Sittwe, 3 October: "Despite the Burmese junta?s declaration of a new rice purchase policy last April for liberalisation of rice trade, steps have been taken across Rakhine State in western Burma. Local township and village level junta officials across the state have been forming a five-member rice purchase committee in each of the village tracts of the provincial state. The rice growers have been directed to sell rice only to the five-member committees besides the transportation of rice from one village to another has also been prohibited. A rice farmer at Ponnagyun Township said, ?If the junta wants to privatise the sale of rice, why have its officials been directed to form these rice purchase groups? And why, after all, the junta have barred us from selling rice in the open market?”..."