More North Korean Rockets Reported in Myanmar

The M1991 MLRS is a more powerful version of the older M1985. It has 22 launching tubes and fires the same 240-mm rockets. It has various warhead capabilities, including HE-FRAG, smoke, incendiary and chemical. A standard HE-FRAG warhead weights 90 kg and contains 45 kg of explosives. A claimed maximum range of fire is 43 km. (photo : Military Today)

More North Korean Rockets Reported in Burma

North Korean-made truck-mounted multiple launch rocket systems have been reportedly set up at Burmese army bases in northern, eastern and central Burma, according to military sources.

The North Korean rockets were recently delivered to missile operation commands in Mohnyin in Kachin State, Naungcho and Kengtung in Shan State and Kyaukpadaung in Mandalay Division, sources said. Missile operation commands were reportedly formed in 2009.

It is not clear when the multiple launch rocket systems were shipped from North Korea. However, military sources said delivery of rocket launchers mounted on trucks occurred several times in recent years.

Sources said they witnessed at least 14 units of 240-mm truck-mounted multiple launch rocket systems arrive at Thilawa Port near Rangoon on the North Korean vessel, Kang Nam I, in early 2008. Previous reports said Burma had purchased 30 units of 240-mm truck-mounted multiple launch rocket systems from North Korean.

According to GlobalSecurity.org, North Korea produces two different 240mm rocket launchers, the 12-round M-1985 and the 22-round M-1991. The M-1985 rocket pack is easily identified by two rows of six rocket tubes mounted on a cab behind an engine chassis. The M-1991 is mounted on a cab over an engine chassis. Both launch packs can be adapted to a suitable cross-country truck.

The Kang Nam I was believed enroute to Burma again in June 2009. However, it reversed course and returned home after a US Navy destroyer followed it amid growing concern that it was carrying illegal arms shipments.

However, more arms shipments from North Korea appear to have been delivered to Burma in 2009-2010. The latest report about a North Korean vessel's arrival was in April. The ship, the Chong Gen, docked at Thilawa Port. Last week, the junta acknowledged that the Chong Gen was at the port, but it denied involvement in any arms trading with Pyongyang, saying Burma follows UN Security Council resolution 1874 which bans arms trading with North Korea. The junta said the North Korean vessel came to Burma with shipments of cement and exported rice.

According to reports by Burma military experts Maung Aung Myoe and Andrew Selth, purchasing multiple-launch rocket systems is a part of the junta’s military modernization plan. While the junta has acquired 107-mm type 63 and 122-mm type 90 multiple-launch rocket from China, North Korea has provided it with 240-mm truck-mounted launch rocket.

Some experts have said North Korea is also involved in a secret relationship with Burma for the sale of short and medium-range ballistic missiles and the development of underground facilities. Other experts and Burmese defectors claim that North Korea is also providing Burma with technology designed to create a nuclear program.

Burma severed its relationship with North Korea in 1983 following North Korean agents’ assassination of members of a South Korean delegation led by President Chun Doo Hwan. The two countries restored relations in early 1990s and officially re-establish diplomatic ties in April 2007.

Source:

http://defense-studies.blogspot.com/2010/06/more-north-korean-rockets-reported-in.html
26.06.2010

Evidence points to Myanmar nuclear program

BANGKOK, June 7 (UPI) -- Myanmar's military dictatorship is working on nuclear weapons, a report by a Norway human rights and democracy group claims.

The evidence from Myanmar, formerly called Burma, is analyzed in a 30-page report by a former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Robert Kelley, and published on the Web site of the non-profit Democratic Voice of Burma.

Myanmar is likely mining uranium and exploring nuclear technology that is "useful only for weapons," Kelley said in his report that focuses largely on evidence from one man, former Myanmar Maj. Sai Thein Win.

Kelley, an American nuclear scientist, has worked for five years with DVB putting together the report based on documents and hundreds of photographs from Win, a defense engineer who studied nuclear and chemical technology at the Moscow Institute of Engineering Physics and the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology.

Win later worked in Myanmar factories where he was part of a team making prototype components for missiles, DVB said on its Web site.

"Sai contacted DVB after learning of its investigation into Burma's military programs and supplied various documents and color photographs of the equipment built inside the factories," DVB said.

"The investigation has also uncovered evidence of North Korean involvement in the development of Burmese missiles, as well as Russia's training of Burmese nuclear technicians."

The report said that Win is a "remarkable individual" who "came out to Thailand to tell the world what he has seen and what he was asked to do." Win "can describe the special demonstrations he attended and can name the people and places associated with the Burmese nuclear program."

DVB said that Win is supplying nuclear information in the same fashion as did Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli technician at the Dimona nuclear site in the Negev desert. Vanunu took photographs of activities in Israel that allegedly related to nuclear fuel and weapons development. The photos were published in the Sunday Times newspaper in London in 1986.

Vanunu was abducted, tried in an Israeli court and sentenced to 18 years in prison for divulging state secrets.

Two companies in Singapore with German connections sold machine tools to the Myanmar government's Department of Technical and Vocational Education.

"DTVE is probably a front for military purchasing for weapons of mass destruction; that is to say nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the means to deliver them, largely missiles," the report said.

Win provided high-quality photos of German technicians installing the equipment and the Germans were suspicious that the machinery was for educational use because there were no schools or colleges in the area.

Kelley said the quality of the machine parts and the mechanical drawings were "poor" and "nothing we have seen suggests Burma will be successful with materials and components."

Kelley also said that if Myanmar was discovered to have a nuclear development program it should face international sanctions.

Myanmar having nuclear weapons would pose a proliferation risk in the region that lies between the nuclear powers of India and China. Many of their Southeast Asia neighbors have proclaimed the region a nuclear weapons-free zone.

Last summer an article in the Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald reported that North Korea was helping Myanmar build a nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction plant as part of a program to build an atomic bomb by 2014.

Evidence from Myanmar defectors said the plant was inside a mountain at Naung Laing in northern Myanmar and close to a research reactor Russia agreed to help build at another site, the Herald said.

Last August U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced concern over Myanmar's suspected nuclear ambitions at a regional security meeting in Thailand.

Indian authorities had recently detained a North Korean ship and searched it for radioactive material. The MV Mu San dropped anchor off the Andaman Islands without permission and was believed destined for Myanmar.

Most of the Andaman Islands, between India and Myanmar, are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory of India while a small number of the archipelago islands belong to Myanmar.

The search of the ship was done under U.N. sanctions adopted in June 2009 after North Korea's atomic test the month before.

Source: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/06/07/Evidence-points-to-Myanmar-nuclear-program/UPI-98681275928380/
26.06.2010

It's time to stop the Myanmar junta's nuclear ambitions

Myanmar, formerly Burma, is a poor country with an economy in terrible shape and a population in poverty. Its junta, in collaboration with North Korea's Kim Jong-il regime, is trying to develop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that, if successful, will dramatically alter Asia's strategic dynamic.
In the footsteps of North Korea, the Myanmar regime is pushing ahead with ambitions to become a nuclear power. The ruling generals in Naypyidaw, Myanmar's new capital, are working on a secret program to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, according to confidential documents smuggled out of Myanmar by high-ranking military defectors.

"They really want a bomb, that is their main objective," said former Myanmar army major Sai Thein Win, who also served as the deputy commander of the Myanmar army's nuclear battalion.

North Korea is assisting Myanmar generals with their nuclear weapon programs. According to Brian McCartan of Asia Times, "Two nuclear reactors are believed to be under construction in Myanmar. One, at Naung Laing in central Mandalay Division, is being constructed with North Korean help. Several hundred Myanmar military personnel have undergone nuclear training in North Korea in recent years." Desmond Ball, a defense analyst at Australia National University, thinks the reactor could be online in 2012 and a deliverable weapon could be developed before 2020.

"In many ways, Myanmar is a parallel to North Korea," Aung Zaw, exiled Myanmar journalist and editor of the Thailand-based Irrawaddy, told Al Jazeera, "They live in fear of an invasion by the West and they want the ultimate insurance against regime change."

To make things worse, while Myanmar might be shunned by the West, the country's giant neighbor, China, is working closely with Myanmar generals. Since 1988, Myanmar has become China's closest ally in Southeast Asia and a major recipient of Chinese military hardware.

Beijing sees Myanmar as its "tribute state" to project China's military power into the region and safeguard its new trade routes through Southeast and South Asia. What is perhaps even more important for rulers in Beijing, however, is the "region's bounty -- Southeast Asia's biggest proven gas reserve in Myanmar's Shwe Field. Since 2008, massive works have begun on a pipeline to carry these riches to China," according to the Economist.

Unfortunately, most governments in the region are taking a laissez-faire attitude toward Myanmar generals' nuclear ambitions. Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the two most important regional organizations, are doing nothing to stop the military regime's nuclear program, in accordance with their principle of "non-interference." Japan's Myanmar policy, say Benedict Rogers, author of "A Land without Evil," and Yuki Akimoto, director of Burma-Info in Tokyo, is based on a "misguided view that appeasement will bear fruit. Tokyo is extending political and financial support to Burma's military regime to protect its own short-term economic interests."

Washington's policy toward the Myanmar military regime is, at best, ambiguous. "The Obama administration," writes Bertil Lintner of Far Eastern Economic Review, "has adopted a more conciliatory approach, sending emissaries to Myanmar to 'engage' the generals. But Washington also believes that concern over Myanmar's WMD programs -- and increasingly close ties with North Korea -- should be equally important considerations in any new U.S. policy towards Myanmar."

The Myanmar junta's nuclear ambitions have been known for years, but no one had done anything. It is time for the world to act and send a strong message of "no tolerance" to the paranoid ruling generals in Naypyidaw. An "engagement" strategy with Myanmar junta risks allowing another rogue state to go nuclear, a risk that the world cannot afford to take.

Naypyidaw junta's nuclear scheme might amount to little more than a monumental waste of state resources, but its probable failure should not be a reason for world leaders to regard such a development as negligible. Not only is the total outlay of Myanmar's weapon programs astronomical, running into billions of dollars, but also the world is starting to witness a "bunker mentality" nuclear arms race that represents a clear and present danger, with the rise of terrorist groups that are willing to pay any price for a device.

Source:: http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/article/20100622/OPINION02/6220317
23.06.2010

Myanmar's nuclear ambitions Secrets will out

A defector’s reports seem credible so far as they go

Jun 10th 2010

RUMOURS that Myanmar is the next recruit to a shady nuclear and missile network that seems to link North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Syria and possibly others swirl intermittently. The missile link is clearest: in all these cases, including Myanmar’s, North Korea has either sold missiles or helped them build their own. But aside from an agreement in principle in 2007 for Russia to build a small research reactor for Myanmar, there has been little hard evidence of its junta’s nuclear ambitions. The recent defection of a former major in the Burmese army, Sai Thein Win, however, and the documents and photographs he brought with him, appear to confirm Myanmar’s intent, if not yet capacity, to enrich uranium and eventually build a bomb.

Sai Thein Win handed over his evidence to the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), an émigré-run broadcaster based in Norway. The material has been analysed by Robert Kelley, an experienced former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear guardian. His 27-page report has plenty of caveats: Sai Thein Win is a missile expert, not a nuclear boffin, and some of what he reports is hearsay; some drawings are crude at best; some equipment seen in pictures could at a pinch have civilian uses too. But experimental work on lasers that could eventually be used to enrich uranium and other equipment for making uranium metal, a necessary step in bomb-making, heighten suspicion. So do close links between supposedly civilian nuclear officials and the Burmese army’s “nuclear battalion”, officially the Number One Science and Technology Regiment.

All this and other evidence, Mr Kelley’s report concludes, lead to the inescapable conclusion that such work is “for nuclear weapons and not civilian use or nuclear power”. An earlier report, published in January by the Institute for Science and International Security, an independent Washington-based outfit, debunked some of the wilder rumours about Myanmar’s nuclear quest. But it also concluded that foreign companies should treat inquiries from Myanmar no differently from “those from Iran, Pakistan or Syria”. All are known purchasers of illicit nuclear equipment.

Myanmar has only a “Small Quantities Protocol” with the IAEA. This exempts it from regular inspections, on the government’s assurance that it has nothing to inspect. Sharper questions are now likely to be asked. The agency had already been trying to dissuade Myanmar and Russia from the research reactor. Sai Thein Win, who learned missile expertise in Russia, says that since about 2002 hundreds of Burmese scientists have trained in Russian nuclear institutes, including one formerly linked to the Soviet nuclear-weapons programme.

Sai Thein Win offers no new insight into the North Korean link. But Western intelligence agencies watch North Korea’s activities in Myanmar. There have been reports that a company associated with the construction of a secret nuclear reactor in Syria (until it was bombed by Israel in 2007 just before completion) has worked in Myanmar too.

Source:http://www.economist.com/node/16321694?story_id=16321694
22.06.2010

Pay attention to the plight of refugees, Govt told

Pay attention to the plight of refugees, Govt told

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Bar urged the Government to pay serious attention to the dire circumstances that refugees and asylum-seekers face in Malaysia.

It said Malaysia’s treatment of such people should reflect the highest norms of international human rights since the country joins the United Nations Human Rights Council from Monday.

The Bar Council’s Law Reform and Special Areas Committee chair Datuk M. Ramachelvam made the call in conjunction with World Refugee Day today.

While Malaysia is not a state party to the United Nations convention on refugees, he said the Govern-ment continued to co-operate with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on humanitarian grounds.
In order for the Government and the UNHCR to put in place an appropriate legal and administrative framework for dealing with refugees and asylum-seekers in a more humane and less arbitrary manner, he said the Government should:

> State its adherence to the principle of non-refoulement (the protection of refugees from being repatriated to places where their lives or freedom are threatened);

> Stop arresting those already here for not having the documentation required by the Immigration Act or, alternatively, invoke the exemption provided under the same Act;

> Allow the registration of birth;

> Allow refugees to register their marriages with the Civil Registry using their UNHCR identity cards;

> Allow Muslim refugees and asylum-seekers access to the Syariah court system for family disputes;

> Give access to vocational schools for those under 18 years, and to tertiary education and public colleges/universities for qualified youth; and

> Ensure better access to health care services at and to apply rates paid by Malaysians.


Source:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/6/20/nation/6509141&sec=nation
Sunday June 20, 2010

FATHERS' DAY HISTORY

Sonora Dodd, of Washington, first had the idea of a "father's day." She thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.

Sonora wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. Smart, who was a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife died while giving birth to their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state.

After Sonora became an adult she realized the selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.

President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father's Day. Then in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day. President Richard Nixon signed the law which finally made it permanent in 1972.