Truck and Barter

The military dictators of Myanmar (Burma) has got another asset to maintain their tyranny over the Burmese people and play around with neighboring giants- ten trillion cubic feet of natural gas;

“The Great Game of the 19th Century was played between empire builders Britain and Russia, using Afghanistan as their football in seeking control of central Asia. Today, there is a new great game under way between two very different competitors -- China and India. But this time the ball is Burma…

Burma is saturated in more than ten trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and possibly also oil, beneath its offshore waters, which stretch from the border of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal down to within sight of Thailand's azure blue coastline, dotted with tourist resorts. It is that rugged and undeveloped coastline of almost 1,000 miles that particularly interests the new great game players.

After much wrangling, and especially after a first-ever visit by an Indian head of state, President Abdul Kalam, to Burma last March, New Delhi thought it had secured exclusive purchase from Burma of 5.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That was the quantity onfirmed by independent U.S. assessors Gaffney, Cline & Associates to be in just one undersea block, known as A-1, of the Shwe field near the port of Sittwe. But while India was sizing up the route of a 960-mile land pipeline bypassing Bangladesh, China swooped in and signed a memorandum of agreement to buy the A-1 gas.”

Related;
Burma: Orwellian state, with teashops
Burma's confusing capital move
Annan pays tribute to UN envoy in Myanmar upon his resignation
Junta Pressures Social Welfare Group;
“Rangoon’s only funeral service association, under pressure by authorities, is likely to be taken over by a military-backed civilian group, according to social workers in Rangoon”