Japan women's wrestling 63-kilogram , 48-kg class beautiful gold again

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Kaori Icho (left) and Hitomi Obara hold up their medals on Wednesday at the London Olympics. Icho became the first Japanese female athlete to win three consecutive Olympic titles by claiming the 63-kg wrestling gold while Olympic debutante Obara took home the gold in the women's 48-kg class. KYODO PHOTOS

After one week of unsettling silence, Japan finally has gold again. Make that two!

Kaori Icho became the first Japanese female athlete to win three consecutive Olympic titles when she claimed the women's wrestling 63-kilogram gold at the London Games on Wednesday.
And Olympic debutante Hitomi Obara took home the gold in the women's 48-kg class.
The two wrestlers brought Japan's gold medal tally to four, following Kohei Uchimura's gold-medal victory in the men's gymnastics all-around on Aug. 1.
Icho, who beat China's Jing Ruixue 2-0 in the final, became the second person from her country to achieve a three-peat after Tadahiro Nomura, who accomplished the feat in the men's judo 60-kg category.
The seven-time world champion was too savvy for Jing, completely shutting down the Chinese woman with a spectacular tackle of her opponent's legs in the first period, and brilliantly escaped a leg hold before wrapping around her opponent's back to take the second.
The 28-year-old Icho, who powered through three opponents to reach the final, took a leave of absence after Beijing before returning to competition in 2009. Including her Olympic victories, she now has 10 world titles.
"My goal was not just to get this title (of three straight wins), but ultimately I am happy that I could achieve this feat," said Icho. "I really wanted to try some other things out there, so I feel some disappointment about that. But getting points for a tackle was great."
Battsetseg Soronzonbold of Mongolia, who lost to Icho in the semifinals, took a bronze along with Russia's Lubov Volosova.
The 31-year-old Obara, a six-time world champion in the non-Olympic 51-kg class, defeated Beijing Olympic bronze medalist Mariya Stadnyk of Azerbaijan in an epic showdown, the Japanese wrestler rallying from a period down to claim a dramatic victory.
It was the first time a Japanese woman won Olympic gold in the weight class after the now-retired Chiharu Icho, Kaori's older sister, won silvers in Athens and Beijing.
Things appeared to be going badly for Obara, who lost the first period 4-0 after Stadnyk got two holds and rolled her once, but she bounced back to take the next period before finishing off her opponent in the third with a leg tackle and a back hold.
The crowd yelled out chants of "Obara! Obara!" as she fended off a final desperate but futile charge from Stadnyk to win it 2-1. Obara, her right eye puffy and bruised, knelt down and slapped her hands on the mat as she broke down in a cathartic pool of tears.
"I can't believe this," said Obara. "I couldn't have gotten this gold medal on my own. The cheers of the crowd became my strength, so I knew I wasn't alone on the mat to fight it out till the end."
The Aomori native retired once after failing to make the team for the Beijing Games in the heavier 55-kg class. But she made a comeback in December 2009 in the lightest weight category on the insistence of her younger sister Makiko, who had retired from the 48-kg class after getting married.
Obara, who won world titles at 48 kg in 2010-11, beat Beijing Olympic gold medalist Carol Huynh of Canada in the semifinals to book her spot in the final. Huynh took a bronze, as did American Clarissa Chun.
"They both did great!" said Japanese women's coach Kazuhito Sakae. "I am so happy that two of my pupils could win gold medals. I told Kaori to just stay calm and do it, but I had to give Obara some advice."

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South Korean President Lee Myung-bak made a surprise visit

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South Korean President Lee Myung-bak made a surprise visit Friday to islets at the center of a long-running territorial dispute with Japan, according to a South Korean governor's office, ignoring warnings from Tokyo that it would worsen the neighbors' already strained relations.
Lee made the trip to the rocky, largely uninhabited outcroppings in fish-rich waters with the governor of North Gyeongsang province, according to an official in the governor's office who said the governor called in during the trip. The official spoke anonymously because he said he wasn't authorized to talk to the press.
Before the trip, officials said a visit would make Lee the first South Korean leader to travel to the islets. Seoul officials wouldn't confirm the governor's comments, saying the president hadn't returned to Seoul. Lee also briefly visited nearby Ulleung Island, which is home to a large South Korean population and not part of the territorial dispute.
The visit to the islets—called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese—comes as Lee's conservative party jockeys for votes ahead of hotly contested December presidential elections. Lee, whose popularity has steadily dropped, is in the last year of his five-year presidency and cannot run for re-election.
The trip also comes on the eve of the men's bronze medal Olympic soccer match between Japan and South Korea and days ahead of South Korea's commemoration Wednesday of the peninsula's independence in 1945 from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule.
South Korea stations a small contingent of police officers on the disputed islets in a show of control, but Japan maintains that the rocks are its territory, renewing the claim last month in an annual defense report.
Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba warned before the visit that it would have a "strong impact" on relations and urged Seoul to call it off.
The outcroppings have long been a source of discord, even though the two countries share vibrant trade and tourism ties and are both partners in diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its long-range missile and nuclear arms programs.
Historical and territorial issues, however, plague the relationship. Many people on the Korean Peninsula continue to harbor deep resentment stemming from Tokyo's brutal colonization. South Korea and Japan also remain at odds over what many South Koreans say is Japan's failure to properly address its past actions, including Japan's World War II use of Korean women as sexual slaves for its soldiers.
In late June, Seoul and Tokyo put on hold an intelligence sharing pact seen as a breakthrough in their relations after a political outcry in South Korea.
South Korean activists last year placed a statue of a girl representing victims of Japanese sexual slavery in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Japanese officials have apologized in the past, but Tokyo has refused repeated demands from individuals for reparations, saying the matter was solved by international peace treaties.
U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell expressed hope for good relations between the two key U.S. allies after being asked about reports that Lee was planning to visit the disputed islets.
Last year, Seoul banned three conservative Japanese lawmakers from entering South Korea after they arrived at a Seoul airport with announced plans to travel near the islets.

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Distrust remains in Myanmar’s push for peace

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Lahkyen La Ja, general secretary of the Kachin Independence Organization, is interviewed by The Asahi Shimbun on July 25 in Bangkok. (Takeshi Fujitani)

Reconciliation talks have ground to a halt as Myanmar’s central government and ethnic militias try to overcome decades of distrust.
Ten militias have agreed a truce to stop fighting government forces, but there has been little progress on political dialogue. And the government has yet to enter negotiations with one group, the Kachin Independence Army. Its insurgency formally continues.
Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, who has promised democracy to replace half a century of military dictatorship, espouses reconciliation as the road toward that.
But accord still seems far off.
Myanmar’s Rail Transportation Minister Aung Min, who represents the government in talks, told The Asahi Shimbun in February of a three-stage strategy toward reconciliation.
The first step, he said, is to agree truces with the 11 insurgent ethnic groups. He estimated a deadline of three to four months for this.
Then, he explained, the government would open political dialogue with the militias and allow refugees to return. The final step would be to convene a national assembly toward lasting peace.
Aung Min said he was confident of the plan’s success.
But in July a leader of the Kachin Independence Army’s political wing told The Asahi Shimbun he has no intention of signing a truce.
Lahkyen La Ja, general secretary of the Kachin Independence Organization, said no deal can be agreed without a government road map toward a political solution to the conflict.
La Ja said the group has held three rounds of informal talks with government negotiators, the last in late June. The talks took place in parts of Thailand and Myanmar under the group’s control.
Aung Min was present. When he urged the group to accept a truce it demanded that the government withdraw its troops. The standoff remained as sharp as ever, La Ja said, and there was no agreement on dates and venues for formal talks.
He said the Kachin demand the same rights as the majority Burman ethnic group.
"All the government talks about is this cease-fire," La Ja said. "But we signed one in 1994. We cooperated with the government for 17 years. After that they started to fight against us, and armed clashes broke out in June last year. The fighting was started by government troops."
La Ja continued: "We want genuine political dialogue to solve the problem. How can we sign a cease-fire without guarantees? Trust-building has not begun yet."
Meanwhile, even the armed groups that have accepted cease-fires are not yet in political dialogue with the government.
The Karen National Union, which earlier this year agreed a truce ending a six-decade struggle for independence, plans to hold talks Aug. 28 with Aung Min and other government representatives.
But the areas of discussion are likely to be confined to codes of conduct related to the truce.
"Local people are, on the one hand, hopeful. They are happy about the political recognition of the armed groups' struggles for existence," said Khin Ohmar, a democracy activist and expert on Myanmar’s ethnic-minority forces.
"But there is another side to the story. Because the government army is now increasing, they are worried about security on the local level," she said.
There have, in fact, been sporadic clashes between government troops, pro-government militias, and armed ethnic militias since late July in the Kayin and Shan states. Reports say the fighting resulted in casualties and injuries.
Reconciliation with ethnic minorities is one of the pillars of President Thein Sein's reform agenda, alongside democratization and economic liberalization. On Aug. 4, he met representatives of ethnic minority-based political parties and called on them to cooperate in the reconciliation process, but he gave no specific proposals or timelines.
By TAKESHI FUJITANI/ Correspondent

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Aung San Suu Kyi to chair parliamentary committee

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Aung San Suu Kyi has been named chairman of a new parliamentary committee(Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been named chairman of a new parliamentary committee that is to monitor and help implement the rule of law under the country's new government.
Her appointment to head the "Rule of Law and Tranquility Committee'' was announced Aug. 7.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former political prisoner was elected to parliament in April, a development that was hailed as proof of progress in the former military-run country.
The committee consists of 15 lawmakers including at least five from Kachin and Rakhine states and other ethnic areas that have been gripped by conflict.
Suu Kyi's party platform included three main objectives: to seek an end to ethnic conflicts, to try to achieve peace and rule of law and to amend the country's constitution.

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Announcement

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http://www.mediafire.com/view/?c1w4m6piwauxywu

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Pakistan's extremists whip up frenzy over Burma's Muslims

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The exaggerated version of truth about violence in Myanmar propagated by religious groups in Pakistan to recruit and fund their own agendas.

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
Pakistanis are mounting protests online and in the streets of cities like Lahore and Peshawar over the ill-treatment of Muslims in Myanmar, a situation that Islamist groups here are distorting to raise money and potentially win recruits.
The international community has raised concerns about human rights abuses against Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar. Clashes in June between Rohingyas and their Buddhist neighbors, the Rakhine, left 78 dead, according to the Myanmar government. A new Human Rights Watch report calls the number "grossly underestimated" and charges that security forces failed to protect Rohingyas, and in some cases opened fire on them.
But on the streets of Pakistan, the rhetoric runs much hotter with protesters claiming "thousands" of Rohingyas are being slaughtered in western Myanmar (also known as Burma). Online, meanwhile, a series of doctored and misidentified photographs are circulating widely in Pakistani social media and beyond that purport to show violence against Rohingyas.
Investigations by social media watchdogs, and the respected Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune, have proven that most of these claims are exaggerated or entirely false.
For example, one photo posted on a Facebook page originating from Pakistan show Buddhists dressed in their traditional red robes standing in the middle of two rows of dead bodies. The caption reads: "Bodies of Muslims killed by Buddhists." In reality, this picture is from an earthquake incident in China in 2010, where Tibetan monks came to help with the rescue efforts.
Islamist groups are exploiting the whipped up sentiments in Pakistan to raise money, ostensibly for the Rohingyas, at a time when political parties are also building up campaign coffers in anticipation of upcoming national elections. One militant Islamist group, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, even threatened the Myanmar government, saying it will avenge the blood of Muslims being killed in Myanmar.
Shahzad Ahmad, the Pakistan country director for the global online activism group called Bytes for All, says stories of Muslim victimization around the world are exaggerated in Pakistan by Islamist groups on the Internet.
“They use such campaigns not only to fund themselves but also to gain more political ground and recruit people for their cause. Our research shows that there are many fake photographs being used to propagate [stories of] atrocities against Muslims on many of the Facebook pages which originate from Pakistan,” says Mr. Ahmad.
Hundreds of pages in support of the Rohingya have appeared on the Internet over the past few months, he says.
“While there is no denying there are human rights violations in Myanmar against Muslims, such exaggerated online campaigns may attract those who want to promote terror and collaborate with extremist groups which operate openly in Pakistan,” adds Ahmad.
Among the groups involved in stirring the activism are Jamat-ud-Dawa, Jamat-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam, three Islamist groups which hold significant street power in the country.
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Jamat-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam are political parties with a strong presence in rural areas of Pakistan. They believe in a conservative Islamic ideology and propagate the same in their political vision. Jamat-ud-Dawa, which is alleged to be the political arm of the Islamist militia group Lashkar-e-Toiba, is a charity organization banned internationally and is under strict watch in Pakistan as it has been accused of being involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, an allegation it denies.
In a conversation with Ayub Munir, the head of foreign affairs at Jamat-e-Islami, one of the oldest Islamist parties in Pakistan, Mr. Munir repeatedly referred to the situation in Myanmar as a genocide of Muslims. “Our biggest concern is the mass killings of Muslims there. This genocide should immediately stop,” says Munir.
Like others, Jamat-e-Islami has announced they are collecting charity for the affected Rohingya community.
“We have opened a bank account, and we have received immense response,” Munir says.
But, as of yet, he does not know how they will be sending this help to Myanmar. “No one can access that area. So we have been unable to send anything. But we plan to talk to the United Nations to help us send food, medicine, and tents,” the Jamat-e-Islami representative adds.
According to him, Muslims have been pushed out of their homes and are living in the jungle, and therefore they need immediate shelter. “We have some workers on the Bangladesh side, and we have asked them to reach out to the Rohingya community,” he claims.
The recent TTP threat to carry out attacks in Myanmar is even more logistically unlikely. Analysts in Pakistan say the aim of the message is more to raise their global brand and attract recruits.
SEE ALSO: UN envoy visits Myanmar as ethnic clashes test reforms
An intelligence official working on counter-terrorism, who is not authorized to speak to the media, says such issues are raised by extremists to gain popularity. “This gets them in the goods books of the Pakistani masses,” the official added. He further said that he has come across evidence where groups in Pakistan doing social welfare work in the country have been involved in funding international "jihad," as he liked to refer to it.
But the romance of "ummah," or the unity of the global Muslim community, has been historically pervasive among South Asian Muslims, says Raza Rumi, a noted columnist.
"There have been instances in our history when funds for Islamic causes have been raised even in the early 20th century when a movement to save the Turkic Caliphate was launched in undivided India," Rumi added.
Fund raising however has acquired a new dimension given the spread of political Islam in this region since the 1980s. Most Islamist organizations have been involved in cross-continental transfers to support various causes.
"On the issue of Burma there is a concerted campaign in place now which is collecting funds without a clear ideas as to how these funds reach the persecuted minority in Myanmar," said Rumi. In fact, one major area of concern is that Pakistan's weak enforcement of rules, which in theory allow the government to restrict banned or controversial groups from raising funds, allows such groups to operate and "raise funds with impunity," Rumi adds.
"This is a cause of concern for many rational Pakistanis who want more effective controls on extremist outfits." opines Rumi.

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Myanmar frees death-row prisoner with liver cancer

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Myanmar has freed a death-row inmate with liver cancer who had been imprisoned for the deadly bombing of a festival in 2010.
The wife of Phyo Wai Aung said he was released Friday by presidential pardon and transferred to a hospital. His lower body is paralyzed.
Phyo Wai Aung had been convicted of murder for the April 15, 2010, bombing of a celebration in Yangon of the traditional New Year. Ten people were killed and 170 wounded. He denied the charge and said evidence against him had been obtained by torture.
His wife Htay Htay attributed his freedom to efforts by U.N. human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana, who visited Phyo Wai Aung in Yangon's Insein prison on Monday.

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