ေရႊစာစုမ်ားအေၾကာင္း...

ကြ်န္မ သူမ်ားဘေလာ႔ဂ္ေတြ ေလွ်ာက္လည္ၿပီး သူမ်ားေရးတာေလးေတြ ဖတ္၊ သေဘာေတြက်... ကြန္မက္..အဲ.. ျမန္မာလုိဆို... မွတ္ခ်က္ေတြ သြားေပး။ ဆရာလူထုစိန္၀င္းက ေဆာင္းပါးကေန ဆူထားလို႔ ကြ်န္မလည္း တတ္နုိင္သမွ် ျမန္မာမႈျပဳဖို႔ စိတ္ကူးထားလုိ႔ပါ။ တုိက္တုိက္ဆုိင္ဆုိင္ပဲ မမိုးခ်ိဳသင္းရဲ႕ ဘေလာ႔ဂ္မွာလည္း ဆရာတင္မိုးက ေတြ႔သမွ် လမ္းနံမယ္ေတြကို ျမန္မာမႈျပဳထားတာက ခ်စ္စရာသိပ္ေကာင္းတာကို သေဘာက်။

အဲ.. ေနပါဦးေလ။ ေျပာခ်င္တာက ကိုယ္က သူမ်ားစာမ်က္နွာေတြမွာ မေနနုိင္မထိုင္နုိင္ မွတ္ခ်က္ေတြ ၀င္ေရးေပမယ့္ ကိုယ့္ဆီမွာက် တင္စရာ စာမရွိေနျပန္ပါဘူး။ ေရးပါလား ဆိုရင္ေတာ့လည္း မေရးတတ္။ ဒီေတာ့ ကိုယ္လည္သမွ် သေဘာက်တဲ႔စာေတြကို ဘေလာ႔ဂ္ပိုင္ရွင္ေတြဆီက ခြင့္ေတာင္းျပီး တင္ရင္ ေကာင္းမလားပဲ။ အၾကံအဖန္လုပ္တာ မဟုတ္ရပါ။ တကယ္ သေဘာက် နွစ္သက္တဲ႔ စာေလးေတြကို စုေဆာင္းထားခ်င္တဲ႔ စိတ္ေၾကာင့္ပါ။ ဟိုတေန႔က ဖတ္လိုက္ရတဲ႔ မနုိင္းနုိင္းစေနရဲ. မဂၤလာစု စာအုပ္ေလးကိုလည္း သေဘာက်ရဲ.။ သေဘာက်ႏွစ္သက္မိတဲ႔ စာေလးေတြကေတာ့ အမ်ားႀကီးပါပဲဲ။ ကိုယ္ၾကိဳက္တဲ႔ ေရႊစာစုေလးေတြေပါ့။ မေကာင္းဘူးလားဟင္။

ခ်ိဳတူးေဇာ္ရဲ. လြမ္းဆိမ္႔ စ-ဆံုး။

အခုတေလာ အီးေမးလ္ေတြထဲမွာ ပလူပ်ံေနတဲ႔ ဒီ pdf ဖုိင္ေလးကို scribd ေပၚတင္ၿပီး ဘေလာ႔ဂ္မွာ တင္ထားပါရေစ..။ ေလနုေအးရဲ႕ မတန္ခူးကေတာ့ လာ.. လြမ္းၾကစို႔ လို႔ ညႊန္းခဲ႔တဲ႔ စာကေလးပါ။ အဲဒီအခ်ိန္နဲ႔ ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္ျဖစ္ခဲ႔တဲ႔ သိမွီခဲ႔တဲ႔ သူတုိင္း ျပန္သတိရစရာေလးေတြပါပဲ။ စာေရးသူ ခ်ိဳတူးေဇာ္ကေတာ့ နံမယ္ရင္းေတြကို တပ္ၿပီး ေရးလုိက္တာပါပဲ။ source ကေတာ့ ဘယ္ကမွန္းမသိေပမယ့္ အမွတ္တရ သေဘာက်လို႔ တင္ထားလုိက္တာပါ။ က်မကေတာ့ ခံစားလို႔ရခဲ႔တာေပါ့။ တနွစ္တည္းသမားေတြ ျဖစ္ေနခဲ႔တာကိုး။

ChoII - Upload a Document to Scribd

ျမန္မာစာေရးဆရာမ နုနုရည္(အငး္၀)ႏ်င့္ပတ္သက္ေသာ

 ဆရာမ နုနုရည္က ျမန္မာစာေရးဆရာေတြရဲ႕ ဂုဏ္ေရာင္ေျပာင္ထြန္းေအာင္ ႀကိဳးစားေနပါတယ္.....နုိင္ငံေရးမပါတဲ႔ အမ်ိဳးသားေရးပါပဲ.. အားရစရာေကာင္းလြန္းလို႔ ဘေလာ႔ဂ္ေပၚတင္ထားမိပါတယ္။ မူရင္းက ဒီမွာပါ...

Myanmar author beats censors after decade-long battle

Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:17am BST

 By Gillian Murdoch

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - Nu Nu Yi, the first author living in army-ruled Myanmar to have a book published outside the country, battled censors for more than a decade to get her voice heard. Now, she wants other Myanmar writers to follow her.

Yi, whose book "Smile as They Bow" was nominated for the Asian Booker prize last year, is determined to help create a canon of Burmese literature that will fill its own shelves at English-language bookshops, and not be filed under Thailand.

She spoke to Reuters after the publication of the English translation of her novel, a gritty portrayal of the raucous week-long Taungbyon festival, which celebrates spirits known as "nats" who are believed to shower luck on people they favor.

Q: "Smile as They Bow" is the first book by a writer living in Myanmar to be translated into English. Is this a milestone?

A: When I was at Oxford in 1998, I saw Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's "Letters from Burma" at Blackwell's bookstore. It was the only book from Myanmar -- on the Thailand bookshelf -- they didn't even have a Burma bookshelf. No one knows the tears I shed there at Blackwell's. I wanted to see Myanmar writers and Myanmar bookshelves in international bookstores. There are many writers, and even more unpublished manuscripts. But there are very few translators and no connections to foreign publishers. So for me personally, and for Myanmar literature, the U.S. publication of "Smile As They Bow" is very important.

Q: Can you explain why the book took three years to research and write -- and then 12 years to be published?

A: Initially, the censors totally banned the novel. I remember the reason they gave was that it was "unsuitable for the times," a phrase they often use.

Q: Why was the story, set at one Myanmar's most famous spirit festivals, deemed so sensitive?

A: One very funny thing I remember, they said my mentioning the two Taungbyon Brothers, younger and elder, was obviously aimed at Secretary One and Secretary Two of the Military Council. They also disallowed all references to homosexuality, which are in the English version, and did not even permit a beggar character. I tried to appeal that she's a singer, not a beggar.

Q: But you feel secure, as a writer, despite this?

A: I feel perfectly safe, because I am not political. Risk largely comes from writing open provocation. Most writers are experts at hidden meanings. There are other writers with more government leanings, who definitely do no like the fact that I was translated and nominated for an international prize. They even say an American should not have translated it. But I do have a popular following and somehow manage to make a living.

Q: Why do spirits and superstition loom so large in your book, and other accounts of life in Myanmar?

A: Myanmar is largely pre-modern and such beliefs are very traditional. As the situation inside the country gets more and more dire, people grasp for quick desperate solutions, they want to believe in some kind of hope, anything. Many authors write about the supernatural to escape from censorship because so many things are prohibited, both explicitly and by unwritten rules. One cannot write about poverty, beggars, sex, rape, and, of course, politics or anything positive about other countries.

Q: Do you read foreign books and reports about Myanmar?

A: We get almost no news from other countries inside Burma, except via BBC and VOA radio. I only can read journalism about my country when I am abroad. Of course such journalism is inaccurate and oversimplified to black-and-white. The situation is very complex, with many shades of gray.

Q: What do you hope overseas readers take from your work?

A: I want to give my country a human face. A real place with real people, not just an exotic tourist postcard.

(Writing by Gillian Murdoch; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

ေမသဇင္ ဆုိသည္မွာ...

တေန႔ တေန႔ ေမသဇင္ ဘာေတြလုပ္ေနသလဲ။

တကယ္တမ္း ဘယ္သူ႔မွ မသိတဲ႔ ေနရာေလးမွာ ပုန္းေနခ်င္တာေလ.။ ငယ္ငယ္က တူတူပုန္းသလိုေပါ႔။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ဘေလာ႔ဂ္နံမယ္ကိုက ကမာၻ႔အျပင္ဘက္ျခမ္းမွာ...ေလ။ ဘေလာ႔ဂ္ေတြ ေလွ်ာက္ဖတ္တယ္။ သေဘာက်တဲ႔ စာေတြ ဖတ္ရရင္.. ကိုုယ့္စိတ္ထဲက ရင္းႏွီးေနရင္.. ကြန္မက္ေတြ ၀င္ေရးတတ္တယ္။ ေတြ.ကရာ စီေဘာက္စ္ထဲ ေလွ်ာက္ေရးေနတာမ်ိဳး မဟုတ္ေပမယ့္ ကြန္မက္ ၀င္ေရးဖို႔ ဂူးဂဲလ္ အေကာင့္လုိလာတယ္။ ဒါနဲ႔ပဲ ဒီဘေလာ႔ဂ္ေလး လုပ္ျဖစ္သြားပါတယ္။ ေနာက္ ဒီအတုိင္းထားလုိ႔ မျဖစ္ေခ်ဘူးဆိုျပီး ဟုိဟာေလးထည့္လုိက္၊ သည္ဟာေလးထည့္လုိက္ေပါ့။ သိပ္မ်ားမ်ားစားစားေတာ့မရွိပါဘူး။

တကယ္ေတာ့ ေမသဇင္က အစကထဲကိုက လူသိမ်ားတဲ႔ အမ်ိဳးသမီးမဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ကိုယ့္နံမယ္ရင္းမဟုတ္တဲ႔ နာမယ္ေလးတစ္ခုနဲ႔ ေနေနတာပါ။ အရင္ကထဲက သိခဲ႔တဲ႔ မိတ္ေဆြေတြ မဟုတ္ပဲ မိတ္သစ္ေတြနဲ႔ ရင္းႏွီးဖို႔ ရည္ရြယ္ပါတယ္။

ေက်းဇူးတင္ပါတယ္။

ဒီေန. ဖတ္ျဖစ္သည္မ်ား

* မဲေဆာက္ ျမန္မာျပည့္တန္ဆာ မိန္းကေလးမ်ားဘ၀ တေစ့တေစာင္း (သတင္းေဆာင္းပါး) click
* ေရွ႕ေနဦးၾကည္၀င္းႏွင့္ ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္ဆက္သြယ္ေမးျမန္းခ်က္ (အင္တာဗ်ဴး) click

The Fugitive!

The Fugitive တဲ႔..။ ေနာက္ထပ္ ထြက္ေျပးရမယ့္အုပ္စု..... ဘယ္သူေတြမ်ားပါလိမ့္။

TALK OF THE TOWN
The fugitive
By The Nation
Published on August 19, 2008

The decision by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to flee into exile in London continued to receive wide coverage in the local press. Matichon's edition yesterday featured at least three analysis pieces assessing the consequences of Thaksin's departure.


Niti Eawsriwong said in his column that "I can't predict whether Thaksin will have his day as he said in a statement again. But I believe that things will never be the same again".

Niti said the fact that Thaksin had escaped and snubbed the Thai judicial process would politically handicap him forever. And it will be a serious problem for his people to turn the situation around.

Although many Thai politicians had sought exile in the past, Thaksin is the first politician to seek exile with pending legal cases against him.

Niti described the changing situation in the Thai political system, with the rural sector gaining more say in politics amid widening divisions between the urban middle class and the farmers upcountry. He predicted the situation would continue to be turbulent for a while because politicians failed to respond to social changes.

Matichon's editorial piece said Thaksin should respect the rules and the court. Instead of stubbornly refusing to accept the 2007 Constitution and the agencies set up by the coup, Thaksin and his wife should instead try to clear their names in court. Thaksin should understand that political interference is unacceptable in a legal trial. Otherwise, people will think of his claims as a desperate effort to get away from the responsibility that he is supposed to show.

Thai Rath's editorial piece on the same day criticised the People Power Party's claim that the National Counter Corruption Commission was unlawful. The paper's article was headlined "What's the difference between a gun and money?"

The PPP attacked the NCCC by saying that it was the product of the coup. But Thai Rath said in fact there were a number of agencies and groups born out of the coup, including the Constitution Drafting Assembly, the new Senate and the MPs who were elected via the rules of the Constitution which was drafted by the committee established after the coup.

"The politicians tend to claim that their 'origin' is more sanctified than other agencies because they came from the election. But if the other agencies have been duly appointed, they should accept that.

What would be the difference between the elected politicians and these appointed committees if the latter were formed through money and the abuse of power - which is comparable to the coup in another form?

The only difference is that while one side uses tanks and guns, the other uses money and abuses the government's power," Thai Rath said.

ဒီကေန ယူထားပါတယ္

Suu Kyi - A Living Legend

BURMA: Suu Kyi - A Living Legend
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 26 (IPS) - Nyo Ohn Myint still remembers the moment, 20 years ago, when the legend of Aung San Suu Kyi began. He was there when she gave a stirring speech and became the symbol of hope for a country under the oppressive grip of military rule since 1962.

The then history teacher at Rangoon University was in a convoy of five vehicles that had taken Suu Kyi, on the morning of Aug. 26, 1988, from her colonial-era home in the Burmese city to a public meeting in front of the great, gold-topped Shwedagon pagoda.

It was slow going, Nyo Ohn Myint, then 25, recalls. They had taken an hour to cover the three-mile distance. And that first major public appearance for Suu Kyi gained significance in the wake of the brutal crackdown over two weeks before when Burmese troops had shot to death some 3,000 unarmed people protesting against the military dictatorship. That Aug. 8 protest drew hundreds of thousands of people, the largest crowds since anti-government demonstrations had begun earlier that year.

The crowds had swelled to nearly 500,000 to hear Suu Kyi, then 43, who was only known as the daughter of Burma’s independence hero, Gen. Aung San, and an occasional visitor to the country from Oxford where she was living with her British academic husband and raising a family. Nyo Ohn Myint stood on a side stage and watched Suu Kyi establish her political credentials in Burmese.

That day she emerged ‘’as the person who could lead our country,’’ the former confidant of Suu Kyi said during a telephone interview from the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. ‘’She impressed the crowds and was totally committed to take on the political challenge of dealing with the military regime.’’

Other student activists who were in the vanguard of the 1988 anti-government protests feel likewise about Suu Kyi’s debut on Burma’s political landscape. ‘’She gave people hope with her speech,’’ says Myint Myint San, then a 22-year-old final year botany student at Rangoon University. ‘’She did a tremendous job to help people understand what democracy means. And she dared to speak to the army and confront (then dictator) Gen. Ne Win.’’

In the days that followed, the tapes of her speech were in high demand. ‘’People kept playing it again and again,’’ Myint Myint San told IPS. ‘’People began to talk of Burma getting its second independence after we got our first when the British (colonisers) left (in 1948).’’

It was a dramatic turn of events for a woman who had come home in March 1988 to care of her sick mother and with no thought of political activism on her mind. ‘’When I returned home to Burma in 1988 to nurse my sick mother, I was planning on starting a chain of libraries in my father’s name. A life of politics held no attraction to me,’’ she said in a 1995 interview with ‘Vanity Fair’. ‘’But the people of my country were demanding for democracy, and as my father’s daughter, I felt I had a duty to get involved.’’

Yet, two decades later, the hope for a new Burmese independence -- free of military oppression -- appears remote. The junta remains firmly in control, with a tighter grip on the political landscape than in 1988. And Suu Kyi’s democratic mission has been forced to the margins.

But that has not diminished Suu Kyi’s stature as a democracy icon in the non-violent mould of Mahatma Gandhi. It has come at great personal sacrifice, though, given the over 13 of the past 19 years she has spent under house arrest, and the harsh limits the junta placed on her meetings with supporters and family members.

She was vindicated in 1990 when a new party she led, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won with a huge majority at a parliamentary election that the junta refused to recognise. In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Peace prize, the first among 40-odd international awards she has won. And in the years since, international attempts to nudge Burma towards political reform have had to turn to the charismatic Suu Kyi -- detained or free-- to ensure credibility and public support.

‘’She has become the rallying point for the democracy movement in Burma. She has contributed tremendously to the growth of democratic culture in the past 20 years,’’ says Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst living in exile in Thailand. ‘’Her struggle has put Burma’s political problems and its suffering on the world map.’’

Take her out of the picture and the NLD will be nothing, he explains in an interview. ‘’It is also true of the Burmese democracy movement: it is likely to lose its momentum if she is not in the scene.’’

Her two decades in Rangoon have also helped build bridges between the majority Burman community and the South-east Asian country’s many ethnic communities, 17 of which had rebel movements fighting separatist campaigns against the Burmese troops. Leaders of these ethnic communities have confirmed that reconciliation between the majority Burmans and non-Burman minorities is possible through dialogue with Suu Kyi.

They relate to her views of a democratic Burma that she has articulated over the years in her speeches and writings. ‘’When we ask for democracy, all we are asking is that our people should be allowed to live in tranquility, under the rule of law, protected by institutions which will guarantee our rights, the rights that will enable us to maintain our human dignity, to heal the long festering wounds and to allow love and courage to flourish,’’ she is once reported to have said. ‘’Is that such a very unreasonable demand?’’

(END/2008)

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EDITORIAL

Samak's remarks on Burma do more damage

By The Nation
Published on August 27, 2008

The PM adds more salt to the wounds by openly endorsing junta's planned 2010 elections

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's recent comments on Burma were ridiculous, even bordering on absurdity. It showed his total ignorance of the situation, and worse yet, he seems to be completely blind to the ongoing efforts by the international community, especially the UN, to bring peace and stability to one of the world's most backward countries. His latest comments added salt to the wound created by his earlier remarks, which also tarnished Thailand's reputation as a democracy.

Samak showed sadistic tendencies when he started criticising the West for demanding that Aung San Suu Kyi be released from her 12-year-long house arrest. He has completely ignored the reality inside Burma, and even very foolishly observed that the West could have a deeper level of discussions with the junta if the opposition party's leader was not part of the scheme. Obviously Samak forgot that Suu Kyi and her party, National League of Democracy, won the 1990 elections by a landslide, but that the military junta refused to recognise their victory.

He also forgot that over the past two decades, the junta has imposed stringent rules over its citizens, building up a tight police state where the public is under constant surveillance. When the Buddhist monks and students took to the streets in September last year to rally against the junta, they were met with force. Asean came out with the strongest statement in its history condemning one of its members, but the junta remained unrepentant.

Now, the junta is moving confidently ahead in imposing its political roadmap on the Burmese people by passing a new constitution in May and planning national elections in 2010. Meanwhile, Samak continues to completely ignore Burma's hunger for democracy.

Thailand has had to support more than two million refugees and migrant workers escaping hardship and oppression in their country. The Thai administration obviously does not realise that making Burma a democracy would be beneficial because the people would want to return home. As the leader of Thailand, Samak should have understood that it is democracy that gave him power in the first place.

However, when he met UN special envoy for Burma Ibrahim Gambari, Samak ended up openly endorsing the junta's planned 2010 election, saying naively that he would talk the junta into allowing outside observers. Samak should have realised that there is no way anybody could influence the junta.

When the international community wanted to help victims of Cyclone Nargis in early May, the junta was recalcitrant. At first, it blocked outside assistance out of fear of intervention, whereas immediate aid could have saved thousands of lives. After repeated assurances by Asean, some international organisations were allowed in. Now, it appears that the junta benefited handsomely from the tricky foreign policy exchange regulations, which enabled the authorities to put millions in their pockets. It is uncertain how much money they have made off with, but the real picture will emerge soon. Already, the news has had an adverse effect on potential sources of assistance.

It is obvious that Samak's stance on Burma will have huge ramifications on Thailand and its standing in the global community. Samak has always been quick to jump on any chance that would help him maintain power, even if it means serving as a front man for a convicted criminal liked Thaksin Shinawatra. Whether or not Samak can continue as prime minister in the weeks ahead, he has already created enough ways to further isolate Thailand. Worse yet, it would further affect the role of the Asean chair over the next 16 months.

With such a strong endorsement of the Burmese junta, it is now possible that some of the Asean dialogue partners would seek to boycott the meetings scheduled in December in Bangkok. Perhaps we should expect more diplomatic disasters if Samak continues as prime minister.

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Ibrahim Gambari (R) speaking with Aung San Suu Kyi
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UN visit shows momentum slipping on Myanmar: analysts

14 hours ago

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari's seeming failure to press the Myanmar junta toward reform has underlined the loss in diplomatic momentum since last year's bloody crackdown on protests, analysts say.

Gambari arrived in Myanmar last Thursday hoping to persuade the regime to include detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in plans for a constitutional referendum in May designed to pave the way for elections in 2010.

But with support from regional allies such as China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the generals have pressed on with a "roadmap to democracy" that the West has decried as a sham.

"What the Burmese military has done is what the Chinese and ASEAN and even the Indians wanted to see in Burma -- the continuation of the roadmap, and for the first time in 20 years there is a timeframe," said Thailand-based Myanmar expert Aung Naing Oo, referring to the nation by its former name.

Gambari left Myanmar late Monday having twice been rebuffed by the junta on his third visit there since pictures of last September's violent crackdown on Buddhist monk-led street protests went around the world.

The generals refused to amend the constitution and rejected an offer of UN technical assistance and foreign observers during the referendum.

At least 31 people died last September, according to the United Nations, although Human Rights Watch has put the toll at more than 100, and the world outcry was swift and unified -- a consensus that has since fractured.

While China, Russia and some Southeast Asian nations call the referendum a step in the right direction, the United States and other Western countries say it aims to entrench the military's role.

The constitution would bar Aung San Suu Kyi from elections because she was married to a foreigner, while a new law limits her party's ability to campaign by criminalising public speeches and leaflets about the referendum.

Aung Naing Oo said the split has left Myanmar holding all the cards, with the United Nations empty-handed.

"I honestly don't have any hope in the UN's intervention," he added. "The Burmese junta know they have the Chinese protecting them at the UN Security Council."

The apparent snubs to Gambari, who was also accused on this visit of being biased in favour of the opposition, also show the junta is increasingly immune to the fickle demands of the international community, said Zarni, a visiting fellow at Britain's Oxford University who goes by one name.

"The last thing the regime would want to do is appear to be appeasing the international community, be it the Chinese or the Americans," he told AFP.

"These guys draw inspirations from such regimes as Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea etc, which stand up to what they all consider as 'neo-imperialist' West."

Gambari did, however, meet Aung San Suu Kyi twice during his visit, a rare contact with the outside world for the Nobel peace prize winner who has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.

Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy party to a storming election victory in 1990, but the military -- which has ruled Myanmar in some form since 1962 -- refused to recognise the result.

But the envoy was denied access to senior junta figures, with junta leader Senior General Than Shwe inaccessible in the isolated capital Naypyidaw.

Win Min, a Thailand-based analyst attached to Chiang Mai University, said the only way to bring genuine democratic reform to Myanmar was for the United Nations Security Council to take harsh action unanimously.

"Only then the regime will listen," he told AFP.

However, he said, Myanmar was no longer top of the world's agenda.

The West's sanctions were simply angering the regime without affecting the top leadership, he added, while China was not keen on forcing Myanmar on to a path to democracy that they themselves did not follow.

"The only silver lining in all this is the regime is not declaring this UN engagement process, whatever it's worth, dead or unwelcome," he said.
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Myanmar citizens with foreign husbands barred from domestic politics

Myanmar citizens with foreign husbands barred from domestic politics

By S. Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 20 February 2008 0220 hrs

	Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win

SINGAPORE : Myanmar citizens who have a foreign husband and whose children are not Myanmar nationals cannot take part in domestic politics.

This is the regulation stipulated by the country's new Constitution.

Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win gave this update when he briefed ASEAN foreign ministers at their retreat in Singapore on Tuesday, according to Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo who spoke to the media.

Mr Yeo was responding to a question on whether the Myanmar minister had given any indication if opposition leader Aung Syan Syu Kyi can take take part in the country's elections which is slated to be held in 2010.

According to Mr Nyan Win, this eligibility criteria has been around since 1974 and would be carried forward in the new Constitution.

Mr Yeo said "We (the ASEAN Foreign Ministers) expressed our views on this. It is not keeping with the times that certainly such a provision would be very odd in any other country in ASEAN. But this is their own country, this is their own history, what can we do about it?"

Separately, ASEAN's Foreign Ministers attending the informal retreat are due to spend the greater part of Wednesday discussing how members are implementing the ASEAN Charter.

Mr George Yeo, who is currently the ASEAN's Chair said, before getting down to discussions, Malaysia, Laos and Brunei will hand over documents to the ASEAN Secretary-General as their respective countries had completed ratifying the ASEAN Charter.

This brings the number of ASEAN member countries who have ratified the Charter to four, including Singapore.

Singapore was the first to hand over the documents to the new Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan in Jakarta.

Observers say a top priority for ASEAN now is to set up a dispute settlement mechanism, as spelt out in the Charter.

Such a mechanism already exists to deal with disputes in the economic arena.

Another aspect of the Charter that has drawn much interest is the ASEAN Human Rights Body.

The terms of reference for this body has to be worked out and there's a committee looking into this matter.

All ASEAN Foreign Ministers are attending the two-day retreat in Singapore, except Malaysia's Syed Hamid Albar.

He is busy with preparations for the upcoming general elections.

Mr Syed Hamid is represented by the Secretary-General of Malaysia's Foreign Affairs Ministry. - CNA/de

Myanmar juna schedules constitutional referendum for 2008

THE STRAITS TIMES

Feb 9, 2008
Myanmar junta schedules constitutional referendum for 2008
YANGON - MYANMAR'S military government announced on Saturday that it will hold a constitutional referendum in May 2008 and a general election in 2010. The announcement, made on the evening news on state radio and television, marked the first time the ruling junta has set specific dates to carry out stages of what it calls a road map to democracy. Guidelines for a new constitution were adopted last year, and a government-appointed commission is now drafting the document. Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962 and has not had a constitution since 1988, when the military violently suppressed mass pro-democracy demonstrations. The country's last election was held in 1990, but the military refused to hand over power to the winner, the National League for Democracy party of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi's party 'surprised' by junta's promise of elections Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party was 'surprised' by the announcement of plans for a constitutional referendum and then democratic polls in Myanmar, saying it was 'still early to talk about an election'. 'I am surprised that they set a date for an election,' said Mr Nyan Win, spokesman for the National League for Democracy (NLD). He said that it was premature to plan for national elections when no one has seen the final version of Myanmar's proposed constitution, which the junta announced would be brought to voters for approval in May. 'We have to see the results of the referendum on the constitution. How can they know if it will be a success? It is still early to talk about an election.' -- AP, AFP