Myanmar's Thein Sein, junta henchman to radical reformer

BANGKOK (Reuters) - There is a Jekyll-and-Hyde quality to President Thein Sein, the bookish-looking former general Barack Obama will meet on Monday during the first visit by a U.S. president to Myanmar.
Thein Sein has been both a dictator's henchman and a man widely seen as a Nobel Peace Prize contender. He rose to power in a rabidly anti-American military junta, yet spearheaded its efforts to build better relations with the United States.
His past remains opaque, even as he leads Myanmar into a new era of transparency after nearly five decades of dictatorship.
When his quasi-civilian government took power four months after a rigged election in November 2010, Thein Sein was easy to dismiss as a puppet for a still-powerful military lurking behind a new democratic facade. Few predicted what happened next.
Thein Sein launched an ambitious program of political and economic reform that could transform the impoverished nation of 60 million people also known as Burma.
He released political prisoners, scrapped censorship, legalised trades unions and protests, sought peace with ethnic minority insurgents and pushed through legislation on everything from land reform to foreign investment.
Thein Sein's reputation as a corruption-free moderate among hawkish hardliners has earned him widespread praise from world leaders, top economists and Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
For years the junta's greatest foe, Suu Kyi was released from house arrest a week after the November 2010 election. She met Thein Sein nine months later and, in a critical endorsement, declared him "sincere" about reforming Myanmar.
With his reformist zeal and growing domestic popularity, Thein Sein was widely tipped to win the Nobel Peace Prize in October.
A Western diplomat who has met the bespectacled, soft-spoken president many times described him as "modest, courageous and committed".
"Those who knew him before he became president felt that he was aware of the poverty of his people, had seen the progress made by others in the region and recognized the need for change," he said.
"HIS OWN VISION"
Those comments were echoed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who got to know Thein Sein when he was the military regime's prime minister from 2007-2011. He felt Thein Sein had been inspired by the world around him.
"He must have seen and heard the real situation ... the international perception and Myanmar's image," Ban told a group of journalists during his last trip to Myanmar in May.
"As soon as he became president, he has his own visions to make his country better and more prosperous, where human dignity would be respected."
But Thein Sein's reputation still suffers from his role as a loyal servant to former dictator Than Shwe, who during 19 years in power jailed political opponents, gunned down pro-democracy protesters and commanded a military accused of killing, raping and torturing members of ethnic minority groups.
Thein Sein was described last year as "Than Shwe's most malleable puppet" by Irrawaddy, a prominent Myanmar news service long based in neighboring Thailand.
A man of humble rural beginnings and son of a landless farmer and monk, Thein Sein joined the military in his early 20s. But he was always more of a bureaucrat than a soldier, serving as Than Shwe's personal assistant in the 1990s.
He kept his reputation as "Mr. Clean" despite four years as a commander in the lucrative drug-producing Golden Triangle region, where several successors were tarred with allegations of smuggling and abuse of power.
In a 2001 speech to officials in the Golden Triangle, Thein Sein referred to two suspected drug-lords as "real friends", according to Bertil Lintner, the author of seven books on Myanmar.
The two suspects were leaders of the United Wa State Army, described by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as "Southeast Asia's leading heroin and methamphetamine trafficking organization".

The Philippines: The world's budget English teacher

The Philippines is fast becoming the world's low-cost English language teacher - with rapid increases in overseas students coming to learn English or study in English-speaking universities.



There might be other countries that people think about as a classic place to learn English, such as the UK, the US or Australia.

But there is one key reason that they are switching to the Philippines. It's much cheaper. And in the competitive market for language students, it means the Philippines is attracting people from countries such as Iran, Libya, Brazil and Russia.

"We have very competitive rates compared with other countries," says English teacher, Jesy King, citing her school's fees of $500 (£313) for a 60-hour class - about a third of the price of an equivalent course in the US or Canada.

Another major advantage is the accent.

Filipinos speak with a clear American accent - partly because the Philippines was a US colony for five decades, and partly because so many people here have spent time working in call centres that cater to a US market.
Call centres
These centres train their staff to sound indistinguishable from Americans, so callers never realise that the person they're speaking to is on the other side of the world.

Elizaveta is a Russian student taking courses taught in English in the Philippines - she says fees are a quarter of courses in Australia or Canada

"I have a background in call centres, so I've learnt to adopt an American accent - it's one of the pre-requisites when you join," says Jesy King.

Her school, the International Language Academy of Manila, attracts students from all over the world.

The majority are from Asia - especially Japan, Taiwan and Korea - but in the past few months she's also taught people from North Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Student numbers are growing rapidly. According to the Philippine Immigration Bureau, more than 24,000 people have applied for a study permit this year - compared to fewer than 8,000 just four years ago.

The government sees this sector as a golden opportunity for growth.
Increasing demand
"We're geared to accept more and more students," says Cristino Panlilio, the under-secretary for the Department of Trade and Industry. "I believe the country should come up with more marketing for this."

And it's not just English language students who are coming to the Philippines - there's also been a rapid increase in the number of foreigners applying for graduate and post-graduate courses in all kinds of fields.

Outsourced work being carried out at home in Manila: The Phillipines benefits from having one of the biggest English-speaking populations in the world

The main reasons that attract them are, again, the cost - and the fact that, in the country's top universities, all classes are held in English.

In order to study at a university here, foreigners need a full student visa, and immigration records show that three times as many foreigners applied for one in 2011 than they did just three years before.

Dr Alvin Culaba, the executive vice-president of De La Salle - one of the country's top universities - is confident that the level of teaching in his institution can compete with that found anywhere in the world.

China's Mystery Space Plane Project Stirs Up Questions

As the next secretive flight of the U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B mini-shuttle draws closer, analysts are keeping a close eye on China’s own potential space plane, the Shenlong.

Last year several Chinese media outlets reported a test flight of the Shenlong space plane that apparently included its airdrop from an H-6 bomber. But the nature of the Shenlong project's testing, as well as what the robot vehicle truly represents, remains sketchy.

Several China watchers in the U.S. have taken a stab at what the Shenlong (Mandarin for "Divine Dragon) might mean, with some experts conjecturing that the craft is simply a tit-for-tat response to the unmanned X-37B space plane.

Challenge to the U.S.?

China is the third country, after Russia and the United States, to develop an independent human spaceflight program. It has made a series of incremental advances that culminated earlier this year in China's first manned space dockingat an orbital laboratory. The country has stated its goal of building a 60-ton space station for future missions.

China's current manned Shenzhou spacecraft, however, are capsule-based vehicles.

"Shenlong is China’s effort to develop a re-entering aerodynamic spacecraft, similar to the space shuttle or the X-37B but much smaller than either," said Mark Gubrud, a postdoctoral research associate in the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University.

Gubrud told SPACE.com that if China space designers are successful in their Shenlong work, the country may attempt to develop a larger version. [Winged Spaceships: Space Plane Evolution (Infographic)]

"However, the economic rationale for the [NASA] shuttle was never realized, and it is not clear what advantages the X-37B offers the U.S. military over conventional upper stages, satellite buses and re-entry capsules," Gubrud said. The Air Force's robotic plane would appear to serve the U.S. primarily as a sign that American space power endures despite retirement of the NASA space shuttlefleet, he said.

"Appropriately enough, Shenlong may also be little more than a symbol of China’s ability to challenge U.S. assumptions of primacy and technological dominance," Gubrud said.

Keeping up with the (space) Joneses

Joan Johnson-Freese, a national security affairs professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I., said: "I don’t think it’s useful to hype the potential threat of technology test-bed programs. Countries including but not limited to China and the U.S. are working on space plane technology."

Johnson-Freese said programmatic interest in such technology dates back to the Air Force DynaSoar program in the 1950s. "But that program was canceled for several reasons, including nobody knew what exactly it would be useful for that couldn’t be done by other means … though it has been suggested recently that it would provide additional 'global strike' capability," she added.

When Russia pursued its own shuttle, the Buran, Johnson-Freese said a cosmonaut friend told her it was for the sake of "keeping up with the Joneses." "If countries see the U.S. working on a space plane," she said, "they will feel compelled to do so, also." [X-37B Space Plane: Photos of the U.S. Military's Mini-Shuttle]

Johnson-Freese said she is concerned about the action/reaction spiral in technology development, fueled sometimes by sensationalist speculation. "The technology itself, if developed and operationalized — and the hard evidence right now on that is scarce — could be destabilizing as it pushes countries to act faster in fear of potential threats," she concluded.

Taiwan Vows 30% Emissions Cut

 

Taiwan's Minister for Environmental Protection Administration Stephen Shu-hung Shen urged the inclusion of Taiwan in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty aimed at lowering the impacts of climate change, highlighting the government's existing environmental programs that could help reduce carbon emissions.
"Saving energy and reducing carbon are not just abstract concepts in Taiwan. Confronted as we all are with the severe challenges that climate change poses, I sincerely urge the international community to take Taiwan's bid to meaningfully participate in the UNFCCC seriously, and to include Taiwan in its mutual assistance system," he said in a statement.
Shen revealed that Taiwan pledged that it would cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 30 percent below business-as-usual (BAU) levels by 2020. "This is not only in line with the fundamental principles of the UNFCCC, but is also a clear declaration of Taiwan's position and determination to reduce GHG emissions," he said.
Shen added that in 2009, the Committee for the Promotion of Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction, was established, drawing up a master plan to fulfill its mandate. The plan calls for concrete actions in such areas as energy, industry, transportation, architecture and lifestyle.
This year, Shen noted, the government approved national climate change adaptation guidelines covering eight major domains - disasters, essential infrastructure, water resources, land use, coastal areas, energy supply and the energy sector, agriculture and biodiversity, and health. "The guidelines call for the impact and challenges brought by climate change to be studied, for adaptation strategies to be proposed by the relevant government agencies, and for an implementation and evaluation mechanism to be established," he said.

North Korea to Boost Nuclear Deterrent on US Pressure

North Korea vowed on Tuesday to bolster its nuclear deterrent in response to diplomatic pressure from Washington over a recent failed rocket launch.

The United States, backed by the United Nations Security Council, has warned North Korea that it will face more sanctions if it undertakes what would be its third nuclear test.

Even staunch ally China has put pressure on Pyongyang to back down on any plans for a nuclear test, that experts fear could use highly enriched uranium for the first time, potentially giving North Korea a second path to a nuclear bomb to supplement its limited stocks of plutonium.

Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara quits to form new party

Tokyo's governor Shintaro Ishihara is resigning to form a new national political party, ahead of expected general elections in Japan.

"As of today, I will resign as the Tokyo governor," he told reporters.

The 80-year-old, serving his fourth term as governor, is known for making provocative comments.

Earlier this year, he sparked off a row when he said he would use public money to buy a group of islands at the centre of a dispute between China and Japan.

The novelist-turned-politician, who began his current term as governor only last April, said he wants to return to national politics.

He said he would be founding a party with other right-wing politicians to challenge the two dominant parties in polls that must be called by the end of next year.

He blamed Japan's current economic and political problems on the government and compared the administration to the rule of the shogun, referring to the hereditary commanders-in-chief in feudal Japan.

"We must change the inflexible rule of the central government bureaucrats," Mr Ishihara said.

China to Approve Only a Few New Reactors by 2015

China will approve a small number of new nuclear reactors before 2015 to be built only in coastal regions, the government said on Wednesday, as it unveiled a raft of measures to spur private investments in energy.
In its latest five-year plan for the energy sector, China said it would also promote price reforms for electricity, coal, oil and natural gas and pledged to boost its hydro, solar and wind power generation in an effort to cut emissions.

The approval of new nuclear safety and development plans comes after a near 20-month ban by Beijing on approvals of new plants following the Fukushima disaster in Japan.

The latest plan could pave the way for Beijing to resume approvals, which would be a boon to Chinese nuclear power equipment makers including Shanghai Electric Group Co. and Dongfang Electric Corp., whose long-term contracts have been frozen during the ban.

In a decision that could be good news for foreign reactor builders including France's Areva and U.S.-based Westinghouse, which is owned by Japan's Toshiba, China stipulated that new reactors would need to adhere to "third-generation" technology that meets the highest international safety standards.
China's current fleet of nuclear reactors is mostly second-generation and is based on a variety of designs from Canada, France and Russia.