COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — With most opposition leaders in jail or exile, public protests tightly controlled and courts rendering verdicts decried for lack of due process, the Maldives has nearly slid back to where it was eight years ago: an autocratic state that quashes dissent.

Since assuming power in this Indian Ocean archipelago nation of luxurious seaside resorts just over two years ago, President Yameen Abdul Gayoom has tightened his grip on this fledgling democracy with virtually no challenger.

The opposition is in disarray and freedoms have been restricted. Mohamed Nasheed, a pro-democracy activist who won the 2008 elections, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, and two defense ministers, including one of Gayoom's allies who fell out of favor, have been given long prison terms. Street protests are banned and rallies that are permitted in restricted places are poorly attended.

Even two of Gayoom's vice presidents have been voted out by allied lawmakers in Parliament. The first fled the country and the second has been arrested for attempting to assassinate the president in a mysterious blast on his speedboat.

"If the ruling party doesn't allow the opposition to function, again the concept of democracy is flawed," said Abbas Faiz, Amnesty International's Maldives researcher. "In today's Maldives the reality is this."

Former Maldives President and current opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed, in white, tussles with policemen who stopped him from speaking to journalists Feb. 23, 2015, in Male, Maldives. Photo : Sinan Hussain / Associated Press

The U.S. State Department has called for an end to politically motivated trials and urged the country to "restore confidence and a commitment to democracy and human rights."

It's been a depressing downward spiral for this young democracy of 1,200 coral islands that in 2008 was brimming with hope after holding its first multiparty election, ending the autocratic 30-year rule of Gayoom's half-brother.

During his time in office, Nasheed faced conflicts with the judiciary and bureaucracy. His handling of disputes and controversial steps like locking up the Supreme Court and arresting opposition politicians raised questions about his own abuse of power. His ordering of the arrest of a top sitting judge in 2013 and holding him in secret detention triggered weeks of protests.

Nasheed resigned amid the public outcry and after losing support from a section of the military, but he then battled Gayoom in a contentious 2013 election. The Supreme Court annulled the first round results that showed Nasheed in the lead, and police then delayed a revote giving Gayoom enough time to form a winning coalition.

Gayoom, 56, has steadily concentrated power in his hands and tried to sideline opponents.

After governing coalition party leader resort owner Gasim Ibrahim defected to the opposition last year, his properties were seized by the government and his bank accounts frozen. He fled the country and returned several months later in support of Gayoom's government, and won court cases that gave him back control of his properties and accounts.

Last month, Sheikh Imran Abdulla, leader of the country's conservative Islamic party, was sentenced to a 12-year jail term for instigating violence in a speech during an anti-government protest last year.

Even Gayoom's allies aren't safe. His running mate in the 2013 election was voted out by Parliament and Gayoom appointed an ambitious young loyalist to the post. But within months the new deputy was arrested for plotting to assassinate Gayoom in a blast aboard the presidential speedboat. The government insists it was a bomb but FBI investigators said there is no such evidence. No vice president has been appointed since.

Gayoom also plans to make defamation a criminal offense amid series of media reports and opposition statements implicating him in corruption and money laundering — charges he denies.

Government spokesman Ibrahim Hussain Shihab says democracy is still evolving in the country and that it welcomes support from the international community.

"Maldives is a young democracy; it has one of the most liberal constitutions in the region," he said. "We have independent institutions as well but they are still at the stage of building capacity. The capacity itself is not ideal. We want to work toward that."

In response to criticism from international organizations for failing to protect democratic principles, Shihab acknowledged that the country "may be lacking."

"What we need is guidance and support to rectify problems inherent in this young democracy," he said. "We are open to international support."

The European Union is working with the Maldives to improve its democracy, but recent events raise serious concerns, said Paul Godfrey, the EU's deputy head of mission for Sri Lanka and Maldives.

"We have seen a movement backward from the election in 2013," Godfrey said, "which under the current circumstances don't give us confidence that there could be a free and fair election in 2018."

Story: Krishan Francis / Associated Press

MANKATO, Minnesota — One dog apparently has learned a new trick: how to drive a semi-truck.

Customers at a Minnesota gas station saw a golden Labrador retriever appear to drive the semi across a road Friday.

Mankato police say the idling truck apparently was put into gear, then went through a parking lot, across the street and over a curb.

The Free Press of Mankato reports a passer-by discovered the dog sitting in the driver's seat when he jumped into the truck to stop it.

David Stegora was at the store when he heard the truck smash into a tree and a parked car. He couldn't see the driver, but saw the dog climb up near the driver's side.

Police say the truck was taken off the road. The driver had left the unoccupied truck running in a nearby parking lot.

Story: Associated Press

To reach us about this article or another matter, please contact us by e-mail at: [email protected].

Follow @KhaosodEnglish

MRAUK-U, Rakhine State — The archeological museum chronicling the ancient Arakan kingdom of Mrauk-U, one of Myanmar’s most important cultural sites, is housed in an unassuming, one-story building with a worn-out sign that has letters missing.

Located on the old palace grounds, it has one main room and three side rooms where you can find intricate stone carvings, exquisite bronze Buddhas and beautiful glazed tiles. Some of the art on display dates back to the 8th century, while much stems from 15th and 16th centuries, when the Arakan Kingdom of Mrauk-U, located in the north of present-day Rakhine State, was at its zenith. 

Low-ceilinged, badly lit, devoid of visitors and with the treasures displayed in a seemingly random manner, the state of the museum reflects the state of this ancient city – full of forgotten, magnificent ruins in urgent need of concerted conservation efforts.

 Sun rises over the temples of Mrauk-U, Rakhine State. Photo: Thin Lei Win / Myanmar Now

I actually didn’t come to the town of Mrauk-U on a recent visit to enjoy the sights, but to attend and help moderate the 4th ethnic media conference held here. I also planned to interview Rakhine villagers affected by the December fighting between the rebels of the Arakan Army and the military. The latter plan, however, was scuttled by Myanmar’s notoriously vague and confusing bureaucracy

To visit the affected villages, I was told; I needed permission from the Rakhine State Ministry of Information in Sittwe. But once there, I was informed I needed permission from four other offices, including the Ministry of Border Affairs and Ministry of Immigration and Population, a requirement for which there was no time. In Mrauk-U, the township administrator simply suggested I travel back to Sittwe to gain the necessary authorizations.

Determined not to waste my trip, I decided to visit Mrauk-U, a legendary but difficult to reach heritage site I had long wanted to visit. What I found was a small, dusty but lively town situated among the crumbling splendor of 15th and 16th century Buddhist temples.

Intricate carvings of Buddhist scenes are seen in the hallways of the Sitthaung Temple in Mrauk-U. Photo: Thin Lei Win / Myanmar Now

Old-World Feel

The Buddhist zedis in Mrauk-U are dark, its bricks stained with moss as a result of the region’s hot summers and heavy monsoon season. This gives the stupas a more austere, old-world feel, unlike the heavily gilded ones common in Myanmar. Some no longer have roofs and many have vegetation growing around the temples and Buddha statues, reinforcing the feeling that you are seeing things through a filter, or have been transported to a bygone era.

Inside, they evoke awe, with long, secluded stone passageways decorated with intricately carved figurines and thousands of Buddhas in varying shapes and sizes. There aren’t as many pagodas here as in Bagan, the ancient Buddhist complex in central Myanmar, where the authorities have evicted villages from the archeological zone to promote tourism and hotel construction by well-connected companies.

Here, the history is exists amid a bustling ethnic Rakhine community, creating a unique sense of a continued and living history. Mrauk-U was the capital of the Arakan Kingdom, which fell in 1784 to the Burmese Konbaung Dynasty. At the height of their power, Arakanese kings controlled an area covering parts of eastern Bengal, modern-day Rakhine State and western part of lower Myanmar.

Compared to Bagan, Mrauk-U gets a tiny fraction of tourists, partly due to the difficulty of getting there. There are no direct flights and the only way to the site is a three-hour boat ride from Rakhine’s capital Sittwe on the Mrauk-U River, or a lengthy car journey. The uncertainty ahead of the Nov. 8 elections deterred many tourists this year too, locals say, while the town suffered its worst floods in 50 years six months ago, damaging local businesses and worsening the dusty, pot-holed roads.

Another deterrent – one that locals don’t like talk about – is the 2012 communal violence in Mrauk-U and other northern Rakhine townships, which left both Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhist communities deeply scarred and segregated, and has made international headlines ever since.

Conservation and Restoration, Not Renovation

One of the most famous and impressive sites is the Shitthaung Temple, meaning “80,000 Images”, built in 1535, where five passageways boast 80,000 buddha images, statues and carvings.

Despite its beauty, ill-planned renovation to the temple several years ago by local authorities provides a warning of what could occur if construction methods are applied that damage the historic structures. At Shitthaung stupa, the top was rebuilt using concrete, at odds with the rest of the building material. Not only does it look new and out of place, locals say it is not going to age the same way.

Buddha figures seated around Pisi Pagoda, Mrauk-U. Photo: Thin Lei Win / Myanmar Now

Therein lies the dilemma facing Mrauk-U. It sorely needs support and funding to maintain its rich cultural heritage, which are deteriorating rapidly. But if it is to retain its heritage, it is crucially important that ancient structures are conserved and restored, not renovated – as overzealous officials did to many ancient temples in Bagan until they are barely distinguishable from new ones.

In 2014, UNESCO officials began discussions with Myanmar on Bagan’s listing as a World Heritage site, but efforts were complicated by the former junta’s controversial renovations – once called a ‘Disney-style fantasy’ by UN officials – hotel expansion and forced evictions of villages.

At Mrauk-U, archeologists and conservation experts, not bureaucrats and construction companies, should be leading conservation and restoration efforts.

“There’s a plethora of challenges facing conservation of ancient buildings. The city of Mrauk-U was once Southeast Asia’s greatest fortified cantonment,” Khin Than, chairperson of the Mrauk-U Ancient Cultural Heritage Conservation Group, told Myitmakha News Agency recently.

“Tenders were put out for restorations of areas of Mrauk-U, but a great deal of highly valued Rakhine (Arakan) cultural handiworks – found in pagodas, walls and brick walls – were destroyed as those carrying out the restorations were not archaeologists.”

Funding is another major challenge. The same news story said the Rakhine State government had allocated 600 million kyats (17.4 million baht) for conservation for 2015-16 fiscal year to cover the sprawling area with hundreds of temples and other structures.

As we left the archeological museum and palace grounds, we chanced upon a group of men building a wire fence around a pond.

An ogre figure stands on the edge of a recently unearthed pond at Mrauk-U palace grounds. Photo: Thin Lei Win / Myanmar Now

Called “Nan Thar Kan” or a pond for palace residents, they recently unearthed the square pond using those funds. The work revealed a stone tablet, stone carvings of a deity and an ogre in each corner (as protection, apparently) and a cascade of old bricks leading down into it. What looked like an ordinary pond is now transformed into a beautiful, historic site.

A supervisor there said at least 10 more feet of sand still needed to be removed to completely uncover the pond. When will that happen, I asked? “We don’t know because we don’t know if, or when we will get more funding,” he said.

Story: Thin Lei Win

To reach us about this article or another matter, please contact us by e-mail at: [email protected].

Follow @KhaosodEnglish

BEIJING — China's government has highlighted big data, encryption technology and "core technologies" such as semiconductors as the key elements of its push to grow into a tech powerhouse, according to a new five-year plan released Saturday that envisages the Internet as a major source of growth as well as a potential risk.

Even as it highlighted the need to improve Internet infrastructure to rural areas and unlock the digital economy's potential, Chinese economic planners called for a more secure and better managed Web, with enhanced Internet control systems, Internet security laws and real-name registration policies.

Chinese officials including Internet czar Lu Wei have played down concerns over what critics have described as China's expanding Web censorship, saying that it is the Chinese government's sovereign prerogative and a necessary measure to maintain domestic order.

China's development plan calls for a better cybersecurity approval system and more "precise" Web management to "clean up illegal and bad information."
The plan also calls for a multilateral, democratic, transparent and international governance system and active participation in international Internet governance efforts.

Premier Li Keqiang highlighted the promise of the Internet, saying Saturday that various traditional sectors, ranging from manufacturing to government to health care, need to connect to the Web and raise their efficiency as part of an overarching national strategy called "Internet Plus." He vowed to raise research and technology spending to account for 2.5 percent of gross domestic product in the five years through 2020, which he said would mark a "remarkable achievement."

The five-year plan calls for all families in large cities to have access to 100 megabyte-per-second Internet service and broadband coverage reaching 98 percent of the population in incorporated villages.

At the same time, Chinese leaders, wary of over-relying on foreign technology, will seek to boost China's homegrown industry and cut down on imports — a strategy that has drawn complaints from trade partners like the United States.

Similar to previous years, when Chinese leaders highlighted industries such as e-commerce as a growth focus, the new draft of China's development plan specifically elevated big data and cloud computing, relatively new and promising fields that Chinese industry experts view as not yet cornered by U.S. companies that dominate other parts of the technology market.

The plan also calls for China to catch up on "core" technologies such as semiconductors and basic computer parts and software, as well as encryption technology.

China's campaign to beef up its chip technology has encountered political resistance from the United States. China's national chip champion, Tsinghua Unigroup, said last month that it would abandon its attempt to acquire a stake in California data storage firm Western Digital, the second deal it has scrapped because of opposition from U.S. regulators who do not want sensitive technology to fall into Chinese hands.

Story: Gerry Shih / Associated Press

To reach us about this article or another matter, please contact us by e-mail at: [email protected].

Follow @KhaosodEnglish