Word: naypyidaw
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...when a student-led protest movement was crushed, leaving some 3,000 dead. Even as the masses have grown poorer, the military has enriched itself through timber and natural-gas deals. In 2005, the ruling junta mysteriously moved the nation's capital from Rangoon to a new city called Naypyidaw, carved out of the jungle at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Last year, a samizdat video of Than Shwe's daughter getting married made the rounds in Rangoon; Burmese were shocked by the number of jewels dripping from her body - and by wedding gifts valued...
...Burma's generals will have a tough time convincing the public they hold more spiritual suasion than the monks. Holed up in Naypyidaw, a city that was constructed out of jungle in 2005 to replace Rangoon as the national capital, the military leaders have virtually barricaded themselves from their subjects. While ordinary Burmese get ever poorer because of the junta's economic mismanagement, the generals live in swanky mansions and drive fancy cars. The government has signed lucrative gas-pipeline and timber deals with other nations, but little of the money trickles down to ordinary people. The steep fuel hikes...
...married in a lavish ceremony. The couple reportedly received millions of dollars in wedding gifts--in a nation where the average annual per capita income is just $225. More appalling, the junta spent hundreds of millions of dollars in 2005 to build a brand-new capital city. Yet today Naypyidaw is an eerie landscape of broad, empty streets framed by behemoth government ministries...
...lavish ceremony - this in a country where the average annual per capita income is just $225. Even more galling, the junta turned a thicket of jungle into a brand new administrative capital in late 2005, a project that doubtless cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. Today, Naypyidaw is an eerie landscape of broad, empty streets framed by behemoth government ministries. "It's a complete waste of money," says a senior journalist in Rangoon who asked not to be named for fear of being arrested. "The same money could have been used to meet the needs of the poor...
...CURIOUS CAPITAL In 2005, in a bizarre and abrupt shift, Burma's military leadership moved the capital from its longtime home in coastal Rangoon to a far-flung jungle outpost called Naypyidaw. On March 27, in celebration of Armed Forces Day, junta head General Than Shwe unveiled the city to foreign reporters, surveying his new digs via the open sun roof of his Mercedes limo. Pastel buildings? Check. Eight-lane highway? Check. Vibrant new city for a nation of 47 million? Not yet. Those in Rangoon who still have a choice haven't budged...