SEA Games: Myanmar 'open for business' with lavish ceremony

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http://news.asiaone.com/news/sports/sea-games-myanmar-open-business-lavish-ceremony

Myanmar staged a lavish spectacle of lights and pyrotechnics at the opening ceremony for the Southeast Asian Games Wednesday, as the impoverished and formerly reclusive state displayed a dazzling face to the world.

Fireworks exploded above the 30,000-seat, purpose-built Wunna Theikdi stadium and a series of screens beamed a dramatic lights show during the Chinese-backed extravaganza in the country's capital Naypyidaw.

The 22-day SEA Games, featuring Olympic staples like athletics alongside traditional sports like chinlone, is seen as a coming-out party for Myanmar two years after the end of military rule.

Athletes paraded around the venue, and the Games were set to be formally opened when a blazing arrow lights a symbolic flame in a large cauldron set high in the stadium.

Myanmar is hosting the Games for the first time in more than four decades, marking another landmark in its gradual emergence from rule by a hardline military junta.