World focus on Burma (30 January 2009)

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Hope for the Dump Cities?
CounterPunch, CA –
When workers are weak, it is indeed true that cutting labor standards can get more factories built, but by that Times/Davos/Burma-junta logic of job …

Stopping military conscription of children
Manila Times, Philippines –
Param-Preet Singh of Human Rights Watch warns: “This first ICC trial makes it clear that the use of children in armed combat is a war crime that can and …

Over five million people face food shortage in Burma
Mizzima.com, India –
“Access to food remains a critical challenge for the poorest people and for vulnerable populations in remote areas of Myanmar [Burma],” Chris Kaye, …

RSF releases petition to free Burmese bloggers
Mizzima.com, India –
… (RSF) has released a petition for the freedom of two well known Burmese bloggers, who were sentenced to long prison terms, by Burma’s ruling junta. …

Watch out for Bangladesh and Thailand: Military commander
Mizzima.com, India –
According to a Bangladesh-Burma border based Burmese journalist, the junta is stepping up its military presence, particularly the artillery battalion in the …

Veteran Shan politician preparing to contest 2010 election
Mizzima.com, India –
Shwe Ohn was an observer at the historic ‘Panglong agreement’, where ethnic leaders and representatives along with Burma’s Independence architect General …

A UN envoy returns to Burma
International Herald Tribune, France –
Gambari will be visiting the country, which is also known as Myanmar, in the aftermath of a crackdown on dissidents in which government courts handed down …

US Envoy to UN Signals Support for ‘R2P’
The Irrawaddy News Magazine, Thailand –

Last May, for example, the council discussed a proposal by France to authorize the UN to enter Burma and deliver aid without waiting for approval from the …

Forever at the Frontline
The Irrawaddy News Magazine, Thailand –

He told journalists and diplomats that he split from the KNU because of the failed peace talks between the Burmese junta and his mother organization in 1994 …

Myanmar junta promises “measures” over Rohingya
Reuters India, India –
Rohinja is an alternative spelling for the Muslim minority from Rakhine state in the former Burma’s northwest. “Moreover, a statement released yesterday by …

Raids in Rangoon Yield More Heroin
The Irrawaddy News Magazine, Thailand –

Burma’s Home Minister Maj-Gen Maung Oo, second from right, together with Rangoon-based diplomats check the illicit drugs before being put into flames, …

AI Calls for Access to Rohingya
The Irrawaddy News Magazine, Thailand –
On Friday, a Burmese state-run newspaper, Myanmar Ahlin, carried a story that claimed the Rohingya are not among Burma’s more than 100 ethnic minority …

Burma, Myanmar: RSF launches petition demanding the release of two …
Ashin Mettacara, Sri Lanka –
By Ashin Mettacara Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday launched a petition for two Burmese bloggers, Nay Phone Latt and Zaganar who got long term …

Myanmar junta to take action against Rohingyas entering Thailand
Yahoo, Thailand –
(Kyodo) _ Myanmar’s junta will take action on the ongoing issue of Rohingya people attempting to enter neighboring Thailand by sea, although it does not …

Burma rejects boat-people claims
BBC News, UK –

By Jonathan Head Burma says Rohingya migrants arriving in Thailand recently could not have come from its shores because they are not among its recognised …

Shan: New Political Party
UNPO, Netherlands –
Shwe Ohn, a contemporary of Burma’s post-war leader Aung San, was a journalist and observer at the 1947 Panglong conference that created the Union of Burma. …

No speed limit
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong –
But in Myanmar, the authors contend, the government has sorted it all out. Following the breakup of the Communist Party of Burma in 1989, the heavily armed …

Gambari Must be Firm this Time Around
The Irrawaddy News Magazine, Thailand –
By KYAW ZWA MOE UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari is expected to arrive in Burma this weekend on the seventh visit of a mission that has so far raised little …

A Closer Look at Burma’s Ethnic Minorities
TIME –
Called Myanmar by its military leaders, Burma derives its name from the Buddhist Burman (or Bamar) people. The country’s largest ethnic group, …

Is there a holistic approach to Burma’s refugee problem?
Shan Herald Agency for News, Thailand –
By Sai Wansai The heart of the Rohingya problem is the Burmese military regime’s denial of rights to exist officially as an accepted ethnic group, …

Indonesia to deport Rohingya boat people from Myanmar, Bangladesh
Monsters and Critics.com –
Jakarta – Indonesia said Friday that it would deport 193 Rohingya boat people but was seeking assurances from Myanmar and Bangladesh that they would not be …

Junta denies Rohingya boat people are from Burma
Radio Australia News, Australia –
In a statement carried by all state controlled papers, the junta says “the Rohingya is not included in the over 100 national races of the Union of Myanmar”. …

Ministry finds human trafficking signs on Myanmar refugee case
Jakarta Post, Indonesia –
The Foreign Ministry said Friday they have found indications of human trafficking in the case of the 193 Myanmar refugees who were stranded offshore Sabang …

UN envoy due in Myanmar
Straits Times, Singapore –
YANGON – UN SPECIAL envoy Ibrahim Gambari is expected to arrive in Myanmar on Saturday to broker fresh talks with the ruling junta after his last trip in …

FACTBOX – Myanmar’s Rohingya – who are they?
Reuters India, India –
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, formerly Burma. The military government does not recognise them as one of the …

Burma refuses to recognize Rohingya as citizens
Mizzima.com, India –
The statement in the newspaper said, “The Rohinja [Rohingya] is not included in over 100 national races of the Union of Myanmar [Burma],” denying media …

UN special envoy to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar
Monsters and Critics.com –
Yangon – The United Nations special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, is scheduled to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on an official visit …

Indonesia says Myanmar boat people ‘economic migrants’
AFP –
SABANG, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia on Friday denied it is holding around 170 refugees from Myanmar, calling them “economic migrants” even as new accounts …

Religion Today Summaries
Crosswalk.com, VA –
“The Chin are unsafe in Burma [also known as Myanmar] and unprotected in India,” the report said. The Chin, about 90 percent of which profess Christianity, …

Mandalay NLD members submit appeal to central court
Democratic Voice of Burma, Norway –
Jan 30, 2009 (DVB)–Lawyer Myint Thwin submitted an appeal to the central court yesterday on behalf of Mandalay National League for Democracy member Win Mya …

A mission to Burma
Boston Globe, United States –
THE UNITED NATIONS special envoy for Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, is now en route for his seventh visit to that country, which has become a virtual prison camp …

Monk U Arnanda dies in detention
Democratic Voice of Burma, Norway –
Several other monks and nuns held in the prison have been suffering health problems due to the lack of provisions. “About 15 monks and nuns arrested from …

Group Appeals for Release of Burmese Blogger on First Anniversary …
Voice of America –

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders Thursday urged the international community not to forget about the 28-year-old online activist, who was sentenced to …

New Thai Premier Seen as Leaning Right; Reformists Worry
Washington Post, United States –
“Let’s be clear that Thailand has not violated the human rights of the refugees,” Abhisit said. “The military has maintained that it has not breached any …

How a chance encounter with the Mahatma changed one Canadian’s life
CBC.ca, Canada –

However, her brother, who worked for the governor of Burma, was able to pull some strings and appealed to the governor of Bombay, Lawrence Roger Lumley, …

To the governments of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia …
Amnesty International USA –
Rohingyas who are returned to Myanmar continue to be at serious risk of human rights violations, including forced labour, forced eviction, land confiscation …

Heroin Seized in Rangoon Port
自由亞洲電臺, Washington DC –
Burmese security officers carry packets containing confiscated drugs to burn at a ceremony in Rangoon, 26 June 2006. Police in military-ruled Burma have …

Burma ‘Censors Obama Speech’
自由亚洲电视, Washington DC –
News vendors around the pagoda take pride in declining to sell the New Light of Myanmar, the government newspaper, early 2008. …

Chernov’s Choice
St.Petersburg Times.ru, Russia –
Birkin, who is also a human rights activist, campaigns to help political prisoners in Burma and supports a number of activities in favor of the Chechen …

POLITICS: UN Debates Duty to Halt War Crimes, Genocide
Inter Press Service, Italy –
… ongoing mass killings in Darfur, and the failure to timely intervene to aid survivors of last year’s Cyclone Nargis in Burma, civil society groups are …

One more year of the dreaded Oh-ohs
Alberni Valley News, Canada –
In 2008 a cyclone in Burma killed 78000, while a Chinese earthquake killed 50000, but those disasters were pushed from many minds when financial chaos …

The iron rule
The National, United Arab Emirates –
When I met Burmese democracy activists in the wake of global, front-page coverage of stirring 2007 demonstrations by crimson-robed monks, they confidently …

Thai’s new hope for Myanmar
MorungExpress, India –
The fundamental difference between the two, however, is that democracy was restored in Thailand, but not in Myanmar. Thailand’s foreign policy on Burma has …

Burma clamps down on Christians
ChristianExaminer –
(A military dictatorship has ruled Burma since 1962. Following the takeover, the government renamed Burma as the Union of Myanmar and the capital city as …

Burma’s governance operates reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984
Canadian National Newspaper, Canada –
… the government of Burma is officially known as the “State Peace and Development Council”, LINK In truth, Burma, also known as Myanmar, …

Rights, camera, action
Business Line, India –

The 65-minute film records how, in 1995, Wa along with the co-founder of Earth Rights International, Katie Redford, represented 15 Burmese villagers in a …

Rogue states compete for tourists
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom –
The trend was highlighted at the Fitur travel fair in Madrid with Burma, also known as Myanmar, which has been ruled with an iron fist by a military …

Burma VJ: Truth as Casualty
TIME –
A still from Burma VJ. It’s hard to tell which scenes are authentic When I recall reporting Burma’s doomed pro-democracy uprising for TIME in September 2007 …

How many deaths does it take?
Aliran Monthly, Malaysia –
… and legitimacy of the Burmese state security forces in the eyes of the Burmese people and the international community, the Burmese activist leader Aung …