Friday, 24 May 2013

Mizzima News

Aung San Suu Kyi, upon release from house arrest, greets throngs of cheering, happy crowds in front of her house on University Avenue in Rangoon, this evening, November 13, 2010. She is flanked by National League for Democracy leader and party spokesman Nyan Win (right). The crowd reportedly did not settle for half an hour upon her release and chanted ‘Long Live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’. Photo: Mizzimafreedom-suu-banner1

National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi donates robes to a Buddhist monk outside NLD headquarters in Bahan Township, Rangoon, on Wednesday, December 8, 2010. Both giver and receiver are said to earn karmic merit from such a donation. National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi comforts attendees at a ceremony to mark UN World Aids Day (December 1) at NLD head office in Bahan Township, Rangoon, on Thursday, December 2, 2010. People living with HIV also attended the ceremony at which cultural performances including a poetry recital were held. World Aids Day, observed since 1988, is dedicated to raising awareness of the Aids pandemic and to dispel prejudices against those living with the virus. Photo: Mizzima Recently released Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi welcomes Vijay Nambiar (left), United Nations Secretary eneral Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy to Burma, at the front door of the home where the junta kept her for the past seven years under house arrest, in Rangoon on Saturday, November 27, 2010. Nambiar, who is also Ban’s chief of staff, started a two-day trip to Burma today, during which he is also to meet members of Burma’s ruling military junta. Photo: Mizzima Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi walks her youngest son Kim Aris, aka Htein Lin, to his departure gate at Rangoon International Airport after an eventful two-week stay in Burma that followed his mother’s release from house arrest, on Tuesday, December 7, 2010. Prior to the visit, they had not seen each for about a decade. Photo: Mizzima Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her youngest son, Kim Aris, aka Htein Lin, visit Shwedagon Pagoda in central Rangoon early on Thursday morning, November 24, 2010, to pray and make merit. Aris arrived yesterday at Rangoon airport for the first meeting with Suu Kyi after a decade-long separation. Photo: Mizzima Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi greets her youngest son Kim Aris, aka Htein Lin, for the first time in a decade just after he walked through the arrivals gate at Rangoon International Airport on Tuesday, November 23, 2010. Junta officials in Bangkok made Aris wait two weeks for a visa that normally takes two or three days to obtain. Photo: Mizzima. Pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to Mizzima at National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon, on Monday, November 29, 2010. She stressed the paramount importance of the NLD’s insistence on accountability and transparency as keys to reform in Burma. Photo: Mizzima NLD general secretary Aung San Suu Kyi addresses a crowd of about 40,000 people outside National League for Democracy eadquarters in Bahan Township, Rangoon, a day after her release from house arrest. It was her first organised public speech in seven years. Photo: Mizzima Aung San Suu Kyi, upon release from house arrest, greets throngs of cheering, happy crowds in front of her house on University Avenue in Rangoon, this evening, November 13, 2010. She is flanked by National League for Democracy leader and party spokesman Nyan Win (right). The crowd reportedly did not settle for half an hour upon her release and chanted ‘Long Live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’. Photo: Mizzima Supporters of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi gather outside her National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon on Friday November 12, 2010, wearing T-shirts and bearing banners with her portrait. Reports emerged that officials said she would be released this afternoon, a day before her 18-month house-arrest sentence was to be lifted. Key supporters are also waiting outside her lakeside home in the city. Photo: Mizzima

A Kachin woman in the state capital of Myitkyina shows her support for the National Democratic Force, which broke away form the National League for Democracy this year to stand in Burma’s first elections in 20 years, on November 7, 2010. Photo Mizzima Vote counting is carried out today at a polling booth in Dagon Township, Rangoon, in front of foreign diplomats and local journalists. Photo Mizzima Young voters take time off work to vote at a polling station number 1 inside U Ba Lwin Hall of Myoma State High School No. 2, in Pyi East Ward, Dagon Township, Rangoon. Photo: Mizzima The sparse interior of a polling station in Shwebonthar Street, in the former Burmese capital of Rangoon, was taken on November 6, 2010, the eve of Burma’s first elections in two decades, described by activists, some Asean and almost all Western governments as a sham aimed at legitimising the military regime. Photo: Mizzima A massive campaign sign for the Union Solidarity and Development Party towers above a homeless woman and her baby, near the Trader's Hotel, Rangoon, on Friday, November 5, 2010. Photo: Mizzima A massive campaign signboard for the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) dominates a junction in front of Sule Pagoda, Rangoon, on Saturday, November 6, 2010, the eve of Burma’s first national elections for 20 years. Other parties’ have complained that their smaller signs have been ripped down. Meanwhile, the USDP has spurred severe criticism over flagrant violations of the junta’s electoral laws, including rigging of absentee votes with the aid of local electoral watchdogs. Photo: Mizzima National Democratic Force (NDF) members use a rather different method of transport recently to canvass for votes in Thanlyin Township, Rangoon Division. The junta’s election, which will bring the controversial 2008 constitution into effect, has been called a sham designed as a bid to legitimise the power of Burma’s dictatorial military regime. For that reason, the main opposition party from which the NDF split, the National League for Democracy, has decided to boycott the polls. Photo: Mizzima Mandalay Mayor Phone Zaw Han (first right) and Health Minister Dr. Kyaw Myint (third right) open the city’s headquarters of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in Chanayethazan Township, Mandalay Division, today, August 20, 2010. Most Burmese consider nine a lucky number, so the ceremonies were held at 9:45 a.m. across the country. Some USDP leaders have boasted they are well positioned to win in the general elections on November 7. Photo: Mizzima
Pyinone village, within hard-hit Myebon Township, on Thursday, October 28. The Category Four storm tore through the village bearing winds in excess of 120 miles per hour (193 km/h) at 4 p.m. on October 22. More than a week later, the villages that bore the brunt of the damage have received rice and little else, their residents, desperately rebuilding homes. Photo: Mizzima Vehicular and pedestrian traffic slows to a crawl in Myayinanda Ward, Mandalay, on Wednesday, October 13, 2010, after the area was inundated following heavy rain that pushed Seitawlay and Seitawgyi dams to near capacity. Officials were forced to open the dams’ floodgates, waters from which also swamped Aungpinle and Thamankone wards and displaced a total of around 2,500 people. Photo: Mizzima Thingangyun Market, one of the biggest in Rangoon, was gutted by fire on February 12. Photo: Mizzima. Some houses that are nearby the market were also destroyed in the fire.
A resident of hard-hit Myebon Township’s Pyinone village clears debris as other villagers work to rebuild the nearly 100 per cent of the area’s homes destroyed by Cyclone Giri on October 28, 2010. Although government newspapers initially said the storm killed only 27 across Arakan State, more than 40 died in Pyinone alone, villagers said. The Category Four storm had hit Burma’s western coast bearing winds in excess of 120 miles per hour (193 km/h) four days earlier. Although the devastated region needed an estimated US$57 million, it had received just US$20.5 million, the UN Country Team in Burma said in a report on Monday. Photo: Mizzima A Seikkyi Khanaungto-Rangoon ferry berths at Kaingdan Street pier in Lanmadaw Township, western Rangoon on Thursday afternoon, September 9, 2010, as floodwater laps at the jetty’s skirting. The Rangoon River broke its banks at about 2 p.m., causing flooding in Seikkan Township and on Strand and Mahabandoola roads in Lanmadaw and Latha townships. Photo: Mizzima Vehicular and pedestrian traffic slows to a crawl in Myayinanda Ward, Mandalay, on Wednesday, October 13, 2010, after the area was inundated following heavy rain that pushed Seitawlay and Seitawgyi dams to near capacity. Officials were forced to open the dams’ floodgates, waters from which also swamped Aungpinle and Thamankone wards and displaced a total of around 2,500 people. Photo: Mizzima Vehicular and pedestrian traffic slows to a crawl in Myayinanda Ward, Mandalay, on Wednesday, October 13, 2010, after the area was inundated following heavy rain that pushed Seitawlay and Seitawgyi dams to near capacity. Officials were forced to open the dams’ floodgates, waters from which also swamped Aungpinle and Thamankone wards and displaced a total of around 2,500 people. Photo: Mizzima Flooding inundates houses in the Lay Mile (Four Mile) Quarter of Maungdaw Township, Arakan State, at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, June 15, 2010, after a downpour in the area on Monday. Heavy rain at around 10 a.m. on Monday continued for 12 hours, led to flooding in all four quarters and forced evacuation of more than 100 families to High School No. 1 on higher ground. The Naf River runs past Maungdaw’s west, with tributaries to the north and south of the port town. Photo: Nyein Chan/Mizzima Buddhist monks work alongside residents in battling a blaze at Ward No. 10 in Tharketa Township, Rangoon, on Friday, ovember 26, 2010. A Rangoon Central Fire Department engine had earlier sunk into soft ground [see Mizzima Photo News] at the scene in the eastern suburb of the former capital of Burma. Twelve homes were gutted in the fire. Photo: Mizzima An oil fire burns near Myitchay, in Pakokku district, Magway Division, yesterday (Monday, October 25) after a massive explosion started it on Sunday while villagers skimmed fuel from a leaking pipeline. It took at least six fire engines to bring it under control after the blast killed at least 15 people and as many as 50 and injured up to 100. Photo: Mizzima Hundreds of firemen battle a blaze at Mingala Market in Rangoon late on Monday night (May 24). The fire that started on the fourth floor and had been raging since 8:20 a.m. was brought under control only at midnight after reigniting when gas tanks in a fourth-floor restaurant exploded in the evening. Nearly 70 fire engines from Rangoon and more crews from Thanlyin, Hleku, Hmawbi, Titekyi and Pegu (Bago) townships were called in. A senior official from Rangoon Division Central Fire Department blamed narrow pathways in the building for firefighting difficulties but shop owners and a fireman cited the market’s inadequate fire-safety system, fire hydrants that lacked water and ladders that were too short. Photo: Mizzima
A soldier stands guard last month at a Kachin Independence Army outpost overlooking the Pajau plains near the rebel capital of Laiza, northern Kachin State. Photo: Mizzima
The United Nations has dedicated March 22 this year as ‘World Water Day’ with the theme “Clean Water for a Healthy World”. It highlights the importance of water quality alongside quantity of the resource in water management. Photo: Mizzima. The national average figure acknowledged by the government shows that 25 per cent of people in Burma are without access to safe drinking water. Scores of people wait for water to be delivered by charities in Dala Township, across the river from central Rangoon, on May 14. Twenty-three quarters in the town are suffering serve water shortages amid a crisis affecting at least 180 villages across lower and central Burma. Meteorologists say a late monsoon and record high temperatures are to blame. Photo: Mizzima
A girl died in a building collapse on March 14 evening in Rangoon. Photo: Mizzima: Six rescue workers were injured after some parts of the three-story building collapsed again, while they were trying to rescue the 15-year old girl trapped under the debris. Curious onlookers gather around business tycoon Tayza's MV23 Princess luxury yacht docked at the Batahtaung harbour in Rangoon. Photo: Mizzima. The yacht can sail at a speed of 35 nautical miles and has a radar and GPS system installed.
National League for Democracy Vice Chairperson Tin Oo resumes political activities after his release from six years under house arrest on February 13 . He is seen today meeting his colleagues at the NLD Headquarters in Rangoon. Photo: Mizzima. Tin Oo, Retired Commander-in-Chief and close confidant of Aung San Suu Kyi, will be 83 next month. Burma’s new national flag, a central white star set against a yellow, green and red background, flies in front of City Hall, Rangoon on October 21, 2010. Rangoon Mayor Aung Thein Lin presided over the flag-raising ceremony at 3:30 p.m. as a military band played Burmese national anthem. Photo: Mizzima
A Burmese female activist in New Delhi on Sunday, September 19, 2010, holds a photo of Win Maw Oo, a 16-year-old high-school student who was gunned down 22 years ago on a Rangoon street, a day after the Burmese military staged a coup amid nationwide protests demanding the restoration of democracy. At least 3,000 protestors were killed in the few days following the military coup. The commemoration was held by India-based Burmese democracy activists during heavy rain in the Indian capital. Photo: Mizzima An exhibition of sculptures from trees in Rangoon brought down by Cyclone Nargis is to be held on January 25, at Saya San Plaza. Photo – Mizzima. The exhibition jointly organized by Kaung Myanmar Company will showcase over 2,000 sculptures and will be sold to China later.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 06 January 2011 03:47 )