'Help us build a new Myanmar' - Online Burma Library

TiMESWORLD the
Briefly
SYDNEY – A plane carrying
36 Sri Lankan men arrived
in the tiny Pacific nation
of Nauru on September 14
as part of Australia’s tough
new stand against a record
influx of boatpeople. They
are the first asylum-seeking
boat arrivals to undergo
offshore processing by Australia
since the Nauru facility
closed in 2008.
PHNOM PENH – Cambodia’s
Khmer Rouge court on September
14 delayed freeing
the regime’s former “First
Lady”, who has dementia,
after prosecutors requested
tighter conditions for the
genocide suspect’s release.
The UN-backed tribunal
had ruled the previous day
that Ieng Thirith, 80, was
mentally unfit for trial and
should be released.
NEW YORK – New York
on September 13 became
the first city in the United
States to impose a limited
ban on super-sized soft
drinks which have been
blamed by Mayor Michael
Bloomberg for contributing
to a national obesity crisis.
– AFP
US keeps Myanmar on drug list
WASHINGTON – The United States kept
Myanmar, Bolivia and Venezuela on its drug
trafficking “black list” on September 14,
but said Yangon’s recent reforms merited a
“national interest waiver” for aid.
For the fourth year running, Washington
accused all three countries of having “failed
demonstrably” to fight the drug trade.
But President Barack Obama’s
administration noted that Myanmar, which
has been blacklisted since 2002 and is the
world’s second largest cultivator of opium
poppy, has made significant strides this year
in joining the international fight against
illegal drugs.
Myanmar officials have already destroyed
more than three times the amount of opium
poppy lands as they did last year, said
the president’s annual memorandum to
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that helps
set US drug policy.
Nonetheless, “Burma’s current
counternarcotics performance is not sufficient
to meet its international counternarcotics
cooperation obligations,” Obama said, using
Myanmar’s former name.
However, Obama added that “given the
government’s demonstrated commitment
to reform and promising signs of action on
future poppy eradication, it is in the interest
of the US government to grant Burma a
national interest waiver,” meaning US
support will continue there.
Last year, there was no cooperation with
WASHINGTON – President Barack
Obama vowed on September 14 to
“stand fast” against spreading anti-
US violence raging in the Arab world,
as he mourned four Americans slain
in Libya after their remains were
flown home.
In a heart-rending homecoming,
four transfer caskets draped in
American flags were slowly borne
from the belly of a giant C-17
transport plane by slow-walking
Marines in dress uniforms, and set
down in a hangar.
US ambassador Chris Stevens and
the three other Americans died on
September 11 when a mob furious
over an anti-Muslim internet video
made on US soil torched the American
consulate in Benghazi, part of a
eruption of violence in the region.
“Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lay down his life for
his friends,” Obama said, quoting
the Bible as he honoured four
“American patriots” for embodying
national qualities of courage, hope
and idealism.
“Their sacrifice will never be
forgotten, we will bring to justice
those who took them from us. We will
stand fast against the violence on our
diplomatic missions,” Obama said
at Andrews Air Force Base outside
Washington.
As he spoke, a furious wave of anti-
American violence ripped across the
Middle East and North Africa, with
a crowd invading the US embassy
compound in Tunis, and guards at
the US embassy in Khartoum firing
warning shots at protesters.
Fresh violence erupted in Yemen
and Cairo and demonstrations took
Myanmar.
Obama said maintaining aid to Venezuela
and Bolivia was also “vital to the national
interests of the United States,” despite the
counternarcotics failures of the two Latin
American nations.
Venezuela remains “one of the preferred
trafficking routes out of South America,”
thanks to its “porous western border with
Colombia, weak judicial system, inconsistent
international counternarcotics cooperation
and generally permissive and corrupt
environment,” Obama wrote.
Obama alleged that some officials were
“credibly reported” to be involved in the
drug trade.
The president’s report cheered some
success in Bolivia, especially those backed
by the US government, but noted that
overall, the country has made a “negligible
contribution” to global counternarcotics
efforts.
The memo also noted that senior Bolivian
officials have been arrested for “facilitating
drug shipments.”
Bolivia responded by “vigorously” denying
Washington’s allegations, saying they do not
reflect La Paz’s counternarcotics efforts.
Bolivia, Myanmar and Venezuela are
among more than 20 countries – including
Afghanistan, Colombia and Mexico – listed
as “major drug transit and/or major illicit
drug producing countries” in the 2012
memorandum. – AFP
place in Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel
and the Gaza Strip, Morocco, Syria,
Kuwait, Nigeria and Kenya.
Six people were killed and dozens
injured in the violence on September
14.
Obama said that the “awful” loss
and terrible images may cause some
to question the dangerous work of
September 17 - 23, 2012
21
MyanMar tiMes
Obama lauds film rage victims
US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with
employees at the State Department in Washington on September 12, a
day after the killing of ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and
three staff at the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Pic: AFP
US diplomats abroad, but argued
that America must not abandon its
global mission to spread dignity and
freedom.
“Even as voices of suspicion and
mistrust seek to divide countries and
cultures from one another, the United
States of America will never retreat
from the world,” he vowed.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
told grieving relatives of Stevens,
information officer Sean Smith and
former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods
and Glen Doherty that the killings
dishonoured the spirit of the Arab
Spring.
“The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen
and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny
of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob,”
she said.
US military and intelligence
agencies have already launched a
manhunt in Libya for the militants
who staged the assault on the
consulate in Benghazi.
The violence erupted in response to
excerpts of the Innocence of Muslims
video mocking Islam.
In comments on September 13,
Clinton described the video as
“disgusting and reprehensible”.
But she also reiterated: “There is
justification, none at all, for responding
to this video with violence.” – AFP