Blog Reader: [Myo Chit Myanmar | Dedicated for the people of Myanmar] 11 New Entries: ယေန႔ ျမန္မာ့ေရးရာ သတင္းမ်ား Oct,28th,2008

Rice farmers are struggling to pay debts and invest in future crops as Burma's military government sets artificially low paddy prices, say farmers and traders in Pegu Division.

According to a female farmer in Pegu, the government recently set the price for one hundred baskets of unhusked rice at 250,000 kyat. A trader in Pegu confirmed this price, and said that it is down slightly from 300,000 kyat, the price set by the government after last year's rainy season.

One hundred baskets of paddy in Mon State currently fetches 500,000 kyat, a trader from Mudon Township told IMNA. This price is down from 600,000 kyat prior to harvest, which began in October. The small post-harvest drop in prices is due to basic supply and demand, explained the trader, who said simply, "the price of rice always goes down after a new harvest."

The drastic difference between paddy prices in Mon State and Pegu Division, which share a border, is not, however, explained by economics. It is instead explained by intervention into the market by the State Peace and Development Council, Burma's military government.

Sale of paddy by farmers and traders in Pegu is heavily restricted by the SPDC. Paddy can only be sold within Pegu and to government purchasers; sale to places like nearby Rangoon Division and Mon State is prohibited, although some do manage to trade on the market, a male farmer from Pegu told IMNA.

Paddy prices and sales are controlled in Pegu every year, another trader in the area told IMNA. Every year, the trader added, paddy in Pegu is valued 200,000 to 250,000 kyat less than Mon State, where paddy can be sold to any trader at any price.

This year's price is lower than the same time last year, and lower still than last year's pre-harvest price of 400,000 to 500,000 kyat. It is not clear exactly why the government has set a lower price, although the male farmer from Pegu surmised that it is related to Cyclone Nargis.

Cyclone Nargis, which hit Burma's Irrawaddy Delta region in May, destroyed at least 20% of the country's rice paddy land. The SPDC is purchasing more than the usual amount of rice from Pegu, the farmer said, although he was not sure by how much.

Whatever the reason, the artificially low paddy price is causing serious difficulties for farmers. The government is likely to relax its price controls in a few months, but this offers little solace to farmers who must profit from the harvest immediately.

Many farmers incur debts to reap each harvest. And even those who managed to get through the 2008 rainy season without debt must earn enough from the paddy harvest to pay for investment in the next crop.

"In the harvest time, farmers are facing problems. Most of the farmers after they harvest, they have to plant another crop of vegetables. But the price of paddy is too low to invest in new crops. Farmers planting the last paddy crop spent all their money on fertilizer and labor costs," said the male farm owner. After the rainy season paddy harvest, most harvest plant another crop, typically beans or groundnut.

Burma, once known as the "rice bowl" of Asia and one of the region's most promising economies, has struggled for decades under the weight of consistent government mismanagement. The country's economy plummeted after its new military government, installed via a coup, embarked upon its so-called "Burmese Way to Socialism" in 1962, which combined heavy-handed government economic planning and the nationalization of nearly every sector of the economy.

Burma's Revolution of the Spirit

ခ်မ္းေျမ့ ဆရာေတာ္ဘုရားႀကီး ၏ တရားပြဲသို႔

Dear Dhamma Friends,

This year, retreat is arranged differently from previous years. Retreat will be held at Santisukha Rama temple, at Kota Tinggi, Malaysia. Kota Tinggi is one hour drive from Singapore check point.

Temple is located in the forest, valley of the mountain. The rejoicing forest environment supports peacefulness to yogis. Last year SMC retreat are held there and yogis appreciated.

Friends are encouraged not to miss this chance for most valuable moment of your life, as well as for your Sansara. It is so rare to get this opportunity to salvage yourselves.

Detail arrangement of the retreat as follows:-
> 13 Dec 2008      : Chanmyay Sayadaw, U Sobita, U Buttiya
> will arrive to Singapore
> 14 Dec 2008      : Monkhood Ordination (Donlaba) at
> Toapayoh Temple (2pm - yet to be confirmed)
> 15 Dec 2008      : 9AM sharp, Bus leave from SMC
> 25 Dec 2008      : 10AM sharp, Bus leave from Retreat

- Please contact to Daw Kyu Kyu Hlaing - 98322294 for visa application. Passport must have at least 6 month validity to join the retreat.

For more information, please contact to
       U Zaw Moe San : 91714350
       U Soe Min Htun : 96693016
       U Zaw Tun      : 98322294

For registration, Please contact to
       Daw Mya Wut Yee    : 91389712
       Daw Kyu Kyu Hlaing : 98322294

Donation are welcome for,
> Breakfast - S$125
> Lunch     - S$200
> Drink     - S$50 (per day)
> Water     - S$30 (per day)
> Airticket for Sayadaw, U Sobita, U Buttiya, and 2 Kappiya

With Metta,

Zaw Tun
On behalf of
SMC Chanmyay Meditation Sub Committee
Chanmyay Meditation Volunteer Group

8888 ျပည္သူ႕ေန႔စဥ္

သူရဲေကာင္းအားဂုဏ္ျပဳျခင္း

သေဘၤာသီး

ေပးပို႔သူ - ေအးခ်မ္း

ဗမာ့ၾကယ္သတင္းလႊာ

Sr.General Than Shwe's second daughter has made 200 million dollas by selling Burma's land to Chinese tycoons

Sr.General Than Shwe's second daughter has made 200 million dollas by selling Burma's land to Chinese tycoons

Burma has been under a military dictatorship for about 40 years. This makes it one of the poorest nations in Asia. The average household income is only 10 USD per month. Along with the dictatorship CORRUPTION has rooted itself everywhere, earlier this year General Soe WIn - Prime Minister of military junta government declared the CLEAN GOVERNMENT policy and started cleaning with Burma's most corrupted civil service department " Custom Department" followed by actions on "Traffic Police Department" of Burma, also believed to be one of the most corrupted department in Burma. And it is also rumored that the third target will probably be the "Justice Department"

BUT "were the DIRTY hands can CLEAN?"

First week of January, 2007. The second daughter of Sr. General Than Shwe (head of Junta) have made deal with Wang Xiaohua, Chairman and Zeng Guang'an, President of Guangxi Liugong Industrial Investment Co. Ltd of Guangxi Liugong Group- CHINA, over Nanning Overseas Chinese Investment Zone (China-ASEAN economic park).

Nanning Oversea Chinese Investment Zone is established to attract the investments from ten ASEAN countries including Burma, to attract the ASEAN countries, Chinese Government offered 40 Acres of 30 years granted lands (Free of Charge) to all Asean Countries and 400 millions dollars soft loan for each land to carry out the development.

The deal was simple, Than Shwe's daughter transfer the 30 years ownership of the (40 Acres) land which is belongs to Burma to Guangxi Liugong Group, Liugong Group claimed 400 million dollars soft loan from China bank and share or bribe 50% which is 200 million dollar to Than Shwe's daughter.

But to legalized the deal Than Shwe's daughter forced to brought in the local GO-NGO (Government Organized- Non Government Organization) name UMF-CCI (Union of Myanmar Federation of - Chambers of Commerce and Industry) into the deal, she ordered UMF-CCI to formed joint company with Liugong Group of China which is later named Golden Land East Asia Development Co. Ltd. Then the legalization process was done within one week (which usually took about year for normal business companies)

This information was disclosed by senior officials from Ministry of Trade who is loyal to his country (who must remained extremely anonymous), he said "who do they think they are ? (Than shew family) to do whatever they want with the properties that belongs to the state not to them"

Burma, also known as Myanmar, is ruled by a military junta which suppresses almost all dissent and wields absolute power in the face of international condemnation and sanctions. The Junta is lead by Senior General Than Shwe who is chief of army and also heads the SPDC, the body of 12 senior generals that oversees the running of the country and makes the key decisions. The generals and the army stand accused of gross human rights abuses, including the forcible relocation of civilians and the widespread use of forced labour, which includes children. The Junta has been widely accused by NGOs for its corruption which is ranked top five in the world.

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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

[Myo Chit Myanmar | Dedicated for the people of Myanmar] 11 New Entries: ယေန႔ ျမန္မာ့ေရးရာ သတင္းမ်ား Oct,28th,2008

ယေန႔ ျမန္မာ့ေရးရာ သတင္းမ်ား Oct,28th,2008

အေကာင္းဆံုးေျမၾသဇာ ျပန္လည္ဖြဲ႔စည္းျခင္း

Credibility On The Line

Farmers in Pegu Division struggling after regime sets artificially low paddy prices