What will be the next global transformers?

Oil, electricity and the internet have profoundly altered our planet, but what will come next? Gaia Vince wants your help in predicting them.

Look ahead five years... ten years... fifty years, perhaps. You will be different. Older. Perhaps no longer alive. Now think about where you will live in years to come. Think about the world as a whole. It too will be different, but it's harder to imagine how.

When we try to imagine the future, we tend to look to the past for clues and extrapolate forwards. But we are living at a time of planetary change. Over the past century, humans have utterly transformed the planet on such a scale that many believe we are entering a new geological era, the Anthropocene. In recent decades we have been polluting the atmosphere and changing global climates, reducing biodiversity, re-plumbing rivers and other waterways, raising sea levels and acidifying the oceans, depleting the world's mineral and natural resources, among many other things.

Will we continue on this trajectory? Or will something happen to shift us onto a new course?

We’ve experienced similar moments before. In 1700, no one could have predicted the impact that James Watt's steam engine would have on industry, broader society and the global environment. Similarly, who would have foretold how transformative Thomas Edison's inventions, such as a commercially practical electric light bulb, would prove to be?

With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to pinpoint global transformers that shifted the trajectory of this human planet, for example by spurring globalisation or city building, or by increasing the human population. I'm thinking of things like World Wars I and II, the creation of the Suez Canal, the invention of elevators, air travel, reinforced concrete, the internet, antibiotics, etc.

In August 1859, Edwin Drake, a railroad conductor-turned oil prospector, drilled into ground near Titusville, Pennsylvania, and struck black gold. It was a discovery that would change the world. The crude oil was refined primarily into clean lamp oil, which spelled the death of the highly lucrative international whaling industry – just in time to prevent extinction in a number of species. It wouldn't be long before petroleum and countless other products were made from the subterranean deposits.

Crude oil dramatically changed the way we manufacture things, transport them and generate energy. Just one gallon (3.79 litres) of crude oil contains the same energy as would take a man eight days of labour to produce. Burning oil became one of the main drivers of the international economy. It transformed desert settlements of Bedouin tribes into some of the richest cities on the planet, with sky-high buildings of marble, steel and glass, and fountains that defy the sands. Oil sped up the human world. Cars replaced horses, and planes replaced sails. Plastics allowed food and other goods to be transported and kept good for longer. But their indestructible nature means that our planet is now littered with the stuff. And burning oil releases global warming gases. Burning it on such a prodigious scale is changing the world's climate, altering monsoon patterns, melting glaciers, and acidifying the oceans. Drake could never have imagined his find would transform the world in such ways.

Giant leaps for mankind

Another example is the process invented in Germany at the beginning of the 20th Century by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. The pair came up with a way of artificially “fixing” nitrogen from the air to make ammonia. Before the Haber-Bosch process, nitrogen could only be fixed by bacteria that live in soils and the roots of plants. Because nitrogen is an essential component in all living cells, this meant that all plants and animals on Earth were limited by what could be recycled from waste organic material, or what could be taken up by plants from the bacteria. Humans experienced periodic famines and 19th-Century scientists looked far afield for precious useable nitrogen. An entire industry was set up to harvest guano – bird poo – from the coastal fringes of the Atacama Desert in South America.

Resource from:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130627-what-will-change-our-planet-next

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The next phase of China’s global soft power push is exporting higher education

China’s next major export might just be universities. China’s Soochow University, based in the eastern city of Suzhou, is raising money to build a satellite campus in Laos where it will enroll around 5,000 students. Other Chinese universities have announced plans for campuses in Malaysia and in the UK.

The push is the next step in China’s billion-dollar charm offensive, also known as “soft power” diplomacy. The government has long tried to raise China’s international appeal by funding and setting up hundreds of culture and language schools, Confucius Institutes, around the world. Now, education officials are encouraging Chinese universities to expand abroad—much in the same way that Chinese manufacturers have been told to expand into other markets. Soochow University hasn’t said whether it will use only mainland Chinese curricula and teachers, but it would likely promote Chinese language and perspectives on history and world events. The move abroad by Chinese schools is mirrored by Western universities clamoring for access to China’s booming student population. New York University, Johns Hopkins University, and the London School of Economics have all set up campuses or joint programs in China.

Still, exporting universities isn’t likely to change the fact that China’s soft power campaign has been ineffective in a lot of ways. In Southeast Asia, where China has concentrated the bulk of its efforts, it lags the United States and Japan in public opinion polls—perhaps because of China’s aggressive stance over disputed islands in the South China Sea. China’s reputation isn’t much better in Europe (pdf) or the US, where some polls show opinion of China has actually declined in the past three years. In Latin America and Africa, Chinese companies are often seen as privileging their own employees and caring little about the local community.

The move to export China’s higher education system will ultimately be hindered by the fact that its schools are no where near the world-class institutions education officials have hoped to cultivate over the last decade. China has one of the world’s largest higher education systems, but few of its schools rank internationally and many graduates can’t find employment. Making the system even bigger, and expanding beyond its borders, won’t change that.

Resource from:

By Lily Kuo

http://qz.com/96011/the-next-phase-of-chinas-global-soft-power-push-is-exporting-higher-education/

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China Setting Up First University Campuses Abroad

In the capital of tropical Laos, two dozen students who see their future in trade ties with neighboring China spent their school year attending Mandarin classes in a no-frills, rented room. It’s the start of China’s first, and almost certainly not its last, university campus abroad.

“There are a lot of companies in Laos that are from China,” said 19-year-old Palamy Siphandone. She said she chose the Soochow University branch campus after hearing it would offer scholarships to students with high scores.

“If I can speak Chinese, I get more opportunities to work with them,” she said in a telephone interview during a trip to the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou—the home city of Soochow University.

Education officials in China are promoting the notion of the country’s universities expanding overseas, tapping new education markets while extending the influence of the rising economic power.

China so far has been on the receiving end of the globalization of education, with Western institutions rushing to China to set up shop. Now it’s stepping out.

In addition to the emerging Laos campus, there are plans for what may become one of the world’s largest overseas branch campuses in Malaysia and an agreement by a Chinese university to explore a joint campus with a British university in London.

“The Chinese government and its universities have been very ambitious in the reform and internationalization of Chinese higher education,” said Mary Gallagher, director of the Center of Chinese Studies at University of Michigan.

“This is partly about increasing China’s soft power, increasing the number of people who study the Chinese language and are knowledgeable about China from the Chinese perspective.”

Chinese universities historically have offered language lessons in foreign countries but usually to serve the overseas Chinese population. In recent years, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes around the globe to promote Chinese culture and language.

But full-fledged campuses that can confer degrees are a new experiment. China’s Education Ministry declined The Associated Press’ request for an interview on the issue, saying the effort was too nascent to discuss yet.

The Laos branch of Soochow University, based in Vientiane, is now looking to raise money for a full-fledged campus of 5,000 students, university official Chen Mei said.

“The national policy wants us to go out, as the internationalization of education comes with the globalization of economy,” she said.

The Lao campus started as part of an economic development zone between Laos and Chinese governments, then continued after the larger project fell through.

China’s Xiamen University, based in eastern Fujian province, announced plans early this year to open a branch in Malaysia by 2015 and have annual enrollment of 10,000 by 2020. In May, China’s Zhejiang University and Imperial College London signed an agreement to explore options for a joint campus, though the scope and funding are still to be spelled out.

Philip G. Altbach, an expert on international higher education at Boston College, warns that Chinese universities might be venturing out too soon.

“I think that China’s top universities have sufficient work to do at home that they do not need to expand into the risky and often expensive world of branch campuses outside of China,” Altbach wrote in an e-mail. “China’s global influence and prestige in higher education is best served by strengthening its universities at home and offering a ‘world class’ education to Chinese students and expanded numbers of overseas students.”

Starting in the 1990s, China—aiming to graduate more college students—began to build new campuses, encourage privatization of higher education and expand enrollment. The rush has been accompanied with criticism that quality has been overlooked by quantity and that Chinese colleges have failed to prepare their students for the job market, or to deliver a well-rounded education.

The changes have helped draw international students, whose numbers in mainland China are growing and topped 290,000 in 2011.

China also has encouraged its youth to seek education abroad and has invited foreign universities—especially top institutes—to set up joint programs and branch campuses to help meet the demand for quality education.

The city of Kunshan in Jiangsu province is building a $260 million campus for Duke University, and New York University will open an outpost in Shanghai with classes to begin in this fall.

“Many people in higher education in China who are committed to educational reform hope that these moves overseas and also the move of foreign universities to China will create more pressure for reform within Chinese universities,” Gallagher said.

China maintains a highly specialized approach to university studies that has its roots in the Soviet model, but many Chinese educators want to blend in more liberal education to encourage social morals, civic responsibility, innovation and critical thinking.

In Malaysia, where British universities have expanded in recent years, the plans by China’s Xiamen University have been lauded by the government, with Prime Minister Najib Razak calling it “historic.” The branch campus will likely attract many among Malaysia’s large ethnic Chinese minority for courses that will range from economics to chemical engineering and Chinese literature.

Ethnic Chinese comprise more than one-fifth of Malaysia’s 29 million people, and some of them have complained that their children face difficulties securing places in Malaysian state-backed universities because of affirmative action policies that favor the ethnic Malay majority.

Xiamen has roots in the country, in a sense: The university was founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee, a business tycoon who made his fortune in Southeast Asia, including what is now Malaysia.

“It’s a giveback from history,” Xiamen University President Zhu Chongshi said, as quoted by the national party newspaper People’s Daily.

The government is squarely behind the efforts by Chinese universities to expand abroad: The signing in China of the Zhejiang University agreement with London’s Imperial College was attended by a provincial governor. But universities say they must find the funding for the branches on their own from tuition revenue and private sources.

That is in contrast to the Confucius Institutes, which are directly subsidized by Beijing, said Chen of the Laos branch campus.

But despite funding challenges, she said she is optimistic about the future of the branch campus in Laos, where she noted there is a growing middle class eager for quality education and keen to do business with China.

“We do not have to worry about finding students,” she said. “There’s a huge demand for education here.”

Resource from:

by Sean Yoong

http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/37814

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New Myanmar Parts 10 : Asia’s Last Economic Frontier Needs Hundreds of Billions of Dollars

Asia’s Last Economic Frontier Needs 

Hundreds of Billions of Dollars

The winners of next week’s bidding process to build Burma’s wireless telecommunications network will need very deep pockets, according to the latest Monopoly board-game figures for developing the country.

“$50 billion is needed in telecommunications infrastructure if Myanmar [Burma] is to make full use of digital technology to leapfrog stages of development,” say economists Martin N. Baily and Richard Dobbs in a critique of the level and focus of investment in the country.

Perhaps that kind of outlay is not what the dozen or so international telecommunications companies bidding for two network licenses have in mind, but it’s what Baily and Dobbs believe will be necessary to help push Burma firmly into the 21st century by discarding some 20th-century models.

“For example, by using mobile banking or e-commerce to avoid the cost of building physical banks and shops and to extend health and education services to even the remotest villages,” Baily and Dobbs outlined in a report for Project Syndicate, a website which publishes “original, engaging, and thought-provoking commentaries by esteemed leaders and thinkers.”

Baily is a former chairman of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers and an economic policy development commentator at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Dobbs is a director of the McKinsey Global Institute.

US $50 billion is only a small portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars the authors reckon is needed to truly make Burma the last economic frontier of growth which international media have been talking up for the past year.

Baily and Dobbs calculate that around $300 billion is needed just to raise Burma’s housing, electricity, transport and energy infrastructure to 21st-century standards. Half of this huge sum would need to be spent in the largest cities and towns, which they tip to expand considerably if the country moves away from its present agrarian base.

“Today, only an estimated 13 percent of Myanmar’s population lives in large cities, but that could rise to 25 percent by 2030—an addition of 10 million people,” say Baily and Dobbs.

Their figures suggest an annual investment of at least $20 billion a year through to 2030. But in Burma’s last financial year, a total of $1.4 billion was actually invested, according to government figures.

This modest investment to date, the reality behind all the gung-ho headlines of boom, boom, boom, was underlined as a problem for Burma just recently by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“Certainly it is going to be an uphill task to attract the sort of investment to meet these [Baily and Dobbs] projections. Particularly so since the vast funds that, up until recently, have been sloshing around the world looking for yield are fast drying up,” long-time Burma economy watcher Sean Turnell told The Irrawaddy on June 17.

Much of the inward investment in property construction is going into hotels to cater for the country’s burgeoning tourism. Numerous foreign companies have visited Rangoon and Naypyidaw and made vague offers to build new electricity-generating infrastructure, but very little actual power plant construction is under way or confirmed as copper-bottomed projects.

Aside from the mobile telephone network franchises scramble, with winners scheduled to be announced June 27, one of the biggest looming investments is expected to be in the energy sector, with 30 offshore blocks up for development.

The closing date for offshore blocks bids was June 14 and the Ministry of Energy has said it will announce winners by the end of this month.

Nineteen of the blocks are in deep seas of the Bay of Bengal and only the major international oil companies have the necessary technology, skills and deep pockets to carry out expensive undersea exploratory drilling.

No firms have announced their bids but speculation in the foreign oil industry press has named Chevron, BP, Shell, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Petronas of Malaysia, PTTEP of Thailand and Norway’s Statoil as possible contenders.

The short-listed bidders for phone network licenses already announced by the government include China Mobile Limited; Vodafone Group; Singapore Telecommunications; Bharti Airtel of India; KDDI Corporation of Japan; Sumitomo Corporation, also of Japan; Telenor of Norway; and Vietnam’s Viettel Group.

Turnell, an economics professor at Macquarie University in Australia and co-editor of the Burma Economic Watch, said a lack of investment in basic infrastructure in Burma remained a “very significant problem”. But he cited the example of the British-Dutch conglomerate Unilever’s decision to develop a second factory in the country as “something quite positive”.

“The Unilever story [is] still only one example of what needs to take place, but a step in the desired direction at least. This sort of investment employs people, is of the sort that must grapple with local laws, institutions and conditions broadly, and is the sort that puts down roots,” Turnell told The Irrawaddy.

Unilever, a processed packaged foods-to-personal hygiene and household cleaning products giant, is due to open its first factory in Rangoon by the end of June, providing jobs for 150 people, and said earlier this month it would establish a second plant by the end of this year.

“Myanmar faces monumental development challenges that embrace virtually every aspect of the economy,” said Baily and Dobbs. “But that implies the broadest possible range of opportunities for companies and investors as well. They should proceed with caution, but with the expectation of tapping into a potentially lucrative new market.”

Resource from:

http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/37980

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Indonesia in the future : Indonesia to develop submarine industry

Indonesia to develop submarine industry

The Defense Ministry says it will cooperate with the South Korean government to develop a submarine-construction industry here as a follow up to earlier knowledge transfers between the two countries.

“We are now preparing the human resources and facilities,” Head of the defense facilities agency at the Defense Ministry Rear. Adm. Rachmad Lubis said as quoted by tempo.co.id on Saturday.

He said the Ministry of Research and Technology was currently recruiting Indonesian participants who would participate in a technology-transfer program at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in South Korea.

“In terms of preparations for the facility, the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry is currently drawing up a design of the construction of shipyard facilities,” he added.

Analysts have called for enhanced defense cooperation between South Korea and Indonesia beyond military procurement to closer industrial cooperation.

Resource from:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/06/15/indonesia-develop-submarine-industry.html

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Myanmar: Room shortages and overpricing threaten tourism industry

Myanmar: Room shortages and overpricing 

threaten tourism industry

Last year, the number of tourists arriving in Myanmar reached a record one million. This compares to about 20 million people visiting Thailand. But there are only 27,000 hotel rooms in all of Myanmar, compared to more than 42,000 in Bangkok alone. The shortage of rooms has sharply driven up the rates that Myanmar hoteliers can charge.

“We face skyrocketing hotel room rates in every tourist destination here, but the facilities offered aren’t worth those rates. Hotels are really greedy. They charge US$150 a night for a room that’s worth only $40,” said the spokesperson from one travel company, who asked not to be named.

Complaints from travellers about poor facilities were increasing, causing potential damage to the image of the country, the spokesperson added.

Speaking of hotel accommodation in Nyaung Shwe resort, the vice chairman of Taunggyi Hotel Zone, U Win Oo Tan, said: “We need proper management immediately, in time, not only to deal with the hotel room shortage, but also for transportation charges from Heho Airport to Nyaung Shwe.”

The Ministry of Hotels and Tourism and Nyaung Shwe tourism authorities are allowing Myo Ma Yangon Monastery to host travellers, and the ministry is considering a “home stay” system in Nyaung Shwe.

“Nyaung Shwe has limited rooms, so we’ve negotiated with the monastery and regional authorities to put up tourists as a temporary measure,” he said.

About 1500 tourists visit Nyaung Shwe and Inle daily to occupy 1200 hotel rooms in 45 hotels and guest houses. Average hotel occupancy is 70pc.

Mr Suki Singh, of Inya Lake Hotel, Yangon, says local hotel standards should be improved. U Aung Kyaw Moe, of Queen Inn, Nyaung Shwe, said facilities there had been upgraded in accordance with the increased room rates. Hoteliers in Kalaw said this was the worst year yet for overcrowding. A spokesperson for Li Li Guest House in Kalaw said there were not enough budget hotels for foreign individual tourists.

“Five new hotels have opened here, but they all are for classic standard, not budget. For classic hotels, travellers have to pay at least $30 a night. Backpackers pay on average $20 a day for accommodation, food and trekking. They can’t pay $30 a night,” the spokesman said.

In Bagan, problems arise when daily tourist arrivals exceed 1000, said U Than Shwe, chairman of the Bagan hotel zone. Some tourists stay at monasteries because of the hotel room shortage.

“We encourage guest houses to upgrade their rooms,” said U Khin Aung Htun, a spokesperson for Myanmar Tourism Federation.

“There are eight guest houses that can upgrade and hope 50 rooms will appear this year. Bagan has about 2500 hotel rooms in 80 hotels. Hotels in Bagan reach 75pc occupancy a year. This month we received between 600 and 1000 arrivals a day. We can handle that, but if the numbers rise we will definitely need more rooms,” said a spokesperson for Kaytumadi Hotel in Bagan.

U Nyi Nyi, a tour guide who works in Nyaung Shwe, said: “I have seen so many backpackers staying at monasteries and restaurants. And when I stayed in Bagan recently I had to sleep in the lobby of a hotel.”

The Nyaung Shwe Tour Guide Association has built its own guest house for visiting guides because there are no rooms available.

Resource from:

http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/lifestyle/travel/4590-room-shortages-threaten-tourism-industry.html

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Thailand-Cambodia : Cambodia, Thai JBC meeting a success

Thailand-Cambodia : Cambodia, Thai JBC meeting a success

A Cambodian and Thai delegation met Tuesday, in the city of Phnom Penh, to discuss economic zones and transportation routes along the border to enhance economic development and connections between the two neighbors and the region.

After the JBC meeting at Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said that Thailand has agreed to buy agriculture products from Cambodia and create a Special Economic Zone in Koh Kong province.

He said Cambodia and Thailand agreed to open new border entrances at Stueng Bot in Banteay Meanchey province for transportation and trade exchanges between the two countries. 

Thailand also planned to grant aid to Cambodia to expand National Road Five and Six to link the transportation routes between Cambodia and Thailand.

They also agreed to expand electricity transmission to Banteay Ampil in Uddor Meanchey province, and build a coal fired electric power plant in Cambodia. 

Resource from:
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=ZGY2N2EwOGFhNzQ

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Part 9 : China - The Asian Century;China to send second woman into space!

Part 9 : China - The Asian Century;China to send

 second woman into space!

China is to send its second woman astronaut into orbit on its longest mission yet, space officials said on Monday, as the country works towards building a space station.

The Shenzhou-10 - the name means "Divine Vessel" - will be launched on a Long March rocket at 0938 GMT Tuesday, Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China's manned space programme, told a news conference.

The crew will be in orbit for 15 days, she said, and will include Wang Yaping, the second woman China has sent into space.

Beijing sees the multi-billion-dollar space programme as a symbol of its rising global stature, growing technical expertise, and the ruling Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.

Wang, wearing a blue jumpsuit with a red Chinese flag affixed to her chest, stood up and saluted journalists at a separate news conference, as she and her two male fellow astronauts sat on a stage enclosed in glass for quarantine purposes.

She will give lessons to schoolchildren from orbit, she said, smiling.

Wang, 33, is a major in the People's Liberation Army and also a member of the Communist Party, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Flight commander Nie Haisheng, 48, a major-general in the army, who went into space on board Shenzhou-6, told reporters: "We will carry out a glorious mission.

"I would like to thank all my comrades in the army and assure them that we are determined to accomplish our task," he added.

The third crew member is Zhang Xiaoguang, 47, a colonel.

The craft will dock with the Tiangong-1 - "Heavenly Palace" - space laboratory, and the crew will transfer into it and carry out medical and space technology experiments.

The mission will mark a crucial step towards China's goal of building a full space station capable of housing astronauts for extended periods.

China first sent a human into space only in 2003 and its capabilities still lag behind the US and Russia, but it has a highly ambitious programme including plans to land a man on the moon and build a station orbiting earth by 2020.

The previous Shenzhou mission, in June last year, included China's first woman astronaut, Liu Yang, who became a national heroine.

The coming voyage "will be more complex than any mission China has attempted before", Morris Jones, an independent space analyst based in Sydney, Australia, told AFP.

"Rendezvous and docking is a tricky operation for any space programme regardless of how much experience you have," he said.

China has conducted such opeations several times before in both unmanned and manned flights, he said, but this time the crew will experiment with carrying out the rendezvous at different angles of approach.

"I have no doubts that the mission will be successful," he said. "The technology is well-tested and it's proven itself many times."

Officials have said China will land an exploratory craft on the moon for the first time this year.

At the same time the United States, long the leader in the field, has scaled back some of its programmes, such as retiring its space shuttle fleet.

Jones said the latest mission is another significant step in China achieving its space station goal.

"By demonstrating rendezvous and docking as well as the ability to live in space for a long period of time, they're gradually showing that they have the technology and the procedures that they will need to construct that space station," he said.

Resource from:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/china-to-send-second/703904.html

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"We must face our past freely" – Aung San Suu Kyi

"We must face our past freely" 

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke out about the need for accountability and reconciliation as an important step for Myanmar's future in a historic debate held in the capital Nay Pyi Taw on Thursday as global leaders converged for the second day of the World Economic Forum on East Asia.

Speaking on the issue of atrocities committed by the former military regime, Suu Kyi told the Forum that there is a strong link between truth and reconciliation, and that rather than seeking revenge, she sees the need for Myanmar to acknowledge the past for the country to move forward.

"Only by facing our past freely can we move into the future freely. Personally I am against the concept revenge. But accountability is related to courage and I admire courage in individuals as well as nations and I would like us to have the courage to face our past squarely so that the same mistakes will not be committed in the future," said the Nobel Laureate.

The debate entitled "Myanmar: What Future?" was organised and moderated by the BBC and included Aung San Suu Kyi, Minister of the President's Office, U Soe Thein and ex-political prisoner and activist, Zin Mar Myint on the panel. They engaged critical questions about the reform process, the role of the military, media and freedom of speech among other issues with an equally distinguished audience including academics, journalists and historians.

The panelists discussed at length the challenges facing the reform process initiated by the President Thein Sein and his government and whether changes are reversible or not. They acknowledged the difficult path ahead but were "cautiously optimistic" about achieving reforms.

"It comes down to inclusiveness. If the people think that they are included in the reform process then it will not be easily reversible. But if too many people feel excluded then the dangers of a reversal are high," said Suu Kyi.

Aung Zaw, founder and editor of the Irrawaddy magazine, commented from the audience that he is skeptical about the reform process, especially in the media because journalists still cannot write freely about past abuses and corruption.

Minister Soe Thein responded that freedom of the press in Myanmar is much better than before and when it comes to reform they must heed the example of countries like the United States, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

"We have to go step by step. What is needed is balance and creating capacity in the media," said the Minister. 

Suu Kyi, however, disagreed with Soe Thein stating that the press still does not have complete freedom in the country due to a fear of openness.

"We should be able to face openness; this is the sign of a mature democracy."

Later in the debate, Aung San Suu Kyi admitted that she would like to run for President in 2015 but acknowledged that many reforms were necessary before this was possible. The Nobel Laureate was also criticised for staying silent over the violence faced by Muslim minorities in Rakhine State.

She defended herself insisting on the importance of the rule of law as a first step to finding a solution for these issues. She also called for the need to reassess the 1982 Citizenship Law to ensure that it meets with international norms.

"If we are going to resolve our problems we have to face them squarely, especially the problem facing Muslims, it’s a big problem and it’s a complicated problem."

The debate also raised questions about the role of the military in Myanmar's democracy. BBC presenter Nik Gowing asked the panel whether they thought the military was ready to relinquish its 25 percent control of Parliament as stipulated by the constitution, and allow for full civilian oversight of the Legislature.

"Twenty years back everything was run by the military. My point of view is that this will take gradual change," said Minister Soe Thein.

Aung San Suu Kyi, whose father was General Aung San, a revered national hero who was instrumental in the struggle for independence, said that she sees an important role for a professional military in future.

"I want the military to have a special place in the hearts of our people. That is to say, I want a military that is professional, that is honorable, and that it prepared to defend our nation and our people. This is the kind of army my father anticipated when he founded it in the 1940's," said Suu Kyi.

The debate was broadcast live by the BBC and featured many responses on social media from viewers around the world. It is the first time for a debate of this kind to openly discuss many of the pertinent issues facing Myanmar and speak frankly about the challenges facing its leaders.

At the end of the televised debate, Gowing asked the audience if they were optimistic or not about Myanmar's future. A show of hands in the room showed an overall optimism for the future of the country, a sentiment largely prevalent among both local and international participants at the Forum.

It is the first time for the World Economic Forum on East Asia to be held in Myanmar marking a historic occasion as the country begins engaging with the international community after years of isolation.

Resource From:

http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/politics/3815-bbc-debate-tackles-challenges-facing-myanmar

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5 ways Myanmar is preparing for the future!

5 ways Myanmar is preparing for the future!

It takes decades to ramp up the infrastructure of a country. The initial years are the most difficult and fraught with risk. The process of planning and putting the approvals framework into place can take years to complete.

In this context, what the Government of Myanmar has achieved in a very short time is as remarkable as it is unique. When it started, several factors that some consider essential for a successful ramp up of a country’s infrastructure were severely underdeveloped. Despite this, the country has taken bold steps in multiple sectors simultaneously. The single biggest factor driving this change is the strong and clear intent of the government to do what is needed to improve infrastructure so that it becomes an enabler of economic growth.

In this regard, we believe the following five steps that the government is in the process of implementing would further help achieve its targets:

• Creating clarity and predictability in its regulatory framework for infrastructure sectors – the promulgation of the Foreign Investment Law (FIL) and drafting of the Telecom Law, SEZ Law andCondominium Law are steps in this direction;

• Building institutional capacity within the government to prioritize and procure the needed infrastructure which provides “value for money” – experience gained by the energy sector and ongoing know-how being developed by the telecom and transport sectors in procurement methods would serve as templates to procurement teams in other infrastructure sectors;

• Actively encouraging the development of partnerships between foreign and local participants to bring together international know-how and local context – the FIL makes joint ventures the preferred mode for several sectors, thereby ensuring that infrastructure providers have local know-how and context. This helps in the development of local enterprises and transfer of technology and managerial capabilities;

• Developing the banking system and financial markets to allow free flow of capital to support infrastructure investment – the Central Bank of Myanmar Law, when passed, should address some of the outstanding issues in the sector;

• Fostering public goodwill towards infrastructure projects by demonstrating their economic benefits and potential for creating jobs – the requirement for all large projects in the future to be environmentally sound and to have a positive socio-economic impact will help achieve sustainable and inclusive development.

Resource From:

http://forumblog.org/2013/06/five-ways-myanmar-is-preparing-for-the-future/

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