2 THE MYANMAR TIMES MARCH 17 - 23, 2014

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THE INSIDER: The local lowdown & best of the web
When I say the rst thing you have to deal with in regards to the situation in the Rakhine is rule of law, people say Ive said nothing about the situation because for them talking about rule of law is tantamount to talking about nothing.
Aung San Suu Kyi gives a characteristically circuitous response to a question on Rakhine State at the East West Media Conference

online editor Kayleigh Long | kayleighelong@gmail.com

Page 2 review: Top Gear takes the Burma Road

The rst episode in the twopart season nale of motoring show Top Gear has broadcast and is now available for illegal download. The episode, lmed in late 2013, sees hosts Clarkson, Hammond and May issued with a challenge to drive from Yangon across the border into Thailand in ramshackle trucks. Its standard, formulaic Top Gear fare. The trio blunder their way through the streets of Yangon, their impractical vehicles taking an even less practical route through town when hilarity ensues their oversized vehicles systematically destroy the power grid of a downtown side street while a confused crowd of urban poor look on. But never fear, once they are done knocking over street vendors apple carts and making fun of elderly pedestrians, they eventually (after what feels like about four hours) nd their way to the road and resume normal programming: that is, any and all plans going hilariously awry and Clarkson the slightly-posh everyman emasculating the short guy. If you can deal with the shows now-tired schtick, then it makes for an interesting watch, but I must confess: they lost me somewhere on the highway out of Nay Pyi Taw. One star.

Authorities move to clamp down on heavy petting zoo

Yangon City Development Committee has moved to instate a ban on young couples in Happy Zone Natural World at Peoples Park, as their canoodling seems to be discouraging its target demographic families with small children from attending. 7 Day Daily reported the management was sick of the young lovebirds sitting around in the theme park and holding hands, taking up valuable space that could have been occupied by more paying visitors. Similarly, it was reported, families felt less inclined to expose their young children to such scandalous behavior. It is a good decision. This is because we have an exclusive

park like this to have full-time with our children. The couples dominate all the time, a 50-year-old mother told 7 Day. Fortunately there are still a number of options for those looking for a venue for some hanky-panky. While Kandawgyi is an already-popular spot for illicit sub-umbrella handholding action, Happy World at the base of Shwedagon also hosts its fair share of dates. Based purely on observations made during one day trip, though, the United Races Village seems to be the venue of choice for slightly raunchier antics.

Plane sight

Once was Burma...

Archival material provided by Pansodan Gallery

Comedy comic book Swallow on the Rainbow , 1980 by Khin Aye Han, illustrations by Min Hlaing Bwa

At the time of printing, the apparent hijacking of the MH370 ight has been the subject of much speculation and collective head-scratching, with no real answers forthcoming and authorities broadening the scope of the search as far aeld as the Kazakhstan border. While no answers are immediately apparent, the rst ve days of searching in the very least could be said to have been a heartwarming show of cooperation in the South China Sea. Since then, focus has been redirected toward the Andaman. The Department of Civil Aviation acquiesced to Malaysian requests to search Myanmar territory, but was not actively participating in the search. Online, theories about just what had happened to the aircraft and its occupants were thrown around with abandon. The members of Reddit.coms conspiracy theory forum pointing the nger at Uighur terrorists, the Rotheschilds, an Illuminati job, a revenge attack for Anwar Ibrahims sentencing, Putin, North Korea and on a Myanmar-related note an alleged Chinese listening post

Khin Nang Htike for NOW! magazine. Photo: Htet Aung Kyaw (studio HAK)

Style

Statement

in the Coco Islands. While the nature of this alleged outpost is based on news stories of dubious origin and has been pretty neatly dismantled on several occasions by respected pundits, Greater Coco does have a runway and thats fun to think about.

504,000
The number of Staedtler Norica 2B pencils attained through an international procurement process for the census. The number of clipboards being distributed is 110,000. Source: UNFPA

Next week:

Founder of YEC-promoted Trishaw tness club concedes it was a dumb idea after expat sideswiped by 1940s Hino bus