"Hkawn Tawng, a Kachin widow, was forced to move from her original home close to the confluence where the Irrawaddy river is formed in northern Kachin State nearly a decade ago on the orders of the government to make way for the Myitsone mega-dam project. Her new home in the Aung Myin Thar “model village” built by the Chinese firm behind the Myitsone project and its local partner Asia World, is no longer structurally sound. A problem shared by many of the homes in Aung Myin Thar which is built on a floodplain. Her home was left severely damaged by strong winds on May 19th and since the storm, she has had to abandon her home altogether. “My house had been damaged for a long time but I could still live in the house. Now I can’t live in my house. It’s really bad when it rains. I can’t sleep in my house. I already told the respective authorities about it. They promised to fix my house. Then the carpenters came to see my house to repair it. The carpenters said they could not fix the house and it would be better to construct a new house but I am a widow. I can’t afford to construct a new house,” Daw Hkawn Tawng told Kachin News Group (KNG). The firm which was then known as China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) but is now called State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) and its local partner Asia World, built the houses between 2009 and 2011 for villagers who were ordered by the government to move to make way for the Myitsone dam. According to relocated villagers the houses were built by Asia World quickly using poor materials. Asia World, is a large Myanmar conglomerate founded by Lo Hsing Han, a former militia leader infamously dubbed the “Godfather of Heroin” by American officials. Today the firm is run by his son Steven Law also known as Htun Myint Naing..."