Rohingya. Rohingya Asylum Seekers in Need of a Regional Solution: Experts. Narunisa, a 25-year-old Rohingya woman, is comforted by her children and other people after returning to a shelter for Rohingya women and children in Phang Nga June 18, 2013.
(Reuters Photo/Damir Sagolj) Thousands of Rohingyas from Myanmar are fleeing persecution to countries elsewhere in the region, underscoring the need for a stronger regional solution, activists and experts say. “A coordinated and immediate regional response will put pressure on the government to do more to ease the plight of the Rohingya people and prevent the situation from spiraling out of control,” Joey Dimaandal, a program associate for the South East Asia Committee for Advocacy (SEACA), a capacity building network for community-based organizations in Southeast Asia, told IRIN.
More than 35,000 people have fled by boat over the past year, recent estimates suggest, while others believe the real number is much higher. Others have made their way to India and Nepal, and even East Timor. Asean could do more Push-backs. Rohingya. Rohingyas. Politics in Burma from 2009 to now on. Myanmar’s economy confronts tough policy challenges. Author: Lex Rieffel, Brookings Institution The global policy community has focused on the political challenges facing the government of President Thein Sein in Myanmar and paid little attention to the economic challenges.
Yet without economic improvements at the grass roots, political progress may founder. Urgent policy challenges confront almost every aspect of the Myanmar economy. Here are the top 10 issues. The single biggest source of Myanmar government revenue is hard currency earnings from exporting natural gas. The single most important economic policy measure adopted by the Thein Sein administration so far was abandoning the grossly overvalued official exchange rate and moving to a managed float on 1 April 2012. Seventy per cent of Myanmar’s population lives in rural areas where livelihoods depend primarily on agriculture. Land ownership and control is a crucial issue also in connection with urbanisation, infrastructure and other projects.
Myanmar Will Build Billion Dollar International Airport To Be Completed by 2017. By 2020, Myanmar is projected to host 7.5 million tourists annually, a figure far larger than the country’s current infrastructure is prepared to handle.
As such, Myanmar is planning to invest heavily to build new airports and add to existing ones. The Hanthawady International Airport will be located in Myanmar’s central Bago region, covering an area of 9,690 acres, according to Bernama, Malaysia's national news agency. Bago is a historical region of Myanmar with sights dating as far back as the eighth century, and has been popular with tourists. The project, which will be implemented starting September, is now in the bidding stage.
Just seven of the 30 companies who were interested in investing in the project were selected based on their financial strength, experience, personnel skill and equipment resources. Myanmar’s economic prospects and its real potential. Author: U Myint, Chief Economic Adviser to the President of Myanmar Myanmar’s economic potential has been vastly enhanced by the access to foreign resources — in the form of new trading opportunities, the inflow of foreign investment, elevated levels of bilateral and multilateral assistance — that President U Thein Sein’s commitment to political, social and economic reform has unleashed.
The relaxation of sanctions and improved relations with the major powers have both opened a new opportunity for development after years of economic isolation and consequent economic stagnation. Already, over the past few years, real growth has been strong, but how strong is not exactly clear. If one believed the official statistics, the economy has been growing in excess of 10 per cent per year for more than a decade, but it is difficult to reconcile the statistics with the real world in which the people of Myanmar live day by day. But how should Myanmar set its development ambitions now? ASEAN - ANASE - ANSEA. Birmanie - Myanmar - Burma. Minorities in Myanmar. Conflict. Myanmar’s religious violence a threat to Southeast Asia’s security. Author: Eliane Coates, RSIS Renewed violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar appears to be spreading regionally, with tensions threatening to spill over to Malaysia and Indonesia.
In particular, there are concerns that the violence among Myanmar nationals in Malaysia may radicalise Muslims outside Myanmar, which could lead to a vicious cycle of reprisals and counter-reprisals. Such radicalisation, as noted by ASEAN’s former Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, ‘would have wider strategic and security implications for the region’. Approximately 200 people, mostly Muslims, have died in the expanding sectarian fighting between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar since June 2012. While the violence was still centred in Rakhine State in 2012, it has now spread throughout the country. The rising religious tensions in Myanmar are threatening to spill over to neighbouring countries. But threats of violence from Indonesia only form part of the bigger picture. Rakhine State. Rakhine State. Rakhine (People)