|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BURMA RELATED NEWS - NOV - 25, 2000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reuters - Floods kill 61 in
Thailand, Malaysia
AFP - Indonesia's Wahid launches
tirade against Singapore
Zdnetasia - ASEAN leaders to
sign digital agreement
AP - Singapore Leaders To Woo
Investors
Xinhua - Myanmar to Relay
Southeast Asian Anti-Tobacco Flame
Bkk Post - Illegal aliens
emerge as major threat
Bkk Post - 'None escaped'
during rescue
The Nation - Police 'regret'
missing convict
The Straits Times - No talks without Myanmar, EU
told
WIRE:11/26/2000
03:53:00 ET
Floods kill 61 in Thailand, Malaysia BANGKOK, Nov 26 (Reuters) - At least 61 people have died in floods
that have kept southern Thailand and northern Malaysia submerged since Tuesday,
officials said on Sunday.
They said flood waters were receding in most of the 10
provinces in southern Thailand, where more than 500,000 people were hit by the
heavy rains on Tuesday night. About 50 of those killed were in Thailand. In
Malaysia"s northern Kedah, the home state of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad,
the floods remained severe with about 3,000 people seeking shelter in relief
centres after abandoning their homes.
National carrier Malaysian Airline System Bhd said it
cancelled four flights into Kedah"s capital Alor Setar on Saturday after the
runway in the town"s only airport became water logged following a heavy
downpour.
Thai meteorologists said on Sunday heavy rains would
continue on the west-coast of southern Thailand along the Andaman Sea for the
next couple of days, but it was not worrying.
Resort provinces of Krabi and Trang, 950 km (590 miles)
and 1,080 km (670 miles), respectively, from Bangkok, would experience heavy
rains over the next 24 hours, they said.
Electricity returned to over half the households in Hat
Yai, the southern commercial centre and rubber town with a population of
400,000.
Traffic had resumed in most parts of the town. "We can say
the situation in Hat Yai has returned to normal, today," a provincial rescue
centre official told Reuters by phone. "We believe many businesses would start
work on Monday."
TOURISTS STUCK IN HOTELS
Hundreds of Malaysian and Singaporean tourists were stuck
in their hotels in Hat Yai since Tuesday when heavy rains brought flash floods,
rising as high as 2.5 metres, the worst in 12 years.
No estimates of the damage caused by the floods in Hat Yai
were immediately available. Water levels in Malaysia"s Kelantan state, southeast
of Thailand, receded further on Sunday after rains held off and all main roads
became passable to traffic, officials said. Kelantan police said they found on
Sunday the body of a man believed to be a Myanmar national washed ashore after
floods.
"This is the first case involving the death of a foreigner
in this year"s floods," Jalil Talib, a local police officer, was quoted as
saying by the official Bernama news agency. Police suspected the man was an
illegal immigrant who tried to cross into Kelantan through the Golok River but
had drowned instead. Bernama said Mahathir was to visit his hometown later on
Sunday to tour flood-hit areas.
Sunday, November 26 10:51 AM SGT
Indonesia's Wahid launches tirade against Singapore JAKARTA, Nov 26 (AFP) - In a
strong attack on Singapore, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid lashed out at
the island republic and its senior minister, Lee Kuan Yew, for ignoring its
southern neighbours, reports here said Sunday.
Speaking to Indonesian journalists at the Indonesian embassy in Singapore
on Saturday, Wahid accused the small republic of trying to go its own way and
only thinking of profit, the Kompas daily said.
Wahid also launched a tirade against Lee for barring the way for
Indonesia's eastern neighbours Papua New Guinea and East Timor to join the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Jakarta Post said.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Phillipines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Lee, Wahid said, had shown contempt for Malays and also insulted him by
saying that he, Indonesia's first democratically-elected president, would have
to step down in the near future, Kompas said.
Wahid, who was in Singapore to attend the ASEAN summit, said that the
two-day informal summit of leaders did not place sufficient emphasis on the
least-developed countries in the region.
Singapore, he said, seemed "to be only keen on developing relations with
China and other East Asian countries.
"If (Singpaore Prime Minister) Go Chok Tong really wants to go his own
way...go ahead, it would not be a problem for us because we can also go our own
way," Wahid said, according to the Jakarta Post.
He berated Lee for rejecting the setting up of a forum with ASEAN's eastern
neighbours in the West Pacific.
"He rejected it...so that's it, we will form a new pact, maybe we will name
it the West Pacific Forum," Kompas quoted Wahid as saying, adding that such pact
could include Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Australia and New Zealand.
Lee's refusal to include Papua New Guinea and East Timor in ASEAN, Wahid
said, was because "the cost of letting those countries in would be too much to
bear.
"It became clear from my meeting with Lee Kuan Yew that Singapore is only
looking for profit," he added.
Singapore, he said, may be unhappy with the forum but Jakarta could not
care less.
"When they (Singapore) established a defence agreement with New Zealand and
Australia and when they decided to open up their port to refuel US navy ships
they did nto tell Indonesia or Malaysia anything," Wahid said.
Wahid also said that Singaporeans " basically like to underestimate Malay
people...we are considered non-existent."
"Before, only (Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir (Mohamad) was brave enough
to confront Singapore, but now ...Mahathir has a new friend," Wahid said.
Kompas said that to put pressure on the small republic, both Malaysia and
Indonesia could stop the flow of drinking water to Singapore.
During a meeting between Wahid and Mahathir in Singapore on Saturday, the
matter of controlling the water supply came up, Wahid said.
"So we should not be afraid or in other words our interests should come
first, before the interests of other people," Wahid said.
It is the second time that Indonesia has taken a strong line on Singapore.
Wahid's predecessor, BJ Habibie first broke the three decades of close relations
betwen leaders of both countries that had been established by former president
Suharto.
Habibie had called Singapore "the red dot" on the map and his generals
spoke of violation of Indonesia's territorial waters by Singaporean
submarines.
Zdnetasia
Sunday, November 26 5:25 PM SGT ASEAN leaders to sign digital agreement E-commerce history will be made at e-ASEAN Summit as ASEAN leaders take
part in the digital signing of an agreement.
SINGAPORE - Ten ASEAN heads of state will digitally sign an agreement today to harmonize e-commerce regulations and guidelines across the region. The heads of state are from Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Brunei
Darussalam, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Myanmar and Lao.
Baltimore Technologies, a provider of e-security products and services, has
been appointed the official technology supplier for the digital signing.
Baltimore's e-security technology allows the heads of state to attach a
unique personal code to the document. This code will then be used to verify the
authenticity of the signature. A digital certificate stored on a smartcard
automatically verifies the digital signatures.
ID.Safe, the Singapore-based Commercial Certificate Authority (CA) set up
by Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation (CISCO) and Singapore Post,
will issue the digital certificate. In addition to ID Safe, there will be one
other CA, DigiCert of Malaysia, who will be producing the certificate for the
head of state for Malaysia.
One of the main goals of the e-ASEAN committee is to help fellow member
countries e-commerce standards, and to harmonize the components of electronic
transaction bills that currently exist in various forms across the ASEAN region.
"For e-commerce to really develop, digital signature technology needs to be
widely adopted. This is of paramount importance and it is very encouraging to
see the ASEAN countries not only creating digital signature laws but coming
together to harmonize these laws and bring down trade barriers across the
region," said Lim Yong Gang, general manager, ID.Safe.
Sunday, November 26 3:40 AM SGT
Singapore Leaders To Woo Investors By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer SINGAPORE (AP) - Southeast
Asian leaders, brushing aside troubles ranging from beleaguered presidencies to
violent street battles, announced ambitious plans Saturday to entice wary
foreign investors back to the region.
The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations closed their
two-day summit Saturday by proposing an expanded Asian trade alliance, endorsing
a plan to build a huge railroad from Singapore to China and signing a pact to
catapult their region into the digital age.
With many of their economies still smarting from the 1997-98 Asian
financial crisis and with crucial foreign investment flowing to other regions,
the ASEAN leaders focused on unity.
``We were huddling and cuddling,'' said Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad, referring to the camaraderie that characterized the meetings at a plush
Singapore hotel.
Their counterparts from Japan, China and South Korea joined the ASEAN
summit in Singapore. But they balked at a proposal to create a new East Asian
trade alliance including ASEAN and China, Japan and South Korea.
Japan and China's huge economies could overshadow ASEAN, some said.
``Until ASEAN is strong enough I think we should not move too quickly into
that kind of a grouping because there is a danger that ASEAN may be eclipsed,''
Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said.
Putting a happy face on the Singapore summit couldn't hide the problems
back home. Joseph Estrada's presidency in the Philippines is hanging by a
thread, as is Yoshiro Mori's prime ministership in Japan. Gunmen attacked
government buildings in Cambodia this week, and Indonesia is riddled with
violent separatist movements. A weak currency, high oil prices and bad bank
loans are dealing serious blows to Thailand's economy.
And despite the group's claims of a new openness and willingness to discuss
``sensitive'' issues, ASEAN held steadfast to its controversial doctrine of
noninterference in members' domestic affairs. The group on Saturday defended
military-ruled Myanmar against criticism from the European Union, saying the EU
is free to call off its dialogue with the region if it wants.
EU and ASEAN ministers are scheduled to meet in Laos next month, but some
EU ministers have said they won't attend because ASEAN is perceived as coddling
Myanmar.
``If EU wants to exclude Myanmar and the dialogue is going to be called
off, then let it be called off,'' Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said
Saturday. ``We can't allow an external organization to dictate who should be in
ASEAN.''
Pulling ASEAN down as an economic powerhouse are the ailing economies of
Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. ASEAN leaders on Saturday pledged to raise the
standards of schools, workers and infrastructure for the grouping's poorest
members.
ASEAN members are Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Myanmar to Relay Southeast Asian
Anti-Tobacco Flame
YANGON (Nov. 24) XINHUA - The
Southeast Asian Anti- Tobacco Flame will be arriving in Myanmar on December 15
under an anti-tobacco movement being launched by the World Health Organization
(WHO), official newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported Friday.
Myanmar, a member of the WHO, is among countries in the Southeast Asia region where the anti-tobacco flame is to be relayed. The anti-tobacco flame will be carried through four districts of Yangon
division for three weeks, during which messages on the dangers of tobacco will
be given to the community through exhibitions, health talks, essay and quiz
competitions with nation- wide media campaign coupled.
Myanmar has started activities of tobacco-free initiative project in the
wake of the alarming stage of smoking condition reached in the country in terms
of the number of smokers, the amount of tobacco and age of smokers.
An official survey shows that prevalence rate of smoking in Myanmar in 1993
was 46.6 percent of adults, increasing from 38 percent in 1973. Of them 63
percent were male, 16 percent female and 7.7 percent adolescent age of 15-17
years.
The country is making increased efforts on health education and research
activities on tobacco consumption and the dangers of tobacco.
According to an estimate of the WHO, an adult smoker in Myanmar consumes
2,000 to 3,000 cigarettes per year.
Meanwhile, a symposium on tobacco and health, jointly organized by the
Myanmar Academy of Medical Science and the prevention and social medical group
and the cardiac specialists group of the Myanmar Medical Association, was held
here Thursday in anticipation of the arrival of the Southeast Asian anti-tobacco
flame.
Bangkok Post - Nov 26,
2000.
Illegal aliens emerge as major threat Last week's jailbreak heightens concerns Illegal immigrants have become as significant a threat to national security
as corruption and drugs, the National Security Council chief said.
Kachadpai Burusapatana said there are now about one million illegal aliens
in Thailand, compared to a few hundred thousand 10 years ago.
"There are so many of them scatterd around the country that we don't know
where they live. We know they have been causing trouble in recent years," the
NSC secretary-general said.
It is time for all agencies to help the immigration authorities clamp down
on illegal alien labourers, Mr Kachadpai noted.
"Drug abuse is a threat to national security, so is the illegal immigrant
problem. It is not just about illegal workers, as we have seen from the Burmese
embassy siege and the hostage situation at Ratchaburi hospital.
"Once the problem threatens national security, it needs the co-operation of
all parties concerned," he said.
The problem of illegal immigrants was raised in the wake of last week's
jailbreak in Samut Sakhon, when a group of Burmese convicts took the prison
chief and other wardens hostage.
After the incident, in which the convicts were killed and the prison chief
critically injured, Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai pointed to illegal labour
problems and unscrupulous business operators who use cheap labour provided by
illegal aliens.
Mr Kachadpai said drastic action had to be taken against those who employed
or provided shelter to illegal immigrants.
He conceded foreign labour was necessary in some sectors such as fisheries
but insisted tight controls be put in place.
Mr Kachadpai suggested an agency be set up to handle foreign labour
concerns.
"The goal is to regulate legal workers and crack down on illegal
labourers," he said.
"Without this, we will have to deal with the problems every year [when
relaxation expires] as we have been doing," he said.
The NSC took the problem seriously in 1996 when it proposed a policy to
strictly regulate employment of foreign labour, Mr Kachadpai said.
The proposal was negotiated and cabinet is asked every year to review a ban
on the employment of alien labour.
While conceding the jailbreak was unexpected, Mr Kachadpai said serious
crimes committed by illegal migrants were common.
In several provinces where there were too many alien workers, facilities
have had to be established to hold foreign criminals, he said.
Mr Kachadpai said crimes committed by illegal immigrants were on the rise
in the past five years and several remained unsolved.
"It is hard to solve these crimes because there is no information about
these people," he said.
Thai workers were losing out because employers knew they could pay illegal
workers less money, he said.
Bangkok Post - Nov 26,
2000.
'None escaped' during rescue Prison chief still in critical condition The officer in charge of the assault on the Samut Sakhon prison escapees
says he doubts reports one of the hostage-takers slipped away during the rescue
operation.
Pol Maj Gen Panupong Singhara na Ayuthaya, assistant commissioner of Region
7, said he closely followed the escapees' pick-up from the prison to Sai Yok, in
Kanchanaburi, where the commandos attacked.
"I did not see anyone slip away while we were pursuing them to the border
area," he said.
"None of our commando team saw anyone slip away during the operation or
while we were following them."Siva Saengmanee, the Corrections Department chief,
earlier confirmed that Maung Hla, a Mon, also disappeared from the prison the
same day the nine prisoners staged the jailbreak.
He was unable to say if the man escaped as the prisoners were about to
leave the jail with the hostages, while on the way to Kanchanaburi, or during
the rescue.
Nine escapees in the vehicle were shot dead in the operation early on
Thursday.
Police yesterday launched a full inquiry into the report there was a 10th
prisoner missing, spokesman Pol Maj-Gen Pongsapat Pongcharoen said.
His Majesty the King has sent flowers to the Samut Sakhon prison chief
Somwong Siriwej and two others injured in the rescue operation. The bouquets
were presented by his close aide Jittrapat Krairuek.
A third bouquet was sent to Boonserm Meechai, one of the hostages, at
Paholpolpayuhasena hospital in Kanchanaburi.
His Majesty also sent wreaths to the funeral of Udom Chitthongpan, the
Buddhist lecturer killed by the prisoners while trying to rescue Mr Somwong
during the jailbreak.
Funeral rites for Mr Udom are being held at Wat Makutkasatiyaram.
Her Royal Highness Princess Soamsawalee yesterday also sent flowers to Mr
Somwong.
Mr Somwong remained in critical condition after 38 hours of emergency
surgery, relatives said. Doctors declined to comment on his chances of
survival.
The Nation - Nov 26,
2000.
Police 'regret' missing convict POLICE expressed remorse over the escape of a final Burmese hostage-taker
yesterday, 48 hours after authorities thought they had ended the crisis with a
commando assault that killed nine of the Samut Sakhon jailbreakers.
"I regret the two days lost to the controversy over the existence of the
other hostage-taker," Kanchanaburi patrol police chief Phuwadon Wuthikanok said,
referring to the Burmese convict who happened to step out of the getaway car
moments before the police ambush.
In addition to the nine jailbreakers killed, three hostages were injured,
including Samut Sakhon jail commissioner Somwong Siriwet, who was rushed to
Bangkok's Police General Hospital's intensive care unit in critical condition.
Doctors say his condition still has to be closely monitored, as he has yet to
show signs of improvement. Somwong is now on life support.
A lady-in-waiting to the mother of His Majesty the King's first grandchild,
Her Royal Highness Somsawalee, yesterday paid a visit to the intensive care unit
at the hospital. Other VIP visits yesterday included Prime Minister Chuan
Leekpai and Deputy Foreign Minister MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra.
On Wednesday 10 Burmese and Mon inmates at Samut Sakhon prison took seven
hostages, including jail warden and prison commissioner Somwong hostage. The
hostage-takers also killed a Buddhist lay preacher at the jail.
The drama lasted from about 10am on Wednesday until 7.49 am on Thursday,
when the getaway car was sprayed with a hail of bullets.
The Straits Times - Nov 26,
2000.
No talks without Myanmar, EU told By Brendan Pereira ASEAN had a message for the European Union (EU) yesterday - we are ready to
call off our dialogue if you insist on excluding Myanmar from the talks.
Replying to a question on whether EU stand's on Myanmar was discussed
during the meeting, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said: 'The point we made was a
simple one. Myanmar is a member of Asean and we will meet the EU together as an
Asean group.
'If the EU wants to exclude Myanmar and the dialogue is going to be called
off, then let it be called off. We can't allow an external organisation to
dictate who should be in Asean when we have such a dialogue.'
The statement came at a time when there is uncertainty over an Asean-EU
meeting scheduled for next month in Laos.
Reports suggest that only 11 of the 15 EU nations will turn up for the
talks in Vientianne, and a number of them will be represented by junior
officials.
This move - designed as a snub to Myanmar over its human-rights record -
has angered several Asean countries, with Malaysia threatening to downgrade the
level of its representation to the talks.
At a press conference on Friday, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
said that it was important for Asean to present a united front, and not allow
one or two of its members to be marginalised.
Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan has tried to head off a possible
confrontation between Asean and the EU.
'Differences shall and will remain, but we have convinced our European
partners they should not again let any one or some issues overshadow the
relationship, ' he told reporters on the sidelines of the summit. |