Word: shwe
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...hardships are made more unbearable by a widening wealth gap. The country's military leaders are enjoying ever more ostentatious lives, their wallets fattened by gas-pipeline deals with neighbors China, India and Thailand. A samizdat video circulating in Rangoon shows junta chief Than Shwe's daughter getting 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...
...ostentatious lives, their wallets fattened by gas-pipeline deals with neighbors China, Thailand and India. The ruling class cruises around in luxury cars and cloisters itself in compounds ablaze with lights, even as most Burmese face constant electricity rationing. A samizdat video circulating in Rangoon shows junta chief Than Shwe's daughter, decked out in jewels, getting married in a 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...
...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...
...million Value of gifts, according to one estimate, at the lavish wedding of the daughter of Burmese junta leader General Than Shwe, a leaked video of which was released last week $18 million Estimate of Burma's total annual health-care budget in 2003, the latest reliable data available. The country of 53 million people is one of the poorest in the world...
...former Burmese Prime Minister; on charges of corruption and bribery; in a secret tribunal at the infamous Insein prison; in Rangoon. Once considered a comparatively moderate member of Burma's ruling military junta, Khin Nyunt has been under house arrest since being purged in October by Senior General Than Shwe. If convicted, he is expected to receive a long prison sentence; his two sons have already been tried and found guilty on similar charges...