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It’s not necessarily connected with our relations with China. A lot of officers in the Burmese Army have always wanted to have good relations with the US. Previously we have had good relations with the U.S. and some of the generals were trained in the U.S. The Minister of Labor had a stint at Fort Benning.
I heard he is the President’s liaison to you. Is that so?
That is right. He has been the liaison between me and the government for several years—since 2007. A few times a year we had a meeting at a government guest house.
What did you think of him?
He is intelligent, which is a plus. He has good will. He wants the right kind of changes. Before 2004, they had a designated liaison officer. But he was removed.My first liaison officer was a major and he rose through the ranks. At the end he was a brigadier. I knew some of the army quite well. I was the responsibility...
You have some familiarity with army thinking?
Of course. And you must not forget that I come from an army family.
So they treated you well? They wanted to talk to you and find out if you were going to give up?
They understood early on that I was not going to give up.
[If democracy comes to your country], would you put people on trial for crimes against humanity? You previously mentioned the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa instead of the Egyptian model of putting people on trial in cages.
I am a great admirer of Desmond Tutu. I like quoting his words that he believes in reformative rather than retributive justice. I think he means it and I mean it, too. I don’t like putting even animals in cages. I would hope that people should be treated with dignity whatever they have done.
Right now, you hope for what?
I hope to win all the seats in the elections, which are very few. They aren’t giving it to us. They are going to contest this election themselves [the UNDP, the ruling party].
Do you think you can win all 48 seats?
Has there been a history of a 100 percent win? There are other democratic parties contesting the election.
Did President Obama ask your opinion about sending Secretary Clinton to Burma?
He asked if I thought it was a good idea and I said yes.
Yes, she is very nice and very intelligent. I like intelligent people.
Evanston Preservation Commission members, along with the city’s preservation coordinator Carlos Ruiz, deliberate Northwestern’s proposal to rezone the campus. Their changes to the proposal included dividing NU into five zones as opposed to its current two, as well as requesting the ability to review proposals for major...
Members from the Evanston Preservation Commission passed a motion at a special committee meeting Thursday night to redivide Northwestern’s campus into five lots. The proposal now goes back to the University for review.
NU’s campus east of Sheridan Road is currently divided into two zones: one historic zone to the west that contains all 12 of the landmark structures on campus — including Lunt Hall, Annie May Swift Hall and Deering Library — and one eastern zone that encompasses the Lakefill.
The first zone, however, contains an additional 46 buildings that are not landmarks, but because they sit inside the historic zone, NU must gain approval from the Preservation Commission on building renovations or projects in the zone. In February, NU proposed new subdivisions that would split the western zone into fiv...
Carlos Ruiz, the city’s preservation coordinator, spurred discussion by presenting the city’s recommendation that the committee accept NU’s proposal with two additional conditions. The first was that two of the lots, which together cover the area between the Technological Institute and the Donald P. Jacobs Center be co...
The committee largely agreed on the conditions, aside from the vice chair Jack Weiss, who thought 250 feet was too small an area.
Weiss later presented a motion that allowed for the 250 feet limitation, but requested that the committee’s suggestions be binding instead of simply advisory.
Weiss added that the committee’s recommendations should be incorporated into a process by the city’s Design and Project Review Committee, which would then work with the Preservation Commission and NU to reach a cohesive decision.
Instead of NU gaining approval from the Preservation Commission to build in the historic zone first — which is the current process — the university would now be able to go directly through DAPR. If the commission had any problems, they would be addressed in DAPR’s report before construction was allowed to begin.
“Conceptually speaking, if there were issues raised by the Preservation Commission that were then submitted to DAPR and DAPR felt that those comments were not satisfied by the University or anyone else, then we could hold the permit until we felt that those comments were addressed,” explained Mark Muenzer, the city’s d...
The final motion, which called for the creation of five lots and binding review of projects within the 250-foot border, passed with a 4-2 vote.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force has reversed budget-driven plans to reduce use of a missile-warning radar on the Aleutian Islands in light of heightened tensions with North Korea, the general in charge of space and cyberspace operations said on Tuesday.
Struggling to find $508 million in savings for fiscal 2013, Air Force officials initially decided to scale back use of the radar to quarter power for the rest of the year. The move would have saved about $5 million.
"With the situation in North Korea, we've decided to leave that at full power," General William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, told reporters at a conference in Colorado Springs.
He declined comment on any additional changes being made due to tensions with North Korea, but said the Pentagon was watching developments closely.
"The entire Department of Defense, us included, (is) paying very close attention to the provocations by the North Koreans," Shelton said when asked about any actions taken by Air Force Space Command in response to the crisis. "You can let your mind go from there, but we're paying attention."
The comments came the same day that the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific told Congress the United States is capable of intercepting a North Korean missile, should Pyongyang launch one in the coming days. But Washington may choose not to shoot it down if the projected trajectory shows it is not a threat.
The Aleutian Islands are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 57 smaller ones that extend about 1,200 miles from the western coast of Alaska.
The Air Force has operated various missile-tracking radars on one of the islands, Shemya, since 1943. It has a 95-foot diameter active electronically scanned array AN/FPS-108 Cobra Dane radar built by Raytheon Co at Eareckson Air Station on the island.
Shelton said the Air Force's initial plan to reduce the radar's power would have eliminated its ability to track objects in space, but the Air Force has other ways to carry out that work.
An accountant, a lawyer and two retired executives each collected more than $475,000 last year - and one topped $600,000 - doing part-time work for multiple Wisconsin companies.
The men are members of corporate America's most elite club: the board of directors.
Thomas Fischer, who ran the Milwaukee office of Arthur Andersen for 10 years, collected $575,864 for serving on four boards last year. Ulice Payne Jr., a well-wired attorney, picked up $581,109 as a member of four boards.
Dennis Kuester, former chief executive officer of Marshall & Ilsley Corp., collected $479,965 to help oversee three companies, including M&I, while San W. Orr Jr., brought in $538,077 as chairman of the board of Wausau Paper Corp. and another $103,317 as an M&I director.
"It's a hell of a lot of money," Fischer acknowledged - quickly adding, "The responsibilities are huge."
The $641,394 that Orr was paid put him at the top of 419 people who sit part-time on boards of 52 of the state's largest public companies, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by the Journal Sentinel. The pay includes cash, stock and other benefits.
The newspaper found that the average public company board member was paid $126,398 to serve on a single board of directors in Wisconsin last year, more than three times the average wage for a Wisconsin worker. Many serve on more than one board, and 20 serve on four or more public company boards.
While compensation for chief executive officers has long been a focus of shareholders and the media, pay for board members has largely escaped scrutiny - even though it has soared in recent years and responsibilities have increased after several corporate scandals.
"It's only a matter of time before people say . . . 'What exactly are we getting that is 10 times more valuable that it used to be?' " said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at the Corporate Library, a Portland, Maine, corporate governance advisory firm.
The newspaper's review found that the Wisconsin boards had more overlap than those nationally, with directors in Wisconsin far more likely to serve on multiple boards. More than a third of the 419 members serve on more than one board. Nationally, a Corporate Library report found 21% in that category.
In Wisconsin, 4.77% of those in the newspaper's review served on four or more boards. Nationally, the Corporate Library found just 300 board members out of more than 21,000 - or 1.5% - in that category.
Some corporate governance experts cringe when a board member serves on four-plus boards.
"You're just not able to spend enough time to do a good job for each company," Hodgson said.
The median pay of public board members in Wisconsin was $123,777 or more than $3,000 greater than the median found in the Corporate Library study of 2008 board-member compensation. The value of pay packages, however, jumped to nearly $200,000 for directors at larger companies - those in the Standard & Poor's 500 - the ...
Board members - who get to set their own pay - say they're worth it.
"What does it take to get Brett Favre to throw the football down the field? He's a very talented guy, and you're going to have to pay him the money," Fischer said. " . . . It's no different with CEOs, CFOs and good board members. You're going to have to pay them. Whether people like it or not, you have to pay them a co...
Just how exclusive is the boardroom when it comes to Wisconsin public companies?
Orr, 68, and Kuester, 68, both of whom did not return calls seeking comment, each serve on the boards of M&I and Wausau Paper, as did Andrew N. Baur, 66, who joined the M&I board in 2002 when the bank company he led was bought by M&I. Kuester's fee at M&I also includes consulting work. Baur left the M&I board this spri...
Meanwhile, Fischer and Payne could have carpooled to board meetings of two local companies last year: Wisconsin Energy Corp. and Badger Meter Inc. And if there was a break at a Badger Meter meeting this year, Payne and Fischer could have kibitzed with Gale Klappa, 59, the Wisconsin Energy chairman and CEO who joined th...
Payne recently left the Badger Meter board.
"It's a small world, especially if you're a member of a board of directors," said Brandon Rees, who as deputy director of the AFL-CIO office of investment is a critic of excessive executive pay. "This creates a perpetuating system where collegiality and getting along are higher priority than who would be best for the c...
Seven of the companies in the Journal Sentinel's analysis had members who collectively served on at least 10 other companies' boards in the state, giving them eyes, ears and business opportunities at each of those companies.
Such connections are found on a national level as well. For instance, Jack M. Greenberg, former CEO of McDonald's Corp., was paid about $1.28 million to serve on the board of Manpower Inc. and four non-Wisconsin companies, including Western Union Co. and Allstate Corp.
Board members say those relationships generally are the result of friendships, not deal-making.
But sometimes, as in the case of Manpower Inc., there are business dealings. Three Manpower directors, including Edward Zore, the outgoing Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. chief executive, are on the boards of companies that do business with the international employment services company.
And M&I provides a variety of banking services - including loans, commercial paper and trust services - to Wausau Paper, with which it shared three directors.
The seven-member Wausau Paper board determined that the services provided by M&I were at market prices and terms. The board also determined "that none of these (M&I and Wausau) directors has a material direct or indirect interest in any transaction resulting from the Company's relationship with M&I," according to the p...
Serving on a board may just be the best part-time job around.
In addition to their annual retainers, directors often receive fees that could reach a few thousand dollars for each in-person or telephone meeting they attend.
Compensation is generally paid in stock or cash, though more companies are demanding that some - or even all - of the fees be paid in stock.
In some cases, such as on the boards of Harley-Davidson Inc. or Briggs & Stratton Corp., members get free company merchandise. In others, they get trips for spouses or charitable donations in their name.
What do board members do to earn all this?
"They go to a lot of meetings and they read a lot of paper," said Hodgson.
"Knowledge, networking skills and experience," said Hodgson, adding that many board members are often too deferential, serving as "rubber stamps" for management.
Payne, who sat on the boards of three publicly traded companies plus Northwestern Mutual last year, said a strong board is key to corporate success.
"The corporate structure is based upon the board being the overseer," Payne said. "It approves the business plan and then it holds management accountable."
Wisconsin corporate boards are a high-powered group dominated by older white men and current and former CEOs, the newspaper's analysis found.
• The average age of a Wisconsin board member is slightly over 61.
• More than 50 board members made $200,000 or more by advising one or more Wisconsin public companies last year. Eight board members were paid more than $400,000 last year.
• About 36% of the active CEOs in the study serve on the boards of their own company and at least one other company, with four serving on two outside boards - a number some experts say is too much.
"All we hear today is that these (CEO) jobs are 24-7," said Mark Borges, a principal at Compensia, a San Francisco management consultant. "I have to wonder: Where do they find time to serve another company?"
• Former CEOs who stick around and become board chairmen earn the most from their board duty. Topping the list of pay from one employer is Bemis Co.' Jeffrey H. Curler, who collected $2.68 million from the company - though his ranking includes an asterisk because he is the Neenah company's "executive chairman," a full-...
"Basically, he's the liaison between company management and the board," and works on corporate strategy, said Kristine Pavletich, spokeswoman for the supplier of flexible packaging materials.
Next in line was Orr, who has served as interim CEO at Wausau Paper, and John Nussbaum at Plexus Corp., who was paid $520,211 as chairman last year.
Klappa, the Wisconsin Energy chief, is supplementing his 2009 CEO pay of $11.6 million by serving on two other boards - Badger Meter, which he joined this year, and Joy Global Inc. He said he could handle the outside work.
Noting that his boards are local companies, Klappa said he doesn't have to jump on an airplane every time there is a meeting.
"I could walk to Joy Global and get there in seven minutes," he said. The maker of mining equipment paid him $181,500 to serve on its board last year.
Klappa also said his board work helps him in his job as CEO of Wisconsin Energy. He dismisses critics who say no board member should serve on four or more panels - arguing, for instance, that the experience Fischer and Payne bring to the table helps the utility company.
Fischer, who developed an abundance of contacts and experience during his 35 years at Arthur Andersen, estimated he devotes about 300 hours per year to each board he serves on, the equivalent of 7½ full-time work weeks per company.
"I am a professional board member with expertise in finance and accounting and governance," said Fischer, 62. "My job is to make sure the company has good strategy and to make sure there is a good top management team in place."
Payne's contacts come from sports, law and politics.
He played on the 1977 Marquette University national championship basketball team and later was the president of the Milwaukee Brewers for just over one year. A onetime partner at Foley & Lardner, the state's largest law firm, he served in Gov. Anthony Earl's cabinet. Payne, 54, owns a Brookfield consulting firm special...
Payne says he has an intimate knowledge of each company he advises.
"I know everybody at the companies," said Payne. "I know the CEOs, I know the vice presidents, I know the security guards."
Payne, who is African-American, also brings diversity to the boardroom - an enclave often criticized as being an old boys' club.
"The fact that I'm black doesn't hurt for diversity purposes," Payne said, although he said his skin color plays, at best, a small role in his being chosen to sit on a board.
"It starts with my financial background and my legal background," Payne said.
Board pay has increased dramatically in recent years as a result of tougher laws and regulations enacted in the wake of corporate scandals. It jumped 38.6% at the country's largest 200 public companies from 2003 to 2008, according to a study last year by Steven Hall & Partners, a New York executive compensation consult...
A Corporate Library study showed that 2008 was the third consecutive year of double-digit growth increases in board pay.
"It's a lot of money, but at the same time you're asking these people to put their credibility and reputation on the line," said Borges, the management consultant. "Assuming they're doing the job they should be doing."
A measure before Congress would give company shareholders a greater say in nominating board members.
Local executive Daniel Steininger, a longtime critic of executive pay, said that won't be enough to curb board pay. The only way to limit compensation, he said, would be to require shareholder approval of pay packages. Then, Steininger said, "director pay would start dropping."

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