April 02, 2025

News @ RB

Announcement of New Website: Rohingya Today (RohingyaToday.Com) Dear Readers, From 1st January 2019 onward, the Rohingya News Portal 'Rohingya Blogger' will be renamed and upgraded as 'Rohingya Today'. Due to this transition to a new name, our website will be available at www.rohing...

Rohingya News @ Int'l Media

Maung Zarni, leader of the Free Rohingya Coalition, speaks at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday. | CHISATO TANAKA By Chisato Tanaka, Published by The Japan Times on October 25, 2018 A leader of a global network of activists for Rohingya Mu...

Myanmar News

By Sena Güler | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 1, 2018 Maung Zarni says he will boycott Beijing-sponsored events until the country reverses its 'troubling path' ANKARA -- A human rights activist and intellectual said he withdrew from a Beijing-sponsored forum in London to pro...

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Article @ RB

Oskar Butcher RB Article October 6, 2018 Every night in an unassuming shop space located in Mandalay’s 39thStreet, Lu Maw and Lu Zaw – the remaining members of the Burma’s most famous comedy trio, the Moustache Brothers – present their show: a curious combination of comedy, political sa...

Article @ Int'l Media

A demonstration over identity cards at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in April, 2018. Image: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. By Natalie Brinham | Published by Open Democracy on October 21, 2018 Wary of the past, Rohingya have frustrated the UN’s attempts to provide them with documenta...

Analysis @ RB

By M.S. Anwar | Opinion & Analysis The Burmese (Myanmar) quasi-civilian government unleashed a large-scale violence against the minority Rohingya in the western Myanmar state of Arakan in 2012. The violence, which some wrongly frame as ‘Communal’, was carried out by the Burmese armed forces...

Analysis @ Int'l Media

By Maung Zarni, Natalie Brinham | Published by Middle East Institute on November 20, 2018 “It is an ongoing genocide (in Myanmar),” said Mr. Marzuki Darusman, the head of the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission at the official briefing at ...

Opinion @ RB

Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar wait to be let through by Bangladeshi border guards after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj MS Anwar RB Opinion November 12, 2018 Some may differ. But I believe the government of Bangladesh is ...

Opinion @ Int'l Media

By Maung Zarni | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 15, 2018 US will not intercede, and Myanmar's neighbors see it through economic lens, so international coalition for Rohingya needed LONDON -- The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution ca...

History @ RB

Aman Ullah  RB History August 25, 2016 The ethnic Rohingya is one of the many nationalities of the union of Burma. And they are one of the two major communities of Arakan; the other is Rakhine and Buddhist. The Muslims (Rohingyas) and Buddhists (Rakhines) peacefully co-existed in the A...

Rohingya History by Scholars

Dr. Maung Zarni's Remark: The best research on Rohingya history: British Orientalism which created the pseudo-scientific biological notion of "Taiyinthar" or "real natives" of #Myanmar caused that country's post-colonial cancer of official & popular genocidal Racism.  This co...

Report @ RB

(Photo: Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters) RB News  October 5, 2013  Thandwe, Arakan – Rakhinese mob in Thandwe started attacking Kaman Muslims on September 28, 2013. As a result, 5 Kaman Muslims were mercilessly killed and 1 was died in heart attack while escaping the attack. 781 Kaman Mus...

Report by Media/Org

Rohingya families arrive at a UNHCR transit centre near the village of Anjuman Para, Cox’s Bazar, south-east Bangladesh after spending four days stranded at the Myanmar border with some 6,800 refugees. (Photo: UNHCR/Roger Arnold) By UN News May 11, 2018 Late last year, as violent repressi...

Press Release

(Photo: Reuters) Joint Statement: Rohingya Groups Call on U.S. Government to Ensure International Accountability for Myanmar Military-Planned Genocide December 17, 2018  We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations worldwide, call for accountability for genocide and crimes against...

Rohingya Orgs Activities

RB News December 6, 2017 Tokyo, Japan -- Legislators from all parties, along with Human Rights Now, Human Rights Watch, and Save the Children, came together to host the emergency parliament in-house event “The Rohingya Human Rights Crisis and Japanese Diplomacy” on December 4th. The eve...

Petition

By Wyston Lawrence RB Petition October 15, 2017 There is one petition has been going on Change.org to remove Ven. Wira Thu from Facebook. He has been known as Buddhist Bin Laden. Time magazine published his image on their cover with the title of The Face of Buddhist Terror. The petitio...

Campaign

A human rights activist and genocide scholar from Burma Dr. Maung Zarni visits Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi Extermination Camp and calls on European governments - Britain, France, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Hungary and Germany not to collaborate with the Evil - like they did with Hitler 75 ye...

Event

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Editorial by Int'l Media

By Dhaka Tribune Editorial November 5, 2017 How can we answer to our conscience knowing full-well what the Myanmar military is doing to the innocent Rohingya minority -- not even sparing children or pregnant women? Despite the on-going humanitarian crisis involving Rohingya refugees ...

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Asian bourses vie for foothold in Myanmar

YANGON: Two of Asia’s biggest stock exchanges are fighting for dominance in the world’s hottest new frontier market as investors beat a path to Myanmar following the end of decades of military rule.

The operator of the Tokyo Stock Exchange announced last month a deal with Myanmar’s central bank to open a stock market in the country formerly known as Burma along with Japan’s Daiwa Securities, after years of discussions.

Executives from Asia’s largest bourse plan to travel to Myanmar later this month to ink the agreement.

But they face competition from South Korea, whose exchange also aims to open a stock market in the state, according to a spokesman for Korea Exchange in Seoul.

Its director recently visited the capital Naypyidaw for talks with Myanmar’s central bank governor about developing the country’s capital markets.
But experts say the Japanese are unlikely to let the opportunity slip away.

“The Japanese need it more and they’ll be very, very competitive about getting into that market,” Tony Nash, a managing director for IHS Consulting in Singapore, told AFP.

He said there was a sense that the Tokyo Stock Exchange felt left out of recent consolidation between global market operators and needed “a growth enhancer to make them a little more attractive in terms of an exchange tie-up.” The Japanese consortium has stolen a march on the Koreans, thanks to a little known but 16-year-old stock market tucked away in a crumbling building in downtown Yangon offering over-the-counter deals in two stocks.

The Myanmar Securities Exchange Centre, a joint venture between Daiwa’s research arm and the government-run Myanma Economic Bank, has a skeleton staff of about 10 and just a few customers visiting every day.

But it is a market minnow with big ambitions, aiming to transform itself into a full-fledged bourse by 2015 using the technology and trading platforms of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Its low turnover is not due to a lack of interest. The two stocks listed — a bank and a timber company, both majority-owned by the government — offered attractive dividend yields of about 25-30 percent last year.

“Share trading is very tiny — there are so many buyers but no sellers,” Myanmar Securities Exchange Centre managing director Shigeto Inami said in an interview at the bourse’s offices, where a small board displays the day’s prices of the two stocks printed on sheets of paper the old-fashioned way.

As well as interest among Burmese, foreign investors are eager not to be left out of what could be Asia’s next big economic boom, as the European Union and other countries start to roll back sanctions.

But investing in a country whose economy has been left in tatters by nearly half a century of military rule is not without risks.

“Due to its location, population and resources Myanmar is the holy grail for frontier investors, but it is still early in its reform process,” said Douglas Clayton, founder and CEO of Cambodia-based Leopard Capital, which specialises in emerging markets and plans to launch a Myanmar fund.

“There are severe capacity constraints in human resources and physical infrastructure. Myanmar is simply not ready to absorb the tidal wave of projects foreigners can imagine starting there,” he said.

Much of Myanmar’s industry is currently controlled by companies owned by the government or their cronies, although the government’s economic reforms could lead to increased competition from new rivals.

But the real goldmine — abundant oil, gas and other natural resources — are largely dominated by foreign companies, with the exception of logging. Most of these companies are unlikely to be listed on the local stock market.

Even those that are listed may not be willing to sell their shares to overseas investors for now.

While there is no law against foreigners holding Myanmar stocks, taking even a small stake means the company has to change its status to a foreign company, leading to restrictions in areas such as land ownership, said Inami.

His message for prospective foreign investors?

“I recommend them to marry a Myanmar lady and to buy in the name of the wife,” he said with a smile.

Such drastic measures may not be necessary for long, however, as the new quasi-civilian government seeks to overhaul its antiquated laws introduced during decades of rule by a repressive junta.

A new investment law, expected to be enacted later in the fiscal year, could pave the way for more companies to list their stocks on the Myanmar Securities Exchange, said Inami.

“There are so many good companies here in Myanmar but they are waiting for the new companies act and securities exchange law,” he added.

Yet while investors salivate over one of Asia’s last frontier markets, experts warn that nerves of steel may be needed.

“Myanmar is an incredible long term opportunity but patience and hard work will be required. You can’t modernise a substantial nation overnight,” said Clayton. -- AFP

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