Chinese officials have urged Myanmar’s government to restart a Chinese-backed multibillion US dollar power dam project that was suspended, apparently without notice, last year.
China was caught off guard by September’s suspension of the US$3.6 billion China-funded Myitsone dam, which was being built by a Chinese company in Myanmar. The project had drawn protests from ethnic and environmental groups, and the suspension marked a significant about-face in Myanmar’s domestic politics.
The officials, speaking on the sidelines of China’s annual legislative session, said the dam would produce badly needed electricity for Myanmar and raise living standards, the official China Daily reported yesterday.
Photo: Reuters
It quoted a former head of China’s National Energy Administration, Zhang Guobao, as saying the dam is a good project that will bring local residents a better life.
It also quoted Lu Qizhou, president of China Power Investment Co, which is providing the financing for the project, as saying the company will do all it can to avoid negative environmental impacts from its projects.
“Myanmar is our friendly neighbor ... we hope to restart the project as quickly as possible,” Lu said.
Both Lu and Zhang are members of the Chinese People’s Consultative Committee, an advisory body to the annual National People’s Congress being held in Beijing.
China and resource-rich Myanmar have historic ties, but the suspension of the dam project came as an apparent surprise to Beijing, which has long provided key diplomatic and economic support for Myanmar.
Myanmar President Thein Sein announced the suspension of the project on Sept. 30 last year, drawing sharp criticism from the Chinese company behind the project, but praise from activists who say it would displace many villagers and upset the ecology of the Irrawaddy River. It also would submerge a culturally important site in the ethnic Kachin heartland.
The dam has also been criticized because about 90 percent of the electricity it would generate would be exported to China, while the vast majority of Myanmar’s citizens have no power.
Beijing has poured billions of dollars of investment into Myanmar to operate mines, extract timber and build oil and gas pipelines. China has also been a staunch supporter of the country’s politically isolated government.
China Power Investment Corp, which has threatened legal action over the move, is a state-owned company, and its Web site says it operates under the leadership of the State Council, which is China’s Cabinet.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
RSS