantly, demand is soaring in China, where farmers feed the plant to their hog herds, and moonshiners make it into a whiskey-like liquor called baijiu. While corn, soybeans and wheat slumped into bear markets last year amid a global supply glut, sorghum prices have held stable.

“As far as an alternative crop, it’s so much better than anything else right now,” said Clayton Short, a 53-year-old farmer in Assaria, Kansas.

Mr Short plans to sow sorghum on 650 acres this year, an increase of about 30 percent from 2014 and the most in the six decades that his family has been growing the grain. Overall in the US, sorghum plant-ings will climb to the most in seven years, a jump made possible in part by cutbacks on corn and cotton, a Bloomberg survey showed.

Exports of sorghum from the United States, the world’s top grain shipper, are headed for the most in 35 years with most of it going to China, government data show. The Asian nation began tapping foreign suppliers in recent years to meet growing consumption by the world’s largest hog herd. The US Grains Council estimates 10pc of

China’s imports are used to make baijiu, a 100-proof grain alcohol that is the most-consumed booze in the world.

While lesser known than corn, wheat, rice and barley, sorghum is the world’s fifth-largest grain by output. Like corn, it is used mostly to feed livestock and to make etha-nol, a grain-based fuel, though sor-ghum kernels also end up in food like couscous or can be popped like popcorn.

Domestic sorghum plantings will jump 14pc to 8.148 million acres, the most since 2008, accord-ing to a Bloomberg survey of 15 analysts.

Even though the crop accounts for less than 4pc of the land de-voted to corn, soybeans and wheat,

its appeal increased after two years of big global harvests reduced ex-port demand for the top US grains. Prices plunged, compounding a slump in commodities fuelled by surpluses in everything from crude oil to sugar.

The Bloomberg Commodity In-dex has tumbled 27pc in the past year, including 21pc for corn, the biggest domestic crop, to $3.9425 a bushel in Chicago. Wheat slumped 24pc, soybeans tumbled 34 and cot-ton plunged 33pc.

Some farmers in Kansas are being offered $0.35 cents a bushel more for sorghum planted this spring than corn, according to Dan O’Brien, an economist at Kansas State Univer-sity in Manhattan. The state is the biggest US grower. The cash price for sorghum delivered in Kansas City slid 0.7pc in the past 12 months.

China stepped up purchases of US sorghum in 2013 to supplement domestic production, which the USDA expects will remain steady this season as imports surge 68pc to 7 million tonnes, the most ever. While the nation mostly uses the crop in hog and poultry feed, dis-tillers have been fermenting the grain into baijiu for centuries. Do-mestic sales of the liquor climbed about 5.5pc in 2014 from a year ear-lier, Nielsen data show. Spirit mak-ers are now seeking to sell more to Western consumers.

“There are hundreds of baijiu brands, and they go from the very big companies all the way down to mom-and-pop distilleries in every town and city,” said Silvio Leal, the chief operating officer of ByeJoe, a

company based in Stafford, Texas, that makes a lighter version of the Chinese liquor.

“These can be very rudimentary, moonshine-type operations that are very small, with small volumes sold right there in the town.”

The export surge may not last. China increased buying after ban-ning a genetically-modified strain of US corn used in animal feed. The

ban was lifted in December. Sorghum will average $3.68 a

bushel next season, down from $3.87 in the 12 months that end August 31, the University of Mis-souri’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute said in a release on March 16.

“When a market flashes up over-night, there’s always worries about whether it’s going to stay,” said Tom Sleight, president of the US Grains Council in Washington.

The US will account for 74pc of world sorghum exports in the sea-son started September 1, compared with 15pc for wheat, the USDA has estimated.

Even if exports slow, farmers may plant more because sorghum is hearty and cheap to grow. About 28pc of the High Plains was in moderate to extreme drought as of March 24, up from 11pc at the start of the year, US Drought Monitor data show.

It will cost $142 an acre to grow sorghum this year, including seed, fertilizer and chemicals, the USDA estimates. Cotton will be $497.26, corn $350.33 and soybeans $181.07.

John Bondurant, who owns 4300 acres in Mississippi and Arkansas, said he’ll increase sorghum plant-ings fivefold to 1000 acres, displac-ing soybeans and wheat. He can deliver sorghum in September at 85 cents a bushel more than corn, of-fering the highest return of any of his crops.

“It’s all about dollars and cents,” said Mr Bondurant, 72, who is also the owner of Bondurant Futures in Memphis. – Bloomberg

Chinese moonshine, hogs and drought fuel sorghum boom on US plains

ChiCago

‘There are hundreds of baijiu brands, and they go from the very big companies all the way down to mom-and-pop distilleries in every town and city.’

Silvio Leal Baiju maker

International Business 11www.mmtimes.com

ENERGY titan Royal Dutch Shell yesterday announced a mega takeover of British rival BG Group worth £47 billion, consolidating their positions in a sector battered by sliding oil prices.

The cash and shares deal, ap-proved by the BG board and worth the equivalent of US$70 billion or 64 billion euros, will help Shell to boost its flagging output thanks to BG’s strong position in liquefied natural gas (LNG), a cleaner alter-native to energy types such as coal and nuclear.

The new company will be worth twice the value of BP and overtake US energy giant Chevron Corpora-tion on finalising the sector’s big-gest deal in a decade, according to Bloomberg News.

BG’s share price, which has tumbled over the past year on plunging oil prices, soared by al-most 40 percent in reaction to yes-terday’s announcement.

“The boards of Shell and BG are pleased to announce that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended cash and share offer to be made by Shell for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of BG,” said a state-ment issued by the Anglo-Dutch group.

The offer represents a premium of about 50pc compared with BG’s

closing share price on April 7, cost-ing Shell “approximately £47.0 bil-lion” for its rival, the statement added.

“The result will be a more com-petitive, stronger company for both sets of shareholders in today’s vola-tile oil price world,” Shell chairm Jorma Ollila said in the release.

BG chief executive Helge Lund said the deal “delivers attractive returns to shareholders and has strong strategic logic”.

He added, “BG’s deep water posi-tions and strengths in exploration ... will combine well with Shell’s scale, development expertise and financial strength.”

It is the first major deal for Mr Lund, formerly chief executive of Norwegian energy giant Statoil, since he took up the reins at BG ear-lier this year.

The tie-up will improve Shell’s proved oil and gas reserves by a quarter and lift output by one-fifth, while delivering “enhanced posi-tions in competitive new oil and gas projects, particularly in Australia LNG and Brazil deep water”, the statement added.

“The deal between Royal Dutch Shell and BG Group will prompt sector consolidation,” noted Marc Kimsey, senior trader at Accendo Markets.

“The decline in oil prices over the

past year has battered some stocks which are clearly now looking at-tractive. In the last year BG shares fell 30pc ... By comparison sector be-hemoths BP and Royal Dutch Shell have only shed 10pc over the same period leaving them in the position of predator rather than prey.”

Following yesterday’s announce-ment, BG’s share price was up by a huge 37pc to 1251 pence on London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index, which was 0.48pc higher overall to 6995.43 points in early deals.

Shell “B” shares – the ones used to finance the transaction – dropped 5.82pc to 2080 pence.

“UK equities are trading higher, buoyed by confirmation that Shell has agreed to buy BG Group,” said

Rebecca O’Keeffe, head of invest-ment at stockbroker Interactive Investor.

“In what is the biggest deal in the sector in 10 years, the company is set to become the second-largest global energy company, behind only Exxon in terms of scale and resources.”

Crude oil prices lost more than half their value between last June and the end of January owing to a supply glut fuelled largely by robust output from US shale rock and weak global demand.

That in turn has weighed heav-ily on energy majors such as Shell, denting their profits and share pric-es and causing them to cut operat-ing costs.

– AFP

Shell launches mega purchase of British firm BG Group

London

Shell and BG Group in MyanmarShell is the operator of three deep-water blocks, AD-9, AD-11 and MD-5. The three blocks cover 21,000 square kilometres and range in depth from 1800 to 2700 metres. It signed the Production Sharing Contracts on February 5, and is the 90 percent owner, with Japan’s MOECO

holding the remainder.BG Group holds an interest in

four blocks along with Australia’s Woodside Energy. These include a 45pc stake in A-4 and a 55pc stake in AD-2, in which it is the operator. It also holds 45pc in both A-7 and AD-5, though it is not the operator in those blocks. The four are between about 2200 and 2600 metres deep and cover 34,000 square kilometres.

AUSTRALIAN Treasurer Joe Hockey yesterday gave approval for China’s CCCC International Holding to buy construction firm John Holland in a deal worth a reported A$1.15 billion (US$881.8 million).

CCCC International is a wholly owned subsidiary of the state-run China Communications Construction Company, the fourth-largest construc-tion firm in the world by revenue.

Part of global contractor Leighton Holdings, John Holland is one of Aus-tralia’s biggest engineering and con-struction firms, employing more than 5600 workers in eight countries.

“The government welcomes foreign investment where it is not contrary to our national interest,” Mr Hockey said in a statement.

“Foreign investment has helped build Australia’s economy and will continue to enhance the wellbeing of Australians by supporting economic growth and prosperity.”

Mr Hockey noted media reports about CCCC being debarred from World Bank contracts until January 2017 over fraud relating to road pro-jects in the Philippines.

“I have sought advice and action on these and other issues in relation to CCCC,” he said.

– AFP

Oz okays Chinese takeover of developer

Sydney

12 International Business THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

THE Bank of Japan held off further easing measures yesterday as it strug-gles to drag up the country’s flat-lining inflation that is defying a massive stim-ulus program launched two years ago.

The central bank stayed pat on its record stimulus program, which is add-ing about 80 trillion yen (US$663 bil-lion) to the money supply every year.

After a two-day meeting, the BoJ said in a statement consumer inflation was likely to be about zero “for the time being” due to lower energy prices.

However, it added, “Inflation ex-pectations appear to be rising on the whole from a somewhat longer-term perspective.”

The phrasing is identical to the out-look offered in the statement after the bank’s March meeting.

The yen picked up on the news –

soon after the bank’s statement the dol-lar was at 120.06 yen compared with 120.32 yen in New York on April 7.

The bank also kept unchanged its overall opinion of the economy as To-kyo attempts to kickstart growth in the world’s third-largest economy after years of falling or stagnant prices.

“Japan’s economy is expected to continue its moderate recovery trend,” with demand both at home and abroad picking up, it said.

The price trend is a far cry from the bank’s goal of a sustained 2 percent in-flation level, and has spawned specula-tion that the bank will this year add to the stimulus measures it launched in April 2013.

BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda has repeatedly said the bank would further loosen monetary policy if necessary

and in October it surprised markets by expanding the scheme earlier than expected.

Tokyo’s campaign to stimulate spending faltered after the government raised the country’s sales tax last year to help pay down Japan’s enormous na-tional debt.

That hammered consumers and led to a brief recession, while falling oil prices have hammered energy inflation.

The BoJ’s inflation target is a cor-nerstone of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to resuscitate Japan’s for-tunes, which also includes big govern-ment spending and an overhaul of the highly regulated economy.

Japan limped out of recession in the last quarter of 2014 with an unimpres-sive 0.4pc growth rate. – AFP

Workers check containers unloaded from a cargo ship at a pier in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Japan stands pat on stimulus as economy still disappoints

ADVANCED economies face lim-its on future growth due to the drag from ageing populations, un-less they can boost productivity through technology and infrastruc-ture investment, the International Monetary Fund said.

A higher proportion of aged citizens means a smaller workforce and lower potential output, which in turn could spell lower living standards in the future, the IMF said in a new study.

The phenomenon of lower po-tential growth in economies is increasingly evident in some ad-vanced economies, but also faces emerging markets like China where the average population age is also rising.

The new study, part of the IMF’s semi-annual World Economic Out-look, seeks in part to explain why advanced economies have remained so turgid in the wake of the finan-cial crisis which began in 2008.

Of the key inputs to growth, the supply of capital for investment has expanded, though more slowly than expected.

But labour pools have grown even more slowly, as measured by the level of participation by a popu-lation in the active workforce.

A key part of the reason for that is that more people have retired or will retire compared to the level of entrants into the jobs market.

The result is a drag on the poten-tial increase in output, or economic growth, the study says.

For advanced economies, poten-tial economic growth, which was around 2 percent before the crisis, fell to 1.3pc in the crisis years but will be only about 1.6pc through the rest of this decade, the IMF said.

In emerging economies, poten-tial growth will slip from 6.5pc in 2008-2014 to 5.2pc through 2020.

This shift raises new challeng-es for governments. “In advanced economies, lower potential growth will make it more difficult to re-duce high public and private debt ratios,” the IMF said.

“In emerging market economies, lower potential growth will make it more challenging to rebuild fiscal buffers.”

Countries can counter this drag with increasingly focused capital investment, the study noted.

“Increasing potential output is a policy priority for advanced and emerging market economies,” it said.

The prescriptions differ across economies, but focus mostly on the need to expand investment.

But also, the report said that, “structural reforms and greater support for research and develop-ment are key to increasing supply and innovation.

“In emerging market economies, higher infrastructure spending is needed to remove critical bottle-necks, and structural reforms must be directed at improving business conditions and product markets.”

– AFP

Ageing economies limit future growth

WASHINGTON

SINGApOre NeW DelHI

TOkyO

‘In emerging market economies, lower potential growth will make it more challenging to rebuild fiscal buffers.’

IMF report

SINGAPORE Telecom (Singtel) said yes-terday it will buy almost all of US cy-bersecurity firm Trustwave for US$810 million, saying it was looking to become “a global player” in the sector.

Southeast Asia’s biggest telecom firm by revenue said it will acquire a 98 percent equity interest in Trustwave under an agreement it signed with the Chicago-headquartered company.

Trustwave, a leading specialist in managed security services, is valued at $850 million, Singtel said in a state-ment. Trustwave chair and chief ex-ecutive Robert J McCullen will hold the other 2pc.

“We aspire to be a global player in cybersecurity,” Singtel group chief ex-ecutive Chua Sock Koong said in the statement.

Speaking at a news conference Mr Chua added, “I think if you look at ac-quisitions outside of the traditional tel-co business on a single investment basis this is the largest that we have done.”

Singtel said it “will leverage Trust-wave’s threat intelligence, technology and talent to meet the growing demand for always-on managed security ser-vices in North America and the Asia-Pacific region”.

Trustwave – which helps firms fight cybercrime, protect their data and re-duce security risk – has 3 million busi-ness subscribers. – AFP

Security firm bought by Singtel PRIME Minister Narendra Modi will

take his push to turn thriving India into a major manufacturing and in-vestment hub to the eurozone’s two biggest economies this week on his maiden visit to the continent.

Mr Modi flies out today to France, whose government is desperate to save a troubled US$12 billion de-fence deal, before heading to Germa-ny to inaugurate one of the world’s biggest trade fairs.

He will also visit Canada at the end of the three-nation trip, home to a large Indian diaspora.

The right-wing Hindu nationalist was effectively blacklisted by the Eu-ropean Union for years after deadly communal riots in 2002 in the state of Gujarat, which he governed for over a decade.

But after his landslide victory in last year’s general election and with India’s economy now growing fast-er than even China’s, the one-time outcast is likely to receive a warm reception.

While New Delhi’s close ties with Moscow may limit the areas of com-mon ground on geopolitical issues, the trip represents a perfect oppor-tunity for Mr Modi to tout India as a place to do business.

“I look forward to visit France to seek greater French involvement in our Make in India Program, includ-ing in the defence manufacturing sector,” the prime minister wrote on Facebook ahead of his departure.

Mr Modi launched the “Make in India” campaign last year as the cen-trepiece of a project to rewrite the country’s reputation as a tricky place to do business in, beset by bureau-cracy, corruption and a stringent tax regime.

The government has already re-laxed rules for foreign investors, ea-ger to create work for the millions who enter India’s jobs market each year.

But India is currently ranked 142nd out of 189 countries in a World

Bank “ease of doing business” global league table.

And the continued uncertainty over a deal for India to buy 126 Ra-fale fighter jets from the French company Dassault Aviation is seen as symptomatic of the challenges confronting foreign companies.

Dassault won the right in 2012 to enter exclusive negotiations to supply the jets, with experts say-ing a final deal could be worth $12 billion.

But after tortuous negotiations lasting for over three years, there are now new questions about its cost, al-though Dassault’s boss Eric Trappier recently insisted the deal was “95 pc finalised”.

French President Francois Hol-lande confirmed to reporters on April 7 that he and Mr Modi “will have discussions” about the Rafale deal while stressing he didn’t want the issue to define their relationship.

There are also hopes the visit will provide a shot in the arm to another delayed deal with French nuclear gi-ant Areva, still awaiting the go-ahead to set up six reactors in India’s west-ern state of Maharashtra, five years after a bilateral civil nuclear accord.

“It is really good if it happens dur-ing this visit. If not, it will happen later,” French ambassador Francois Richier said in Delhi.

After his three-day visit to France Mr Modi heads to Germany.

– AFP

Modi to woo Europe investors

France’s President Francois Hollande (left) greets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a G-20 meeting last year. Photo: AFP

International Business 13www.mmtimes.com

CHINA’S new development bank can have an important role in fight-ing extreme poverty if it establishes high standards for its projects, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said on April 7.

Vowing to work with an institu-tion resisted by the United States, Mr Kim called the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank “a major new player in development” that is a “potentially strong” ally in its own work to help development in the poorest countries.

“If the world’s multilateral banks, including the Asia Infra-structure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank, can form alliances, work together and sup-port development that addresses these challenges, we all benefit – es-pecially the poor and most vulner-able,” Mr Kim said in a Washington speech.

“It is our hope – indeed, our ex-pectation – that these new entries will join the world’s multilateral de-velopment banks and our private-sector partners on a shared mission to promote economic growth that helps the poorest.”

Despite Washington’s resistance, China has received applications from more than 50 countries, in-cluding important US allies, to join

the AIIB, which will aim at financ-ing infrastructure development around Asia.

The United States and Japan though have resisted joining, with Washington warning that the AIIB needs to erect strong standards for lending and project development, and to be fully transparent in its approach.

The United States sees the AIIB and a development bank planned by the BRICS emerging-market countries, the New Development Bank, as competitors to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, where the United States is the largest shareholder.

Mr Kim echoed that concern. He stressed that only “with the right environment, labour and procure-ment standards” can the two new institutions become important forc-es to fight poverty.

In that case, he said, “the World Bank Group sees these development banks as potentially strong allies.”

Mr Kim said he will have talks with Chinese authorities next week at the World Bank’s spring meet-ings in Washington on potential cooperation.

“I will do everything in my pow-er to find innovative ways to work with these banks,” he said.

GREECE’S insistence on German reparations for World War II is a “dumb” distraction, Chancellor An-gela Merkel’s deputy said, snubbing a claim of 278.7 billion euros (US$303 billion) calculated by the government in Athens.

As Germany seeks a way to aid Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ gov-ernment and keep the euro area in-tact, reparations demands are unre-lated and make it easier for critics to balk at helping Greece, vice chancel-lor Sigmar Gabriel said late April 7.

“This doesn’t advance us one millimetre in terms of stabilising Greece,” he said during a panel dis-cussion in Berlin. “Honestly, I think it’s dumb.”

The number cited in parliament by Greek alternate finance minis-ter Dimitris Mardas, which almost matches this year’s German fed-eral budget, extends a dispute that’s flared as Greece seeks financing from euro-area partners while pledging to

end fiscal austerity its leaders blame mostly on Germany.

Germany’s position, shared by the three parties in Ms Merkel’s govern-ment, is that the treaty reuniting East and West Germany and the post-Cold War Paris Charter, both signed in 1990, legally ended war reparations.

The government’s view that the case is legally and politically closed hasn’t changed, a Finance Ministry spokesperson said on April 7, ask-ing not to be identified in line with policy.

“If you bring two issues that have nothing to do with one another, both heavily burdened issues politi-cally, into a single context, then you make it damned easy for those from whom you want something simply to exit the debate and say, ‘You can’t do that,’” said Ms Gabriel, who also is economy minister.

Greece will deliver a payment to the International Monetary Fund this week and seeks to complete talks on

economic changes needed to unlock more funding by a meeting of euro-area finance ministers on April 24, Euclid Tsakalotos, the minister for international economic affairs, said on April 7.

“We’re doing our best to reach a new deal for what we think is good not just for the average Greek, but for the average European,” he told Bloomberg Television.

Greece, Europe’s most-indebted state, is negotiating with euro-area countries and the IMF on the terms of its 240 billion euro rescue. The standoff, which has left Greece de-pendent upon European Central Bank loans, risks leading to a default within weeks and its potential exit from the euro area.

Ms Merkel has said that while the question of reparations is closed for Germany, she’s open to talks on a sep-arate fund. The German government plans to spend 299.5 billion euros in this year’s budget. – AFP

WASHINGTON

World Bank’s Kim welcomes China-backed institution

‘There is a strong sense out there that companies such as yours ... also have a great moral and social responsibility to give more back to this community.’

Sam Dastyari Chair of hearings

Germany dumps on ‘dumb’ Greek claims

BerlIN

SyDNey

GLOBAL technology giants Apple, Google and Microsoft yesterday defended their corporate tax struc-tures at an Australian parliamen-tary hearing, rebuffing claims they were shifting their profits offshore to avoid paying taxes in the nation.

The three firms also told the up-per house Senate inquiry into cor-porate tax avoidance, which held its first day of hearings in Sydney, that they were among 12 technol-ogy companies being audited by the Australian Taxation Office.

There have been increased ef-forts by governments around the world, including Australia, to crack down on multinational firms that use complex corporate structures to lower their tax bills.

The European Union last month unveiled an ambitious plan to force its 28 member countries to share the details of any tax deals agreed with some of the world’s biggest companies.

“The Australian public don’t ac-cept that the structures that are be-ing created by these companies are necessarily genuine and there is a strong sense out there that com-panies such as yours ... also have a great moral and social responsibil-ity to give more back to this com-munity,” the hearing’s chair Sam Dastyari said.

There was a general percep-tion, he added, “that the struc-tures that have been created within your firms, be it through Ireland or Singapore or through the US ... have been designed to mini-mise your tax obligation in this country”.

The firms’ representatives said they were paying all the taxes they owed under Australian law.

The inquiry heard Google Aus-tralia in 2013 made A$358 million (US$275 million) in income, gener-ated profits of just over A$46 mil-lion in profit and paid A$7.1 million in tax.

Google’s Australia and New Zealand managing director Maile Carnegie told the inquiry she could not reveal how much rev-enue in total was generated in the country.

But she said some of the revenue generated in Australia such as from advertising was booked in Singa-pore, its Asia-Pacific headquarters, which has lower tax rates.

Apple’s Australia and New Zea-land managing director Tony King said his firm last year reported revenue in Australia of A$6 billion and generated a net profit of A$250 million for a tax bill of about A$80 million.

“We haven’t shifted any profits. We booked all of our revenues here, all of our costs,” Mr King added.

– AFP

Tech giants defend Australia tax record

Red Cross sounds alarm on Yemen crisisWorld 16

EU tensions flare as Greece and Russia meetWorld 17

14 THE MYANMAR TIMES ApRil 9, 2015 15

World WoRld EditoR: Kayleigh Long

BANGKoK

WASHINGToN

SINGAPorE

Activists wearing masks depicting Philippine President Benigno Aquino (L) and Filipina Mary Jane Veloso (R), currently on death row in Indonesia after being convicted of drug trafficking, stage a protest against Veloso’s impending execution outside the Philippine consulate in Hong Kong on April 8. Veloso was caught at Yogyakarta airport on the main island of Java carrying 2.6 kilograms (5.73 pounds) of heroin on a flight from Malaysia in April 2010.

IN PICTUrES

Photo: AFP

FOUR unarmed Muslim men shot dead last month in Thailand’s con-flict-racked south were not rebels, an investigation has found, raising the possibility of legal action against the security forces.

Two villagers and two students were gunned down on 25 March in a raid on Ban To Chut village in Pattani province, when security forces acting on a tip-off opened fire on a group of suspected militants.

In a region where killings of ci-vilians are common and legal ac-tion against security forces is rare, initially authorities said the men were members of one of the patchwork of Muslim rebel groups waging a bloody decade-long insurgency.

But an investigating panel headed by Pattani governor Werapong Kaews-uwan found the men were unarmed and mistaken for militants.

“It is clear that all four people were not members of militant groups,” the panel said in a statement, adding that weapons seized after the incident did

not belong to the men.“State actions have caused damage

and severely impacted on the public, therefore all of the officials who were involved must be prosecuted in line with judicial process,” it added.

Rights groups have for years ac-cused Thai security forces of carrying out extrajudicial killings with impu-nity in the remote and inaccessible south.

Most of the nearly 6300 victims of the last decade of conflict have been civilians, both Muslims and Bud-dhists, killed by rebels or the security forces.

Pattani police commander Kriskorn Paleethunyawong confirmed the panel’s findings but dampened ex-pectations of criminal proceedings.

“We are open and listen to all ideas and opinions but it depends on the ju-dicial system to rule what is right or wrong,” he told AFP.

Last week the commander said seven members of the security forces were being sought over the incident.

Civil society campaigners have lit-tle faith in investigating panels, saying that so far no members of the security forces have been prosecuted over civil-ian deaths.

When killings occur, inquests commonly rule that police, military and paramilitary forces acted “in the line of duty” even when victims are unarmed.

The Pattani case damages a highly-publicised “hearts and minds” strat-egy by the military to pay villagers to provide their own security and inform on insurgent movements.

It is also likely to deepen mistrust of the ruling junta, which is trying to revive a stalled peace process with several rebel groups seeking more au-tonomy for the deep south.

Thailand, a mainly Buddhist na-tion, annexed the region more than 100 years ago and stands accused of perpetrating severe rights abuses as well as stifling the distinctive local cul-ture through clumsy, and often forced, assimilation schemes. – AFP

State forces killed civilians, probe finds

Pressure mounts for ferry salvageSOUTH KOREA said yesterday it would cost US$110 million to raise the Sewol ferry, as pres-sure to salvage the vessel grows before the first anniversary of its sinking.

The 6,825-tonne passenger ship sank off the southwest coast on April 16 last year with the loss of more than 300 lives – most of them high school students.

Ahead of next week’s first anni-versary of the tragedy, hundreds of parents of the dead students – some with their heads shaved and clad in white mourning robes – marched 35 kilometres (22 miles) to Seoul from their hometown of Ansan over the weekend.

They were joined by hundreds more supporters for a rally in the capital on April 5 that called on the government to bring the sunken vessel to the surface and ensure a fully independent in-quiry into the disaster.

A total of 295 bodies were re-covered from the ferry, and nine victims remained unaccounted for when divers finally called off the dangerous search of its inte-rior last November.

President Park Geun-Hye promised on April 6 to “actively

consider” raising the Sewol, tak-ing into account the opinions of the relatives and salvage experts.

At a briefing yesterday, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said the salvage operation – if ap-proved – would cost around 120 billion won ($110 million).

“And that is only an estimate, as the final cost would be greatly dependent on weather condi-tions, technological uncertainties ... etc,” said senior ministry offi-cial Yeon Yeong-Jin.

Speaking in parliament the day before, Maritime Minister Yoo Ki-June had said a technical review on raising the Sewol was 80 percent complete and a full report would be published by the end of April.

Mr Yeon said the government had already spent 185 billion won – most of it on the lengthy search and rescue operation and finan-cial support for victims’ relatives – and had budgeted a further 140 billion won in future compensa-tion payments to families.

Ms Park’s administration was widely criticised for its response to the disaster, and her approval ratings have only just begun to recover.

Relatives of victims of the Sewol ferry disaster march across a bridge over the Han river in Seoul on April 5. Photo: AFP

A FILIPINO nurse who insulted Singaporeans online and called for the takeover of the city-state by his coun-trymen was charged in court on April 7 with sedition and lying to police, of-fences punishable by fines or jail.

Ello Ed Mundsel Bello, 28, had already been fired from his job at the government-run Tan Tock Seng Hospital in January following inter-nal investigations into a series of so-cial media posts which were deemed offensive.

On April 7 he was slapped with two charges of publishing seditious state-ments on January 2 as well as three charges of subsequently lying to the police, a spokesperson for the Attor-ney-General’s Chambers told AFP.

Charge sheets said Mr Ello’s re-marks have “the tendency to pro-mote feelings of ill-will and hostil-ity between different classes of the population of Singapore, namely, be-tween Singaporeans and Filipinos in

Singapore”.In the first Facebook post on Janu-

ary 2, he wrote, “Singaporeans are loosers in their own country, we take their jobs, their future, their women and soon we will evict all SG loosers out of their own country hahaha”.

He ended the post by saying “Re-member Pinoy [Filipinos] better and stronger than Stinkaporeans.’”

In a subsequent comment on the same day, Mr Ello said “We will kick out all the Singaporeans and SG will be the new filipino state.”

Mr Ello was also charged with ly-ing to the police on three different oc-casions during investigations.

He had told police officers that he was not responsible for the offending posts, and that his Facebook account had been hacked.

Under the Sedition Act, among other things, it is an offence to pro-mote hostility between different races or classes in multiracial Singapore,

which is mainly ethnic Chinese.In a statement after Mr Ello was

charged in court, the Singapore Police Force said it “takes a stern view of acts that could threaten social harmony in Singapore”.

“Any person who posts remarks online that could cause ill-will and hostility between the different races or communities in Singapore will be firmly dealt with in accordance with the law,” it said.

Singapore clamps down hard on anyone seen to be inciting communal tensions after bloody racial riots in the 1960s.

The Filipino community in Sin-gapore is estimated at more than 170,000.

Singaporean citizens make up just over 60 percent of the 5.4 million pop-ulation, with a low fertility rate forc-ing the government to rely heavily on foreign workers.

– AFP

Filipino slapped with sedition charges after online rant

AUSTRALIA is doing everything it can to save two drug smugglers fac-ing the firing squad in Indonesia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said yes-terday after the pair lost their latest legal appeal.

On April 6 a Jakarta court dis-missed Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran’s challenge against the rejection of their pleas for clemency.

Indonesia’s legal chief then said they had exhausted all options to avoid the death penalty, but their lawyers insist legal avenues remain.

“We are continuing to do every-thing we possibly can for them,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney in

his first comments since the decision.“That’s what we’re doing ... Every-

one knows Australia’s position on the death penalty.”

Mr Sukumaran, 33, and Mr Chan, 31, the ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug trafficking gang, were sentenced to death in 2006 for trying to smuggle heroin out of In-donesia.

Their appeals for clemency, typically a death row convict’s final chance of avoiding the firing squad, were rejected earlier this year by In-donesian President Joko Widodo.

In the April 6 ruling, the State Administrative Court upheld a deci-

sion that it does not have the authority to hear a challenge to Widodo’s rejec-tion.

Mr Abbott said he had spoken to the Indonesian leader again about the Bali pair.

“I’ve had a number of conversa-tions with President Widodo on this issue. I’m not going to go into what was said, but I have certainly made our position very clear,” he said.

Indonesia executed six drug of-fenders in January, including five for-eigners, prompting a furious Brazil and the Netherlands – whose citizens were among those put to death – to recall their ambassadors. – AFP

JAKArTA

Australia makes last-ditch bid at reprieve for Bali Nine condemnedVIETNAMESE authorities are search-

ing for a lead box containing hazard-ous radioactive material which has gone missing from a steel factory, an official said yesterday.

The box of cobalt-60, which has a wide range of uses including for ra-diotherapy and in industry, has disap-peared from the Vietnamese-owned Pomina steel mill in the south of the country.

“[We] do not know how and when the container went missing,” Do Vu Khoa, an official with the Department of Science and Technology in the south-ern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau said.

“We are searching for the radiation box,” he added.

The silver-white container weighs

45 kilograms (100 pounds) and is some 18 inches (45 centimetres) long and 6 inches wide, the department said in a statement.

“It contains Co-60 which was used for liquid measurement. It poses a po-tential danger to the environment and people’s health,” the statement said.

State-run Tuoi Tre newspaper said the cobalt-60 was among five radioac-tive sources which Pomina imported in 2010 to measure liquid steel levels at its plant.

The equipment was last confirmed to be at the facility late last year, the company said, according to the report.

The search zone includes several waste dumps in Ba Ria-Vung Tau and surrounding areas including Ho Chi

Minh City.“It’s our top priority to look for the

container,” Mai Thanh Quang, director of the science department, was quoted as saying.

The biggest risk is that a scrap col-lector could find the box and cut open the protective lead casing, potentially exposing himself and others to radia-tion, he said.

Cobalt-60 is a radioactive isotope of the metallic element cobalt and the gamma rays it emits destroy tumours.

Apart from radiotherapy, it can be used to irradiate food and sterilise health care products.

But direct contact or mere proxim-ity can cause cancer without proper safeguards. – AFP

HANoI

Radioactive box missing in Vietnam

After months of political bick-ering, parliament passed a bill in November initiating an independ-ent investigation into the sinking.

But relatives have accused the government of trying to influence the probe by appointing officials to key posts in the 17-member in-quiry committee.

More than 50 people have been put on trial on charges

linked to the disaster, including 15 crew members – who were among the first to climb into lifeboats.

The Sewol’s captain was jailed in November for 36 years for gross negligence and dereliction of duty, while three other senior crew members were sentenced to jail terms of between 15 and 30 years. – AFP

SEoUl

A SOUTH Korean activist said yester-day he had launched thousands of cop-ies of Hollywood film The Interview into North Korea by balloon, ignoring dire threats of reprisals from Pyong-yang.

The capital has labelled the Seth Rogen comedy, about a fictional CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, a “wanton act of terror”.

North Korean defector-turned-ac-tivist Lee Min-Bok said he had carried out four cross-border balloon launches since January – the latest one on April 4.

On each occasion he tied bundles carrying copies of The Interview and anti-Pyongyang leaflets to helium bal-loons, which he then released from the back of a truck.

“I launched thousands of copies and about a million leaflets on April 4, near the western part of the border,” Mr Lee told AFP.

All the launches were carried out at night with little or no advance public-ity, given the sensitivity on both sides.

North Korea has long condemned the cross-border launches and de-manded that the South Korean author-ities step in to prevent them.

Last October North Korea border guards attempted to shoot down some balloons, triggering a brief exchange of heavy machine gun fire between the two sides.

Pyongyang issued stern warnings against any effort to include copies of The Interview in the balloon bundles, saying that any challenge to its “just physical countermeasures” will trigger “merciless retaliatory strikes”.

It stands accused by the FBI of be-ing behind a devastating cyber attack last November on Sony Pictures, the studio behind the movie.

While appealing to activists to avoid overly provoking the North, Seoul in-sists their actions are protected by free-dom of expression principles.

Police have intervened to prevent some launches, but only when there is a prospect of North Korean retaliation that might endanger residents living

near the balloon launch site.Mr Lee’s launches were done at

night in remote locations, and though they were monitored by local police, no move was made to stop him.

“The police would have no right to stop me from doing this,” Mr Lee said.

“I am always being tailed by police,” he added.

A CNN camera crew that followed Mr Lee filmed him attaching the bun-dles to the balloons in the middle of the night, before releasing them into the darkness.

The balloons are wholly at the mer-cy of the prevailing winds, and it is im-possible to determine how many will actually come down in North Korea.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which said it had only become aware of Lee’s latest launches in the past couple of days, declined to comment directly on his efforts to send copies of the movie.

“Our stance is that we continue to acknowledge the freedom of individu-als to publicise their opinions,” a minis-try spokesperson said. – AFP

The Interview airdrops into N Korea

An Indian farmer of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU – Indian Farmers’ Union) listens to a speech by the leadership during a protest demanding compensation for damage to crops due to fluctuating rains and the waiving of electricity bills and loan interest, in Allahabad on April 7.

IN PICTUrES

Photo: AFP

16 World THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

ADEN

WASHINGTON

THE Red Cross has warned of the “catastrophic” situation unfolding in Yemen’s main southern city Aden, as forces loyal to the president bat-tled Iran-backed Shiite rebels in the streets.

The Huthi rebels and their allies made a new push on a port in the central Mualla district of the city, but were forced back by mili-tia supporting President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, witnesses said.

Naval forces of the Saudi-led coalition, which has carried out nearly two weeks of air strikes in support of Hadi, shelled rebel positions across the city, the witnesses said, though the coalition denied launching a naval combat operation.

International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson Marie Claire Feghali said the humanitar-ian situation across Yemen was “very difficult ... [with] naval, air and ground routes cut off”.

The situation in Aden was “catastrophic to say the least”.

“The war in Aden is on every street, in every corner ... Many are unable to escape,” she said.

General Ahmed Assiri, spokes-person for the coalition, how-ever, said many parts of the city remained “stable”.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said the situation was “worsening by the day”.

Medics in Aden had “not received large numbers of casualties over the past few days... due to the difficulties faced in try-ing to reach a hospital,” said MSF’s

Marie-Elisabeth Ingres.MSF has a team of 140 local staff

and eight expatriates at a hospital in Aden.

“Our priority is to find a way to send a supporting medical team,” Mr Ingres told AFP, adding a team was waiting in Djibouti “for a green light from the coalition”.

Mr Assiri said later that permits had been issued for a boat carrying aid and medics from Djibouti.

The Red Cross hoped to deliver to Sanaa 16 tonnes of medical aid on a plane loaded in Jordan yester-day. Another plane carrying twice as much could follow the next day.

Two students were killed and several others wounded on April 7 when a rocket hit a school near Al-Hamza military base in the south-

western Ibb province, an official said, adding it was unclear if the school was hit in an air strike or by Huthi artillery.

Rebel-controlled Saba news agency accused coalition warplanes of hitting the school.

Coalition strikes killed at least eight Huthis north of Aden, a mili-tary source said, as raids also tar-geted air defence posts in Taez prov-ince, as well as Al-Sadrayn military base in Daleh province.

On April 6, Saudi-led warplanes struck the rebel-held Al-Anad air base north of Aden, a general said, while to the east, al-Qaeda’s Yemen franchise sought to tighten its grip on Hadramawt province.

Loud explosions were heard as the jihadists attacked an army base in the

provincial capital Mukalla, much of which they captured last week.

Meanwhile, 10 Huthis and three tribesmen were killed in Shabwa, according to tribal sources.

Fighting in Aden left at least 10 people dead, adding to the 53 people killed in the previous 24 hours.

Nationwide, more than 540 peo-ple have died and 1700 have been wounded since March 19, the World Health Organization said.

At least 74 children had been killed since the coalition strikes began on March 26 – though the real figure is thought to be much higher – and more than 100,000 displaced, according to the UN.

Observers have warned al-Qaeda could exploit the fighting to

expand its control following the withdrawal of US troops overseeing a longstanding drone war against it.

The US, which sees al-Qaeda’s Yemen franchise as its most dan-gerous, has “expedited weapons deliveries” in support of the Saudi-led coalition, said Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The Gulf states are also pushing for UN sanctions to be imposed on Huthi leader Abdulma-lik al-Huthi and ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s eldest son, Ahmed, adding them to a list of three others, including the former president, hit by a global travel ban and asset feeze in November.

The evacuation of foreigners continued with three Indian planes carrying 604 passengers, includ-ing some Yemenis, from Sanaa to Djibouti.

Pakistan’s navy also said it evacuated 146 nationals and 36 foreigners.

Islamabad said it would take its time deciding whether to accept a Saudi request to join the coalition, which so far consists of nine Arab – mostly Sunni – countries.

Pakistan’s neighbour Iran – the main Shiite power – has strongly criticised the intervention and rejected accusations it is arming the rebels.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan was “not in a hurry” to decide and that diplomatic ef-forts were under way involving Turkey and Iran.

Turkish President Recep Tayy-ip Erdogan, who has expressed support for the coalition without providing military forces, held talks in Tehran on March 7.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif were expected in Islamabad yesterday.

Pakistan faces a tricky dilemma, as it has long enjoyed close ties with Riyadh and has benefited hugely from the oil-rich kingdom’s largesse.

But it has called for a negotiated solution, saying it does not want to take part in any conflict that would worsen sectarian divisions in the Muslim world. – AFP

ICRC warns of ‘catastrophe’ in Yemen

US DEFENSE Secretary Ashton Carter acknowledged yesterday that al Qaeda was seizing terrain amid the chaos in Yemen, but vowed that Washington would continue to com-bat the extremist group despite ongoing fighting there.

“We see them making gains on the ground there as they try to take territory,” said Mr Carter, who was in Japan as part of a visit to Asia for talks with regional allies.

Yemen has descended into violence over recent months, with Huthi rebels seizing power in the capital Sanaa in February.

The Huthis, allied with army units loyal to ex-president Ali Abdul-lah Saleh, have been fighting forces supporting President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who has fled to the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Late last month Saudi Arabia launched a campaign of air strikes, amid fears Yemen will slip into Huthi control and shift into the orbit of Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia’s regional rival.

Observers say al Qaeda and oth-er groups are exploiting the insta-bility, in which the World Health

Organisation says at least 540 people have died since March 19.

“The terrorism threat to the West, including the United States, from AQAP [Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] is a longstand-ing and serious one … that we will keep combating,” he added at a press conference alongside his Japanese counterpart, Gen Nakatani.

“Obviously it’s always easier to conduct CT [counter-terrorism] ops when there is a stable government willing to cooperate.

“That circumstance now obviously doesn’t exist in Yemen but that doesn’t mean that we don’t continue to take steps to protect ourselves. We have to do it in a different way, but we do and we are.”

Mr Carter expressed hope that peace would be restored “not only for that reason but also [because] there is a lot of suffering in Yemen”.

At the end of last week AQAP, which the US views as the most dangerous wing of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, captured the army headquarters and the southeastern port of Al Mukalla.

– AFP

Al Qaeda making gains in Yemen, US concedes

Yemeni fighters opposing the Huthi rebels hold a bullet belt in the northern entrance of the southern Yemeni city of Aden on April 8 as clashes continue to rage in the embattled city between Shiite Huthi rebels and forces loyal to fugitive Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. Photo: AFP

A Yemeni supporter of the separatist Southern Movement, loyal to the government forces, stands on a street in Aden’s northern district of Dar Saad on April 7. Photo: AFP

‘The war in Aden is on every street, in every corner ... Many are unable to escape.’

Marie-Claire Feghali iCrC spokesperson

GREEK Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was due to meet Kremlin strongman Vladimir Putin in Moscow yesterday as part of an eye-catching visit that has fuelled EU fears cash-strapped Athens is cosying up to Russia.

The two-day trip comes as Mr Tsipras is battling to unblock a rescue package from the EU and IMF, with some in Brussels warning against any move to barter financial support from Moscow for political backing over the Ukraine crisis.

But analysts say that while the visit might see Moscow lift an embargo on Greek fruit, overall it is more about political grandstanding aimed at pres-suring Europe rather than a serious shift in policy.

Mr Tsipras, a former Communist who came to power in January, has made no secret of seeking closer ties to Russia at a time when Moscow is at loggerheads with the European Union over the conflict in Ukraine.

He has travelled to Moscow al-ready last year, prior to his election win, to meet with several officials and lawmakers.

A number of Greek officials have openly broached the prospect of Ath-ens turning to Russia or China for financial assistance if loan talks with the EU end in failure.

Ahead of the trip, Mr Tsipras once again rattled the EU’s already shaky stance over Ukraine by lashing out at Western sanctions against Moscow as “a road to nowhere”.

“We do not agree with sanctions,” Mr Tsipras told Russian state news agency TASS.

“I support the point of view that there is a need for a dialogue and

diplomacy. We should sit down at the negotiating table and find the solu-tions to major problems.”

Both sides have talked up the possi-bility of closer economic ties between the two Orthodox nations ahead of the visit – set to be followed by anoth-er trip to Moscow for Mr Tsipras for WWII victory anniversary commemo-rations in May.

Prominent among the issues on the agenda is gas after Energy Minis-ter Panagiotis Lafazanis discussed en-ergy exploration and the new Turkish Stream pipeline during a two-day visit last month.

But while both sides make posi-tive noises there appears no chance of Russia – battling an economic crisis of its own – stepping in with major fi-nancial aid.

“There is no question of Greece re-ceiving any money to plug its holes,” Russian foreign affairs expert Fyodor Lukyanov told AFP.

Moscow, however, could well de-cide to revoke a painful embargo on fruit – imposed as part of a wider ban on Western products in response to sanctions over Ukraine – that has bruised Greece’s agricultural sector.

“That does not cost anything but still looks good,” Mr Lukyanov said.

For Mr Putin, courting Athens is most likely seen as a way of sowing discord in Europe and Greece might be seen as a Trojan Horse for helping to rock his Western foes.

“It’s not realistic to expect that Greece will veto the sanctions against Russia,” Mr Lyukanov said.

“But it could foment a wave of opinion against the sanctions and that is useful.”

For Mr Tsipras, experts said, the visit to Moscow is far more a warn-ing shot to Europe as the wrangling over the bailout drags on rather than a genuine gambit to throw Athens’ lot in with Russia.

“The Tsipras government seeks to leave ambiguity hanging over its intentions as if to tell the Europeans ‘don’t take us for granted’,” said Greek

analyst Constantinos Filis.But he added that this is merely a

“tactic” rather than a true foreign pol-icy shift and cosying up to Moscow is just “an additional card” in the game of brinkmanship.

“Greece needs the EU and Russia needs Greece to remain part of the EU and NATO in terms of the support it can offer against criticism and eco-

nomic sanctions.”Thanos Veremis, vice-president of

the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy says Mr Tsipras visit is mainly directed at the elector-ate at home.

“It’s designed to show that the gov-ernment is proactive and prepared to try things out.”

– AFP

World 17www.mmtimes.com

MOSCOW

KIGALI

Greek PM rattles EU in Moscow talks

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (foreground right) takes part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin Wall in Moscow on April 8. Photo: AFP

WASHINGTON

BARACK Obama is set to become the first US president to set foot on Jamai-can soil in more than three decades, as the United States bids to check Ven-ezuelan influence in the Caribbean.

Mr Obama was set to arrive in Kingston late yesterday for a meeting with the 15-member CARICOM Carib-bean bloc, the first time a sitting US president has visited the island since Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Mr Obama will be keen to offer an alternative to cheap Venezuelan oil, which has enticed many of the region’s struggling economies, but looks set to end.

Mr Obama will have to woo coun-tries that while geographically close to the US, are often politically distant.

“We absolutely feel that the CARI-COM region does deserve greater at-

tention and engagement from the United States,” said senior Obama advisor Ben Rhodes on the eve of the visit.

He pointed to a recent energy ini-tiative led by Vice President Joe Biden.

“We are looking to continually deepen our relationship with the Car-ibbean and can play an important role in enhancing the energy security of the region,” said Mr Rhodes.

The US had “significant” energy re-sources and infrastructure, he added.

If the US has not always made its presence fully felt in the Caribbean, that vacuum was filled by Petrocaribe, an initiative by Caracas’ state-owned PDVSA – Petroleos de Venezuela.

The program offered Caribbean and some Central American nations the opportunity to defer payment for

oil under low interest rates.But as Venezuela’s own economy

has faltered as oil prices slid, Carib-bean states have faced stricter terms and shorter supplies, leaving them vulnerable.

Venezuela “has been reducing its subsidized oil exports to Petrocaribe and the smaller states that receive those subsidies including Cuba,” said Ted Piccone, a former advisor in Bill Clinton’s White House.

Mr Piccone, now of the Brookings Institution, said the cuts to Petrocar-ibe are estimated to be anywhere be-tween ten and thirty percent of supply.

“The goal of the US now is to try to break up Petrocaribe and offer in particular the Caribbean states that are so vulnerable and so dependent on energy imports some extra special

attention.”Before the CARICOM meeting to-

day, Mr Obama was slated to hold talks with Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller.

Her government has been forced to adopt tough austerity measures in order to correct a fiscal crisis and meet the demands of IMF creditors.

With domestic pressure building, the White House is lending its “strong support for Jamaica’s work to deal with a debt crisis” said another senior Obama advisor, Ricardo Zuniga.

Critics say Jamaica has been forced

to adopt what the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research called “the most austere budget in the world”.

“Jamaica actually has a lower per capita GDP in 2015 than when Obama was elected more than six years ago,” the economic think tank said, urging less strident cuts.

Before departing for a Sum-mit of the Americas in Panama Mr Obama will take part in a “town hall” meeting with young leaders in Jamaica and participate in a wreath-laying ceremony.

– AFP

Jamaican progress: Obama launches Caribbean appeal

RWANDA’S justice minister yesterday welcomed France’s declassification of documents relating to the 1994 Rwan-dan genocide, in which Kigali accuses Paris of having an indirect role.

However, Minster of Justice John-ston Busingye said Paris should ensure the documents released are “total”.

A decision to declassify the papers was signed on April 7 and concerns “documents in the Elysee relating to Rwanda between 1990 and 1995”, span-ning the genocide which claimed at least 800,000 lives, a source in President Francois Hollande’s entourage said.

“The Franco-Rwanda political, dip-lomatic and military relationship dur-ing the 1990-1995 period has been a

tightly guarded domain,” Mr Busingye told AFP.

“Perhaps the goings-on at the time will finally be opened up, and it will shed light on the many dark and grey questions still unaddressed. One only hopes that the declassification is total.”

The papers, which include docu-ments from diplomatic and military advisers as well as minutes from min-isterial and defence meetings, will be available to both researchers and victims’ associations, the French presi-dency said.

Ties between France and Rwanda are strained as Rwandan President Paul Kagame accuses Paris of com-plicity in the genocide because of its

support of the Hutu nationalist gov-ernment that carried out the mass killings, mainly of ethnic Tutsis.

Paris has repeatedly denied the ac-cusations and insists that French forc-es had worked to protect civilians. Re-lations between both countries were completely frozen from 2006 to 2009.

The president of Ibuka, Rwanda’s genocide survivors’ association, called for documents to be made available as soon as possible.

“Let them do it and do so quick-ly. It is interesting, it is good,” said Jean-Pierre Dusingizemungu, saying it could shed light on France’s role and actions through the period of the genocide. – AFP

France to declassify Rwanda files

TRADE MARK CAUTIONSigma-Tau Industrie Farmaceutiche Riunite S.p.A., of Viale Shakespeare, 47-00144 ROMA, Italy, is the Owner of the following Trade Mark:-

LEVOCARNILReg. No. 12948/2011

in respect of “Pharmaceutical and veterinary preparations; sanitary preparations for medical purposes; dietetic substances adapted for medical use, food for babies; plasters, materials for dressings; material for stopping teeth, dental wax; disinfectants; preparations for destroying vermin; fungicides, herbicides”.

Fraudulent imitation or unauthorised use of the said Trade Mark will be dealt with according to law.

Win Mu Tin, M.A., H.G.P., D.B.Lfor Sigma-Tau Industrie Farmaceutiche Riunite S.p.A.P. O. Box 60, YangonE-mail: makhinkyi.law@mptmail.net.mmDated: 9 April 2015

18 World THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

WASHINGTON

Kenyans take part in a march demanding greater national security on April 7, following last week’s massacre by Somalia’s Shebab Islamists, ahead of a candlelit vigil on the final day of mourning for the 148 people killed by the militants.

IN PICTURES

Photo: AFP

CIA director John Brennan has giv-en a staunch defence of the frame-work nuclear deal with Iran, calling some criticism of the accord “disin-genuous” while expressing surprise at Tehran’s concessions.

In his first public remarks since the outline agreement was an-nounced last week, the spy agency chief said the deal would impose a litany of restrictions on Iran’s nu-clear work that had once seemed impossible to secure.

“I must tell you the individuals who say this deal provides a path-way for Iran to a bomb are being wholly disingenuous, in my view, if they know the facts, understand what’s required for a [nuclear] pro-gram,” Mr Brennan told an audience at Harvard University.

The outline deal would see the United States and the European Union lift all nuclear-related sanc-tions on Iran in exchange for a 98 per cent cut in Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium for 15 years.

The accord would mean “cutting off pathways not just to uranium enrichment but to plutonium enrich-ment” and include a “very intrusive inspection regime”, Mr Brennan said.

“I certainly am pleasantly sur-prised that the Iranians have agreed to so much here.

“In terms of the inspections re-gime, the reduction as far as the cen-trifuges, the stockpile, what they’re doing with the Arak reactor – all of that I think is really quite surprising and quite good.”

Citing Tehran’s “concessions”,

including agreeing to a dramatic re-duction of centrifuges, Mr Brennan said, “Boy, nobody ever thought they would do that at the beginning.”

Some critics were less focused on Iran’s nuclear program and more on the effect of lifting sanctions, as they worry it will allow Tehran to “cause more trouble throughout the area”, Mr Brennan said.

That was a concern, he said. But

the framework deal itself offered a way of curtailing any attempt by Iran to build nuclear weapons and is “as solid as you can get,” he said.

US and allied intelligence agen-cies would be closely monitoring how Iran implemented any deal.

It was unclear if the prag-matic approach demonstrated by President Hassan Rouhani on the nuclear negotiations would “migrate to other areas of

Iranian foreign policy,” he said.“I think we’ll see. But I don’t

think this is going to lead to a light switch when all of a sudden the Ira-nians are going to become passive, docile in the region, no.”

Mr Brennan, who served as President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser before taking over at the spy agency, said Iran’s attitude on the is-sue had changed since Mr Obama entered office six years ago mainly because sanctions had hit the coun-try’s economy hard, he said.

New leadership under Mr Rou-hani, who was a “more reasonable” figure, also provided an opening. Recognizing the threat posed by the sanctions, the supreme leader, Aya-tollah Ali Khamenei, gave a green light to Mr Rouhani to try to broker a deal, Mr Brennan said.

If the talks failed, Mr Khamenei could then blame Mr Rouhani and his foreign minister for the result, he added.

Mr Brennan also suggested that digital sabotage on Iran’s uranium enrichment work had played a role.

Asked by New York Times report-er David Sanger if the cyber attack was a factor, Brennan said: “I think their inability to progress certainly helped slow that program.”

Mr Sanger in 2012 broke the sto-ry of Stuxnet, a US-Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s nuclear program with a damaging computer worm.

Mr Brennan made a joking refer-ence to Mr Sanger’s articles, saying: “I wouldn’t attribute your reporting to helping that frankly.” – AFP

CIA chief defends Iran deal

‘I certainly am pleasantly surprised that the Iranians have agreed to so much here.’

John Brennan CiA Director

World 19www.mmtimes.com

GlASGOWlONDON

SCOTTISH nationalists are prepar-ing for landslide election gains at the expense of Labour next month but also holding out the offer of a pact that could put the centre-left party in power.

“Scotland’s voice at Westminster has always been very quiet. In fact it’s been completely muted because the strings have been pulled by UK La-bour,” said Carol Monaghan, an Scot-tish National Party (SNP) candidate in Glasgow.

“People don’t want that any more,” she added.

Labour won 41 out of 59 seats in Scotland in the 2010 vote, but polls suggest the majority of these will pass to the pro-independence SNP on May 7.

Without big wins in Scotland, La-bour has little chance of winning a majority in Britain’s 650-seat House of Commons – but neither does Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party, leaving the elec-tion wide open.

“If Labour weren’t losing ground in Scotland ... it would be pretty obvi-ous that they were the only party ca-pable of forming a government,” said John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University.

But the SNP surge could im-prove, not hinder Labour leader Ed Miliband’s chances as the party has indicated it could support a minority Labour government to keep Cameron out.

“I don’t want David Cameron to be prime minister. I’m offering to help make Ed Miliband prime

minister,” Sturgeon said in a televised debate.

In the central Scottish town of Cumbernauld, Labour MP Gregg Mc-Clymont won 57 percent of the vote at the last election but is fighting to keep his seat amid polls showing a major swing to the SNP.

“It’s certainly going to be a tight contest, there’s no denying it,” he said, pushing leaflets through doors on a housing estate during a spring hail storm.

Many voters seem receptive to Labour’s policies on the key issues of education and the state-run National Health Service, and Mr McClymont remains upbeat.

But there is still resentment against Labour, which was in govern-ment in Britain between 1997 and 2010.

The party has been demonised by the SNP as being too similar to the Conservatives and was widely blamed for the financial crash of 2008.

The SNP has in recent years pitched beyond its nationalist base to traditional Labour voters with a mes-sage of a fairer, more equal Scotland in charge of its own affairs–with sig-nificant success.

The party has run the devolved government in Edinburgh since 2007, and in the 2011 Scottish parliamen-tary elections won an impressive 45 percent of ballots cast.

The “Yes” campaign secured a similar proportion of the vote in Sep-tember’s independence referendum, and that enthusiasm now looks set

to translate into SNP success at West-minster.

Glasgow has long been solid La-bour territory but the party could be set to lose all but one of its seats, ac-cording to polling.

In the northwest of the city, Monaghan–a physics teacher moved to enter politics after the referendum looks set to overturn a Labour major-ity of 19,000.

It helps the SNP’s campaign that Labour campaigned with the Conservatives against independence–the Tories are deeply unpopular in Scotland, and have just one MP here.

“I think having a stronger SNP voice in Westminster is generally a good thing to shake up the big, larger parties,” said Stewart Cunningham, a 33-year-old PhD student who is switching from Labour to the SNP.

Labour has declined to say wheth-er it would take up its old enemies to do some kind of post-election deal, only ruling out a formal coalition.

The two parties share some poli-cies – they would both raise the top rate of income tax and the minimum wage, and oppose the referendum that Cameron has promised on Brit-ain’s membership of the European Union.

For Mr Curtice, this means that, despite its losses the Labour party has a “friend in the SNP” that Mr Cameron lacks.

“And that, to some degree, other things being equal, does tip the odds in favour of Ed Miliband being the next prime minister,” Mr Curtice said.

– AFP

Scots look to step upBRITAIN’S Prime Minister David Cameron has been skewered in the middle of a tense election campaign – for eating a hot dog with a knife and fork.

The Conservative leader’s visit to a voter barbecue backfired as an attempt to appear as an everyman, relaxing in a blue shirt as the beer flowed.

Newspapers and social media seized on the photograph of Mr Cam-eron using the cutlery as evidence that the prime minister is posh and unrelat-able – an image he has battled to shake.

“David Cameron doesn’t know how to eat a hot dog” announced the Metro; “I won’t try to hide the fact I am posh”

was the headline of the Daily Mail.“What kind of person eats a hot

dog with a knife and fork?” asked The Times journalist David Jack.

“I do the same at McDonalds with a Big Mac just before I ask to see the wine list,” joked one Twitter user.

Mr Cameron has said he will not change his upper-class accent to win votes, or apologise for what he called his “privileged upbringing”.

Mr Cameron, like Prince William, Prince Harry and a large proportion of Britain’s ruling class, attended the prestigious boarding school Eton Col-lege. The UK will take to the polls on May 7. – AFP

Posh nosh: Cameron roasted over hot dog gaffe

Faced with a tough choice, David Cameron opts to use cutlery. Photo: AFP

the pulse editor: ChArlotte rose charlottelola.rose@gmail.com THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

A hidden beauty uncoveredZon Pann Pwint

zonpann08@gmail.com

T HOSE familiar with Yangon as a place of construction sites and constant, snarling traffic may be interested to know that even 10 years ago, when cars were a rarity and months would go by without a developer breaking

ground, keeping the city green was a source of concern.U Hla Thein Maung, director of So Pyay Landscaping

Service, remembers well those days.“It was a beautiful place, marred only by a rubbish

dump,” he says, contemplating the placid vista of Inya Lake. In the early days of the century, he and his siblings used to drive past the lake, lamenting the ugly tip of waste and the tangle of weedy undergrowth that spoiled the view of the lake and the University of Yangon.

“Whenever we drove past, I would re-imagine it as a lakeside garden,” he said.

His dream became reality in 2004 when his company received permission from the Ministry of Education, which owns the site, to clear the land.

Within three months, the litter-choked ponds were filled with earth, the overgrown shrubs pruned back,

the mounds of rubbish cleared away, and the entire site landscaped with trees and flowers. The view was transformed.

“Passers-by would ask us if they could sit for a while and rest,” said Daw Aye Thandar Tun, another director of the landscaping service.

The garden, in Inya Road, opened in March last year. They called it Seinn Lann So Pyay, and the public has never stopped pouring in, with up to 700 visitors a day savouring the scenic view.

From dawn to dusk, birdsong and the gentle soughing of the wind off the water complement the visual experience and add lustre to the garden. Later in the year, a new restaurant was opened for visitors to the garden.

“Yangon City Development Council runs many parks, but they have been neglected,” he said, complaining that all too often after dusk the parks were the scene of furtive fumblings by couples with one thing in mind and nowhere else to go, causing embarrassment to family visitors.

“Whenever I catch a couple getting up to that sort of thing in my garden, I put a plant pot there,” he said, surveying the verdant scene. “I don’t want the families and the children to be upset.”

Rusty see-saws and slides in some playgrounds are not safe for children to play on, he added, calling for more space to be made over for recreation.

“There is no air more fresh than the wind blowing across the lake.”

ge

t y

ou r f i n g e r s o n i t

Stunning Seinn Lann So Pyay Garden was once nothing more than a rubbish dump. Photos: Aung Tun Win

TODAYFolk On Fire with L’n’r Band. From Folk to Reggae, oldies to recent tunes. Mojo Lounge and Restaurant, 135 Inya Rd, Bahan. Free entry. 9:30pm.Taco Bar Buffet. All you can eat Mexican with free-flow Coronas, Margaritas and tequila. Bookings essential, at: events.tgr@belmond.com or +95 (1) 229 860. Belmond Governor’s Residence, Taw Win Road. $42. 6:30-9:30pm.Juize Mix Battle in collaboration with Jam It! Artists: Gtone, One way, Hip II, Net Kyaw/Spider/CJ, YBV, C Phyo Min biz (Beatboxxer). Graffiti: Wunna Lynn

(Roar) , Thu Myat (O.K.P). MC: K-CA$H. Taw Win Centre, Pyay Road, Dagon. Free entry. 4-7pm.

TOMORROWAaron Gallegos Trio. Blending diverse influences from flamenco to bossa, jazz and world music. Gekko, 535 Merchant Rd. 7pm.French Love Friday. Davdenam X Fisewook Tech house, indie dance, deep house, minimale French touch, Nu-Disco. K6000 (with 3 free drinks). Institut Francais de Birmanie, 340 Pyay Rd. 10pm-2am.

Got an event? | List it in What’s On! | whatsonmt@gmail.com

the pulse 21www.mmtimes.com

IN PICTUREs

Photo: AFP

Each year the Pralormo castle hosts the “Mister Tulip” event in the English garden where over 75,000 tulips bloom at the same time and announce the arrival of spring.

OIL paintings by impressionist master Claude Monet are expected to be stars of the spring auction season in New York, where Sotheby’s believes they could fetch as much as US$110 million.

One of the paintings is part of the famous Nymphéas (Water Lilies) series the French artist painted at Giverny. Forecast to sell for an estimated $30-45 million, this work has been held by a collector since 1955, and has not been seen in public since 1945.

The six Monet works have been in private collections; they are expected to generate a lot of enthusiasm on the auction block at evening sales.

The other works are “Le Palais Ducal” painted in 1908 in Venice; it is expected to fetch $15-20 million; “Bassin aux nymphéas, les rosiers” from $18-25 million;

and “Le Chemin d’Epinay, effet de neige” (1875). It is expected to sell for $6-8 million.

In addition, “La Seine à Vétheuil” (1901) is expected to bring in $6-8 million; it has been in private hands since 1955 and has not been sold at auction.

And “Au Val Saint-Nicolas près Dieppe, matin” (1897) could fetch $3-4 million, the auction house said.

These six works by the impressionist will be shown in London April 10-14, before returning to New York where they will be on view through May 1.

Auctioneers Christie’s, meanwhile, announced April 6 it would sell a Monet work – “Le parlement, soleil couchant” – for an expected $35-45 million on May 11 in New York.

The record for a single Monet

was set in June 2008 when Christie’s in London sold “Le bassin des Nymphéas” for $80.1 million.

“The six works by Monet that we are privileged to present this May represent exactly what buyers are seeking at this moment: several of his most famous scenes, emerging from prestigious private collections and completely fresh to the market,” said Simon Shaw at Sotheby’s.

“We’re undeniably witnessing an exceptional moment for great works by Monet at Sotheby’s. As new generations and new markets rediscover the master, the supply of strong examples remaining in private hands is shrinking fast. The result is fierce competition that leads to the results we have witnessed recently at Sotheby’s.”

– AFP

NEW YORK

Monet’s lillies bloom once again in rare new york art auction

Claude Monet’s paintings are estimated to achieve in excess of $110 million at an upcoming Sotheby’s auction in New York. Photo: AFP/Handout/Sotheby’s

T RULY dedicated followers of fashion, like me and, possibly, you (no, not you - you over there), will understand accessories.

A merely beautiful dress without accoutrements simply will not do. Good taste demands more.

If you go one step further and insist that your daily fashion accessories be crafted with hand-made tools, then you and I may well have rubbed unwitting shoulders at Sunflowers Art, Organic Dye Textile and Crafts store.

For those behind the curve, the store is no longer in 35th Street, Kyauktada township, but has relocated to 54 Shan Gone Street, Myaynigone, Sanchaung township (there’s nothing like the proximity of a brand-new K17 billion reinforced concrete flyover for enhancing the

subtle beauty of environmentally friendly products).

Naturally enough, the store nestles under the wing of the Sunflowers Group Social Enterprise, run by artists Maung Maung Thein (Pathein) and Chaw Ei Thein as a gallery and studio for art classes since 1994. But the traditional textiles, natural dye and knitting accessories schtick started just last year.

“Our store embraces the themes of recycling and natural materials. We draw from our environment that which is useful, and which need not be abandoned,” said Chaw Ei Thein. “All things have beauty. All we need to do is to see that beauty and to use it in an appropriate place.”

So here is your hand-made soap, there your shower creams or facial cleansers distilled from tomatoes, or

cucumbers, or aloe vera and what have you.

Here, too, your colourful knitting accessories, crafts, postcards, recycled products reborn as earrings, bracelets, necklaces, traditional shoes and natural-dye cloth, including cottons, silks and lotus produced and designed by rural women or NGOs earnestly improving education or struggling for the rights of old or disabled people.

“We have market demand, but we still face difficulties in production. We’re working on that, with the rural weavers,” promises Ma Chaw Ei Thein.

Some Sunflowers products may be had from Pomelo, Thiripyitsaya souvenir shops in Yangon and Narita and Osaka airports and art@apt in New York. See you there, sweeties.

Blooming trade in Myanmar arts and crafts

Photos: Aung Khant

NaNdaR aUNgnandaraung.mcm@gmail.com

22 the pulse THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

screen scene

House of Cards renewed for season four

There is no trailer. There is no release date. There are no plot details. But Netflix has confirmed that House of Cards has been renewed for a fourth season.

The show’s Twitter account announced the renewal on April 2 with president Frank Underwood’s signature line: “i will leave a legacy.”

House of Cards – headlined by Kevin Spacey as president Underwood, a full-time Machiavellian and occasional murderer, and robin Wright as his icy first lady – more-or-less reinvented television in 2013. The show

won more than its share of Emmys, including one for Spacey, and proved that a series could be incredibly successful without ever being traditionally broadcast.

Headline Hollywood reported the show will begin filming sometime this summer near Baltimore. The show threatened to move out of Maryland after the show’s producers, Media rights Capital, had a spat with legislators over tax credits last year. – Washington post

Films that pass the Bechdel test plummet in 2014

The number of films featuring positive depictions of women has dropped significantly.

New research suggests that 2014 saw a significant drop compared to 2013 in the number of movies released that passed the Bechdel test, the informal guidelines that judge whether individual films represent female characters fairly.

According to data publishing site Silk, the Bechdel “pass rate” was 55.4 percent in 2014, while in 2013 it was 67.5pc, a drop of 12 percentage points. The 2014 figure bucked a recent trend of steadily improving rates: 2012 saw a 66.4pc pass rate, 2011 was 62.8pc, and 2010 was 60.8pc. in fact, the 2014 figure was the worst the survey found since 1994, which came in at 52.4pc.

The Bechdel test began as a joke in Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985, but has since gained huge popularity as a tool for analysing gender bias in films.

The Silk survey also concluded that animated films – of particular concern, as large numbers of young children watch them – have had a chequered history in relation to the Bechdel test, with the last two years showing a startling improvement, presumably down to the “Frozen effect”. in 2012, 59.1pc of animated films received a Bechdel “pass”, while for 2013 the figure jumped to 72.7pc, before falling to 64.3pc for 2014. – Guardian

X-Files returns after 13-year ‘commercial break’

Cult sci-fi TV show The X-Files is returning for six new episodes, 13 years after David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s last outing as agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

The Emmy and Golden Globe winning series – which ran for nine seasons and over 200 episodes between 1993 and 2002 – will begin production this summer with the original stars, broadcaster Fox said.

“i think of it as a 13-year commercial break,” said the show’s creator and executive producer Chris Carter, adding,“The good news is the world has only gotten that much stranger, a perfect time to tell these six stories.”

The series follows the adventures of Federal Bureau of investigation (FBi) agents Scully and Mulder, who investigate the mysterious cases blamed on paranormal phenomena. – AFp

T his is more than just a central theme of Game of Thrones. it is a promise. On the eve of its fifth season, the hBO epic has

become synonymous with death. surprising deaths, gruesome deaths, but most of all, plentiful deaths.

But not all GoT deaths are created equal. This list will count down the show’s 10 most shocking deaths. For the sake of this list, “shocking” is a combination of surprising and gruesome, with some points for impact. it’s not simply a list of major characters who have died. For example, Khal Drogo’s death was not exactly surprising – powerful men have a habit of not lasting long on this show – and there was no need to shield your eyes during his mostly peaceful final moments. so here are the top 10, which 10 weeks from now will almost certainly have some new additions.

10. Viserys Targaryen: it’s easy to forget about him now, but Viserys’s death was one of the first times a (seemingly) major character died a gruesome death. Khal Drogo gave Viserys the golden crown he always wanted, burning him alive by pouring molten gold on his head, sending him out in a sort of Raiders of the Lost Ark style.

9. Ygritte: Love is doomed in the seven Kingdoms, so Ygritte seemed like a goner at some point. But to have her killed by that dirt-covered teen, Olly, just as she was having a cathartic moment with Jon snow? That was a lot to take.

8. The Mountain’s horse: Yes, i’m putting Gregor Clegane’s horse on

this list. Just stick with me for a second here, OK? Animals have it as bad as humans in the GoT universe, and since they are just innocent beasts, their suffering sometimes affects us more. Call it the sarah MacLachlan Rule. Anyway, Original Mountain’s single-chop decapitation of his horse after losing a joust to Loras Tyrell was one of the nastiest scenes of the first season.

7. Ros: here’s one death we didn’t actually see transpire, and thank the old gods and new for that. it would be hard to call Ros’s hanging-from-the-ceiling, crossbow-to-the-heart murder Joffrey’s most sadistic moment, but it’s on the shortlist.

6. Shae: The Tyrion/shae love affair was one of the few heartwarming storylines in GoT. Until, of course, Cersei got to shae and convinced her to turn on Tyrion and implicate him in Joffrey’s death. in terms of karma, she had it coming, but it was still extremely unsettling to see Tyrion Lannister – arguably the moral centre of this universe lacking morals – strangle the former love of his life.

5. Tywin Lannister: Now we get to the biggies. After shae, Tyrion’s killing spree ended with his father, the most powerful man in Westeros. The impact of his sudden death will likely swing the balance of power in the seven Kingdoms, and like Ygritte’s death in No 9, the act of a sudden projectile to the heart in the middle of an emotional conversation was a “gasp!” moment.

4. Oberyn Martell: some of us are still having nightmares about this one. The eminently likable Red Viper stood little chance of living through his encounter with the Mountain … but did he really have to go out like that? “Like that” being, of course, his face completely squished into oblivion by whatever

random Mountain was on the show that season.

3. King Joffrey Baratheon: Certainly the most fulfilling death on this list, in part because of how shocking it was. Joffrey’s death by poison scores points for both surprise and disgust. The blood flowing from his nose, his purple face, gasping for air, those dead eyes.

2. Catelyn Stark and Robb Stark: The Red Wedding. The defining moment of the show may not be No 1 on this list, but it remains one of the most memorable television scenes of our new century. The chaos of the massacre – starting with the moment Catelyn spotted Roose Bolton’s armour-clad forearm and realised what was about to happen, then quickly escalating to Talisa’s violent stabbing – was presented masterfully. Roose Bolton’s send-off line to Robb (“The Lannisters send their regards”) was a classic, and Catelyn’s murderous spasm of vengeance against Walder Frey’s wife before her own throat was slit was as brutal as it gets, emotionally and physically.

1. Eddard “Ned” Stark: Did Ned stark’s beheading have the same cultural impact as the Red Wedding? Certainly not. in its first season, GoT had yet to become a phenomenon – but this pivotal episode is arguably what made it one. Ned stark was the protagonist of the show. he was the foundation on which everything was built. Watching him get paraded to the chopping block, you just assumed he would escape his predicament. But in the moments before ser ilyn Payne’s sword came down, your realisation sunk in: “holy ... they’re actually going to kill Ned stark!!” his death set the standard for everything that would happen over the course of the show. if he wasn’t safe, truly nobody was safe.

– The Washington Post

Woody Allen, Cate Blanchett, Matthew McConaughey at Cannes?

With the Cannes Film Festival set to open in just over a month’s time, speculation is swirling over which films – and which top directors and actors – could be getting their moment under the French riviera sun.

Woody Allen is seen as more than likely to be walking the red carpet with his new flick, irrational Man, starring Joaquin phoenix.

Cate Blanchett might also be along for her movie Carol. And fellow Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey could appear for The Sea of Trees the latest film by director Gus Van Sant, which also stars Naomi Watts.

Cannes’s organisers jealously guard their selections for the competition line-up and the out-of-competition program until a month before the film fest opens.

This year, the movies to be shown at Cannes will be announced on April 16, and the festival will run from May 13 to 24.

Cannes mixes international arthouse cinema, Hollywood blockbusters, extravagant parties, industry wheeling and dealing, and eye-catching publicity stunts in a potent cocktail that has made it the pre-eminent global showcase for movies.

So far the only movie confirmed to be screened is Mad Max: Fury road. The dystopian sci-fi movie, the fourth in the high-action Mad Max franchise and the first to star British actor Tom Hardy in the title role.

Asia, as always, is expected to be well represented.Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul has just completed a romance, love in

Khon Kaen, which might screen. Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-hsien, a competition veteran, has a good chance with martial arts picture The Assassin. – AFp

The 10 most shocking deaths (so far) in Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones season 5, episode 1, premieres in Myanmar on HBO at 7:30am on April 13, concurrent with the US broadcast. A same-day encore will show at 7:30pm.

“Valar Morghulis.” All men must die.

W A R N I N G : S E V E R E S P O I L E R S A H E A D !

DAviD MAliTz

Photographers line the carpet at Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. Photo: Shutterstock

House of Cards’ Machiavellian Frank Underwood. Photo: Netflix

Much-loved cult iconsDana Scully and Fox Mulder.Photo: Fox

24 the pulse THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

DOMESTIC FLIGHT SCHEDULES

Airline Codes

7Y = Mann Yadanarpon Airlines

K7 = Air KBZ

W9 = Air Bagan

Y5 = Golden Myanmar Airlines

YH = Yangon Airways

YJ = Asian Wings

FMI = FMI Air Charter

Subject to changewithout notice

Day1 = Monday2 = Tuesday3 = Wednesday4 = Thursday5 = Friday6 = Saturday7 = Sunday

Domestic Airlines

Air Bagan (W9)Tel: 513322, 513422, 504888. Fax: 515102

Air KBZ (K7)Tel: 372977~80, 533030~39 (airport), 373766 (hotline). Fax: 372983

Asian Wings (YJ)Tel: 515261~264, 512140, 512473, 512640 Fax: 532333, 516654

Golden Myanmar Airlines (Y5)Tel: 09400446999, 09400447999 Fax: 8604051

Mann Yadanarpon Airlines (7Y)Tel: 656969 Fax: 656998, 651020

Yangon Airways (YH)Tel: 383100, 383107, 700264 Fax: 652 533

FMI Air CharterTel: 240363, 240373, 09421146545

Yangon to MandalaY MandalaY to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrY5 775 Daily 6:00 7:10 Y5 233 Daily 7:50 9:00W9 515 1 6:00 7:25 YJ 891 4 8:10 10:05YH 909 1,2,3,5,6 6:00 7:40 YJ 891 3,7 8:20 10:15YH 917 Daily 6:10 8:30 K7 283 Daily 8:25 11:30YJ 891 3,7 6:00 8:05 YH 918 Daily 8:30 10:45YJ 891 4 6:30 7:55 YH 910 7 8:40 10:05YJ 891 1,2,5,6 6:30 8:35 W9 201 Daily 8:40 10:35K7 282 Daily 6:00 8:10 YJ 891 1,2,5,6 8:50 10:45W9 201 Daily 7:00 8:25 7Y 132 Daily 9:35 11:30YH 826 3 7:00 8:40 K7 267 Daily 10:20 12:25YH 835 1,7 7:00 8:40 YH 830 5 11:05 14:55YH 909 7 7:00 8:40 YH 912 2 11:30 13:25YH 831 4,6 7:00 8:40 YJ 762 4 13:10 17:00YH 911 2 7:00 8:40 YH 832 4,6 13:20 14:45W9201 1 7:00 8:25 YH 827 3 13:20 14:45YH 829 5 7:00 11:05 YH 836 1,7 13:20 14:457Y 131 Daily 7:15 9:20 YH 910 1,2,3,5,6 13:20 14:45K7 266 Daily 8:00 10:05 YJ 212 7 15:00 16:25

8M 6603 4 9:00 10:10 YJ 212 6 15:15 16:40YJ 751 5 10:45 14:50 YJ 752 5 15:05 16:30YJ 201 1,2,3,4 11:00 12:25 YJ 202 1,2,3,4 15:30 16:55YJ 211 5,7 11:15 12:40 YJ 602 6 15:55 17:50YJ 601 6 11:15 12:40 YH 732 6 16:40 18:05YJ 761 1,2 11:15 13:10 YH 732 Daily 16:40 18:45YJ 761 4 11:00 12:55 YH 728 1 16:45 18:10YJ 233 6 11:00 12:55 YJ 762 1,2 16:50 18:15YH 729 2,4,6 11:00 14:00 W9 152/W97152 1 17:05 18:30YH 737 3,5,7 11:15 13:25 Y5 776 Daily 17:10 18:20YH 727 1 11:15 13:25 W9 211 4 17:10 19:15W9 251 2,5 11:30 12:55 K7 823 2,4,7 17:10 18:35K7 822 4,7 12:30 16:55 8M 6604 4 17:20 18:30

YJ 151/W9 7151 1 13:00 16:45 K7 227 2,4,6 17:20 18:45K7 622 1,3,5,7 13:00 14:25 8M 903 1,2,4,5,7 17:20 18:30K7 226 2,4,6 13:30 14:55 YH 738 3,5,7 17:25 18:50YH 731 Daily 14:30 16:40 K7 623 1,3,5,7 17:40 19:05Y5 234 Daily 15:20 16:30 YH 730 2,4,6 17:45 19:10W9 211 4 15:30 16:55 YJ 234 6 17:45 19:10

W9 252 2,5 18:15 19:40

Yangon to naY pYi taw naY pYi taw to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrFMI A1 1,2,3,4,5 7:15 8:15 FMI A2 1,2,3,4,5 8:35 9:35FMI B1 1,2,3,4,5 10:45 11:45 FMI B2 1,2,3,4,5 13:30 14:30FMI C1 1,2,3,4,5 17:00 18:00 FMI C2 1,2,3,4,5 18:20 19:20

Yangon to nYaung u nYaung u to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrK7 282 Daily 6:00 7:20 YJ 891 3,7 7:35 10:15YJ 891 3,7 6:00 7:20 YH 918 Daily 7:45 10:45YH 909 1,2,3,5,6 6:00 8:25 YJ 881 7 8:05 10:10YH 917 Daily 6:10 7:45 YJ 891 1,2,5,6 8:05 10:45YJ 881 7 6:30 7:50 YH 910 4 8:05 9:25YJ 891 1,2,5,6 6:30 7:50 YJ 881 4 8:20 10:25YH 909 4 6:30 8:05 YH 910 1,2,3,5,6 8:25 9:45YJ 881 4 6:45 8:05 K7 242 Daily 8:35 11:45K7 242 Daily 7:00 8:20 7Y 131 Daily 8:50 11:307Y 131 Daily 7:15 8:35 K7 283 Daily 10:10 11:30K7 264 Daily 14:30 16:40 K7 265 Daily 16:55 18:15YH 731 Daily 14:30 17:25 YH 732 Daily 17:25 18:45W9 129 1,3,6 15:30 17:35 W9 129 1,3,6 17:50 19:10W9 211 4 15:30 17:40

Yangon to MYitkYina MYitkYina to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrYH 829 5 7:00 9:40 YH 827 3 11:55 14:45YH 826 3 7:00 10:05 YH 832 4,6 11:55 14:45YH 835 1,7 7:00 10:05 YH 836 1,7 11:55 14:45YH 831 4,6 7:00 10:05 YH 830 5 12:30 14:55YJ 201 1,2,3,4 11:00 13:50 YJ 202 1,2,3,4 14:05 16:55W9 251 2,5 11:30 14:25 YJ 234 6 16:20 19:10

W9 252 2,5 16:45 19:40

Yangon to HeHo HeHo to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrYJ 891 4 6:00 8:40 YJ 891 4 8:55 10:05YJ 891 3,7 6:00 8:50 YJ 881 7 9:05 10:15K7 282 Daily 6:00 9:00 YJ 891 3,7 9:05 10:15YH 917 Daily 6:10 9:35 K7 283 Daily 9:15 11:30YJ 881 7 6:30 8:50 YJ 881 4 9:15 10:25YJ 891 1,2,5,6 6:30 9:20 W9 201 Daily 9:25 10:35YJ 881 4 6:45 9:00 K7 243 Daily 9:30 11:45K7 242 Daily 7:00 9:15 YH 918 Daily 9:35 10:457Y 131 Daily 7:15 10:05 YJ 891 1,2,5,6 9:35 10:45K7 266 Daily 8:00 9:15 7Y 132 Daily 10:20 11:30Y5 649 Daily 10:30 12:45 K7 267 Daily 11:10 12:25YH 505 1,2,3,4,5,6 10:30 11:55 YH 506 1,2,3,4,5,6 11:55 14:00YJ 751 3,7 10:30 11:40 YJ 752 5 14:20 16:30YJ 751 5 10:45 11:55 YJ 762 4 15:50 17:00YJ 761 4 11:00 12:10 YH 732 Daily 15:55 18:45YJ 233 6 11:00 12:10 YJ 762 1,2 16:05 18:15YJ 761 1,2 11:15 12:25 K7 829 1,3,5 16:10 17:25YH 727 1 11:15 12:40 YH 728 1 16:00 18:10YH 737 3,5,7 11:15 12:40 YJ 602 6 16:40 17:50YH 727 3 11:15 12:40 K7 264 Daily 16:30 18:15K7 828 1,3,5 12:30 13:45 YH 738 3,5,7 16:40 18:50K7 822 2,4,7 12:30 13:45 YJ 752 3,7 16:45 17:55K7 264 Daily 14:30 15:45 W9 129 1,3,6 16:55 19:10YH 731 Daily 14:30 15:55W9 129 1,3,6 15:30 16:40

Yangon to MYeik MYeik to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrY5 325 1,5 6:45 8:15 Y5 326 1,5 8:35 10:05K7 319 1,3,5,7 7:00 9:05 7Y 532 2,4,6 16:05 18:107Y 531 2,4,6 11:45 13:50 K7 320 1,3,5,7 11:30 13:35Y5 325 2 15:30 17:00 Y5 326 2 17:15 18:45

Yangon to sittwe sittwe to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrW9 309 1,3,6 11:30 12:55 W9 309 1,3,6 13:10 14:556T 611 Daily 11:45 12:55 6T 612 Daily 13:15 14:20K7 413 1,3,5,7 12:00 13:50 K7 423 Daily 15:10 16:30

Yangon to tHandwe tHandwe to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrK7 242 Daily 7:00 10:35 K7 243 Daily 10:50 11:45YH 505 1,2,3,4,5,6 10:30 13:10 YH 506 1,2,3,4,5,6 13:10 14:00W9 309 1,3,6 11:30 13:50 7Y 413 1,3,5,7 13:05 15:257Y 413 1,3,5,7 12:00 12:50 W9 309 1,3,6 14:05 14:55K7 422 Daily 13:00 13:35 K7 422 Daily 14:10 16:30Y5 421 1,3,4,6 15:45 16:40 Y5 422 1,3,4,6 16:55 17:50

Yangon to dawei dawei to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrK7 319 1 7:00 8:10 K7 320 1,3,5,7 12:25 13:357Y 531 2,4,6 11:45 12:50 7Y 532 2,4,6 17:05 18:10

Yangon to lasHio lasHio to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrYJ 751 3,7 10:30 12:45 YJ 752 5 13:15 16:30YJ 751 5 10:45 13:00 K7 829 1,3 15:05 15:55YH 729 2,4,6 11:00 13:00 K7 829 5 15:05 17:25K7 828 1,3,5 12:30 14:50 YJ 752 3,7 15:40 17:55

YH 730 2,4,6 16:45 19:10

Yangon to putao putao to YangonFlight Days Dep Arr Flight Days Dep ArrYH 826 3 7:00 11:00 YH 836 1,7 11:00 14:45YH 831 4,6 7:00 11:00 YH 832 4,6 11:00 14:45YH 835 1,7 7:00 11:00 YH 827 3 11:00 14:45W9 251 2,5 11:30 15:25 W9 252 2,5 15:45 19:40

the pulse 25www.mmtimes.com

InternatIonal FlIGHt SCHeDUleS

International airlines

All Nippon Airways (NH) Tel: 255412, 413

Air Asia (FD) Tel: 09254049991~3

Air Bagan Ltd.(W9)Tel: 513322, 513422, 504888. Fax: 515102

Air China (CA)Tel: 666112, 655882

Air IndiaTel: 253597~98, 254758, 253601. Fax 248175

Bangkok Airways (PG)Tel: 255122, 255265. Fax: 255119

Biman Bangladesh Airlines (BG)Tel: 371867~68. Fax: 371869

Condor (DE)Tel: 370836~39 (ext: 303)

Dragonair (KA)Tel: 255323 (ext: 107), 09-401539206

Golden Myanmar Airlines (Y5)Tel: 09400446999, 09400447999 Fax: 8604051

Malaysia Airlines (MH)Tel: 387648, 241007 (ext: 120, 121, 122) Fax: 241124

Myanmar Airways International (8M)Tel: 255260. Fax: 255305

Nok Airline (DD)Tel: 255050, 255021. Fax: 255051

Qatar Airways (QR)Tel: 379845, 379843, 379831. Fax: 379730

Singapore Airlines (SQ) / Silk Air (MI)Tel: 255287~9. Fax: 255290

Thai Airways (TG)Tel: 255491~6. Fax: 255223

Tiger Airline (TR)Tel: 371383, 370836~39 (ext: 303)

Vietnam Airlines (VN)Tel: 255066, 255088, 255068. Fax: 255086

Airline Codes3K = Jet Star

8M = Myanmar Airways International

AK = Air Asia

BG = Biman Bangladesh Airlines

CA = Air China

CI = China Airlines

CZ = China Southern

DD = Nok Airline

FD = Air Asia

KA = Dragonair

KE = Korea Airlines

MH = Malaysia Airlines

MI = Silk Air

MU = China Eastern Airlines

NH = All Nippon Airways

PG = Bangkok Airways

QR = Qatar Airways

SQ = Singapore Airways

TG = Thai Airways

TR = Tiger Airline

VN = Vietnam Airline

AI = Air India

Y5 = Golden Myanmar Airlines

Subject to changewithout notice

Day1 = Monday2 = Tuesday3 = Wednesday

4 = Thursday5 = Friday6 = Saturday7 = Sunday

YANGON TO BANGKOK BANGKOK TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

PG 706 Daily 6:05 8:20 TG 303 Daily 8:00 8:458M 335 Daily 7:40 9:25 PG 701 Daily 8:45 9:40TG 304 Daily 9:50 11:45 Y5 238 Daily 21:30 22:20PG 702 Daily 10:30 12:25 8M 336 Daily 10:40 11:25TG 302 Daily 14:50 16:45 TG 301 Daily 13:05 13:50PG 708 Daily 15:20 17:15 PG 707 Daily 13:40 14:308M 331 Daily 16:30 18:15 PG 703 Daily 17:00 17:50PG 704 Daily 18:35 20:30 TG 305 Daily 18:05 18:50Y5 237 Daily 19:00 20:50 8M 332 Daily 19:15 20:00TG 306 Daily 19:50 21:45 PG 705 Daily 20:15 21:30

YANGON TO DON MUEANG DON MUEANG TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

DD 4231 Daily 8:00 9:45 DD 4230 Daily 6:30 7:15FD 252 Daily 8:30 10:20 FD 251 Daily 7:15 8:00FD 256 Daily 12:50 14:40 FD 255 Daily 11:35 12:20FD 254 Daily 17:35 19:25 FD 253 Daily 16:20 17:05FD 258 Daily 21:30 23:15 FD 257 Daily 20:15 20:55

DD 4239 Daily 21:00 22:55 DD 4238 Daily 19:25 20:15

YANGON TO SINGAPORE SINGAPORE TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

8M 231 Daily 8:00 12:25 TR 2822 Daily 7:20 8:45Y5 2233 Daily 9:45 14:15 Y5 2234 Daily 7:20 8:50TR 2823 Daily 9:45 2:35 SQ 998 Daily 7:55 9:20SQ 997 Daily 10:25 15:10 3K 581 Daily 9:10 10:403K 582 Daily 11:45 16:20 MI 533 2,4,6 11:30 12:45MI 533 2,4,6 13:35 20:50 8M 232 Daily 13:25 14:508M 233 5,6,7 14:40 19:05 MI 518 Daily 14:20 15:45MI 519 Daily 16:40 21:15 3K 583 2,3,5 17:20 18:503K 584 2,3,5 19:30 00:05+1 8M 234 5,6,7 20:15 21:40

YANGON TO KUALA LUMPUR KUALA LUMPUR TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

8M 501 1,2,3,5,6 7:50 11:50 AK 504 Daily 6:55 8:00AK 505 Daily 8:30 12:45 8M 9505 Daily 10:05 11:15MH 741 Daily 12:15 16:30 MH 740 Daily 10:05 11:158M 9506 Daily 12:15 16:30 8M 502 1,2,3,5,6 12:50 13:508M 9508 Daily 15:45 20:05 8M 9507 Daily 13:40 14:50MH 743 Daily 16:00 20:15 MH 742 Daily 13:55 15:05AK 503 Daily 19:05 23:20 AK 502 Daily 17:20 18:25

YANGON TO BEIJING BEIJING TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep ArrCA 906 3,5,7 23:50 0550+1 CA 905 3,5,7 19:30 22:50

YANGON TO GUANGZHOU GUANGZHOU TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

8M 711 2,4,7 8:40 13:15 CZ 3055 3,6 8:35 10:35CZ 3056 3,6 11:35 15:55 CZ 3055 1,5 14:40 16:40CZ 3056 1,5 17:40 22:10 8M 712 2,4,7 14:15 15:50

YANGON TO TAIPEI TAIPEI TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

CI 7916 Daily 10:50 16:10 CI 7915 Daily 7:00 9:50YANGON TO KUNMING KUNMING TO YANGON

Flights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep ArrCA 416 Daily 12:30 15:55 MU 2011 3 8:25 11:50

MU 2012 3 12:40 18:50 CA 415 Daily 11:10 11:30MU 2032 1,2,4,5,6,7 14:50 18:15 MU 2031 1,2,4,5,6,7 13:30 14:00

YANGON TO HANOI HANOI TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

VN 956 1,3,5,6,7 19:10 21:25 VN 957 1,3,5,6,7 16:40 18:10YANGON TO HO CHI MINH CITY HO CHI MINH CITY TO YANGON

Flights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep ArrVN 942 2,4,7 14:25 17:05 VN 943 2,4,7 11:45 13:25

YANGON TO DOHA DOHA TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep ArrQR 919 1,4,6 7:55 11:40 QR 918 3,5,7 19:45 0459+1

YANGON TO SEOUL SEOUL TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

0Z 770 4,7 0:50 8:50 KE 471 Daily 18:30 22:30KE 472 Daily 23:55 07:45+1 0Z 769 3,6 19:30 23:40

YANGON TO HONG KONG HONG KONG TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

KA 251 1,2,3,4,6,7 01:10 05:45 KA 252 4 22:50 00:30KA 251 5 01:30 05:55 KA 250 1,2,3,5,6,7 21:45 23:30

YANGON TO TOKYO TOKYO TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

NH 914 Daily 22:10 06:45+1 NH 913 Daily 11:45 17:15

YANGON TO DHAKA DHAKA TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

BG 061 2 11:45 13:00 BG 060 2 8:30 10:45BG 061 5 19:45 21:00 BG 060 5 16:30 18:45

YANGON TO INCHEON INCHEON TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

PG 724 1,3,5,6 12:50 14:45 PG 723 1,3,5,6 11:00 11:55W9 607 4,7 14:30 16:20 W9 608 4,7 17:20 18:108M 7702 Daily 23:30 07:50+1 8M 7701 Daily 18:45 22:258M 7502 4,7 00:35 09:10 8M 7501 3,6 19:50 23:25

YANGON TO CHIANG MAI CHIANG MAI TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep ArrY5 251 2,4,6 6:15 8:05 Y5 252 2,4,6 9:25 10:157Y 305 1,5 11:00 12:50 7Y 306 1,5 13:45 14:35W9 607 4,7 14:30 16:20 W9 608 4,7 17:20 18:10

YANGON TO GAYA GAYA TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

8M 601 3,5,6 7:00 8:20 AI 235 2 9:10 12:10AI 236 2 13:10 14:10 8M 602 3,5,6 9:20 12:30AI 234 1,5 14:05 15:05 AI 233 5 15:00 18:00

YANGON TO DELHI DELHI TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep ArrAI 236 2 13:10 16:30 AI 235 2 7:00 12:10

YANGON TO KOLKATA KOLKATA TO YANGONFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep ArrAI 234 1 14:05 17:20 AI 227 1 10:35 13:20AI 228 5 18:45 19:45 AI 233 5 13:30 18:00

MANDALAY TO BANGKOK BANGKOK TO MANDALAYFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

PG 710 Daily 14:15 16:40 PG 709 Daily 12:05 13:25

MANDALAY TO SINGAPORE SINGAPORE TO MANDALAYFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

MI 533 2,4,6 15:45 20:50 Y5 2234 Daily 7:20 16:30Y5 2233 1,2,4,5,6 7:50 14:15 MI 533 2,4,6 11:30 14:50

MANDALAY TO DON MUEANG DON MUEANG TO MANDALAYFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

FD 245 Daily 12:50 15:15 FD 244 Daily 10:55 12:20

MANDALAY TO KUNMING KUNMING TO MANDALAYFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

MU 2030 Daily 13:50 16:40 MU 2029 Daily 12:55 12:50

NAY PYI TAW TO BANGKOK BANGKOK TO NAY PYI TAWFlights Days Dep Arr Flights Days Dep Arr

PG 722 1,2,3,4,5 19:45 22:45 PG 721 1,2,3,4,5 17:15 19:15

BEN CRENSHAWon the steely countenance of young fellow Texan

Jordan Spieth

TIGER WOODSon his troubled buildup to the Masters:

BUBBA WATSONon new poll saying he was the player most fellow

pros would not help in a fight:

RORY MCILROYto writers at his press conference:

HENRIK STENSONon being asked the reason that has kept him from placing no better than 14th at Augusta

JORDAN SPIETHon Tiger Woods quip that Spieth was in diapers when Woods first won the Masters in 1997:

26 Sport THE MYANMAR TIMES April 9, 2015

THE MASTERS

A neW poll indicating that Bubba Watson is un-popular with his golfing peers has given the reign-ing Masters champion

food for thought ahead of this week’s title defense at Augusta national.

Compiled by eSPn.com, the anonymous poll was conducted re-cently among 103 PGA players, pos-ing the question who would be the last fellow pro they would help out in a fight.

A whopping 22.6 percent of golf-ers surveyed chose Watson, doubling up on Patrick Reed, the second-lead-ing answer with 11 percent.

Asked by journalists on April 7 if he felt irritated over the poll, its findings or its timing, the 2012 and 2014 Masters winner said no, prefer-ring instead to take it on the chin.

“I take it as I need to improve as a man. I take it with pride. I need to get better. And I think over my ca-reer, since my rookie season to now, I’ve gotten better,” he said.

“But obviously there’s more room for me to improve as a man. And so hopefully next year or the year after, it improves.

“It’s a challenge. It’s great. I’m glad that it came out and it’s going to help me improve.

“So if it’s a bad thing and people don’t like me, then I’ve got to im-prove and prove them wrong.”

If there are some bad feelings toward Watson in the locker room, there is no doubting his popularity among the fans, who again flocked to his side as he practised for the year’s first major.

His unique, self-taught golfing style and heart-on-sleeve emotions on the course are a perfect match for the awe-inspiring beauty and knife-edge challenge that Augusta national provides.

The warm feelings are reciprocal with Watson saying that the fabled Georgia layout is his favorite.

“Well, it’s the only course I’ve won twice at, so it’s pretty good, and it’s a good one to win twice at,” he said.

“It’s a special place. This is excit-ing. This is the perfect golf course. The shape is perfect. The grass is all pretty green.

“This golf course, it gives me goosebumps every time you come down Magnolia Lane.”

Watson also believes that he is better prepared this time around to become just the fourth player – after Jack nicklaus, Tiger Woods and nick Faldo – to successfully defend his Masters title.

A year after his shock win in 2012, when he defeated Louis Oostuhuizen in a playoff, he found himself dazed and confused with all the hoopla that

goes with being the defending cham-pion.

“The media attention, the atmos-phere – even a year later, you’re ex-cited about your win,” Watson said. “Sometimes you get away from your routine or you just use your energy in a different way. That’s what I did. I don’t know about the other guys, but that’s what I did.

“This time I know what to expect. Doesn’t mean I’m going to play bet-ter, just I know what to expect, I know how to save some energy.

“I know how things are going to happen in the Champions Dinner now. I know more. That doesn’t mean it’s going to help. It just means that I should be better prepared this time.”

– AFP

Bubba on his own for Masters ‘Fight Club’

Chipping in ...

IT’S a Masters’ mystery and no one it seems has the answer – what is stopping european players winning at Augusta national ?

The last european winner of the fa-bled tournament was Jose Maria Ola-zabal, the Spaniard donning his second green jacket in 1999, edging Davis Love and Greg norman down the back nine on the Sunday.

That emotional victory 16 years ago proved to be the last chapter in two decades of european supremacy at the best-known and loved golf course in the United States.

Fellow Spaniard Seve Ballesteros set the ball rolling with his breakthrough win in 1980 and over the course of 20 years, victory went to european golfers 11 times.

Since then there have been no suc-cessors to Olazabal, Ballesteros, nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle and that at a time when european golf has continued to thrive at the other majors and in the Ryder Cup.

no cogent reason has been put for-ward for such an anomaly other than the rub of the green and the ability to cope with the particular demands thrown up by Augusta national down the back nine on Sunday.

next week once again european hopes are running high with world number one Rory McIlroy a strong fa-vourite to win a third straight major and second-ranking Henrik Stenson of

Sweden in top form.Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Martin

Kaymer and Victor Dubuisson are all in the world top 20 and it would be foolhardy to write off the chances of such Ryder Cup standouts Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter and Lee West-wood.

McIlroy for one believes that there is no one factor preventing a european player from winning the year’s first major.

Asked to account for the winless streak the northern Irishman, who was just a nine-year-old when Olazabal won, replied: “Tiger Woods has been one of the reasons.

“I don’t know if it’s anything nec-essarily to do with european players, you know. I feel a few of us had had a

chance, Lee [Westwood] had a chance in ’10, I think. I had the chance in ’11. Luke Donald was up there ’11, ’12. I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any reason.

“You look at in the early ’90s you had a lot of europeans win, Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle, Ian Woosnam.

“Maybe that will change and it will start to happen again. I don’t see any reason that I can think of of why that is.”

Of course most droughts come to an end at one time or another and at Augusta national the case of the long-running Australian jinx provides encouragement.

Years of Aussie heartbreak at the Masters, notably through Greg nor-man, finally came to an emotional end in 2013 when Adam Scott edged Angel Cabrera in a rain-soaked play-off.

One authority who does believe that McIlroy is set to end the drought is Colin Montgomerie, a long-time euro-pean number one who never quite got to grips with the special demands of Au-gusta national.

That is not the case for the Irishman, he says.

“Rory didn’t play well last year, and he still tied for eighth. He hits those big high draws, so the course is suited for him,” the Scot said.

“I would be – I won’t say ‘shocked’, but if he doesn’t win, I’ll be as disap-pointed as Rory will be to not win and get the career slam.” – AFP

The Masters’ Euro-mystery: Why can’t they win?

Watson may have the gallery behind him but have the players got his back? Photo: AFP

“I’m just here to play golf and you guys can write the stories, and I won’t read them and we’ll move on.”

“I can’t confirm that. I’m embarrassed; I just came out of diapers a couple years ago. So I probably was.”

“Not playing better than 14th, I guess.”

“You know, when I first met him, I tell you, I’ll never forget it. I looked right at him and

he looked at me and I thought I was looking at Wyatt Earp. He just had that look about him,

just wonderful.”

“I worked my ass off. That’s the easiest way to kind of describe it. I worked hard.”

“Obviously, I’ve never been in a fight in my life, so if I was in a fight, it was my fault. I caused somebody to get angry. So yeah, I

wouldn’t help myself either.”

‘I don’t know if it’s anything necessarily to do with European players ... I don’t see any reason that I can think of.’

Rory McIlroy Northern irish golfer

– AFP

Sport 27www.mmtimes.com

TRADE MARK CAUTIONKao Kabushiki Kaisha (also trading as Kao Corporation), of 14-10, Nihonbashi Kayabacho 1-chome, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, is the Owner of the following Trade Marks:-

VALCANReg. No. 12619/2011

in respect of “Int’l Class 3: Soaps; perfumery; essential oils; cosmetics; hair lotions; dentifrices”.

Reg. Nos. 5251/2000 & 2975/2005

Reg. No. 12620/2011 Reg. No. 12622/2011in respect of “Int’l Class 3: Soaps; perfumery; essential oils; cosmetics; hair lotions; dentifrices. Int’l Class 21: Household or kitchen utensils and containers (not of precious metal or coated therewith); combs and sponges; brushes (except paint brushes), perfume atomizers (containers), cosmetic brushes, eye brow brushes, hair brushes, nail brushes, shaving brushes, hair combs, powder compacts not of precious metals (containers), dispensers for liquid soap, soap holders, sponge holders, powder puffs”.

Fraudulent imitation or unauthorised use of the said Trade Marks will be dealt with according to law.

Win Mu Tin, M.A., H.G.P., D.B.Lfor Kao Kabushiki KaishaP. O. Box 60, YangonE-mail: makhinkyi.law@mptmail.net.mmDated: 9 April 2015

ASIA

IndIa’s ice hockey players have re-sorted to crowdfunding to take part in an international tournament, say-ing they are struggling to make ends meet a country better known for its field hockey.

a crowdfunding website set up by the national team says the sport receives government funding only to attend the Olympics or the asian Games, and the players don’t have the money to travel to Kuwait for next week’s International Ice Hockey Fed-eration Challenge Cup.

“It is so tough to push sports like ice hockey when cricket is taking all the limelight and glory,” Vedank

singh, the digital marketing head of the Ice Hockey association of India, told aFP on april 8.

“see, we have a national team and we have to beg for money.”

singh, who launched the crowd-funding campaign on april 4 using the Twitter hashtag #supportIceHockey, said the team did not have even “basic facilities”.

But he said the response to the campaign had been “fantastic”, yield-ing the team’s first corporate sponsor-ship deal, with the Mahindra Group.

The head of the Us$16.5-billion conglomerate, anand Mahindra, tweeted that he had “decided to

support these passionate athletes”.Cricket has long been the national

obsession in India, overshadowing all other sports.

Ice hockey is relatively unknown on the sub-continent, although forms of the game have been played for dec-ades in parts of the Himalayas.

India, which has never won a medal at a Winter Olympics, sent just three athletes to compete at the 2014 sochi Games.

Even successful sportspeople strug-gle to make a living, while the coun-try’s top cricketers can earn millions from playing contracts and brand endorsements. – AFP

C HIna’s greatest track and field athlete Liu Xiang an-nounced his retirement on april 7, with the inju-ry-plagued athens 2004

gold medal winner saying he had “no choice” but to bring down the curtain on his trail-blazing career.

“From today, I will end my life as a professional athlete and retire for-mally,” the 110m hurdles star said in an online post.

“This is a decision made after long deliberation. I am deeply reluctant and feel pained, but I have no choice,” he added, on his verified account on sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

The 31-year-old’s retirement is like-ly to spark an outpouring of emotion from Chinese sports fans, despite the news being widely expected, particu-larly since reports last week that an announcement was imminent.

The shanghai-born athlete has become loved for his heart-breaking setbacks as well as his achievements after he burst onto the scene in athens to claim China’s first men’s track and field gold.

Following that victory, Liu was hot-ly tipped for gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, but limped out of the first heat, shocking tearful home fans at the Bird’s nest stadium.

Liu suffered another agonising exit at London 2012, clattering into the first hurdle in his opening heat. after being helped up, he hopped the length of the track before symbolically kissing the last barrier and exiting the Olympic arena.

Liu will be remembered in China as the man who proved that asian athletes can compete with the world’s

best in sprint sports, particularly when he was on world-beating form ahead of Beijing 2008.

He arrived at the Games after breaking the world record with a time of 12.88 seconds in 2006, and winning the world title in 2007.

His coach sun Haiping was quoted in Chinese media last week as saying

Liu was “preparing” to retire, fuelling speculation at he would finally draw the curtain on a remarkable career.

In his retirement statement, Liu looked back with “reluctance” to the pivotal Beijing Olympics, when his ca-reer began to be severely affected by a right achilles tendon injury.

“I dreamt about raising the [Chinese]

flag,” he said, “But the injuries started to torture me just before the race.”

“Why did I let the Chinese people down?” he added.

His withdrawal in 2008 sparked widespread debate in China, with many observers accusing him at the time of letting his country down, while others said he had been pushed too hard by the country’s strict state sports system.

But his pioneering exploits in ath-letics have been widely praised by many sports fans in China, and on april 7 his retirement was the big-gest topic on Weibo, with 11.5 million people re-posting the news within an hour of the announcement.

“You are the pride of China,” one netizen said.

“Our national hero brought the asian people glory,” another added.

Liu’s retirement follows China’s first tennis Grand slam winner Li na calling it a day last year, and hugely popular former nBa star Yao Ming signing off in 2011.

Many Chinese netizens com-pared the trio as they saluted Liu’s achievements.

“China’s three biggest sports stars have retired,” one said. “although this is sad, I look forward to more sports stars replacing them in the future.” – AFP

ICe HoCkey

AtHletICs

India’s cash-strapped skaters seek crowdfunding

China’s greatest Olympic athlete Liu Xiang retires

The Indian Ice Hockey team will continue their development in the centre of winter sports that is Kuwait. Photo: AFP

Liu Xiang’s body succumbed to the pressure of international athletics as he approached the Beijing Olympics. Photo: AFP

SPORT EDITOR: Matt Roebuck | matt.d.roebuck@gmail.com

India’s ice hockey team crowdfund to Kuwait

SPORT 27Sport28 THE MYANMAR TIMES APRIl 9, 2015

MaTT ROebuckmatt.d.roebuck@gmail.com

English Premier league out-fit Tottenham hotspur have confirmed their intention to visit Malaysia next month to take part in an exhibition game against a Malaysia Xi select side.

The north london team cur-rently sitting sixth in the league will play at the shah Alam sta-dium on May 27, confirmed the club on its website.

“Therefore, this is fantastic news to all Tottenham hotspur fans in Malaysia and thousands more from neighbouring coun-tries such as hong Kong, indo-nesia, singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Brunei, who we hope to see at shah Alam stadium on the night,” said Ju-lian Kam, chief executive of the match promoter, ProEvents.

The Myanmar Football Fed-eration has over the past couple of years been in negotiations to bring a Premier league side to the country but to no avail. These efforts have included at-tempts to bring West ham Foot-ball Club to the country, reports of which surfaced in the press last year.

The problem for Myanmar would be how to make such an event pay in the same way Tot-tenham’s Malaysian adventure will. international fixtures in Myanmar are normally costed at about K3000 (Us$3) and all four of the country’s pitches that meet international standards – Yangon’s Thuwunna, nay Pyi Taw’s Wunna Theikdi and Zayar Thiri stadiums and the Manda-lar Thiri stadium in Mandalay – have crowd capacities of about 30,000.

seats at the 80,000-seater shah Alam will cost 58 Ringgit ($16), with special ViP seating available at RM428 ($118) and RM328 ($90).

“[Tottenham hotspur] are one of the top clubs from the English Premier league and have a following of over 400 million supporters globally, with over 170 million of those fans residing in Far East Asia,” claimed Kam in a spurs press release.

Malayia’s national team head coach, Dollah salleh, told re-porters at a press conference to announce the news in Malaysia that his team would try their best against the English out-fit, who last visited Malaysia in 1979.

“Our target is to score at least one goal,” said Dollah.

“My boys will have a good opportunity to learn a lot from them [Tottenham hotspur],” he added.

FOOTbaLLFOOTbaLL

I n commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of gen-eral Aung san, the Myanmar Football Federation yesterday held the draw at the govern-

ing body’s Thuwunna headquarters for the reintroduced general Aung san shield. The history of the shield dates back to the 1957 season but was last competed for back in 2009, be-fore the introduction of the fully pro-fessional Myanmar national league.

“since the introduction of the professional league, we have held this competition with the spon-sors title but as this year’s tourna-ment coincided with general Aung san’s birthday celebrations we have brought back the name and hope to continue to contest this trophy on an annual basis.”

The shield had been replaced by the MFF Cup as the Federation’s top knockout trophy, which has taken a number of guises according to the sponsorship deal: the Max Cement Cup, the MFF Digicel Cup and last year the MFF Ooredoo Cup.

“This year we did not secure a sponsor for this competition,” said MFF’s spokesperson U soe Moe Kyaw. “But as we all know this year is the 100th birthday of general Aung san so we have named this competi-tion in memorial to him.”

With a new name, the knockout competition has received another format makeover, it was announced as the draw for the first two rounds were held.

last year, the MFF Cup was played over six rounds, with the top

two seeds – as determined by the previous year’s final league positions – not entering until the fourth round, the quarter-final stage. This arguably reduced the thrill of the competition as the threat of a “giant killing” was significantly reduced.

This year however the general Aung san shield will be competed for over a five-round competition and all teams will have entered the contest by round two.

MFF spokesperson U soe Moe Kyaw said the reorganisation had been made to make the contest fairer and the rules also mean that the four top seeds – last year’s MFF Cup win-

ners Ayeyawady United, nay Pyi Taw FC, who lost out 2-0 to Ayeyawady in last year’s final, and Yadanarbon FC and Yangon United, the top two in last year’s Myanmar national league-1 – will not face each other until the semi-final stage.

Round One will feature two games a day to be played across the week-end from saturday, April 25, to Mon-day, April 27, with kick-offs scheduled for 4pm. Appearing in this round will be all 10 teams from the second-tier Myanmar national league-2 plus the two sides who found themselves pro-moted from that division last year: Rakhine United and hantharwady

United. Those two sides currently find themselves sat eighth and ninth in the Mnl-1.

The complicated process saw the draw requiring six pots of balls to de-termine the draw.

The pick of the Round One draw is likely to be April 26 clash of sec-ond-place team horizon FC and fourth-place lashio’s Mawyawadi FC who finished out the first half of the Mnl-2 season on March 27 with a bad-tempered affair that saw two Mawyawadi players sent off and some fans believing the horizon side that won 3-0 were lucky not to have suffered the same.

All tournament games will be played at either the Aung san stadi-um on the edge of downtown Yangon or at the Youth Training Centre – bet-ter known as Thuwunna stadium – in Yangon’s Thingangyun township. The exception for this will be the semi-final, scheduled to be a two-legged affair and played at the home grounds of the respective sides.

Although Thuwunna is the larger, more modern of the two stadiums and host of the majority of the national team games, the final will be played at the competition’s namesake venue.

The winning club will receive K30 million (Us$30,000) and should qualify for the Asian Football Con-federation Cup, the continent’s sec-ond-tier club competition. last year’s domestic cup winners Ayeyawady United currently sit in a strong posi-tion to qualify from group h of the AFC Cup for the last-16 of the com-petition. They play new Radiant at Thuwunna stadium on April 15, in a game that would virtually assure them qualification should results elsewhere go their way.

The runners-up of the Aung san shield will receive K15 million and the beaten semi-finalists will take K7.5 million each.

Spurs will face Malaysia in May

Return of the Gen. Aung San ShieldMaTT ROebuckmatt.d.roebuck@gmail.comkyaw ZIn HLaIngkyawzinhlaing.mcm@gmail.com

First Round

MCh no. Date Day Match Time Venue

1 April 25 sat Mawyawadi FC v horizon FC 4pm Y.T.C

2 April 25 sat hantharwady United FC v Pong gan FC 4pm Aung san

3 April 26 sun Myawady FC v gFA FC 4pm Y.T.C

4 April 26 sun silver stars FC v University FC 4pm Aung san

5 April 27 Mon southern Myanmar Fc v Best United FC 4pm Aung san

6 April 27 Mon Dagon FC v Rakhine United FC 4pm Y.T.C

Round of 16

7 July 11 sat Yadanarbon FC v Winner of 1 4pm Aung san

8 July 11 sat Winner of 2 v KBZ FC 4pm Y.T.C

9 July 12 sun Magwe FC v Chin United FC 4pm Y.T.C

10 July 12 sun Winner of 3 v Yangon United FC 4pm Aung san

11 July 13 Mon Zwekapin United FC v Zeyar shwe Myay FC 4pm Aung san

12 July 13 Mon Winner of 4 v Ayeyawady United FC 4pm Y.T.C

13 July 14 Tue Manaw Myay FC v Winner of 5 4pm Aung san

14 July 14 Tue Winner of 6 v nay Pyi Taw FC 4pm Y.T.C

Last year’s winners Ayeyawady United celebrate after their semi-final victory over Yadanarbon FC. Photo: MFF/Facebook