Kyan-sit-thar: Burma Navy’s First Stealth Frigate

(This post is translation of news articles from the Myanmar Military Blog.)

Kyansitthar, recently reincarnated as the latest stealth frigate (F-12) of Burma Navy, was a Burmese general who became a famous Burmese king (1084-1112) after King Anawrahta (1044-1077) the founder of Pagan dynasty and the first Burmese empire.

Kyansitthar (F-12) is the second frigate designed and made in Burma at the Naval Dockyard in Rangoon after the first local-made frigate F-11 Aungzeya. But Kyamsitthar is a stealth frigate incorporating various stealth technologies in its superstructure, communication systems, and weapon systems.

Fall of Kharyarbon: The Last Hill Overlooking Laiza!

(Loose compilation of news articles from various pro-KIA and pro-Army sites.)

Dead KIA soldier on the Kharyarbon peak (24 Jan 2013).

The massive and brutal offensive against the high Kharyarbon peak by Burma Army began on midday January 24 as day-long shelling by the army’s 105 mm howitzer artillery guns positioned at the nearby Point-771 hilltop of Lajaryan Range which has fallen into Burmese hands just few weeks ago after a month-long fighting.

The Kharyarbon Peak is the highest position on the Kharyarbon Range overlooking the KIA’s last stronghold and headquarters Laiza on the Chinese border. Once Kharyarbon is captured KIA is basically trapped at Laiza and their only way out is into China.

Paris Club Cancels 6 Billion Dollars of Burma’s Debt

(The press release direct from the Paris Club the informal group of rich nations.)

THE PARIS CLUB AND THE REPUBLIC OF THE UNION OF MYANMAR AGREE ON A CANCELLATION OF USD 5,925 MILLION.

The representatives of Paris Club creditors and the representatives of the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar met on 25 January 2013 and agreed on a comprehensive treatment of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar’s public external debt.

Thai Naval Ships Sail for Anti-Somali-pirate Mission

(Interesting old news article from The Bangkok Post Newspaper - September 2010.)

Two Thai navy ships with 351 sailors and 20 special warfare troops on board have set sail for the Gulf of Aden to take part in the hunt for pirates off the coast of Somalia. The mission marks the first time Thailand has sent forces overseas to protect its own interest.

The HTMS Pattani and HTMS Similan left yesterday with two helicopters lashed to the decks from Chuk Samet port at Chon Buri's Sattahip naval base to join a 28-country effort to police the shipping lanes off the Somali coast, which has become a piracy hotbed.

Israeli Agents Blew Up Iran’s Fordo Nuclear Facility?

(News Article direct from The Times of Israel on 25 June 2013.)

Iran's nuclear facilities targeted by Israel.

Israel’s Home Front Defense Minister Avi Dichter on Sunday welcomed a report that Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility had been rocked by a huge explosion.

The report was published Friday on the website wnd.com, under the sensational headline: “Sabotage! Key Iranian nuclear facility hit?” It claimed that a blast deep within Fordo last Monday “destroyed much of the installation and trapped about 240 personnel deep underground,” citing information from former intelligence officer Hamidreza Zakeri, who it said used to work with the Islamic regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security.

Trans-Burma Oil & Gas Pipeline is Completed!

(Direct translation of News Article from The Myanmah Ahlin on 25 January 2013.)

Massive Burma-China pipeline carrying crude oil from the middle-east and natural gas from Burma will be completed in May and the oil and gas will start flowing in early June this year, according to Gao Jianguo the head of the Trans-Burma Pipeline Project under China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

Burma side of the pipeline has already been completed and the China side will be completed at the end of this month. The actual flow tests are planned at the end of February and by the end of May this year the pipeline will be ready for the distribution of crude oil and natural gas. The pipeline is the joint project between MPGE (Myanmar Petroleum and Gas Enterprise) and CNPC.

The pipeline carrying crude oil from the middle-east connects the Burmese port town of Kyaukphyu in the Arrakan and the Chinese city of Kuming in the Yunan of China. The total length of the pipeline is 771 km and the flow capacity is 22 million metric-tons of crude oil a year.

Burmese Prostitutes of Maesot across Myawaddy (2)

(This post is translation of news article from the Myanmar Express Group.)

A busy street in Mae Sot (2012).

This was what Ko Aung who works at a Guest House in Maesot bitterly said of the poor families of Burmese prostitutes working in Maesot.

“Times are so bad we Burmese do not know what is good or bad no more. We don’t know what is a good character or a bad character.

We have to call for a Burmese girl if the guest wants one. And there she comes by a motorbike. All three together on the bike. Father, mother, and a child. Child is just over one. Father drives the bike. Mother is the prostitute. While mother is in the room with the guest the father and the child wait outside. Father giving bottled-milk to his child. When her business is over they all go back home on the bike, unbelievable!

I’ve seen mother and daughter working together in the same brothel here in Maesot. If I tell what is going on with our Burmese in this town, people wouldn’t believe me, unbelievable!”

London’s Tower Hamlets Turned into Islamic Hellhole?

(Andrew Gilligan’s Article from The Telegraph Newspaper on 12 June 2011.)

Four Muslim thugs of Tower Hamlets and their victim.

Police 'covered up' violent campaign to turn London area 'Islamic'. Police have been accused of “covering up” a campaign of abuse, threats and violence aimed at “Islamicising” an area of London.

Victims say that officers in the borough of Tower Hamlets have ignored or downplayed outbreaks of hate crime, and suppressed evidence implicating Muslims in them, because they fear being accused of racism.

The claims come as four Tower Hamlets Muslims were jailed for at least 19 years for attacking a local white teacher who gave religious studies lessons to Muslim girls.

Islamists Raid Algerian Gas Plant and Take 100 Hostages

(This post is news article direct from the CNN site.)

(CNN) -- Islamists attacked a gas field in eastern Algeria, killing two people and seizing hostages, including Westerners, Algeria's interior minister said Wednesday. The incident may be linked to France's military support for the government of nearby Mali, according to reports from the region.

The Westerners, accompanied by Algerian security forces, were en route to In Amenas Airport when they were attacked early in the morning by a group of no more than 20 people, the official, Diho Weld Qabliyeh, told Algerian state television.

The security forces returned fire, and the attackers withdrew to the base of the petroleum operation, some 3 kilometers away, he said. Upon arrival at the base, he continued, the attackers "took in a number of Westerners and Algerians -- some people told us they were nine, some people told us 12."

KIA Sending Child Suicide-bombers to Mandalay?

(This post is translation of news articles from the Burmese Newspapers.)

According to the Burmese newspapers a brother and sister team of KIA’s would be suicide-bombers were captured on the daily Myitkyinar-Mandalay diesel train on 13 January this year.

Two Kachin siblings Ngaik-ngo-hlyan (F-17) and Phaw-kan-branseng (M-15) were arrested by the local security agents on the train at Myitkyinar Station just before the train left for Mandalay.

Five timed-explosive devices (not-yet-assembled) and five more remote-control bombs were found on their bodies and luggage.

Burmese Prostitutes of Maesot across Myawaddy (1)

(This post is translation of news article from the Myanmar Express Group.)

A Burmese brothel in Mae Sot, Thailand.

“My parents couldn’t afford to send me to school anymore and the local broker from our ward was also very persuasive in offering a sweet deal for me to go work in Thailand they finally put me in the broker’s hands trustingly.

The broker, a human-trafficker, took care of all the expenses to get me here and the 150,000 kyats advance to my parents. Once I got here in Maesot I was sold straight to the brothel and now I am a whore.

Though I’d never anticipated to work as a prostitute before in my young life, right now I just thought of myself as sacrificing my life for my family back home,” sadly explained the 16-year old Burmese girl, now a prostitute in Maesot, but originally from the Burmese town of Pegu near Rangoon.

KIA: The Terrorist Group from Burma?

(Part of this post is translation of opinion article from the Opposite Eyes Blog.)

KIA massacre of public officials at Saddone.

It was in the middle of 1974 when I was a young lance corporal in the army in the Kachin State of Burma. Our infantry battalion was fighting a brutal war against KIA (Kachin Independence Army) and CPB (Communist Party of Burma) insurgents in the mountainous region by the Chinese border.

After nearly a year on the front our company was pulled back to Myitkyina for a two month break. Part of our R&R was we had to do the week-on and week-off escorting of the daily Mandalay-Myitkyina train. The train was the only connection between Myitkyina and the rest of Burma. Plane trips were too expensive and the Irrawaddy there was too shallow to navigate and there were no roads then.

Burma’s Nuclear Dream Still Alive?

(This post is news articles from Asahi Shimbun newspaper and Eleven Media Group.)

North Korea tried to ship materials suitable for uranium enrichment or missile development to Myanmar via China last year, in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution, The Asahi Shimbun has learned.

The shipment included about 50 metal pipes and 15 high-specification aluminium alloy bars, at least some of them offering the high strength needed in centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program. Japan seized the items aboard a cargo vessel docked at Tokyo Port on Aug. 22, a raid which took place at the request of the United States, sources told The Asahi Shimbun.

Authorities concluded that the shipment originated in North Korea because the bars were found to be inscribed "DPRK," although investigators were unable to confirm the origin from cargo documents or from the ship's crew, the sources said.

Shans Forming People-Militias To Fight Back KIA!

(This post is translation of news articles from the Eleven Media Group.)

The indigenous Shans living along the Irrawaddy River in Kachin State are forming Burmese-government-supported People Militia (Pyi-thu-sit) units to fight back the KIA whose field units have been terrorising them for years and years since 1962 when Baptist-controlled KIA was founded.

From Myitkyinar all the way down the river to the big Shan village of Sinbo the land has been inhabited by mainly Red Shans (Shan Ni) and these Shan Ni villages bore the brunt of KIA’s protection-money-collection and forced-recruitment of cannon fodders to fight the Burmese for KIA.

Now they said enough is enough and they are arming themselves and fighting back the KIA Kachins with the help from Burmese Army.

George Soros “The Puppet Master” in Burma Again?

(This post is translation of news articles from the Eleven Media and Myanmar Express.)

The “Open Society” founder Billionaire George Soros, who was in Burma officially for his second time in a year, met Khun Htun Oo the Chairman of Shan National League for Democracy at Rangoon’s Chatrium Hotel on Monday 7^th January.

According to Khun Htun Oo the hour-long meeting with Soros was attended also by his colleagues Sai Saw Aung and Sai San Phun Aung and they had discussed mainly about present peace process in their Shan State.

“Mainly the situation in Shan Satate, peace situation. The peace process currently in Shan State is not progressing at all. Peace wouldn’t be everlasting also as even after the signing of ceasefire agreement the sporadic fighting is still going on. But George Soros didn’t say anything about what he could do for that,” said Khun Htun Oo to the Eleven Media Group.

Taliban’s Sharia Execution of Najiba aged sixteen

(This post is Luke Mogelson’s “Najiba” direct from the New York Times Magazine.)

Sharia Execution of Najiba (16).

SHE CROUCHES AT THE BANK OF A RIVER, a shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders. Behind her, men crowd a steep hillside and stand on rooftops and mud walls. Several hold up cellphones to record what is about to happen. The girl seems to look across the river, at a grove of lush trees that shade the far bank.

Flanked by her husband and father-in-law, a man with a long black beard recites a passage from the Koran condemning adultery. “It is the will of God that we remove this stain from society,” he says. “This girl is the wife of Jumma Khan, and he has the right to decide whether he will fulfill God’s will.”

Jumma, a laborer in his early 20s, dressed all in white, seems uncertain. “Give it to him,” a man says, and someone thrusts forward an AK-47.

Al-jazebra Pays Al Gore 500 Millions for His Current TV

(This post is direct from The New York Times.)

Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news giant, has long tried to convince Americans that it is a legitimate news organization, not a parrot of Middle Eastern propaganda or something more sinister.

It just bought itself 40 million more chances to make its case.

Al Jazeera on Wednesday announced a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore, a former vice president, and his business partners seven years ago. Al Jazeera plans to shut Current and start an English-language channel, which will be available in more than 40 million homes, with newscasts emanating from both New York and Doha, Qatar.

General Gam Shaung Wounded by Army Gunship?

(This post is translation of news article from various Burmese blogs.)

Feared Chief-of-Staff General Gam Shaung of KIA.

Feared Chief-of-Staff of KIA (Kachin Independence Army) General Gam Shaung was severely wounded by a Burma Army’s MI-35P helicopter gunship just out of Laiza on January 2^nd.

According to the KIA sources the feared General and his entourage in 6 SUV convoy was on an inspection tour of KIA defensive positions around Laiza when a roving helicopter gunship spotted them on a hill just outside of Laiza and sprayed them with .50 calibre heavy machineguns.

His bodyguard-major and seven Lawaw guards were killed and Gam Shaung was hit in the mid belly and thighs. He was sent to Laiza Hospital and later transferred to the Provincial Hospital at Htein-chone across the border in China. His situation is deteriorating fast.

Lajaryan Fell and Laiza Surrounded by Burma Army

(This post is translation of news articles from various Burmese Language Blogs.)

The crucial Lajaryan range defended by 500 strong KIA and ABSDF insurgents have fallen into the hands of attacking Burmese forces on 30 December 2012. The last defending post fell at noon that day.

About fifty bodies of insurgents were discovered inside the post and army captured assorted weapons and massive amount of explosives and mines. Forty wounded prisoners have also surrendered to the army and at present been receiving necessary medical treatment from the army medical corps.