"Construction of various project components to extract, process, and export the Shwe gas - as well as oil trans-shipments from Africa and the Middle East - is now well underway. Local peoples are losing their land and fishing grounds without finding new job opportunities. Workers that have found lowpaying temporary jobs are exploited and fired for demanding basic rights. Women face unequal wages, discrimination in the compensation process, and vulnerabilities in the growing sex industry around the project. Resentment against the so-called Shwe Gas Project is growing and communities are beginning to stand up against abuses and exploitation. Despite threats and risk of arrest, farmers and local residents are sending complaints to local authorities. Laborers are striking for better pay and working conditions and women running households are demanding electricity. Burma?s military government is exporting massive world-class natural gas reserves found off the country?s western coast, sacrificing the country?s future economic security and dashing chances of electrification and job creation. The ?Shwe” offshore fields will produce trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that could be used to spur economic and social development in one of the world?s least developed nations. Instead it will be piped across the country to China, fuelling abuses and conflict along its path. Meanwhile active fighting has broken out between armed resistance groups and government troops in the area of the pipeline corridor in northern Burma. The Korean, Chinese and Indian companies involved in this project are taking tremendous risks with their reputations and investments. Social tensions, armed conflict, human rights abuses, and lack of project standards have raised concerns in investor circles and caused at least one pension fund to divest from the Korean fi rm Daewoo International, the main developer of the gas fields. Genuine development can only be achieved when community rights and the environment are protected, affected peoples share in benefits, and transparency and accountability mechanisms are in place. The Shwe Gas and China-Burma Pipelines projects must be suspended and all financing frozen or divested until such conditions exist..."