Singapore, Singapore (AHN) – Singapore and Myanmar on Monday signed a bilateral, economic and trade agreement.

Under the Singapore-Myanmar Technical Cooperation Program pact, Singapore will open itself to foreign investment as well as offer training courses on trade, tourism development and central banking to the Southeast Asian nation.

The agreement was signed during Myanmarese President U Thein Sein’s first visit to Singapore after becoming president last year.

Myanmar had been a secretive military regime in the last decade, but post-2010 elections, situations changed in the country as government released several political prisoners and even legalized the pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy party. This prompted Washington to revive full diplomatic ties with it. Even the EU decided to partly lift sanctions on Myanmar.

Both the U.S. and the EU have promised to further ease sanctions, if they see free and fair parliamentary by-elections in April this year.

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Naypyidaw, Myanmar (IRIN) – The annual harvest season in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State has come and gone but much of the rice crop has not been harvested or was never planted after fighting between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) erupted on 9 June 2011.

Traditionally, farmers transfer their rice seedlings in June with harvests in November and December before the winter sets in.

“This year’s harvest was next year’s investment, but now we have nothing for the future. We will have to cross the mountains and scavenge for wild vegetables so that we will have something to eat,” says Kot Nan, 35.

“When the conflict started we were planting rice but the soldiers came into our village so we couldn’t plant,” the mother of two told IRIN at the main camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) outside Laiza, a border town between Myanmar and China.

There are more than 40,000 IDPs in Kachin State, local aid groups say, including an estimated 20,000 in camps around Laiza, controlled by the political wing of the KIA, the Kachin Independence Organization.

For many Kachin families, farming is the primary source of livelihood, with rice being the main crop, along with sugar cane and corn.

Impact

Bill Davies, a researcher with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), says the food security issue is of major concern.

“The fighting starting when they were preparing the seedlings so some of them put the seeds right into the paddy in the hope that they would grow and others planted a lot later, which decreases the yield.”

Davies led a fact-finding mission for PHR in the border areas of Kachin state last September, visiting six camps and four shelters for IDPs.

The group’s findings were released in a report on 30 November.

“Not being able to plant 100 percent of their fields, planting it late, and also not transplanting it at the right time were the three main problems. A lot of people are worried that they were going to have a smaller crop yield than normal,” Davies said.

Sporadic fighting has also restricted travel for civilians, including those farmers who were able to plant but could not return to their fields to tend their crops.

And while there are no official figures yet on the area’s overall harvest shortfall for 2011, the impact on the population is already evident.

At a relief line in one of the main refugee camps near Laiza, 24-year-old Moo Pan breastfeeds her baby girl as she waits for food rations – almost seven months after fighting first erupted.

“We were forced to leave our village and we can’t go back because government forces have taken over our houses and land,” she said.

Compounding matters are reports that the Burmese army is regularly pillaging food and supplies from civilians in the area, a key finding of the PHR study.

With local supplies diminishing and the ability of local aid groups to provide assistance on the decline, , the situation on the ground underscores the importance of further outside aid.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) at the end of December, the tens of thousands now displaced are in “great need of humanitarian assistance”.

Access

But getting into the most-affected areas will only be the first step, Marcus Prior, spokesman for World Food Program (WFP) Asia, told IRIN on 5 January.

“Even with improved access, WFP will need funding to provide the kind of assistance we think may be necessary in Kachin,” he explained.

“Our operations across the country are facing significant shortfalls – right now WFP only has funds to guarantee food deliveries into February.”

The UN food agency is able to reach about 15,000 of the displaced in Kachin State, but hopes that following a recent humanitarian convoy across the conflict line, the next convoy will include WFP food, Marcus said.

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Zeewolde, Netherlands (AHN) – Cash strapped car maker Saab Automotive filed for bankruptcy Monday nine months after halting production due to lack of funds.

The filing follows former owner General Motors’ objections to a substantial investment from China’s Zhejang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co., that could have saved the 74-year-old brand.

In a press release the company said, “After having received the recent position of GM on the contemplated transaction with Saab Automobiles, Youngman informed Saab Automotive that the funding to continue and complete the reorganization of Saab Automotive could not be concluded. The Board of Saab subsequently decided that the company without further funding will be insolvent and that filing bankruptcy is in the best interest of its creditors.”

Saab began in the town of Trollhättan in 1937 as Svenka Aeroplan Aktiebolaget to manufacture military aircraft. It diversified into cars in 1945. GM bought a 50 percent stake in the company in 1990 and took complete ownership in 2000. In 2010 Spyker Cars bought Saab from GM. The company filed for reorganization in 2009.

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Cairo, Egypt (AHN) – Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) announced on Thursday that it has cut Egypt’s sovereign debt rating because of further deterioration in the country’s already “weak political and economic profile.”

S&P cut Egypt’s rating from BB- to B+ with a negative outlook, which suggests the nation’s creditworthiness could drop further during the transition from military rule to a civilian government. The ratings agency had just downgraded Egypt to a BB- on Oct. 18, citing concerns over the risks of political transition.

Parliamentary elections are slated for Nov. 28, the first since President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February.

However, an increasing number of Egyptians angered by the slow pace of elections set by the ruling military have taken to the streets to demonstrate. Those protests are increasingly resulting in violent clashes.

S&P faulted Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces for allowing violence to increase in Tahrir Square since Nov. 20. The ratings agency said that it based its ratings on the increasingly cloudy prospects that the military can accomplish a smooth political transition to democracy or that any government there can place the nation’s public finances on a “more sustainable path.”

Egypt’s foreign currency reserves lost $14 billion this year and continue to fall.

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Manhattan, NY, United States (AHN) – Convicted hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam will soon serve his 11-year sentence for insider trading at a federal prison medical center in Massachusetts, reports said.

U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell initially ordered the 54-year-old Rajaratnam to report Dec. 5 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, NC.

It is the same prison where convicted Ponzi scammer Bernard Madoff is serving his 150-year sentence.

The prison at the decommissioned Fort Devens military base in Ayers has an on-site medical center. Rajaratnam has several ailments such as high blood pressure, sleep apnea and Type 2 diabetes. He also had a severe stroke and is seeking a kidney transplant.

Prisoners in Devens are male inmates who require specialized or long-term medical or mental health care. The correctional facility has prisoners from different security classifications ranging from white collar criminals to mobsters and sex offenders.

It has regular onsite specialists in cardiology, nephrology, endocrinology, surgery, neurology and pulmonology.

Devens provides dialysis to 85 inmates but has the capacity for up to 125 kidney patients.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Friday added his voice to earlier appeals by the new Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta not to further cut defense budget under proposals to rein in U.S. budget deficit.

In a letter sent to Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction Co-Chairs Representative Jeb Hensarling (TX-05) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Senator McCain urged the Committee to avoid further cuts to the defense budget and offering additional views on potential changes in military health benefits.

Former presidential aspirant threw his weight behind President Barack Obama’s proposals saying in the letter, “If your work is to be successful, it must take all steps possible to avoid further cuts to Department of Defense (DoD) spending beyond the more than $450 billion over the next 10 years that have already been directed by the President.”

McCain also endorsed Obama proposal to establish an annual enrollment fee for the military’s Tricare for Life health insurance program.

“While this fee increase would hit those age 65 and over, a group on mostly fixed incomes who are vulnerable to unanticipated changes in expenses, I believe this fee increase is a reasonable step,” McCain said in his letter.

In addition, the Republican senator supported pharmacy services proposal and the establishment of a commission to review military retirement benefits as suggested by the Obama proposals.

Echoing the concerns raised by the defense secretary Panetta in recent times. McCain said, “We must also address the threats that we will face in the future to adequately meet new and emerging challenges that may require a shift of resources and priorities.”

“Like Secretary of Defense Panetta, I do not support any proposals for any further reductions in the discretionary budget caps for security or non-security agencies beyond the limits already imposed in title I of the Budget Control Act,” said the senator.

McCain concluded with a suggestion to the Congressional Committee to “seek to restore responsible spending on the part of Congress by requiring that each appropriations line item be authorized by the relevant authorization committee charged by Congress to provide oversight of that agency’s activities and programs,” calling on the Select Committee to look, “for ways to restore fiscal discipline within Congress and to rein in pork-barrel spending.”

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Yangon, Myanmar (IRIN) – Resistance is growing to a hydroelectric dam being built at the beginning of the Ayeyarwady River in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State, with several campaigns to halt construction under way.

Opponents to the Myitsone Dam have been collecting signatures, circulating posters, organizing meetings, and speaking out to foreign media. Some residents affected by the dam project have remained in their villages as a form of silent resistance.

“The government should listen to the voice of the people, if they really practice a democratic system,” Bauk Char, a Kachin activist, who has been calling for a halt to the dam’s construction, told IRIN.

Environmentalists say the dam, with a flooding area larger than Singapore, will have a devastating impact on the environment and livelihoods. More than 15,000 people in 60 villages are being forced to relocate without proper resettlement plans, according to the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG).

“This kind of undemocratic resource exploitation by the Burma [Myanmar] military government can never be sustainable and never lead to peace and reconciliation in Burma,” Ah Nan, a KDNG spokeswoman, said. “War has already started in Kachin State and will only get worse if this exploitation continues.”

Fighting broke out in June between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the military wing of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), ending a 17-year ceasefire and displacing more than 25,000 people .

The dam – a joint effort by Myanmar’s military government and the China Power Investment Corporation – is expected to produce 6,000MW of electricity that the government will sell to China, bringing in more than US$500 million annually. Construction began in 2009, just 1.6km below the confluence of Mali and N’Mai rivers – the natural heritage and cultural heartland of the Kachin people, locally known as Myitsone.

“We’ll never back down”

Resistance to the project has escalated in response to a recent announcement by Zaw Min, Minister of Electric Power, who said at a press conference in Naypyidaw, the capital, that the government would proceed with the project despite objections. Government officials maintain the dam will not affect water levels on the Ayeyarwady River, nor have any adverse environmental effects, saying it will utilize only 7 percent of the water flow.

“We’ll keep working on the Myitsone Project. We’ll never back down,” Zaw Min said. “We won’t halt this project in spite of objections from environmental groups.”

Zaw Min is also being criticized for saying the government is providing as much as 1,500MW for domestic use – way beyond current demand. That is why the government, he said, can sell surplus electricity to other countries in the future.

“This is not true,” said Myat Thu, an organizer for one of the campaigns to save the Ayeyarwady, Myanmar’s longest river, which provides millions of people with a livelihood. “A large part of the country has seen severe power shortages.”

According to government figures, only 2,000 out of about 60,000 villages across the nation have access to electricity. Some parts of Yangon, the country’s largest city and commercial capital, experience frequent blackouts.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, has joined the growing appeals to save the Ayeyarwady and called for a reassessment of the Myitsone Dam, which would be 152m high when it is completed in 2017.

“We’ll keep raising the public awareness [on the dam issue] by holding talks, by delivering stickers, etc.,” said Win Cho, a politician and activist calling for a halt to the dam project. “We will keep inviting more people to join with us.”

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Manama, Bahrain David Rosenberg (The Medi – For the first time ever, Russia is selling weapons to Bahrain, whose government has been given the cold shoulder by the West for a violent crackdown on anti-government protests, as part of an effort by Moscow to capitalize on the Arab Spring to increase arms sales in the lucrative Middle East market.

An unnamed official in Russia’s Defense Ministry told Bloomberg News this week that Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state-owned arms dealer, that Bahrain is buying tens of millions of dollars of AK103 Kalashnikov rifles, together with grenade launchers and ammunition. It quoted a Bahraini government spokesman as saying the two countries’ relations are “getting stronger.”

But analysts say it is unlikely Moscow – or Beijing, another potential weapons supplier to the region – will make much headway even as serial human rights violations by governments resisting mass protests and rebellions have forced the West to hold back on many weapons sales to the Middle East.

“Yes, Bahrain is a country that Western countries are less likely to supply, but Bahrain is only a very small recipient of arms in the region. And, when it comes to major weapons, even Bahrain is likely to remain a significant client for the U.S.,” said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

“The major customers [in the Gulf] are the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and Saudi Arabia, and I don’t see any reason that there will be major change there,” he told The Media Line.

Lethal crackdowns across the Middle East by governments like Bahrain’s have created a conundrum for the U.S. and other Western governments: On the one hand, they want to ensure political stability; on the other, they don’t want to be seen helping regimes engaged in wholesale killings and arrests. Russia has fewer qualms about selling weapons to violators, such as Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad and Muamar Al-Qaddafi’s Libya.

“Russia has much thicker skin over the perceived violations of human rights. They conduct a realpolitik arms sales policy. Russia is also very anxious to expand its market share in the Middle East because, like bank robbers say: ‘That’s where the money is’,” said Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

Bahrain is a U.S. ally and home to its Navy’s Fifth Fleet, but in June Washington put the island kingdom on its list of human rights violators after it put down a rebellion earlier this year at the cost of 30 or more lives and mass arrests.

No one knows the value of the Middle East arms market, because many sales are never reported and ones that are publicized may never go through. But SIPRI estimates that Gulf states like Bahrain alone have agreed to buy some $123 billion in arms over the next decade.

Four United Nations arms embargoes are currently in force in the Middle East and North Africa, targeting Libya and Iran as well as non-government forces in Lebanon and Iraq. A European Union embargo is also in place against Syria. Since January, more than 160 export licenses for Middle East countries have been revoked by Britain, mainly for Libya and Bahrain.

But Rosoboronexport said on Aug. 17 it would maintain arms sales to Syria even after six months of unrest have led to some 2,200 deaths at the hands of security forces. Russia defended its decision on the grounds that the UN had not formally imposed sanctions on the regime. Days earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton challenged Moscow to “get on the right side of history” and stop the sales.

Bahrain aside, however, analysts said Russia or China would find it difficult to capture new markets. Wezeman said the one small opening for them might be for anti-riot gear, which the West would be the most hesitant to sell regimes as long as there is widespread domestic unrest in the region.

The U.S. and Europe have the most important markets – Saudi Arabia and Egypt – sewn up through long-standing alliances and aid programs, while traditional customers for Russian arms like Syria and Libya may switch suppliers in the wake of region change.

Russia and China have sold Egypt “second line equipment,” such as trainer aircraft from China and surface-to-air missiles from Russia, but Cairo receives some $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid annually and won’t be changing its main supplier so quickly, analysts said.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is closely tied with the West and its weapons systems are entirely based on Western technology. Riyadh depends on U.S. backing to maintain a strategic balance with Iran, its foe across the Gulf. The U.S. has contracts to sell Saudi Arabia advanced weaponry worth some $67 billion over the next decade, making it the biggest arms deal in U.S. history.

Germany agreed in July to sell Saudi Arabia 200 Leopard 2A7+ main battle tanks for $2.85 billion.

Although the West began selling some arms to the regime of Al-Qaddafi after an embargo was lifted in 2004, sales were relatively small. By contrast, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted military sources as saying that Russia had as much as $3.8 billion in confirmed or possible orders to Al-Qaddafi before civil war broke out in February.

With a new rebel-led government in power, the tables may turn in Libya. The country’s transitional leaders made clear shortly after they toppled Al-Qaddafi that they would favor the NATO countries that played a decisive role in the civil war on the opposition’s side. Their remarks related to future oil contracts, but analysts said they could just as easily apply to arms. Russia is estimated to have lost some $4 billion over the cancelation of contracts with Libya

“The EU and U.S. have taken a strong stand in support of rebels,” said Wezeman. “If the country stabilizes they will be in need of new weaponry and its looks as if European countries and the U.S. would be first in line.”

Cohen of the Heritage Foundation said Russia’s insistence on continuing to sell arms to the Al-Assad regime in Syria could cost it another major customer. The Russians have signed contracts to sell weaponry, but they could argue the force majeure of a months’ long rebellion to back out, he said.

“The Syrian regime is past the point of no return and is on its way to slow bloody and painful collapse,” Cohen told The Media Line. “They have a gravy train there in place that encourages people to grab the money and deliver the weapons.”

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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – Sales of aluminum baseball bats soared 5,000 percent on Amazon.uk following the recent riots in England. Military police baton sales were also up 5,000 percent and wooden baseball bat sales jumped 3,600 percent.

Riots started over the weekend in London and spread out to Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol. Looters targeted shops and businesses. Police claim the crowd was “not and angry crowd, but a greedy and dishonest crowd.”

Several buildings were set on fire, police were pelted with missiles and cars were torched. Since then businesses have remained closed, meetings have been canceled and sporting events rescheduled.

Unrest broke out Tuesday in Liverpool after midnight. Pubs and restaurant windows were smashed showering late-night drinkers with glass. Hundreds of youths, some as young as 10, roamed Hide Park Street causing havoc and destruction. Copycat outbreaks were reported in Reading and Oxford.

The rash of violence and the London riots have many officials wondering if London, the host city of the 2012 Olympics, is prepared for the high security event.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn on Monday afternoon announced the most ambitious plan yet for reducing the federal deficit. He said the plan would reduce the current $14 trillion deficit by $9 trillion over the next decade.

“It’s rough, but it’s necessary,” Coburn said during a press conference in Washington, D.C.

Coburn announced his plan amid frenzied negotiations between Congress and the Obama administration to decide by Aug. 2 whether to raise the nation’s debt ceiling over $14.3 trillion. Without a higher debt limit, the United States would default on its debts for the first time in history.

However, a higher debt ceiling also means more of the federal budget must be dedicated to paying off interest on the debt without direct benefit to Americans.

Coburn’s plan for reducing the deficit relies heavily on tax cuts, reductions in Defense Department spending and limits on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It would reduce the size of the federal government by about 20 percent.

Coburn acknowledged the drastic changes in the budget he proposes are likely to make his plan unpopular among Democrats and some of his fellow Republicans.

“Nobody’s going to like what we’ve done because everybody gets a pinch,” he said.

The biggest single cut would be for the Defense Department, which would lose $1 trillion in funding over 10 years.

Such a large budget reduction would require making the military more efficient, but still leave it strong enough to defend the United States from potential enemies, Coburn said.

“We’re cutting fat, not meat or bone,” he said.

With the federal government nearly at a standstill as Congress seeks a way to avoid defaulting on the budget, Coburn says the tough choices mapped out in his plan are unavoidable.

Other parts of his plan propose raising tax revenue by $1 trillion by ending individual tax preferences and eliminating nearly $2 trillion in non-defense appropriations. Coburn said about $1 trillion would be saved in interest payments, much of which otherwise would go to China.

He has said he does not expect his budget proposal to win final approval in Congress, but it does give lawmakers additional options as they try to avoid a financial catastrophe.

“It’s time to show the American people not only what is possible, but what’s necessary,” Coburn said.

Coburn was one of six senators, known as the “Gang of Six,” working on a bipartisan budget proposal to reduce the deficit this year. He walked away from the negotiations in May to begin work on his own plan, which he calls “Back in the Black.”

His plan is one of several by Republicans that calls for deeper budget cuts than the $4 trillion proposed by President Obama.

A White House statement Monday showed Obama appears unwilling to make large concessions to the Republicans.

He threatened to veto the Republican majority’s plan for raising the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion but capping government spending at 18 percent of the nation’s economic output.

The Republican plan would cut federal spending by about $111 billion is fiscal 2012.

The White House statement called the plan “inconsistent with [a] responsible framework to restore fiscal responsibility.”

The Republican “cut, cap and balance” plan “sets out a false and unacceptable choice between the federal government defaulting on its obligations now or, alternatively, passing a balanced budget amendment that, in the years ahead, will likely leave the nation unable to meet its core commitment of ensuring dignity in retirement,” the White House statement said.

The Republican plan is set for a vote in the House on Tuesday.

House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement Monday saying, “It’s disappointing the White House would reject this common-sense plan to rein in the debt and deficits that are hurting job creation in America. While American families have to set priorities and balance their books, this White House obviously isn’t serious about making the same tough choices. While the House is once again acting responsibly, the administration still won’t say what cuts it’s willing to make to end Washington’s spending binge and the economic uncertainty it’s creating.”

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