Monday, November 16, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
US officials meet Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi (C) arrives for a meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell (L) at the Inya Lake Hotel in Yangon November 4, 2009. A delegation of senior U.S. officials, pursuing a new dialogue, met with Myanmar's military rulers on Tuesday in the highest-level talks with the reclusive junta in 14 years. The move by President Barack Obama's administration to engage the junta appeared focused on pushing for free and fair elections next year, although analysts said the rapprochement was as much about geopolitics and the growing regional influence of China. REUTERS/Aung Hla Tun
YANGON, Myanmar – A U.S. State Department official met Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday in a visit that marked the highest-ranking talks between an American and Myanmar's detained opposition leader in 14 years.
Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, greeted Suu Kyi with a handshake after she was driven to his lakeside hotel in Yangon where they met privately for two hours, said U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Mei.
Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, are the highest-level Americans to visit Myanmar since 1995. Their two-day trip, which included talks with senior junta officials, stems from a new U.S. policy that reverses the Bush administration's isolation of Myanmar in favor of dialogue with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962.
The topic of talks with Suu Kyi was not immediately known, but the meeting offered the Nobel Peace Prize laureate her first trip in years to outside the confines of her dilapidated home and a nearby government guesthouse, where she has met U.N. and junta officials in the past. The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest and for shorter periods at Myanmar's notorious Insein Prison.
Suu Kyi, dressed in a pink traditional Burmese jacket, was upbeat as she emerged from the hotel and joked with photographers who asked her to smile.
"Do I look pretty when I smile," Suu Kyi said as she smiled for the cameras.
"Hello to you all," she said, before getting into a car that whisked her back to her tightly guarded home.
The U.S. visit is the second step in "the beginning of a dialogue with Burma," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington on Tuesday after the officials had met with senior junta officials in Myanmar's administrative capital of Naypyitaw.
"They laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue," Kelly said. "But they were mainly in a listening mode."
Campbell is continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Myanmar officials, which at the time were the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade.
Campbell met Wednesday morning with Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein before flying to Yangon, the commercial capital, Mei said.
Campbell is scheduled to meet later in the afternoon with leaders of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party at their headquarters, followed by talks with other political parties before leaving Myanmar in the evening.
Suu Kyi was recently sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American, in a trial that drew global condemnation. The sentence means she will not be able to participate in next year's elections, which will be the first in two decades.
For years, the United States had isolated the junta with political and economic sanctions, which failed to force the generals to respect human rights, release jailed political activists and make democratic reforms. The Obama administration decided recently to step up engagement as a way of promoting reforms.
Washington has said it will maintain the sanctions until talks with Myanmar's generals result in change.
Thailand want 2/3 right of oil and gas in "overlapping" sea territory with Cambodia? 'Use Thai-VN model with Cambodia' on oil
The Mineral Fuels Department says Thailand and Vietnam's solution for the problem of overlapping sea territory is also best for a similar problem between the Kingdom and Cambodia regarding oil and gas exploration.
Director-general Kurujit Nakornthap said the model would benefit Cambodia more than other solutions would.
Thailand and Vietnam agreed to divide the overlapping area, with Thailand owning 67 per cent and Vietnam 33 per cent.
Kurujit said with a similar division between Thailand and Cambodia, the latter could enter into joint-venture agreements with private concessionaires and gain full technology transfers from them on its own without needing to discuss the matter with Thailand.
Thailand also solved a similar problem with Malaysia by setting up a joint juristic organisation to develop the entire area and share the benefits evenly. That area has been found to contain natural-gas reserves of 10 trillion cubic feet.
Kurujit said the problem of the overlapping territory between Thailand and Cambodia, amounting to 26,000 square kilometres, should be resolved quickly, as that would afford benefits to both countries in terms of gas-field development.
If the problem is prolonged indefinitely, both countries would lose business opportunities if other sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, became popular and inexpensive to produce in the interim. This would make the value of Thailand's existing but as-yet-untapped natural resources decline.
Thailand has already set up a committee led by Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban to solve this problem, but the two countries have yet to reach a conclusion. Meanwhile, neither one can allow companies holding concessions for oil and gas exploration in the area to operate.
Thailand granted rights to private companies to explore in the area in 1971, but a 1975 Cabinet resolution suspended exploration after learning it overlapped with Cambodia's territory.
Cambodia has also granted exploration rights to private companies, including Total.
Director-general Kurujit Nakornthap said the model would benefit Cambodia more than other solutions would.
Thailand and Vietnam agreed to divide the overlapping area, with Thailand owning 67 per cent and Vietnam 33 per cent.
Kurujit said with a similar division between Thailand and Cambodia, the latter could enter into joint-venture agreements with private concessionaires and gain full technology transfers from them on its own without needing to discuss the matter with Thailand.
Thailand also solved a similar problem with Malaysia by setting up a joint juristic organisation to develop the entire area and share the benefits evenly. That area has been found to contain natural-gas reserves of 10 trillion cubic feet.
Kurujit said the problem of the overlapping territory between Thailand and Cambodia, amounting to 26,000 square kilometres, should be resolved quickly, as that would afford benefits to both countries in terms of gas-field development.
If the problem is prolonged indefinitely, both countries would lose business opportunities if other sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, became popular and inexpensive to produce in the interim. This would make the value of Thailand's existing but as-yet-untapped natural resources decline.
Thailand has already set up a committee led by Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban to solve this problem, but the two countries have yet to reach a conclusion. Meanwhile, neither one can allow companies holding concessions for oil and gas exploration in the area to operate.
Thailand granted rights to private companies to explore in the area in 1971, but a 1975 Cabinet resolution suspended exploration after learning it overlapped with Cambodia's territory.
Cambodia has also granted exploration rights to private companies, including Total.
VN slams Sam Rainsy for border post stunt
THE Kingdom's main opposition party is defending its leader's tactics after the Vietnamese and Cambodian governments condemned Sam Rainsy for uprooting posts marking the tenuous border between the two countries.
In a media statement, Sam Rainsy Party officials said the government had launched a lawsuit against the opposition leader after he removed six markers last week along the border with Vietnam in Svay Rieng province.
"We have not done anything wrong, so we are not scared of anything at all," SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said Tuesday. He admitted he was unsure whether a lawsuit had actually been filed, but said that the party was prepared for legal action following government comments published in the media.
Svay Rieng provincial Governor Cheang Am could not be reached for comment Tuesday but said last week that the law should hold Sam Rainsy responsible.
After uprooting the border posts last week, Sam Rainsy said that the markers had been illegally placed by Vietnamese authorities.
In a statement issued Friday, Vietnam's foreign ministry condemned Sam Rainsy's actions and asked the government to protect the nations' ongoing border demarcation process. The statement called Sam Rainsy's act "perverse, undermining common assets, violating laws of Cambodia and Vietnam, treaties, agreements and deals between the two countries”.
In 2006, Cambodia and Vietnam officially began demarcating their contentious 1,270-kilometre border in an effort to end decades of territorial disputes.
In a media statement, Sam Rainsy Party officials said the government had launched a lawsuit against the opposition leader after he removed six markers last week along the border with Vietnam in Svay Rieng province.
"We have not done anything wrong, so we are not scared of anything at all," SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said Tuesday. He admitted he was unsure whether a lawsuit had actually been filed, but said that the party was prepared for legal action following government comments published in the media.
Svay Rieng provincial Governor Cheang Am could not be reached for comment Tuesday but said last week that the law should hold Sam Rainsy responsible.
After uprooting the border posts last week, Sam Rainsy said that the markers had been illegally placed by Vietnamese authorities.
In a statement issued Friday, Vietnam's foreign ministry condemned Sam Rainsy's actions and asked the government to protect the nations' ongoing border demarcation process. The statement called Sam Rainsy's act "perverse, undermining common assets, violating laws of Cambodia and Vietnam, treaties, agreements and deals between the two countries”.
In 2006, Cambodia and Vietnam officially began demarcating their contentious 1,270-kilometre border in an effort to end decades of territorial disputes.
Man Sam An, CVFA and the Imbalance of Power inside CPP
The odd is still the same, when Vietnam can put new one on the top, the rests and former top will become paralyzed or extinct.
How good method like this? Vietnam has used it very effectively. Vietnam will never lose benefit in utilizing Khmers fight with Khmers for power. Khmers who are paranoid in power will get the power when they can act as a real lackey to Vietnam.
Reading this article, I would like to say congratulation Man Sam An for your gut to abide by perspective and order of Vietnamese leaders regarding Sam Rainsy and the border poles.
As we can observe, Cambodia's history has repeated again and again. Who served best to Vietnamese interests, that person can exceed their position to the highest post promptly.
For instance, Pol Pot came to power because of his obey to Vietnamese top leaders in their campaign to overturn America and Lon Nol. When Pol Pot disengaged from Vietnam; Hun Sen, Chea Sim and Heng Samrin were the best candidates for Vietnam to overturn Pol Pot. Impressively, when Pen Sovann was not really their servant, Vietnam quickly installed younger Hun Sen to power inside the same party.
Now, Man Sam An who is listenable to Vietnam and she is also the president of Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Association (CVFA), if she can achieve this task of suing Sam Rainsy, she will be raised up high, or we can say she can be higher than Sar Keng who is the current highest deputy prime minister. Man Sam An has been running faster than brilliant Sok An and other prime minister deputies.
The odd is still the same, when Vietnam can put new one on the top, the rests and former top will become paralyzed or extinct.
How good method like this? Vietnam has used it very effectively. Vietnam will never lose benefit in utilizing Khmers fight with Khmers for power. Khmers who are paranoid in power will get the power when they can act as a real lackey to Vietnam.
In contradict, as we are Khmers, we can ask simple question that "how can Man Sam An worship Vietnam by jailing our same Khmer race accordingly?".
In reality, Vietnam just wants to test their tiny trick to lure Hun Sen into their trap. If just this poles of border, Vietnam can sue or jail Sam Rainsy, it explicitly shows about many previous treaties that Hun Sen, Chea Sim and Heng Samrin had severally signed with Vietnam.
Vietnamese leader is using this issue to sue Sam Rainsy in order to threaten those CPP's leaders not to get away from them under the prospect of laws.
Sam Rainsy has done nothing wrong, and I want to see Man Sam An realize the truth that finally she will become a victim because of her affinity towards Vietnamese leader in taming their own Khmer race. Pol Pot is a good example for Man Sam An.
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