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CHICAGO (Reuters) - American adventurer Kevin Uliassi, trying to make the first nonstop solo balloon flight around the Earth, landed unexpectedly but safely in Myanmar on Friday.
``He is safe and in good condition,'' said Scott Lorenz, spokesman for Uliassi's Chicago-based expedition.
There was no immediate word on whether he was forced down or decided to end the flight rather than take on a Pacific Ocean crossing with dwindling fuel supplies.
Uliassi's wife, Renee, told WBBM Radio in Chicago that the expedition had planned to decide later on Friday whether to continue the flight, based on a review of his fuel and the weather he might face.
``We're not sure what he was thinking or what happened...we just don't know,'' she said.
Uliassi had been in the air for a little more than 10 days when the flight ended at 5:35 a.m. EST and had traveled about 12,000 miles, his expedition said.
An official in the government spokesman's office in the Myanmar capital Yangon said the balloon came down at 5:45 p.m. local time in a central Myanmar village called Sinthamwe, about 12 miles east of Pagan, an area of ancient temples, and 300 miles north of Yangon.
The official said he had no details on the pilot's condition and did not expect further information until Saturday. ``The local authorities are giving necessary assistance to him,'' he said.
Uliassi, a 36-year-old architectural engineer and balloon flight instructor, had been slowed early in his flight by weak winds and storms in the West Indies. But in the past two days a strong jet stream had zipped him across east Africa into Asia.
He had hoped to take a southerly route across the Pacific headed for the U.S. West Coast, for a landing somewhere east of Rockford, Illinois, where he began his flight Feb. 22.
When he set off, Uliassi had enough fuel to stay aloft for more than 20 days. The balloon contains helium in one compartment and propane-heated hot air in the other.
Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard made the first successful global nonstop balloon flight last year in 19 days, beginning in Switzerland and landing in Mauritania. No one has ever made a similar solo trip.
Information on the flight can be found at http://www.j.renee.iit.edu.
REUTERS, 3 March 2000
Solo Balloon Flight Attempt Ends in Myanmar
CHICAGO (Reuters) - An American adventurer attempting to make the first solo nonstop balloon flight around the world came down in Myanmar on Friday, his expedition said.
There was no immediate information on what happened or on the condition of the balloonist, Kevin Uliassi, 36. The flight ended after a little more than 10 days.
Uliassi's control center near Chicago said there had been a ''visual sighting'' just before the balloon stopped its journey and that search and rescue officials had been alerted.
He began his flight on Feb. 22 in Northern Illinois and had planned to head across the Pacific. But there were questions in recent hours about whether his fuel would hold out.
The first nonstop balloon trip around the earth was made last year by a two-man team but no one had managed to do the same thing on a solo flight.
The balloon came down at 5:36 a.m. EST.
AP, 3 March 2000
Myanmar Slams Washington For ""Scapegoating"" On Drug Issue
BANGKOK (AP)--Myanmar sharply criticized Friday a U.S. government ruling denying it foreign aid because of its alleged failure to seriously combat the drug trade.
A commentary from Myanmar's military government accused the U.S. of "scapegoating" by criticizing other nations while it is "the world's biggest market for almost all kinds of narcotics drugs."
"Just holding the purse doesn't give any nation the right to finger point and scapegoat other nations and to manage an automatic exemption from sharing responsibilities with others," said the commentary, distributed as a news release.
Myanmar was one of six nations named as uncooperative in the fight against illegal drugs by President Clinton when he announced his annual review of suspect nations Wednesday. Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been on the list of uncooperative nations for several years running.
Of 26 nations considered to be major illicit drug producing and/or drug transit countries, Myanmar along with Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Nigeria and Paraguay were cited by Clinton for failing to take adequate measures to counter the drug trade. The other 20 nations were judged to have made an adequate effort.
Cambodia, Haiti, Nigeria and Paraguay were exempted from a mandatory ban on most kinds of aid because of a presidential determination that continued aid to those nations was a vital U.S. national interest.
US Says Myanmar Is 2nd In World For Opium Production The annual U.S. State Department survey that is the basis for the president's findings said this year that Myanmar is the world's second largest source of illicit opium and heroin, exceeded only by Afghanistan, and currently accounts for approximately 80% of the total production of Southeast Asian opium.
The State Department said it "remains concerned that Burma's efforts aren't commensurate with the extent of the drug problem within its borders."
"Large-scale poppy cultivation and opium production continue, decreasing in the last few years largely because of severe drought conditions rather than eradication programs," said the State Department. It also said the Myanmar's government's alleged "toleration of money laundering, its unwillingness to implement its drug laws, and its failure to render notorious traffickers under indictment in the United States all continue to be serious concerns."
The commentary from Myanmar's government responded that it "isn't surprising that for political reasons the U.S. State Department has put Myanmar under the uncooperative list again."
It said that while the State Department is issuing "such hypocritical statements," Myanmar was conducting joint annual opium yield surveys with agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, whom it claimed understood and appreciated Yangon's anti-drug efforts.
The U.S. is a leading critic of Myanmar's military government for human rights abuses and failure to turn over power to a democratically elected government. Relations between the two countries have generally been frigid since the junta in Yangon failed to honor the results of a 1990 general election won by the opposition National League for Democracy of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
YANGON, March 3 (AFP)
Myanmar slams "hypocritical" US drugs report
Myanmar accused the United States of hypocrisy Friday in an angry response to a report which found the junta had done little to shed its tag as one of the world's top opium producers.
In a statement sent to AFP, a government spokesman said Washington was "scapegoating" drugs producers and should instead tackle its own drugs problem.
"Efforts to eliminate narcotic drugs cannot and must not be pushed on the shoulders of other nations while the nation with the biggest drug market ... is self exempted from any kind of blame," said the statement.
The spokesman said Washington should fund anti-drugs efforts in Myanmar and other states instead of simply offering criticism.
In the 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report the US on Wednesday renewed its designation of Myanmar and Afghanistan as uncooperative in the fight against drugs.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said a drop in opium yields in the military-ruled state was the result of bad weather rather than a serious anti-drugs drive.
The Myanmar spokesman said the assessment had been critical of Myanmar for "political reasons," adding that agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had carried out six joint opium yield surveys with the government.
Officials here often portray criticism of the drugs trade as a political plot to undermine the government which refuses to hand over power to the elected opposition of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Myanmar has introduced a program which it says will wipe out drugs production within 15 years and officials say they are determined to shed the pariah status of drugs producer.
Critics charge however that even if it is serious about reducing heroin production, Myanmar encourages the trade in amphetamines which are easy to produce and export.
The spokesman claimed that unlike the State Department, DEA agents "do understand and do appreciate Myanmar's efforts in the fight against drugs."
The US was among countries which last year boycotted an Interpol drugs conference in Yangon at which senior officials called for cooperation and foreign funding for anti-narcotics efforts.
Interpol's director of criminal intelligence Paul Higdon described such cooperation as "a pact with the devil" at a conference in Yangon last year, but nevertheless endorsed Myanmar's anti-drugs policies.
Critics of Myanmar's vaunted efforts to fight drugs, accuse the government of turning a blind eye to trafficking in exchange for ceasefire deals with ethnic groups.
They say generals have syphoned off drug money to support their military state apparatus and harbour drug lords like notorious Shan State kingpin Khun Sa.
South China Morning Post, 3 March 2000
Taleban, Burma top US blacklist
TASGOLA KARLA BRUNER in Islamabad and AGENCIES in Washington
The United States came under fire from Afghanistan and Burma yesterday for renewing its designation of the countries as unco-operative in the fight against drugs.
Washington, however, spared Colombia and Mexico, despite growing concerns about their anti-narcotics records.
President Bill Clinton sent to Congress a list of 26 countries deemed to be major drugs producers or transit points. Among those listed, six nations were identified as having failed to take adequate measures, but of these only Afghanistan and Burma were targeted for possible sanctions through so-called "decertification".
The other four countries - Cambodia, Haiti, Nigeria and Paraguay - were given so-called "national interest waivers", exempting them from drug-related sanctions.
Afghan and Burmese observers said it was hypocritical for the world community to condemn the impoverished countries for their failure to stop opium production while at the same time burdening them with economic sanctions that force their people to survive by whatever means possible.
Presenting the 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, US drug tsar Barry McCaffrey and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright blamed Afghanistan and Burma for supplying the lion's share of heroin consumed worldwide.
"For several years now, Afghanistan and Burma have been world headquarters for the heroin business," Ms Albright said.
She noted that both countries had been decertified in last year's report.
"This past year they retained that deadly dishonour."
Afghanistan "is the source of the world's greatest heroin threat", Mr McCaffrey said, adding that its production of opium increased 23 per cent last year.
Burma was also singled out, with Mr McCaffrey and Ms Albright accusing the military Government in Rangoon of tolerating drug trafficking and money laundering.
An International Narcotics Control Board report and the US Government say the Taleban is taxing opium production at about 10 per cent, which the State Department report said "imparts legitimacy to opium cultivation and distribution".
But the Taleban says the taxation is part of an Islamic tax on agricultural products that affects all crops grown in Afghanistan.
Colombia and Mexico were among the 20 major producers and transit nations that were found to be doing their part to contain the growing scourge of the narcotics trade.
- Hong Kong has again been marked by the US as a major drug transit centre, but it is co-operating and taking action to stem the problem. While listing the SAR among the 26 countries or jurisdictions said to be major illicit drug-producing centres or used for transit purposes, President Bill Clinton issued a certificate declaring Hong Kong was co-operating fully with Washington and acting against the problem
BANGKOK:
The Thai government has expressed concern to Myanmar that the planned relocation
of tens of thousands of ethnic minority villagers in opium-growing areas in
northeastern Myanmar will increase drug problems in Thailand, the Thai state
news agency reported Thursday.
Jurin Laksanavisit, Thai prime minister's office minister, met Wednesday with Hla Maung, Myanmar ambassador to Bangkok, and voiced worries that ethnic Wa villagers are being moved to areas close to the border with northern Thailand, already awash with illicit drugs, such as heroin and methamphetamine.
In January, Myanmar's military regime launched an unprecedented relocation of 50,000 people out of prime opium growing areas near China controlled by the United Wa State Army, described by the U.S. State Department as the world's largest drug-trafficking organization, to more fertile areas further south near Thailand to farm fruit instead. "U Hla Maung explained that the Myanmar government has a concrete plan for people in the resettlement plan. They were moved out of the mountainous area to the plain because Myanmar government wants them to stop growing (opium) poppy and start a new profession," Jurin was quoted as saying by the Thai News Agency.
Jurin asked for more cooperation from Myanmar in suppression of drug trafficking, particularly by the Wa along Thai-Myanmar border, which lies at the heart of Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle. The region is a huge source of heroin, which is derived from opium, and synthetic drugs.
In recent years, methamphetamine has surpassed heroin as Thailand's worst drug menace. Thai authorities seized over 40 million tablets of the illegal stimulant last year, claiming that most of it was smuggled from Myanmar. However, Myanmar has protested to Thailand that chemicals used to make illicit drugs are imported into Myanmar from Thailand. In response, Thailand on Wednesday banned caffeine - an ingredient in methamphetamine - from being transported to six northern Thai provinces that border northeastern Myanmar. (AP)
South China Morning Post, 3 March 2000
Rangoon playing narcotic charades
WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok
The Burmese military regime clearly sees its narcotics problem as a hook to persuade the international community to engage with it.
Spokesmen for the junta now happily trot out statistics showing increased seizures of opium and more arrests.
Selected journalists and diplomats are given guided tours of the Shan State, where they are permitted glimpses of poppy-substitution projects and brief meetings with ethnic leaders.
The message is: "We have done this much, help us and we can do much more."
Yet the regime has failed to persuade informed observers that its drug eradication moves are more than propaganda - that it wants to, or can, smash the trade.
When confronted by blatant drug trafficking the army typically only demands a "tax payment", according to credible sources.
"This is what is happening on the ground. When they are out of sight of the world the authorities don't see drugs as their problem," a veteran Thai-based Burma watcher said.
Rangoon claims it cannot simply force traffickers to stop trading or producing heroin and amphetamines because they defend their remote territories with well-equipped armies.
Even if this claim is accepted, numerous reports filter back across the border claiming that the army is more than willing to turn a blind eye to trafficking well outside these ethnic heartlands.
After the notorious drug warlord Khun Sa was forced to surrender three years ago it was soon reported that Burmese troops who moved into the area had asked villagers to start growing poppies.
The country's most famous trafficker, Wei Xiao-gang, has been permitted to build up a sprawling business empire near the Thai border.
Rangoon's priority appears to be the suppression of political opponents, not - to them - relatively benign drug barons.
The central authorities may have problems reigning in the money-making activities of local commanders without risking their loyalty.
BBC,Thursday, 2 March, 2000, 13:18 GMT
Official newspapers in Burma say the opposition National League for Democracy could be outlawed in retaliation for its law suits against the military government Correspondents say the newspaper commentaries, which are bound to have had official approval, seem to reflect a further hardening of the government position and are a clear warning to the NLD.
Last month, the National League for Democracy attempted to revive legal proceedings which allege the military government is destroying the party. The original case, which was dismissed by a court last year, accused government officials of intimidating party members into resigning, and closing branch offices. The commentaries say the government could declare the NLD an unlawful association, and jail its leaders but the fact it has not done so reflects its lack of hostility towards the democracy party. The NLD won elections in 1990 which haven't been recognised by the military government.