When U Moe's brother developed a serious lung infection, he immediately went to buy bus tickets to take his younger sibling to Myanmar's main city Yangon for medical treatment.
But at the bus station, U Moe was shocked to discover that the 480km trip would cost more than US$12 dollars per person -- a price he could not afford on his monthly salary of US$60.
"I was so confused by the fares," he said.
Since Myanmar's military government ordered a massive hike of fuel prices on Aug. 15, bus fares around the country have doubled, imposing a crippling burden on the people living in one of Asia's poorest countries.
Anger about the hardships caused by the price increases has sparked more than one month of peaceful street protests, with thousands of Buddhist monks taking to the streets in Yangon and other cities last week.
U Moe, who declined to give his full name, had to wait until payday to come up with the money for the bus tickets.
That left his brother waiting for days in agony, struggling just to breathe.
"It was a really stressful situation before we finally bought the tickets to travel here," U Moe said, adding that once in Yangon, the stress mounted, as food and local transportation were much more expensive than in his rural hometown.
Travel of any sort is now a major difficulty for people in Myanmar. The price hikes have left many in Yangon unable to afford even bus fare to get to work. Prices for food and other basic commodities are also rising.
One retired man in Yangon said: "I told my wife that staying at home is more profitable than going to work."
The UN ranks Myanmar among the world's 20 poorest countries and the World Food Program said last year that food security was a year-round problem, with one-third of the nation's children malnourished.
The junta has signed a string of lucrative contracts for international firms to explore for natural gas, while increasingly selling off Myanmar's mineral wealth in gems and timber to neighbors like China and Thailand.
None of that money trickles down to the public, while the generals have built themselves mansions in the new capital of Naypyidaw, which was carved out of the mountains in central Myanmar.
The increased fuel prices have only worsened the difficult plight of most people, driving up costs for buses, taxis and planes.
Airfares have risen by about 30 percent and tickets for flights to Naypyidaw have doubled.
State-run railways have not raised their prices and still offer deeply subsidized fares.
That has many Yangon commuters scrambling to squeeze onto trains to get to work -- if they're lucky enough to live near a rail line.
For U Moe, saving the money to get his brother to a doctor in the city was only half the battle. Now he wonders if he will have enough money left to get home.
He called the bus terminal to ask if he could get a discounted fare on the cheapest bus.
The response?
"They said they have no choice but to raise the ticket prices because the cost of diesel has doubled," U Moe said.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS