Nay Pyi Taw.

This is coolbert:

Here from the latest edition of the National Geographic a description of the Burmese capital city, Nay Pyi Taw. A city built out of the wilderness [?], the ruling junta in Burma deathly afraid of an amphibious attack up the Irrawaddy River, an emulation of Operation Dracula in World War Two [WW2]. The junta members having consulted the astrologers as to the timing of such an attack [an attack existing only in their only minds] and the recourse [the construction of a new capital city away from the ocean, far inland!].

"junta - - noun - - 1. a small group ruling a country, especially immediatey after a coup d'etat and before a legally constituted government has been instituted." [a junta quite often is a group of military men!]

According to the Geographic, among other things you find at Nay Pyi Taw are:

* "an unsettling void: smooth ten-lane roads with manicured roundabouts but scarcely any vehicles."

* "clusters of color-coded government housing complexes with no children in sight"

* "a copy of Yangon's [Rangoon] Shwedagon Pagoda with not a single Buddhist monk chanting prayers"

Furthermore:

"The new capital may feel soulless, but for rulers distrustful of their own people, it could a masterpiece of defensive urban planning. Worried about an imminent attack in Yangon [that amphibious attack up the Irrawaddy river], Than Shwe [the junta boss of bosses] poured several billion dollars into building the city on scrub land in central Myanmar [Burma], safe from killer storms [cyclone Nargis], foreign invasion [that emulation of Dracula], and domestic protests."

"The military zone is a bubble within a bubble, forbidden to all but top officers - - and reportedly honeycombed with underground bunkers."

That despotic and authoritarian ruling Burmese junta has been in charge now for over fifty years!! With no end in sight! A nation almost reclusive in nature, in the model of North Korea, NOT having the cult of personality but rather a number of senior military officers exploiting the natural resources of their own nation for crass reasons and NOW in cahoots with foreign powers [China most specifically]!

Please let us be clear about this! There was to be no foreign invasion, an amphibious attack up the Irrawaddy river in the manner of Dracula from WW2! It was all in the minds of the junta and the astrologers!

My own perceptions and intuition tell me too, that if such an foreign invasion did occur, that army of Than Shwe would disintegrate and be routed in the proverbial heartbeat. If and when such an invasion did occur, and the likelihood of that happening is next to zero!

Pity the plight of the Burmese people! Fifty years now of suffering without amelioration!

coolbert.