“In this regard the international community can best help Myanmar by showing greater understanding. They can begin by refraining from measures which would result in adding fuel to the fire.”

“The unit has one police major and about 12 policemen. We are monitoring about 50 websites but only those that MPT has allowed us to. If we could monitor the main server, it would be more effective,”

U Soe Aung said the centre would help to promote trade in the division’s main commodities – rice and pulses. He said the group, comprising traders, would also address such issues as price speculation and the failure of suppliers to deliver commodities on time.

“So I don’t need to worry about my employees except for a few who are married and don’t live at the hostel. I let them go back home earlier than the others,”

It was attended by about 15 officials and doctors from social rehabilitation centres and hospitals throughout Myanmar run by the Department of Social Welfare.

“The hottest look for 2007 is definitely the bob,” she says. “Unfor-tunately, not everybody can pull off this look. If a client has her heart set on it, I can make a few suggestions and alter the style to suit the shape of her face.”

Having been brought up in an Asian country thousands of miles away from the birthplace of Beethoven, I had never even dreamed of visiting the house of such a historically influential person, but, by a stroke of luck, I had been invited by the German Embassy in Yangon to attend a media conference in Bonn.