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BURMA RELATED NEWS - March 11,
2003.
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HEADLINES
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AFP - Myanmar plan
to eliminate force labour not adequate: ILO
AFP - Myanmar junta
head to visit Vietnam
Reuters - China's
Sinopec buys into giant Kazakh oil field
Bkk Post - Focus
now on smugglers' links with border villagers
Gulf News - Arroyo
claims support of five countries in HK wage protests
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Tuesday March 11,
2:33 PM
Myanmar
plan to eliminate force labour not adequate: ILO
BANGKOK, March 11 (AFP) - Plans by Myanmar's military government to
end forced labour are not yet adequate or credible, a Yangon-based International
Labour Organisation (ILO) officer said Tuesday during a visit to Thailand.
Myanmar is the only country in the world where forced labour is
imposed by authorities and is in talks with the ILO to draw up a plan to
eliminate the practice, ILO liaison officer Hong-Trang Perret-Nguyen told AFP.
"In spite of very serious and very constant discussion with the
government I have not been able to convince the authorities to take steps I
consider necessary for the plan to be a credible plan," Perret-Nguyen said.
A main sticking point was an ILO demand that Yangon agree to
establish a credible system to verify allegations of forced labour and prosecute
offenders.
The ILO also wanted Myanmar to establish a pilot region
where forced labour would be stopped immediately and its prohibition strictly
enforced. Yangon had instead proposed an area where a public information
campaign against forced labour would be increased, she said.
Other
government proposals included translating orders prohibiting forced labour into
ethnic languages and distributing pamphlets about the issue.
"I
have to note there has not been enough progress in discussions with government
to enable me to present a joint text" of the plan to the ILO, Perret-Nguyen
added.
The ILO has offered to help implement an agreed plan which
included sourcing financial support for it. The organisation could also seek
further pressure on Myanmar if it does not take steps against forced labour.
The country has made some progress, admitted Perret-Nguyen, who
has been in Myanmar since October.
"They have come from a position
of complete denial of the existence of forced labour to recognition of forced
labour and now have the presence of the ILO in the country," she said.
Forced labour in Myanmar typically involves work as porters for
soldiers or in road and other construction projects. Most allegations of its use
are against the army.
The liaison officer said her impression
after visits to various parts of the country was that "the situation is really
very serious and people continue to suffer from practices of forced labour."
Myanmar is widely condemned by the international community for its
use of forced labour. A 1998 ILO inquiry found the practice was "widespread and
systematic" and targeted ethnic minorities living in border regions.
A report written by Perret-Nguyen due to be discussed by the ILO's
governing body in Geneva this month said:
"The situation in areas
near to the Thai border where there is continuing insecurity and a heavy
presence of the army, as well as in northern Rakhine state, is particularly
serious and appears to have changed little."
The manner in which
forced labour was imposed had changed in some instances, Perret-Nguyen found.
For example, sources said military units tended to verbally tell village heads
to provide forced labour instead of using written orders as before.
"Demands for labour appeared to have been substituted in some
cases by forced contributions (of materials, provisions or cash). It also
appears that the authorities are more commonly making payments to those whom
they requisition, although usually at well below prevailing rates," the report
said.
One of Perret-Nguyen's trips was to the Yadana gas pipeline
operated by French oil group TotalFinaElf which has been accused of using forced
labour in Myanmar.
"I did not see any evidence of forced labour
for the benefit of TotalFinaElf," she said.
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Tuesday March 11, 23:08 PM
Myanmar junta head to visit Vietnam
HANOI, March 11 (AFP) - Myanmar's military leader Senior General
Than Shwe will pay a three-day official visit to Vietnam from Saturday, the
foreign ministry here said.
His visit, at the invitation of
Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong, is aimed at "promoting bilateral relations
between the two countries," a ministry official said Tuesday.
"The
two sides will also exchange views on regional and international issues of
mutual concern."
It will be Shwe's third trip to the communist
nation, following his last visit in 1998 for the leadership summit of ASEAN
(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) states.
The junta head,
who will be accompanied by his wife, is scheduled to leave the country on
Monday.
Vietnam and Myanmar, both authoritarian regimes and
targets of western criticism over their human rights records, retain close
political links.
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Tuesday March 11,
6:49 PM
China's Sinopec buys into giant Kazakh oil
field
By Dan Lalor
LONDON,
March 11 (Reuters) - Sinopec,
China's biggest refiner, paid $615 million on Tuesday for a one-twelfth stake in
one of the world's largest oil and gas projects, in Kazakhstan, reducing the
country's long-term reliance on Middle East crude.
The seller was
British oil and gas producer BG Group Plc, which last week sold another
one-twelfth stake in the North Caspian Sea Production Sharing Agreement to CNOOC
Ltd , China's main offshore oil producer, also for $615 million.
Though a potentially vast producing region, geopolitical and
structural difficulties for getting oil and gas out make the Caspian project a
costly one for a relative minnow like BG, which has now sold all its interests.
But for China, which is a heavy importer of oil and is increasing
its use of natural gas, Sinopec's move into Kazakhstan wiped out several
concerns in one fell swoop.
"The positive impact of this deal is
it clears market worries that Chinese oil giants will compete with each other
and hence push up acquisition prices when they seek to extend their reach
outside China," said Gordon Kwan, an analyst at HSBC in Hong Kong.
"This deal shows CNOOC is leaving half of BG's stake for Sinopec.
This is proof that they are not competing with each other but are working
together instead."
The Kazakh project includes the potentially
prolific Kashagan field. Production has yet to start in the field, which covers
about 5,600 square kilometres with estimated recoverable reserves of up to 13
billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE).
The project is operated
by Italy's ENI Agip , which holds a 16.67 percent interest. Other partners are
Exxon Mobil Corp , Royal Dutch/Shell and TotalFinaElf , each with 16.67 percent
stakes, and ConocoPhillips and Inpex, with 8.33 percent apiece.
Chinese companies have been looking to expand their activities in
Central Asia, as well as Russia, in a bid to seek alternative supplies to the
Middle East.
The Middle East supplies over half of China's crude
oil imports, or roughly 15 percent of China's total oil consumption of nearly
five million barrels per day.
Despite that reliance on imported
crude, Sinopec has been slow to get on the foreign acquisition trail.
Indeed, the Caspian deal is the first overseas acquisition by
Sinopec, unlike its rivals CNOOC, CNPC and PetroChina, which have spent some
$3.5 billion on oil and gas assets in Indonesia, Australia, Sudan, Venezuela,
Myanmar and Azerbaijan.
BG GOES SHORT TERM Analysts have been
concerned about BG's exposure to the former Soviet republic, and the heavy
capital spending demands involved.
Peter Hitchens, London-based
analyst with French broker Cheuvreux, said while the Kazakh projects "look
great, the export route is a bit of a thorny problem. BG have plenty of other
more short-term opportunities. They will easily find homes for the money".
For its part, BG said it remained "strongly committed" to
Kazakhstan through its interests in the giant gas condensate field at
Karachaganak and in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.
"BG continues
to focus on high growth and good returns. The proceeds of this disposal will
allow BG to consider accelerating or enhancing projects within its existing
portfolio, or adding new opportunities as it continues to grow," Chief Executive
Frank Chapman said in a statement.
At 1039 GMT, BG shares were 1.8
percent higher at 240.5 pence, valuing the business at around 8.5 billion pounds
($13.6 billion).
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Bangkok Post - Tuesday 11 March
2003
Focus now on smugglers' links with border villagers
Teerawat Kumtita - Chiang
Rai
Smuggling by Burmese drug producers and their
relatives and friends in border villages is now being targeted, with extra
intelligence officers posted to the area.
Chiang Rai Governor Narin
Panichkij said it was believed each village had one major dealer and 8-10
smaller drug traders.
On each trip across the border they smuggled
from 100,000 to one million methamphetamine pills.
Travel on foot
between the villages and the Red Wa drug production centre across the border,
Yawn township, took only about two hours, he said.
At these
villages, methamphetamines from Burma were often traded for cars and motorcycles
stolen from elsewhere.
Some of the traffickers were not Thai
nationals so were not on the province's blacklist and were harder to
find.
It was hoped that posting extra intelligence officers to the
border area would help overcome this drawback.
So far there had
been about a 30% decrease in drugs in all areas targeted in the anti-drug
campaign, including Mae Fa Luang and Wiang Pa Pao districts, he said. The goal
was to achieve at least a 75% reduction. Major drug traffickers were now the
priority, not street dealers.
Of the 2,300 arrests made in Chiang
Rai so far, around 800 were found in possession of 10,000 speed pills or
more.
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Gulf-News online
Arroyo claims support of five
countries in HK wage protests
Manila |From Our Correspondent |
11-03-2003
President Gloria Arroyo yesterday said the
Philippines is leading a coalition of six countries, supported by the
International Organi-sation for Migration (IOM), in pressuring Hong Kong to
scrap a wage cut on its foreign domestic helps by HK$400 ($51.85) effective next
month.
She said the Philippines has found allies in Indonesia,
Thai-land, Vietnam, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. The coalition will meet in Sri Lanka
on April 1 and 2 to formulate what moves to take to counter what President
Arroyo said is Hong Kong's "unjust" move towards foreign workers.
Labour Secretary, Patricia Sto Tomas, said the two-day conference
was planned last year even before Hong Kong announced its decision to cut the
maids' wages.
"I think the time has come for us to realise that
the pain one nation goes through is being experienced by other nations as well,"
she said.
"It is time for us to bring this coalition into effect
and to see to it that we don't suffer the same kind of problems that we've
suffered in the past." Tomas will represent the Philippines, which was joined by
Indonesia and Sri Lanka in imposing a ban on the deployment of maids to Hong
Kong, at the conference.
Apart from formulating countermeasures to
Hong Kong's new rule, Tomas said the coalition will also assess the condition of
domestic help in other countries, especially where unjust labour practices are
rampant.
Presidential spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, lauded moves by
Jakarta and Colombo, saying the two governments gave credence to President
Arroyo's decision to temporarily suspend the processing of work permits for Hong
Kong-bound maids.
The President also got the backing of the
influential Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in her
decision.
"I'm happy that the government is banning, for the time
being, the deployment of Filipino (maids) to Hong Kong," Bishop Ramon Arguelles
of the CBCP Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant
People (ECMI) said at a press conference.
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