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The National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government in Myanmar has now been in office for more than a year, with Aung San Suu Kyi as de facto head of government. Suu Kyi certainly wields sizable influence. In fact, Suu Kyi has often been criticized, by commentators and members of her own party, for keeping too tight-fisted control of actions by the government, so much so that NLD members of parliament seemingly have little to do.

To be sure, on some policy areas, Suu Kyi does not have the level of control that leaders of other, more established democracies enjoy. The military remains an extraordinarily powerful actor in Myanmar, and one apparently capable of operating, in outlying areas at least, without even clearing policy through the Cabinet. The military retains its percentage of seats in parliament, essential control over its budget, and its strong resistance to any constitutional change. Proponents of constitutional change that might reduce the formal powers of the armed forces, like former NLD lawyer U Ko Ni, have been murdered.

Nonetheless, there are areas of policy over which Suu Kyi should enjoy significant influence, and freedom of the press is one of them. Suu Kyi was a longtime opposition leader, at a time (mostly) when Myanmars media was tightly controlled, the security forces regularly detained reporters, and state media outlets used their pages to mock and condemn her. She could use her bully pulpit to promote independent media, greater freedoms for journalists working throughout Myanmar, and an end to media monopolies. She could step in strongly if journalists were detained, and call for greater transparency in government transparency that might actually work in her favor, since a more vibrant Myanmar press could well expose abuses by the armed forces and, indirectly, apply pressure for constitutional change.

But Suu Kyi has not taken this approach. Instead, over the past year, press freedom in Myanmar seems to have regressed. In some respects, press freedom in Myanmar now seems more restrictive than it was in the final years of the former Thein Sein government. The Suu Kyi government has not tried to change existing laws that are major barriers to a free press. The Committee to Protect Journalists Shawn Crispin notes:

Chief among those laws is section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, a broad provision that carries potential three-year prison terms for cases of defamation over communications networks. While the law was used only occasionally against journalists under military rule, politicians, military officials, and even Buddhist monks are increasingly using it now to stifle online and social media criticism.

The Myanmar chapter of the PEN press freedom group has estimated that over 55 cases have been filed, under this law, just in the year since Suu Kyis government came into office. Meanwhile, late last month three journalists were arrested in Shan State, under a different Unlawful Association law. These reporters included one from The Irrawaddy; they had been covering one of the countrys ethnic insurgencies as well as allegations of abuses by the state security forces. The return of a climate of fear is very disturbing, wrote The Irrawaddys editor-in-chief, Aung Zaw, after the publications reporter was arrested.

As with the rising toll of defamation cases, Suu Kyi has said nothing about the arrests in Shan State. A spokesperson for her party told the New York Times, For media personnel, press freedom is a key need For us, peace, national development and economic development are the priority, and then democracy and human rights, including press freedom.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyis government has enacted other restrictions on press access. It has made it nearly impossible for journalists to cover parts of Rakhine State in the west. The Suu Kyi government also recently refused to provide visas to UN investigators tasked with analyzing the situation in Rakhine State and allegations of abuse by Myanmar security forces in Rakhine State. In some ways, the Suu Kyi government is looking more and more like its predecessors.

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The NLD-Led Government in Myanmar Looks Eerily Familiar on Press Freedom - Council on Foreign Relations (blog)

PORSTEWART, Northern Ireland Rory McIlroy has banned himself from twitter and social media following his online public spat with Steve Elkington and given over control of his Twitter account to his new wife, Erica Stoll. McIlroy make the big reveal ahead of the $7 million Dubai Duty Free Irish Open which he is hosting this week at Portstewart.

Elkington accused McIlory, No. 4 in the world, of being bored with golf and more interested in money after the four-time major winner missed the cut in the U.S. Open.

Rory is so bored playing golf, without Tiger the threshold is prolly four majors with 100 mill in the bank, Elkington tweeted.

McIlroy couldnt resist replying: More like 200 mill, not bad for a bored 28-year-old, plenty more where that came from, Rory replied while adding a list of his considerable achievements in his 10 years in top flight golf.

Elkington can insult McIlory all he wants on twitter, but Rory wont respond. Hes currently on sabbatical from all forms of social media.

I must have wrote that tweet and deleted it about five times before I actually sent it, McIlroy revealed. I sort of regret sending it.

He wont be able to reply for the time being because hes now not in control of his own twitter account.

I actually gave my wife, Erica, my phone and my twitter (account) and told her: Change my password to something else and dont tell me what it is.

So, as of the time being, Im off social media just because of that reason. I dont need to read it. Its stuff that shouldnt get to you and sometimes it does.

The 28-year-old has over three million twitter followers and gets a lot of feedback, positive and negative. He can deal with comments from those who dont know how hard it is to win majors, but reacted to Elkington because he feels the 1995 PGA Championship winner should know better.

Its not what was said, McIlory explained. Its who said it. Anyone thats been in that environment should realise how hard golf is at times. Thats the thing that got to me more than anything else.

If it was written by a member of the media or something I could let it slide, because I can sort of says to myself they dont really know how it is and the dont know what you have to deal with. But a former player that has won a major and been successful? Thats sort of why it got to me and why I sort of retaliated a little bit.

If Elkington wants to opine about Rorys game in future, hes going to have to deal with Mrs McIlroy. And the Australian should be reminded that hell have no fury.

Read more here:
Rory McIlory bans himself from Twitter, gives wife control of account - Golfweek.com

Denali wolf (Photo courtesy of National Park service)

The state plans to suspend its largest wolf control program. The Upper Yukon Tanana area program, which has targeted wolves in an area of the eastern interior since 2004, is scheduled to cease after the 2017-2018 season.

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The States long running Upper Yukon Tanana wolf control effort is aimed at increasing Forty Mile caribou numbers for hunters by reducing the number of wolves on the caribou herds calving grounds, but Alaska Department of Fish and Game regional supervisor Darren Bruning said recent years field research indicates wolves are not the limiting factor.

Potential signs of nutritionallimitations were identified, including increased caribou birth rates and reduced calf weights, Bruning said.

A Fish and Game study published earlier this year said Forty Mile caribou grew from 13,000 in 1990 to over 50,000 at last count, but that the biggest growth was prior to wolf control. Since 2004, over a thousand Forty Mile area wolves have been shot from aircraft, under a state intensive management program thats cost millions of dollars. Bruning stresses the programs scientific value.

The information gained through the research activities associated with intensive management are the most valuable product of the program, Bruning said.

The Forty Mile area wolf control program demonstrates the problem with manipulating a complicated natural system, according to retired wildlife biologist Fran Mauer of Fairbanks. Mauer, a critic of predator control, said the state may find itself working in the opposite direction.

If a herd is reaching carrying capacity, its imperative to be ready to reduce the number of animals on the land to preventa precipitous collapse or crash, Mauer said.

Mauer, is frustrated that the state hasnt already curtailed the Forty Mile area wolf kill. Hunting can be used to thin the herd, but Mauer, said its ironic that the state may also end up relying on wolves to reduce the caribou to a sustainable number.

The concern is that weve already reached, or are approaching, carrying capacity, Mauer said. And if anything, we may need those wolves to help bring the herd down.

The Alaska Board of Game authorizes predator control based on Fish and Game recommendations. Board chairman Ted Spraker conceded wildlife management is not always a simple equation.

We all understand how complex and complicated these issues are, Spraker said. And it also takes time to understand if these trends are a one-year trend or is it just a blip. Or is this population moving up or down.

Spraker said environmental factors, like climate change, further complicate the situation. The state plans research over the next five years to look at what happens to Forty Mile caribou after wolf control ends. Wolves killed in the state program have included animals based in the Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve.

While predator control took place outside of the preserve, it did have an impact on the population and the makeup of wolf packs within Yukon Charley, Spraker said.

Preserve Superintendent Greg Dudgeon said some of the wolves lost were part of a long running NPS study, which was halted due to the state wolf kill.

We did lose several years in what had been a 22-year-long for wolves with home ranges within Yukon Charley Rivers natural preserve, Dudgeon said. We wont get that back.

A recently published article on the Yukon Charley wolf study details impacts of state wolf control on wolves in the 2.7 million acre preserve. Dudgeon said Yukon Charley resumed wolf research this past winter, collaring seven animals to track.

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Interior wolf control program to end - Alaska Public Radio Network

As the discussions at the ANC's 2017 policy conference intensify, one of the controversial policy issues to receive more attention will be media transformation.

Admittedly, transformation has become a stalled cause as noted by Professor Jane Duncan, thereby vindicating to a certain degree the ANC's posture in this regard.

While the elevation of this policy by the ANC is laudable, the manner in which it is pursued may not yield desired outcomes.

It will in fact turn it into a grit coercive rhetoric, which may be covertly resisted by the private sector through ticking of boxes and fronting. This is because of the following reasons: ownership and control and racial focus.

While these elements are critical given the country's history resulting in the ownership and control of media in a few white hands - hence the four conglomerates in the print sector - the significant shareholding currently held by the unions, through their investment vehicles, has shown that mere changes in the racial makeup of ownership and control, and the board's appointment will not automatically bring about meaningful transformation.

Media organisations operate in a capitalist environment, which shape their conduct and behaviour, irrespective of their ownership and control.

Indeed ownership and control is a primary step, but it cannot be transformation in itself. Neither can it automatically result in achieving other elements such as language and content diversity.

These elements have their own complexities and they need different strategies of intervention. This will help in monitoring where progress is being made.

Again the obsession with ownership and control has led to a narrow approach focusing only on the private sector to the exclusion of public institutions such as PanSALB (Pan South African Language Board) and the MDDA (Media Development and Diversity Agency), who equally have a responsibility to develop African languages and media diversity in its various forms.

While transformation has been a fundamental post-apartheid media policy, it has never been clearly defined.

An adjective of radicalism has since been added to it, thus complicating it even further. In the absence of a clear definition, backed up by credible research and regular monitoring, meaningful transformation can only be rhetoric.

Media transformation should be understood for what it is. At times it is used as an instrument to unbundle monopolies.

This is a wrong approach. It is not necessary that monopolies are inimical to transformation. It is quite possible that monopolies can be used as a vehicle to pursue transformation.

Finally, timing is critical in policy making. While media transformation may have been part of SA's democratic path, the sudden noise made around it, compounded by the grit coercion, may be viewed as the ANC's frantic attempt to muzzle the media in view of power shift within and outside the party.

The ANC has been built on the art of ideological persuasion, not coercion, hence its broad church character. Therefore, its success in pushing these kinds of policies through will be determined by its ability to balance the art of persuasion and grit coercion.

Pursuing grit coercion may bring undesired results. Internally, it may bring about policy ambiguity and discord. Externally, it may be alienating to those moderate thinkers who would have been alliance partners in this regard.

Read more:
OPINION: Media transformation can be won through persuasion - SowetanLIVE

State media said Kim supervised the launch of Pyongyang's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Tuesday, which it says is powerful enough to reach the US mainland.

"With a broad smile on his face," Kim called on officials to "frequently send big and small 'gift packages' to the Yankees," KCNA reported, as it listed the technical successes of the rocket, identified by the North Koreans as a Hwasong-14.

The report said the missile was able to carry a "large-sized heavy nuclear warhead," and despite "extreme overload and vibration the nuclear warhead detonation control device successfully worked."

Among the elements being tested was a warhead tip "made of newly developed domestic carbon compound material" designed to withstand the extreme heat of re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere.

It added "the warhead accurately hit the targeted waters without any structural breakdown at the end of its flight."

North Korea said the missile flew on a steep trajectory, going 2,800 kilometers (1,741 miles) above the Earth, before splashing down in sea off the Korean Peninsula 930 kilometers (578 miles) from its launch site.

The missile was launched Tuesday from Panghyon, in North Pyongan province, and landed in the sea off the Korean Peninsula.

Claims of unbridled success by North Korea's state media need to be taken with a pinch of salt, said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

"We can never take KCNA exclusively as a source because its so prone to embellishment, (and) the information it reports can never be confirmed.

"On the other hand, it's not out of the realm of possibility... I think its best to assume that they have successfully tested an ICBM. The reason they're sharing this technical data (through state media) is to prove that they have it," she said.

Hanham said analysts are now examining the images provided by North Korean state media, to look for similarities to previously launched missiles.

The Hwasong-14 tested on July 4 is similar to the Hwasong-12, which was test-fired in May, but perhaps with a larger engine configuration and an extra stage, a section of the missile that's released during flight. "The second stage looks like something we haven't seen before," she said.

While the test seems to have indicated the missile's range was at least 6,000 kilometers, Hanham said its maximum potential could be even further. "The scary thing is, (we don't know if) they even tested it to its full range," she said.

Based on analysis of its visible fuel and oxidizer tanks, it could hit as far away as Washington DC, though that class of missile is yet to be tested, she said.

David Wright, co-director and senior scientist at the global security program with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said North Korean rocket scientists seem to be making advances on multiple fronts.

"One of the things that's interesting, watching from a technical point of view, is that it has eight or nine different missiles in development in parallel," he told CNN.

"They're making progress and they have a lot of things in the workshop that they're putting together."

There is a growing consensus among analysts that North Korea has the ability to build a warhead that can fit onto a missile.

Five nuclear tests over the past 11 years suggest that the regime has indeed developed nuclear weaponry, and many analysts now believe that the miniaturization process is progressing rapidly.

If images released by KCNA in March 2016, showing Kim posing with what appeared to be a nuclear warhead, are to be believed, progress has indeed been made on this front.

The UCS' Wright thinks that while they may not yet have succeeded in producing a warhead capable of being attached to their new class of ICBM, the clock is ticking.

"The big question is whether or not they can build something that's both small enough and rugged enough to withstand the flight of a long range missile," Wright said.

"That could be a year or so. It's hard to tell. But it's clear that unless something changes that they're on their way to both a long range missile and a warhead to put on it.

"And I would argue that that's exactly why the United States needs to be finding a way to talk to North Korea to basically put a cap on this program."

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North Korea state media celebrates 'gift' to 'American bastards' - CNN International