updated 22.04.2022 Concerning hydropower, Myanmar draws this form of energy from the tributaries of its main rivers. Mega dams like Mong Ton at the headwater of the Thanlwin river are still and continuously under construction. Conflicts with Ethnic Armed Organizations continue. After the coup d’état, Western companies are still involved in those much debated dam […]
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“Sea-Change” in Myanmar
After a year of an imposed state of emergency, Myanmar is in unprecedent turmoil, while new social forces are emerging. Through the experience of extraordinary violence, thousands of people lost their homes, going from poor to needy. So far, the international community has neither recognized the self-declared military government nor its civilian parallel. Nach dem […]
Read more...Polizeikräfte in Myanmar: “Friend or Foe?”
Seit August gibt es erste Polizeitstationen des Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) update: 19.12.2021 As security forces and the People’s Defense forces are clashing violently, in order to take control of Myanmar, no resources are left for protecting the population from criminal assaults. Consequently, self-declared police-stations under the leadership of defected CDM-police-officers are emerging throughout the […]
Read more...Waso Lent: die buddhistische Fastenzeit und die Frage nach Gewalt
The worst crisis after independence from British Rule (1948) is shaking Myanmar. In this situation, life goes on, currently, under the auspices of the Waso Lent. Seemingly contradicting Buddhist teachings, violence marks everyday life. Die in Myanmar seit dem 1. Februar herrschenden Umstände, immer wieder als “chaotisch” umschrieben, bringen den Menschen einen neuen, von Gefahr […]
Read more...Gegen den Hunger
Hunger is back in the cities of Myanmar, especially in its commercial hub Yangon. Main cause is a steady decline of the country’s economy following the coup d’état of February,1. Hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs related to Covid-19 and the post coup-situation. This mass unemployment results in catastrophic financial situations of the households […]
Read more...‘Myanmar in Turmoil’ Seems to Vanish from The World’s Attention
With the coup d’état of February 1 probably an “irreversible” event, and the country being dragged into a spiral of violence, the world seems to lose interest in Myanmar. The worldwide media coverage of the first weeks after the military’s power seizure answered by the energetical formation of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and other […]
Read more...Loving Kindness, Unheard Calls. The Potential Political Role of Buddhism
Myanmar`s senior abbots have tried to influence the events unfolding in the country after February,1 for the better. As it is widely known, they have not succeeded so far. According to The Irrawaddy, just three days before the military’s power seizure, members of the Ma Ha Na (Burmese short form for State Buddhist authority) had […]
Read more...22.02.2021: The People’s Peaceful Veto
History is the record of human behaviour. Today, most people of Myanmar vetoed the military’s power seizure of three weeks ago. Undeterred and calmly, the announced general strike brought hundreds of thousands, if not millions, onto the country’s streets. Beyond banging pans and pots at night for driving out evil spirits, a “tech-savvy” generation Z […]
Read more...Under Military Rule Again
On Monday morning, February 1, the leadership of the Tatmadaw ( Burmese military) seized power in Myanmar, putting the country under military rule again. On the ground of sections 417 and 418 of the Constitution (2008), Interims President Myint Swe, so far Commander of the powerful Yangon troops, transferred the legislative, executive and judicative power […]
Read more...Sabre-Rattling in Myanmar. No More, No Less?
A politically tense situation has evolved in Myanmar, a country „coming out of decades of darkness of military rule“. In 2010, it started its path towards democratic transition, an endavour which in these days seems endangered by a renewed power struggle between the military and the civilian government. An „End-of-January-Sabre-Rattling “, performed by the Tatmadaw, […]
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