Only 51 Million People in Burma: Nine Million Missing?

(News article direct from the AFP on 30 August 2014.)

Burma has only 51 million people (2014 Census).

Yangon (AFP) - Myanmar's first census in three decades shows the country has a population of only 51 million people, authorities said Saturday, around nine million fewer than an earlier estimate.

The former junta-ruled nation's last survey was conducted in 1983 and in more recent estimates the government had put the population at around 60 million. The census, which triggered international concern after authorities refused to allow minority Muslims to register their ethnicity as Rohingya, was conducted in March and April.

"The provisional result of the population in Myanmar is 51,419,420. The female population is 1.7 million more than the male population," immigration minister Khin Yi said at a press conference Saturday.

Dethroned Burmese Beauty Queen Absconded With Crown

(News article direct from theDAILY MAIL on 29 August 2014.)

Burmese model May Myat Noe, 18, was crowned winner of Miss Asia Pacific in May but has been dethroned. Burmese beauty queen ' then goes on the run with £120,000 tiara after Miss Asia Pacific World competition strips her of the title for being rude'

Organisers claim pageant winner has vanished and will not answer phone. May Myat Noe, 18, then was dethroned for 'lying' to pageant managers. Organisers thought she would be 'more beautiful' so bought her a boob job. Now Miss Asia Pacific World competition demands she return £120,000 tiara.

Teenaged Burmese beauty queen has allegedly disappeared with a £120,000 jewelled tiara after being dethroned as Miss Asia Pacific World for 'being rude'. May Myat Noe, 18, was crowned as the most beautiful woman in south-east Asia in May by the South Korean pageant, but the organisers wanted her to have breast enhancement surgery before they could get her a record deal.

David Kim, director of media for Miss Asia Pacific World, said Miss Noe had been a disappointment from the outset. Following her victory, the organisers and sponsors wanted the 5ft 7in pageant winner to change her looks so she could become a singer.

Abbott Govt Denying Dole To Older Asian-Australians

(True story of how older Asian-Australians are mistreated by Australian Government.)

Chinese beggars in Sydney during White-Australia Era.
(No dole for Chinamen policy is now back in Australia.)

Now fifty-nine year old Tony Lee migrated from Taiwan to Sydney, Australia in late 1970s and had worked hard all his adult life in Sydney as a waged-worker first few years and then a salaried worker for about ten years and later as a businessman running his own import-export business for last twenty years till tragedy struck and his marriage finally fell apart and his mildly-successful business eventually failed in 2010.

After completely spending his life-long savings last four years as our proud Tony didn’t really want to be on a meagre dole of about two-hundred dollars a week he finally swallowed his pride and applied for dole (now known as Newstart allowance for jobseekers) in late June and this was what happened unexpectedly over last two months.

After he lodged his dole claim online as he was instructed a tough-talking woman official phoned him for a short interview next day and immediately accused him of hiding money and falsely claiming dole. Her logic was simple. Tony was paying four hundred dollars a week rent and that was enough reason that he still had plenty of money to go on. She didn’t know the fact that Tony was paying rent with his nearly-maxing credit cards.

Old Tony was shocked. Except his very first two months in Sydney in late 1970 Tony has never been on any kind of government assistance let alone a dole. He was expecting a smooth approval process of getting dole for he has contributed well to Australian society by working all his adult life and paying substantial amount of tax last forty odd years.

The Evil Islamic State’s Dangerous Influence In Asia

(Hannah Suh’s article direct from the NATIONAL INTEREST on 29 August 2014.)

In places across Indonesia, small collections of political Islamists have “openly pledged their allegiance” to the extremist terrorist group, the Islamic State (IS).

One of those who have voiced their support is Abu Bakar Bashir, the founder of the extremist Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) responsible for the deadly bombings during the 2000s, including the Bali nightclub bombing in 2002, the Marriott bombing in 2003, the Australian Embassy bombing in 2004, the Bali II bombing in 2005, and the Jakarta hotel bombings in 2009.

While the spillover of IS into the Asia-Pacific region is unsurprising, this troubling yet under-recognized trend has serious implications for the region as well as the United States.

Indian Navy Is Running Out Of Helicopters

(Feature article direct from the STRATEGY PAGE on 26 August 2014.)

Indian Army's Dhruv Chopper.

August 26, 2014: The Indian Navy has had problems with procuring new helicopters for decades and the situation is getting worse. The procurement bureaucracy excels at corruption, timidity and an exceptional talent for not getting things done.

As a result Indian warships equipped to handle helicopters have only 20 percent of the helicopters they are supposed to have. The main deficiency is in importing a suitable medium (10 ton class) helicopters (like the U.S. SH-60, Russian Ka-31 and the European EH101 or NH90). There is no solution in sight and the complaints of the navy officers (of all ranks) are becoming louder, more detailed and more public.

Aside from the inept procurement process there are also problems with Indian efforts to develop an Indian helicopter industry. This has also been plagued by political and bureaucratic bungling. Despite that, after a half century of effort India does produce helicopters, but not yet the heavier types the navy needs. The closest Indian manufacturers have come to filling navy needs is the locally designed and built Dhruv.

Muslim Thugs Assaulting Jews in The New York City

(News article direct from the JP NEWS & UPDATES on 26 August 2014.)

NYPD: Jewish Couple, Strolling The Streets, Attacked On The Upper East Side. A Jewish Couple, taking a walk Monday night in the upper east side of Manhattan, were attacked by a group of people who made anti-Jewish statements, Police said.

The attack happened shortly before 8:00 pm at 220 East 63 Street, where the couple in their 20s were taking a walk when two vehicles pulled up in front of them and yelled multiple anti-Jewish statements on them. The passengers in the car, then threw a bottle of water at the woman, while the husband, trying to protect his wife, was punched in his head, cops said.

The couple, who live in the area, called Police who responded to the scene but were not able to find the suspects. The Hate Crime Task Force was called to the scene and were reviewing security cameras.

OOREDOO Nets One Million Customers In Myanmar

(News article direct from the TRADE ARABIA on 24 August 2014.)

Despite the Buddhist Protests OOREDOO is a sucess.

Doha: Qatar-based Ooredoo's mobile telecommunication network said it has broken through the one million customer milestone in its newest market of Myanmar, less than three weeks after going live with its services. 

Since the launch of Ooredoo in Myanmar, the company has seen unprecedented demand for its mobile phone and internet services, with people queuing overnight to purchase a low-cost Ooredoo SIM, said the Qatari firm in its statement.

Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, the group chairman, revealed the significant achievement in a special ceremony in the capital Nay Pyi Taw, where he thanked the people of Myanmar for their warm welcome, and stressed the company’s commitment to serving the country.

ISIS’s Evil Muslim Thugs Beheaded James Foley For Cash

(Daniel Greenfield’s article direct from the FRONTPAGE MAG on 21 August 2014.)

Why Did ISIS Really Kill James Foley? For Money. Kidnapping is a big cash business for many terrorist groups. Westerners are the most lucrative kidnapping targets.

According to a June 2014 statement by Treasury undersecretary David S. Cohen, ransom payments are now second only to state sponsorship as a source of revenue for terrorist organizations, implying that kidnapping for profit is ahead of even private contributions, bank robbery, and other forms of fundraising.

Kidnapping was a crucial early source of funding as ISIS scaled up its operations in 2013, and the group has had some success in ransoming foreign prisoners. It released two Spanish journalists after receiving an undisclosed sum in March of 2014, and there’s evidence that ISIS was looking for smaller payoffs, too.

Shipbuilding Industry in Burma (Myanmar)

(Feature article direct from the GLOBAL SECURITY on 15 August 2014.)

Myanmar Naval Dockyard in Rangoon.

As Myanmar is located at the strategic area of South East Asia, the port and the related industry of ship building are inevitably and strategically important ones for Myanmar. But in contrast to some other regional neightbors, Myanmar's shipbulding industry is generally underdeveloped.

Myanmar has made certain progress in ship building in the past decade with the encouragement of the government. Since 1995, the Myanma shipyard has successfully built and delivered six vessels to marine companies of Indonesia and Singapore.

Official statistics show that since 1988, Myanmar has built over 30 vessels for cargo and passenger services and imported over 100 passenger and cargo vessels to improve its inland water transport. Until recently Myanmar's domestic shipbuilding industry had provided the Navy with little more than speedboats and light ampibious craft.

Printing Kyat Notes In Burma Driving Hyper-Inflation

(Translation of news article direct from the ELEVEN MEDIA on 11 August 2014.)

Counting mountains of kyat notes in Burma.

Despite horrible hyper-inflation being persistent over last few decades Burmese government is still relying on printing high denomination Kyat notes to finance the enormous budget deficit in recently-quasi-democratic nation of sixty millions after more than six decades of Socialist and military rules.

But, according to Dr. Zaw Oo the principal-economic-adviser to the President, nowadays the notes printing is under direct control of the Union Bank of Myanmar the central bank of Burma. He also pointed out the fact that the Union Bank is constantly telling the government to keep strictly the annual budget deficit at not more than five percent of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of Burma.

Dr. Zaw Oo was giving a talk on Challenges Being Faced By Burma’s Economic Reforms held at the Economic Development Offices of MDRI (Myanmar Development Resource Institute) the government economic think tank in Naypyidaw.

8-8-88 (Four-Shit) Uprising: Anarchy and Head-Choppings

 (Direct translation of Soe Naing’s memoir from December Lad’s Facebook page.)

Nowadays there are so many just-over-20-year-olds at my work and I began to realize the 8-8-88 Uprising exactly 25 years ago is now just a history for them. But for me who was     barely 18 in August 1988 the failed Uprising is still recent in my mind.

Back then I was a tenth-grade student at State High School No-3 (SHS-3) in Thin-gan-gyung township in Rangoon. Our school was on the laneway from BOC Bend near former Irrawaddy cinema to Thin-gan-gyun train-station. The local people there were mostly Kalars (Muslims and Hindus).

On 8-8-88 there were mass protests in the city. But we didn’t hear anything about soldiers’ shooting to disperse the crowd then. The whole thing started from a fight between a small group of RIT students and the local youths from the Kyo-gone ward at a teashop where the violent argument broke out on which songs the shop should play.

Later two RIT students Phone Maw and Soe Naing were shot dead in the RIT campus by the security-police trying to quell the students’ protest demanding the arrest of the culprits who had attacked the RIT students in the teashop brawl earlier.

King Naresuan: Developed Muay-Thai From Let-Whaid

(Features article direct from the BADASS OF THE WEEK Blog.)

King Naresuan was a badass warlord who, while he was the reigning King of Thailand, won freedom for his people and fought off a foreign invasion by battling a tyrannical enemy king in a goddamned swordfight fought on the back of two rampaging elephants.

The tale begins in the mid-1560s, when the power-hungry King of the neighboring realm of Burma invaded Thailand, murdered the ass out of the Thai army, conquered their capital, took out the Thai King, sold half the population of the kingdom into slavery, and then rode back to Burma with Prince Naresuan as a prisoner.

The grandson of the Thai King, Prince Naresuan grew up far from home, in the royal court of Burma, spending his formative years studying alongside the Burmese nobility. When this guy wasn't seething about the treatment of his family and his beloved Thai people, he was hardcore feuding with the Burmese Crown Prince – an almost-equally tough young man who was about the same age as Prince Naresuan yet almost constantly acted like a giant dickbag to him whenever possible. Basically he was like the Malfoy to Naresuan 's Harry Potter.