A video of the lavish wedding that Myanmar's military ruler Than Shwe threw for his daughter sparked outrage yesterday in one of the world's poorest countries.
In the 10-minute clip posted on the Internet, Thandar Shwe is shown covered in layers of pearls, diamonds and other gems, while her groom splashes champagne across rows of glasses at the July wedding.
She and her groom, Major Zaw Phyo Win, are also shown in a bridal suite the size of a ballroom, standing before a gold-braid bed with a towering red canopy.
The Myanmar news magazine Irrawaddy estimated the value of the gifts at more than US$50 million -- or more than three times the nation's health budget.
Myanmar analyst Aung Naing Oo said he was stunned by the video and struggled to find a comparison.
"You might want to talk about Marie Antoinette," he said. "They don't know what is going on outside and they just keep making themselves more rich."
"I'm not surprised that people are very angry," he added.
"The whole affair is very tasteless ... Four, five, six diamond garlands. I've never seen it before," he said.
Myanmar is one of the world's poorest countries, where the UN estimates 40 percent of children are malnourished.
Even the relatively well-off in Yangon experience power outages that last up to seven hours a day and struggle to find gas for their cars.
The leak of the video offered a rare opportunity to peak under the blanket of secrecy in which Than Shwe wraps his government.
"This video clip was originally obtained from a private Web log in Rangoon [Yangon] and had been circulating within the former capital for more than a month," read a brief note attached to the video on the Web site YouTube.
"It was a glittering affair," said one Yangon resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He said the lavish wedding gifts were given by the guests in hopes of winning favor with the regime.
"They bring a lot presents so they can try to receive favors later," he said.
While the video has sparked outrage among exiles, relatively few people inside Myanmar are likely to see it.
The military keeps tight controls on the Internet, and while DVD copies have circulated discreetly among Myanmar's markets, few of the nation's impoverished people have any way to play them.
The junta keeps such tight control over all its activities that the appearance of the video immediately sparked questions as to how it was leaked.
"Outsiders cannot even dream about getting close to the first family. So the cameraman I think must be highly regarded and trusted by the first family," Aung Naing Oo said. "The very fact that the video is out [means] that someone close to them must have leaked it."
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS