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=========== THE BURMANET NEWS ===========
== An on-line newspaper covering Burma ==
=========== www.burmanet.org ============

To view the version of this issue with photographs, 
go to-

http://theburmanetnews.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$177


NOTED IN PASSING: 
 

'The Myanmar government is unhappy and unappreciative of the 
holding of the meeting'

Burma's Foreign Ministry in a statement on the Chilston II meeting in
Seoul (See AFP: 10 YEARS OF SANCTIONS BUT NO CHANGE)




Tuesday, March 7, 2000
Issue # 1480



Inside Burma--


AFP: 10 YEARS OF SANCTIONS BUT NO CHANGE

WASHINGTON POST: AIDS OUTBREAKS FOLLOW ASIA'S HEROIN TRAFFIC
THE DESERET NEWS (Salt Lake City, UT): MYANMAR CITY'S MAGNIFICENT
DESOLATION REPLACED WITH TACKINESS 
CNN WORLD REPORT: MYANMAR DRUGS REPORT
CNN: ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS LAG IN GOLDEN TRIANGLE 
KYODO: MYANMAR TO SHIP BUCKWHEAT TO JAPAN 
XINHUA: MYANMAR LAUNCHES THIRD NATIONAL SANITATION WEEK 

International--

PRESS ASSOCIATION NEWSFILE (UK):  FAMILY 'DEVASTATED' BY ARISTOCRAT'S
DRUGS DEATH 


=========================================



*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
 INSIDE BURMA
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

AFP: 10 YEARS OF SANCTIONS BUT NO CHANGE

YANGON, March 7 (AFP) - Myanmar on Tuesday spat vitriol at
 countries which took part on a meeting on its bitter political 
deadlock, painting the talks as a plot to pile more pressure on 
its military rulers. As the attack was launched, details also 
emerged of a major policy speech in which military intelligence 
chief Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt lauded the junta's decade-long 
fight against foreign sanctions.
 
The talks on Myanmar, held in South Korea, ended Monday shrouded 
in secrecy. They involved representatives from Canada, Australia, 
Japan, Britain, France and the United Nations.

 
Also there, to Myanmar's fury, were fellow Association 
of Southeast Asian Nations members Thailand, Malaysia and 
the Philippines.

 
"The Myanmar government is unhappy and unappreciative of the 
holding of the meeting," said a foreign ministry statement. "The 
Seoul meeting is nothing more than a scheme hatched by western 
countries to give pressure on Myanmar," the statement said, adding 
it "would surely not bring about positive results."

 
Sources and reports have indicated the talks were aimed at 
kickstarting a long-frozen dialogue between Yangon's military rulers 
and the democratic opposition of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu  
Kyi.
 
But Khin Nyunt made clear in a speech delivered to an audience of 
Myanmar diplomats that foreign critics had shown their ignorance 
of the country by imposing sanctions.
 
"They have done so in the belief that this will result in the 
collapse of the economy and that Myanmar will be forced to 
follow their lead," he said.
 
In fact, sanctions had the opposite affect, he said, 
claiming the economy was moving with "greater momentum," 
profiting from the people's determination to resist 
"unwarranted intrusion into our own affairs." Myanmar's 
junta has resisted all attempts to force it to hand power 
to the National League for Democracy (NLD) of Aung San Suu 
Kyi which won an huge election victory in 1990.
 
It is accused of a catalogue of human rights abuses and 
of carrying out a campaign of intimidation and detentions 
against the opposition. Claims that the economy is 
forging ahead are viewed with skepticism abroad. According 
to extracts of a World Bank report leaked to the press last 
year,  the economy is on the verge of collapse, beset by 
high inflation and an almost worthless currency, the kyat.
 
Khin Nyunt, the First Secretary of the State Peace and 
Development Council, as the junta calls itself said he was 
committing Myanmar to a new, more purposeful international 
role.  Without giving details of the new foreign policy 
he said : Myanmar is determined to play a more meaningful 
role in the world."
 
In a move which ended decades of political isolation, Myanmar 
joined ASEAN in 1997 despite stiff opposition from Western 
countries. The issue of Myanmar has poisoned relations between 
the grouping and the European Union ever since. The United States, 
Europe and other nations maintain tight restrictions on investment 
and trade with Myanmar.
 
The outcome of the two-day meeting in Seoul was unknown 
with officials involved remaining tight-lipped even about 
the purpose of the session. A South Korean official speaking 
on condition of anonymity said the forum was "partly aimed 
at improving the human rights situation there an of 
course is related to Aung San Suu Kyi."
 


*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

WASHINGTON POST: AIDS OUTBREAKS FOLLOW ASIA'S HEROIN TRAFFIC

By Susan Okie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday , March 6, 2000 ; A09

Burma's booming heroin industry is helping to kindle
the AIDS epidemics in nearby countries, including
China, India and Vietnam, with outbreaks of the
infection flaring like a fuse along routes used by
traffickers to transport the drug.

A new study by American, Chinese and Indian
researchers tracks how different strains of the AIDS
virus have followed the path of heroin in communities
along four separate trafficking routes in the
region. The spread of the human immunodeficiency virus
accompanies a rise in local drug use that
reflects the flooding of the market with Burmese
heroin.

Burma, the world's second-largest producer of opium
and heroin (behind Afghanistan), is suffering from
its own twin epidemics of drug addiction and AIDS. The
findings of the research team, led by Chris
Beyrer of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and
Public Health, underscore how quickly local drug
trafficking can carry HIV into remote, previously
unaffected areas.

"In every market town along [a trafficking] route,
there are new outbreaks of drug use," said Beyrer,
whose findings were published in the January issue of
the journal AIDS. "Overland routes involve local
people, highways, local traders and, sadly, have led
to this burgeoning AIDS epidemic for India, China
and Vietnam."

Opium production in Burma doubled in 1989, the year
after that country's authoritarian military regime,
known as the State Peace and Development Council,
assumed control. Although production has
declined in the past three years, Burma currently
accounts for about 80 percent of the opium production
in Southeast Asia, according to a State Department
report released last week.

The primary opium-growing region is in northeastern
Burma, in areas belonging to various ethnic groups
that are often controlled by local leaders with their
own drug-trafficking armies.

The research project began about 18 months ago, when
Beyrer was invited by the Chinese government
to help investigate an HIV outbreak among heroin users
in the southern province of Guangxi, bordering
Vietnam. "On both sides of the border, the amount of
heroin had been very rapidly increasing," Beyrer
said. The upsurge "appears to be a phenomenon of the
last decade. . . . It's very disturbing to China."

This border area is a mountainous rain forest,
impossible to patrol, Beyrer said. Heroin from Laos
and Burma was being transported into northern Vietnam.
Chinese users and small-scale traffickers "were
going across, meeting their Vietnamese counterparts on
the other side, and testing heroin" by
self-injection, often sharing needles.

The researchers used three separate techniques to
track the spread of HIV along the drug-trafficking
routes. Using blood samples from HIV-infected people,
they analyzed the genetic differences among
viral strains circulating in the region. They
interviewed users, dealers, drug treatment counselors
and other "key informants" about local drug 
availability, smuggling routes and injection 
practices. They also used data on opium poppy 
cultivation compiled by the State Department, as 
well as information on heroin trafficking obtained 
from the CIA, the Drug Enforcement Administration 
and foreign intelligence sources.

The researchers found clear evidence that specific
viral subtypes follow the heroin trade routes. For
instance, in Guangxi province, subtype E is common,
mimicking the situation in most of Southeast Asia.
In Yunnan province, along China's border with Burma,
subtype C prevails. Most of the earliest cases of
HIV infection in China were discovered in three border
counties in Yunnan province, among male drug
addicts and their wives.

Another route, into northeastern India, was discovered
to be "one of the major heroin routes out of
Burma," Beyrer said. "It's also the key route for the
chemical reagents that need to go in" to supply
refineries that make the drug.

When the team traced a new trafficking route all the
way to Urumqi in northwestern China, Beyrer
said he pointed on the map to neighboring Kazakhstan
and asked health officials what was the next city
on the highway. "This epidemic is going to happen
there," he told them.

"Six months later," Beyrer recalled, "I get an e-mail
from the World Health Organization [saying] that
there's been an explosive outbreak of HIV in Almaty,
Kazakhstan, and somehow there end up being
5,000 drug injectors there."

Heroin flows from northeast Burma into China through
Kunming, and then ast to Hong Kong through
Nanning. Researchers have discovered that, along this
route, HIV strains called subtype C and a hybrid
strain dubbed B/C dominate.

>From Mandalay in central Burma, heroin from the
northeastern part of the country is trucked to
Manipur, an isolated border state in northeastern
India. Despite being an insurgent area that the Indian
government has closed, Manipur has India's highest HIV
rates. Viral strains detected in the area
include subtype C -- the dominant strain in India --
and subtypes B and E, Southeast Asia's major
strains.

Burmese heroin reaches the Chinese border town of
Pingxiang via a route that traverses Burma, Laos
and northern Vietnam. HIV subtype E dominates this
route.

A fourth, previously unrecognized route, runs hundreds
of miles -- north from Kunming into Urumqi in
China, then west across the Chinese border into
Kazakhstan. This helps explain a recent sudden
outbreak of heroin use and HIV infection with subtype

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

    
THE DESERET NEWS (Salt Lake City, UT): MYANMAR CITY'S MAGNIFICENT
DESOLATION 
REPLACED WITH TACKINESS 

March 5, 2000, Sunday 
 
 
  
By Patrick McDowell Associated Press Writer  
 
 
   BAGAN, Myanmar -- How long does it take for paradise to be lost?
In the case of Bagan, about five years.  

 
Bagan is one of the world's wonders, rivaling Cambodia's better-known
Angkor as home of the most stunning ruins of an ancient, abandoned
capital in Southeast Asia. 
 
 
In the early 1990s, it had changed little since being sacked by
Kublai Khan's hordes in 1287 and abandoned to the baking sun of
central Myanmar (also known as Burma). But a few years of intensive
tourism development have dragged Bagan (also known as Pagan) into a
new age -- for better or worse.  

 
For the people living here, life is materially better. New jobs in
construction and services are fairly plentiful and many own guest
houses and restaurants that have sprung up in recent years. Bagan is
one of Myanmar's few areas to have electricity 24 hours a day.  

 
"Those who used to drive horses now drive cars," observes tour guide
Kyaw Zaw. 
 
 
For visitors, that may be the problem. Coming to Bagan once felt like 
discovering a lost civilization. But like so many remote places hit
by the modern tourism industry, sublime desolation has been replaced
by the tacky.  

 
I first came to Bagan in 1993, taking advantage of 14-day tourist
visas Myanmar's military regime was then issuing after years of
limiting foreigners to 24 hours or a week in the country.  

 
Removing my shoes in accordance with Buddhist custom, I climbed atop
the ruins of a 900-year-old pagoda. Before me stretched a dusty plain
east of the Irrawaddy River, dotted with temples. 
 
 
Hundreds of temples, as far as the eye could see. A few several
stories tall. Many a little bigger than a garden shed. Some freshly
gilded and plastered. But most crowned with weeds and falling apart,
brick by brick, home to snakes and bats.  

 
The vista brought to mind Shelley's poem "Ozymandias," about an
arrogant ancient king and his city, eroded over time into a
wasteland. Bagan was halfway there. The majesty of its slow decay at
sundown was breathtaking. At sunrise, it was even better. 
 
 
Fewer than 2,000 people lived there, working at archaeological sites
or serving a trickle of tourists who endured a cramped, 10-hour bus
ride from Mandalay or a risky flight on Myanmar's internal airline.  

 
They were served by a few small hotels and guest houses. Cars were
rare. Visitors could hire a horse and trap, with a good driver
doubling as a guide. The engine-free silence was comparable to that
of Venice.  

 
In 1999, I returned. The temples remained, all 2,030 of them. But
much of what made Bagan unique was gone.  

 
Myanmar's rulers tried in the mid-1990s to capitalize on the beauty
of their country, like many a nation before them. They promoted a
Visit Myanmar Year they hoped would bring a flood of tourists and
money. 
 
 
Bagan was the centerpiece. Millions of dollars were spent to bring
the infrastructure up to levels that could accommodate tour groups
arriving in air-conditioned buses and chartered airplanes.  

 
The opposition led by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi
campaigned against Visit Myanmar Year, saying tourist money would
only prolong military rule. But others said any tourist cash would be
a blessing to Myanmar's dirt-
poor people. 
 
 
Either way, visitors never reached the 500,000 a year that the
government hoped for. What those who do come find is a Bagan changed
centuries in a few years.  

 
Most arrive by road. No longer rutted dirt and tarmac, but a
well-paved, four-lane virtual expressway, wide enough for tour buses
to pass each other. Some horse carts remain, but they have to pull
over for the now omnipresent cars, vans, trucks and motorcycles.  

 
There's an 18-hole golf course and dozens of hotels and guest houses,
most of them empty. Pools, air conditioning and satellite TV.
Restaurants serving Burmese, Chinese, Thai and Western food. 
 
 
The temples? They remain incomparably beautiful. But the sense of
centuries of abandonment is gone.  

 
Hundreds are now topped by lights. Many structures have been overlaid
with gold leaf, a popular veneration for newer temples around Myanmar
but incongruous with Bagan.  

 
Most jarringly, scores of temples are draped with colored strings of
lights like Christmas trees.  
 
"The temples and pagodas have been restored mostly through donations
from the public," says Aung Kyaing Oo, director of Bagan's
archaeology department. "The donors have ideas." Some are the
regime's top generals.  

 
A new museum is a vast improvement over the hut that once passed for
one. But the structure was plunked amid a dozen of the most-visited
temples and dominates them. 
 
 
Bagan was capital of the kingdom founded in the 11th century by
Anawratha, who brought Theravada Buddhism to the country. As
Myanmar's people still do, he and his successors erected temples
seeking to earn spiritual merit.  

 
The system had contradictions. A later king, Narathu, took the throne
by murdering his father and built the giant Dhammayangyi temple in
atonement. 
 
 
Then, he killed the architect so the masterpiece couldn't be
duplicated. 




*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

CNN WORLD REPORT: MYANMAR DRUGS REPORT

For this report online, go to-
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/world.report/#r

14:00 

March 6, 2000
By Kevin Grieves 

CNN World Report

For many, the name has become synonymous with illegal drug production
and trafficking: the Golden Triangle. The area around the common
borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos has earned that reputation
because of the large volume of narcotics alleged to be produced
there, primarily opium and heroin. Currently, Myanmar, formerly known
as Burma, has the dubious distinction of being listed as 
the world's second largest producer of opium and heroin. 

Some Western nations charge the leaders of Myanmar with not taking
adequate measures to stem the flow of drugs from the Myanmar side of
the border. The United States recently announced it would extend a
ban on economic aid to Myanmar, citing an apparent lack of progress
in implementing anti-drug laws. 

Myanmar defended its response to the drug trade in the region on CNN
World Report. A report from Myanma Radio and Television noted some of
the strides it says the government has made in stopping the traffic
of narcotics. Reporter Aung Tun Oo says authorities have put the
brakes on more than US $45 bllion worth of heroin destined for the
United States, noting that the fight against drugs has cost the lives
of 828 Myanmar law enforcement officers in the past two decades. 

Myanmar has embarked on a 10-year plan to eliminate opium
cultivation, and Myanma Radio and Television reports that the Mongla
region in the east of the country has achieved the status of an
"opium-free zone," with other areas aiming to reach that goal by
2005. This goal could be stepped up with the help of international
aid, Aung said. 

"But even if aid is late in arriving," Aung said, "this fight to
eliminate narcotic drugs from our beloved soil is a vital national
cause, a solemn pledge that Myanmar vowed to keep to herself and to
the world community." 



*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* 
 
  
CNN: ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS LAG IN GOLDEN TRIANGLE  

[BurmaNet adds--This piece is from CNN's World Report which airs
pieces produced by local programmers around the world, many of which
are state run.  The following piece contains material from Burma's
state press and a TV station owned by the Thai army.]


March 5, 2000
 
Ralph Wenge, Aung Tun Oo, Asieh Namdar, Yongyuth Maiyalarp  
 
 
In its annual report on the international drug trade, the U.S. State
Department blamed Myanmar's leaders for tolerating money laundering
and drug- related corruption, but Myanmar says it is struggling to
contain the drug trade without any assistance from abroad. Meanwhile,
Thailand and Myanmar are blaming each other for rising drug
trafficking in the Golden Triangle, Thailand saying Myanmar has moved
tens of thousands of opium growers closer to the border to simplify
transportation.  
 
BODY:  
 
 
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND
MAY BE UPDATED.  
 
RALPH WENGE, CNN ANCHOR: The United States extended its ban on aid to
Myanmar this week, saying the military rulers are not cooperating in
the fight against drugs. Myanmar, also known as Burma, is part of the
Golden Triangle, where it meets Laos and Thailand. This border region
is one of the world's largest sources of narcotic drugs. In its
annual report on the international drug trade, the U.S. State
Department blamed Myanmar's leaders for tolerating money 
laundering and drug-related corruption. But Myanmar says it is
struggling to contain the drug trade without any assistance from
abroad.  
 

Myanmar Radio Television has this perspective.  
 
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)  
 
AUNG TUN OO, MYANMAR TV RADIO: 
The problem of drugs in Myanmar is a pernicious legacy of its British
colonial past and it has been entrenched in the region for over a
century. Being a multibillion dollar business with many big and
powerful players involved, including internationally organized crime
syndicates, we realized that this war cannot be easily overcome.
Since 1988 up to now, without any help from the international
community in carrying out crusade against 
narcotic drugs, 828 of our law enforcement officers were killed in
action, while 2,515 were wounded, many seriously, together with great
loss of property.  
 
According to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, we have
prevented more than $45 billion worth of heroin from reaching the
United States of America. The United Nations International Drug
Control Program and the International Heroin Conference held in Yango
(ph) gave Myanmar praise on her efforts. Mastipino Anichi (ph), the
UNDCP executive director, remarked that Myanmar's 10-year plan 
to eliminate opium cultivation is a dependable narcotic eradication
plan.  
 
Myanmar's sincere efforts have an opium-free zone of Myanmar region
in eastern Chaun (ph) state, an area right in middle of the
poppy-growing region. The Coca and Muar (ph) regions in northern
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) state have also been giving target states to be
opium-free zones in 2000, 2005. This goal can be achieved earlier if
Myanmar were to receive much-needed international aid and assistance. 
But even if aid is late in arriving, this fight to eliminate narcotic
drugs from our beloved soil is a fight for our national cause, a
solemn pledge that Myanmar vows to keep to herself and to the world
community. This is Aung Tun Oo, Myanmar Radio and Television
reporting for CNN WORLD REPORT.  

 
(END VIDEOTAPE)  
 
ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, Thailand and Myanmar are blaming
each other for rising drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle. The
head of Thailand's anti-drug agency says Myanmar has moved tens of
thousands of opium growers closer to the border to simplify
transportation. But Myanmar insists that the villagers 
were moved to fruit farms, and it accuses Thailand of letting
chemicals used in amphetamine production slip across the border.  
 
Thailand's Army TV channel 5 explains the government's efforts to
stop illegal drugs from making it into the country.  
 
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)  

YONGYUTH MAIYALARP, ARMY CHANNEL 5 (voice-over): 
The Thai government is severely and speedily eliminating problems of
narcotics drugs along the northern border of the country, as it has
been found that this is a channel for amphetamine smuggling and
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) substance that interferes with rural people's 
life.  
 
Narcotic drugs could be smuggled into this area in the north of
Thailand from neighboring countries, due to the border distance being
off hundreds of kilometers long. Important routes are border areas of
Mae Hong Son, Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces.  
 
The location with most problems is the Maisai (ph) border crossing
post that serves as an important Thai-Myanmar border-trading zone,
with 2,000 to 10,000 people traveling across the border at this point
daily, resulting in $100 million U.S. worth of trade. Drugs are
smuggled into the country amidst this traffic of trade.  
 
The government has designated many agencies to be involved in
narcotic control measures. According to this plan, it has been set
out as a continuous strategy that will continue up until the end of
the year 2001, with target areas in 14 province located along the
northern border.  
 
SORASIT SANGPRASERT, NARCOTICS CONTROL BUREAU: 
The trafficker of the drug, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the pattern, strategy to
bring in small amount of drug into our country. We thought in the
past we have (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a lot of, you know, drugs to the
manufacturer, to trafficker. And now the trafficker try to 
escalate, you know, from the northern part of Thailand into the
northeastern 
part of Thailand.  
 
MAIYALARP: 
Important strategies for the control of narcotic drugs along the 
border include the strengthening of security along the border areas,
the setting up of measures to look after villages and various
crossing points, the organizing of orders within villages that have
problems, the psychological operation campaign, the destruction of
the trading network, the increase in the cooperation between Thailand
and Laos and Myanmar, together with the establishing of cooperation
between Thailand and the People's Republic of China in tackling
narcotic problems.  
 
Yongyuth Maiyalarp, Channel 5, reporting from Thailand for the CNN
WORD REPORT. 

Related link: Thai Army's Channel 5 TV--   

http://www.tv5.co.th/home.htm


*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

XINHUA: MYANMAR LAUNCHES THIRD NATIONAL SANITATION WEEK 

March 6, 2000, Monday 
 
 
 YANGON, March 6  
 
 
   Myanmar launched its third annual national sanitation week (NSW)
Sunday as a mass movement to push the country's sanitation work ahead
following the achievements made in the last two events.  
 
This year's NSW covers carrying out sanitary work in schools and
government departments, motivating the local populace to be involved
in the activities and raising the overall national coverage to 100
percent by this year, the official New Light of Myanmar reported
Monday.  
 
Myanmar launched its first NSW in May 1998 and the second in
March-April 1999, making significant progress in bringing about a
sanitary environment to the entire country.  
 
Before the campaign was initiated, the sanitation coverage throughout
the nation was only 45.7 percent and it was increased to 60 percent
after the first NSW and to 72 percent after the second.  
 
To achieve such a remarkable increase in sanitation coverage within
such a short period was not possible by routine methods but through
NSW activities, said Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, first secretary of the
Myanmar State Peace and Development Council and chairman of the
Myanmar National Health Committee, at the launching ceremony of the
third NSW.  
 
Khin Nyunt attributed the success of the last two NSWs to the joint
efforts made at all levels of government ministries and local
officials, non-governmental organizations, private entrepreneurs and
U.N. agencies.  
 
Khin Nyunt also attributed the success to the spirit of self- help
and self-mobilization and the dissemination of technological
information down to the grass-roots level. 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*


KYODO: MYANMAR TO SHIP BUCKWHEAT TO JAPAN 

March 6, 2000, Monday 
 
 
YANGON, March 6 Kyodo  
 
  
A token export of 18 tons of Myanmar- grown buckwheat leaves this
week for Japan to introduce Myanmar soba (buckwheat noodles) to
Japanese consumers, Deputy Minister for Border Areas and National
Races Development Brig. Gen. Than Tun said at a press conference in
Yangon on Monday.  
 
Buckwheat cultivation in Kokang State, one of the two largest poppy
growing areas in Myanmar, was introduced with Japanese government
assistance in 1997 as part of drug eradication measures to replace
poppy growing.  
 
Kokang State, about 800 kilometers northeast of Yangon on the Chinese
border, has a climate similar to Japan's.  
 
Experimental growing on 80 hectares in 1997 using Kitawase seeds by
Japanese agriculture experts led by professor Akio Ujiha of Shinshu
University in Nagano, central Japan, proved successful both in yield
and quality.  
 
Harvest from the cultivation of 800 hectares in 1999 was largely
damaged by the worst frost in 100 years in the area. Only 40 tons was
harvested.  
 
A 19-member delegation of the Federation of Japan Noodle
Organizations visited the buckwheat field in Kokang State last year.  
 
The organization offered a preferential rate of $300 per ton for
Myanmar soba in support for the project.  
 
The Japanese government provided experts on agricultural equipment
and training.  
 
'There are good prospects for buckwheat cultivation in the area,
especially when the transportation infrastructure can be improved to
bring the product from 800 kilometers away in hilly Kokang State,'
the deputy minister said at the press conference. 



Related Link--Regime's report on Buckwheat Press Conference

http://www.myanmar-narcotic.net/heroin/new2000/buckwheat.html



*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
 INTERNATIONAL
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

PRESS ASSOCIATION NEWSFILE (UK):  FAMILY 'DEVASTATED' BY ARISTOCRAT'S
DRUGS 
DEATH 

March 6, 2000, Monday 
 
 
 
 Helen William, PA News  
 
 
   A viscount today said that his family was "utterly devastated" by
the death of his brother from a suspected drugs overdose in a Burma
hotel.  
 
The Hon Hugh Fitzroy Newdegate, 38, was found dead in his bed at the
five-star Traders Hotel in Kyauktada Township, in the capital
Rangoon, on Friday morning.  
 
The death is a double blow for the family, still grieving over the
death on February 15 of Newdegate's father Lord Daventry, 78, after a
long illness.  
 
A written statement on behalf of the family, now headed by
Newdegate's brother James, 39, the fourth Viscount Daventry,
described the death as "accidental".  
 
It said: "This has come as an awful shock to everyone who knew him.
He belonged to a very close and loving family who must now try to
come to terms with this tragedy."  
 
Anxious hotel staff had unlocked his room after the Eton-educated
aviation broker, who is believed to have been on a business trip,
failed to answer an overseas phone call.  
 
A small packet with 0.02 grams of heroin was found in a drawer at his
bedside, according to state newspaper the New Light of Myanmar.  
 
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said today: "He had not been seen since
noon on Thursday.  
 
"When found by the hotel doctor he was pronounced dead.  
 
"The Burmese police are conducting an investigation."  
 
An investigation by a forensic doctor from the Rangoon General
Hospital found the cause of death to be a drug overdose, said the
newspaper.  
 
But the Foreign Office spokeswoman added: "There has been an autopsy,
the results of which are not yet known, and we cannot speculate about
the cause of death."  
 
Bachelor Newdegate arrived in Rangoon on March 1 after travelling
from Bangkok, Thailand, on February 26.  
 
A spokesman for his employers Aon Group Ltd, a London-based
subsidiary of the international insurance firm Aon Corp, said: "We
are all devastated by this distressing news. We have been advised of
nothing to suggest that this is anything other than a tragic accident
 
 
"Hugh will be greatly missed by all his many friends and colleagues
throughout the world."  
 
A woman answering the telephone at Arbury Hall, the ancestral seat of
Viscount Daventry in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, said: "Yes, he is dead.
We do not have much information about it. We are expecting to get
more information later in the week."  
 
Newdegate's father had been an ADC to Earl Mountbatten when he was a
Viceroy of India in 1946 to 1948.  
 
The family have been "greatly comforted" by the many tributes they
have received from friends and colleagues, their statement added. 



*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

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*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* 




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