It was a day in early May 2004 when the Managing Direc­tor (MD), U Min Hla Aung, gave me an instruction to accompany him to the Minister’s office for a crucial matter. I was working as a Deputy General Manager at the Export Department under Myanmar Agricultural Produce Trading.

THE world is witnessing a growing population and an increas­ing number of travellers, both domestically and internation­ally. Unfortunately, this has led to a surge in pollution along the coastlines of oceans and seas, which make up over 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface. Iconic beaches worldwide are now bearing the brunt of various forms of pollution. Therefore, it is imperative for all countries to prioritize the conservation of their coastal and marine ecosystems.

​​​​​​​Food is the cornerstone of life for all living beings. Agriculture and livestock play pivotal roles in meeting the dietary needs of people across the globe. The dedicated efforts of farmers in these sectors are instrumental in producing essential food items derived from crops and livestock.

THE Bago River, currently resembling a male elephant in musth, has unleashed its fury upon the low-lying areas that surround it. The overflow has extended into the southern regions, reaching even parts of the Yangon Region. This surge of water poses a significant threat to the urban areas of Bago. However, in the face of this daunting challenge, it is crucial to recognize that humans possess the knowledge and techniques necessary to control and address such emergencies.

T HE 24th Myanmar Traditional Cultural Performing Arts Competitions of 2023 heralds a significant day for the nation’s traditional and cultural performers. This event provides a stage for the display of their remarkable skills and talents, encompassing singing, dancing, song composition, and the mastery of musical instruments.

“ရာဇဝင်ကို ချွေးနှင့်ရေးရမည်ဆိုတော့ ငန်ငြိငြိနေတာပေါ့။ ထို့ကြောင့် ဂျပန်တို့လက်ထက် တွင် ဗမာတတွေ ကမ္ဘာမကျေအောင်ရသော လွတ်လပ်ရေး၏ အရသာမှာ ငဘအဖို့ ငန်ငြိငြိ ဖြစ်လေသည်။ အကြောင်းကိုဆိုသော် ချွေးတပ်သားအတွက် ဝါးကွပ်ပျစ် တန်းလျားပေါ်တွင် မနပ်ဘဲနှင့်ပြဲနေသော ထမင်းပုံကြီးဘေး၌ ဖုန်မှုန့်ရောသော ငါးပိတုံးများမှာ ဆားပွင့်၍နေလေ ရာ ခွေးမှပင်မစားသော အစာကို မနေသာ၍ ဆာဆာနှင့် စားလိုက်တိုင်း ပါးစပ်ထဲတွင် ဆားခု၍နေသောကြောင့် ဖြစ်လေသည်။” (a short excerpt from ‘ငဘ’ by မောင်ထင်, published in 1991.)

THROUGHOUT the first ten days of October this year, Myanmar experienced overcast skies and incessant rainfall due to the slight influence of tropical storm Koinu, lingering over the South China Sea. This tropical disturbance unleashed heavy downpours across the nation, causing widespread flooding in low-lying regions and states.

​​​​​​​FOR far too long, unscrupulous businesspersons jeopardized the health of consumers by flooding the domestic market with adulterated cooking oils like groundnut oil, sesame oil, and sunflower oil. This rampant practice, driven by nothing but greed, has placed ordinary consumers at risk, as they lack the expertise and resources to test these oils for safety.

MYANMAR’S backbone of economic growth lies within its Micro-, Small-, and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs). These enterprises, readily accessible to citizen businesspersons, play a pivotal role in shaping the nation’s development and bolstering the state’s economy. Recognizing their significance, the government has embarked on a mission to encourage and invigorate MSMEs. Their strategy primarily focuses on prioritizing manufacturing processes, thereby fortifying the domestic economy, reducing dependence on imported goods, and augmenting export volumes.