Myanmar Newspaper

I read NLM newspapers online. Big news is about traditional medicine pratitioners meeting. A major article about the geography of Myanmar, how any miles of land and coastal, why it is of strategic locations. The roads from China to India and pan asian roads to be built. They said poverty is not so bad compared to other poorer nations in the world.
So sad to read it , there is not much to say about international trade and new factories and investments, no visiting leaders of other nations, cannot promise much to the nation. Only about how the world has not helped us. I really pity my government. Their families and their lives are much richer and higher than the rest of us but they have not much to say with pride and confidence for their nation.

Jakarta's slums

Jakarta's slums
Originally uploaded by Junaid Seria

This happened because people move from villages to the city for jobs. Yangon is not this bad at all.

Gen Khin Nyunt has copied Singapore style to clean up the slums.

Than Shwe moved to Pyinmana and May Myo for new developments.

We just need to maintain the historical buildings in Yangon and make it a touristy place downtown. The government buildings of colonial days can be privatized for tourist industry.

Bangkok Girl

Bangkok Girl
Originally uploaded by davidcrow

After 1990, we had night clubs in Yangon for the first time. The generals copied the Bangkok style letting it for tourists and oil men. There is no red light district thus all are mixed. We have no openly sleazy places like Bangkok where women are seen like female animals.

Thai generals and Sino Chinese business men have shown their corrupted ways to Burmese men.

Today middle class and foreigners can fly to Bangkok for sex tourism.

Republican debate in US

The Republican candidate Ron Paul said America should change their foreign policy.

Do not use force on other countries,

do not police the world.

Do not tell other people how to live like you.

Show examples. Not force.

End the war in Iraq

Let internet be free

Remove IRS - Fairtax is 23% sales tax - no more IRS

remove death tax.

Democracy is not to be forced - it is not votes- education-health and security first.

French President in China

Sarkozy clinches 30 bl trade deals

The two major agreements announced on the second day of Sarkozy's visit to China were contracts for European aerospace giant Airbus to deliver 160 aircraft and French firm Areva to build two nuclear reactors.
Sarkozy said the value of all the deals, signed after he met Chinese President Hu Jintao in the Great Hall of the People, was worth about 20 billion euros (29.6 billion dollars).

"I want to thank President Hu for his personal involvement," he said afterwards.

Hu and Sarkozy also discussed a range of international issues including Taiwan, the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme and the apparent progress in winding back North Korea's atomic weapons ambitions.
Speaking to French business leaders on Sunday night, Sarkozy said China should play a more active role in resolving the Iran nuclear standoff and other international disputes, including the domestic political tensions in Myanmar.
"China now plays an essential role in the global economy... by its very existence it changes the world balance. That brings with it rights, but also responsibilities, or rather duties," he said.

Burma file

some comments from newsdesk special
Comments

After President Bush has pronounced the much used word: "Sanction!". His job is done and can now forget about the entire event. Is "sanction" a magical word? Does it conjure up anything but laughter from the brutal regimes that is unaffected by the so called "Sanction", except increases the plight of the poor people who are being crushed under the heels of tyranny.
China would like to see a "status quo" in Burma because they have a cozy trade relation with the junta of Burma. The sugar coated lie about not meddling into other country's internal affairs; then liberate Tibet.
Will the American people and people of the civilized world help Burma by Boycotting the "China Olympic of 2008." Here is a non-violence action against human rights violation.
Posted by: Aung September 27, 2007 at 05:55 PM
After spending the last month in Myanmar I'm moved to tears for the plight of the people.China is daily trading thousands of tons of Teak out of Burma and untold quantities of contraband in and the Junta is pretending not to know while profiting.US sanctions are a joke! Any one who wants to see the poor people of Burma get anything but more brutality and poverty must push for a Boycott of the "China Olympic of 2008" ASAP!
Posted by: Barry Treadwell September 27, 2007 at 11:17 PM
I have known the Burmese military government all my life. I have witnessed the killings of thounsands of students who dared to wish for democracy, the arrest of tens of thousands of innocent people in the name of suspecion. History repeated again and again over those years during the incidents known as U Thant's affair, Conflict with Chinese Community in Burma, Students' uprisings and 1988 affairs etc and goes on even in 21st century.When one cannot fight, one flees; intellectuals and alike are trying to leave Burma. People are more desperate for democracy. Democratic countries could do more with practical and effective help to their plea for the freedom from the most brutal and corrupt government in the world.
Posted by: Aung Nyunt September 28, 2007 at 12:49 PM
Burmese citizens: You, who want democracy in Burma must go it alone on your own. As there is not much hope of getting any help from the outside world. The best that you can hope for would be lip-services.Bear in mind that CHINA and RUSSIA are NOT your FRIENDS. So if one day you should succeed in obtaining freedom be sure to remember who your friends are(nobody) but your enemies are clear.Burmese citizens, you may not have actual weapons to fight with but you can disrupt transportations and communications and all other functions necessary for the running of the country. At the very least drag your feet and slow down everything if possible bring everything to a HALT.
Posted by: Aung September 29, 2007 at 12:47 AM
Agreed with Aung message. I think we need some celebrity like Jim Carey or Bono to pledge to boycot Beijing Olympic if they do not show any mercy in the killing field south of their border. China does not want their olympic to be an olympic of China, burma, N.korea and Iran.
Posted by: sweet october September 29, 2007 at 05:18 AM
i have never experienced so much love and kindness by any other people, compared to the burmese people when i traveled there 2 years ago. i hope more western people try to help in whatever way they can. yesterday i sent postcards to those people i had met, so that they know that people in the west know of their ordeal.
Posted by: natali ziota September 30, 2007 at 01:54 PM

Liberalism

In America, there are liberal activists: they attack and blame governments and businesses for loss of freedom, environment and war.

Their ideas are noble but is it applicable to put those ideas to other parts of the world?

for Chinese peasants and poor Indians, food for the family comes first.

They might be thinking they are fighting for Burmese.

For Burmese ( Myanmar ) we need to maintain our culture and religion.

We already have a good system for our spiritual wealth.

We need material wealth to keep our culture.



Liberalism is a mental disorder

Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder
by Michael Savage

Liberalism

‘a liberal is a man who believes in liberty’

Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others.

You lack political liberty or freedom only if you are prevented from attaining a goal by other human beings

…it must be of course admitted that every usage of the term [i.e., ‘freedom’] to express anything but a social and political relation of one man to other involves a metaphor

a person can be unfree if he is subject to an impulse or craving that cannot be controlled.

Such a person, Green argued, is ‘…in the condition of a bondsman who is carrying out the will of another, not his own’ (1986 [1895]: 228). Just as a slave is not doing what he really wants to do, one who is, say, an alcoholic, is being led by a craving to look for satisfaction where it cannot, ultimately, be found.

For Green, a person is free only if she is self-directed or autonomous.

Running throughout liberal political theory is an ideal of a free person as one whose actions are in some sense her own.

Such a person is not subject to compulsions, critically reflects on her ideals and so does not unreflectively follow custom, and does not ignore her long-term interests for short-term pleasures.

This ideal of freedom as autonomy has its roots not only in Rousseau's and Kant's political theory, but also in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty.

the distribution of resources (education, for example, should be easily available so that all can develop their capacities), positive freedom qua effective power to act closely ties freedom to material resources.

It was this conception of positive liberty that Hayek had in mind when he insisted that although ‘freedom and wealth are both good things…they still remain different’

‘The contrary of the liber, or free, person in Roman, republican usage was the servus, or slave, and up to at least the beginning of the last century, the dominant connotation of freedom, emphasized in the long republican tradition, was not having to live in servitude to another: not being subject to the arbitrary power of another’ (Pettit, 1996: 576).

On this view, the opposite of freedom is domination.

An agent is said to be unfree if she is ‘subject to the potentially capricious will or the potentially idiosyncratic judgement of another’ (Pettit, 1997: 5).

The ideal liberty-protecting government, then, ensures that no agent, including itself, has arbitrary power over any citizen.


liberty and private property are intimately related. From the eighteenth century right up to today, classical liberals have insisted that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty, allowing each to live her life —including employing her labor and her capital — as she sees fit.

Unless people are free to make contracts and to sell their labour, or unless they are free to save their incomes and then invest them as they see fit, or unless they are free to run enterprises when they have obtained the capital, they are not really free.

As F.A. Hayek argues, ‘There can be no freedom of press if the instruments of printing are under government control, no freedom of assembly if the needed rooms are so controlled, no freedom of movement if the means of transport are a government monopoly’ (1978: 149).
Although classical liberals agree on the fundamental importance of private property to a free society, the classical liberal tradition itself refracts into a spectrum of views, from near-anarchist to those that attribute a significant role to the state in economic and social policy (on this spectrum, see Mack and Gaus, 2004).
Towards the most extreme ‘libertarian’ end of the classical liberal spectrum are views of justified states as legitimate monopolies that may with justice charge for their necessary rights-protection services: taxation is legitimate so long as it is necessary to protect liberty and property rights. As we go further ‘leftward’ we encounter classical liberal views that allow taxation for (other) public goods and social infrastructure and, moving yet further ‘left’, some classical liberal views allow for a modest social minimum

. The aim, as Bentham put it, was to make the poor richer, not the rich poorer (Bentham, 1952 [1795]: vol. 1, 226n). Consequently, classical liberals reject the redistribution of wealth as a legitimate aim of government.

The ‘New Liberalism’
What has come to be known as ‘new’, ‘revisionist’, ‘welfare state’, or perhaps best, ‘social justice’, liberalism challenges this intimate connection between personal liberty and a private property based market order

Believing that a private property based market tended to be unstable, or could, as Keynes argued (1973 [1936]), get stuck in an equilibrium with high unemployment, new liberals came to doubt that it was an adequate foundation for a stable, free society.

Here the second factor comes into play: just as the new liberals were losing faith in the market, their faith in government as a means of supervising economic life was increasing.

be it observed that arguments used against ‘government’ action, where the government is entirely or mainly in the hands of a ruling class or caste, exercising wisely or unwisely a paternal or grandmotherly authority — such arguments lose their force just in proportion as the government becomes more and more genuinely the government of the people by the people themselves

Indeed, what was previously called ‘welfare state’ liberalism is now often described as ‘egalitarian’ liberalism. And in one way that is especially appropriate: in his later work Rawls insists that welfare-state capitalism does not constitute a just basic structure (2001: 137-38). If some version of capitalism is to be just it must be a ‘property owning democracy’ with a wide diffusion of ownership; a market socialist regime, in Rawls's view, is more just than welfare-state capitalism (2001: 135-38).

Not too surprisingly, classical liberals such as Hayek (1976) insist that the contemporary liberal fixation on ‘the mirage of social justice’ leads them to ignore the way that freedom depends on a decentralized market based on private property, the overall results of which are unpredictable.

In a similar vein, Robert Nozick (1974: 160ff) famously argued that any attempt to ensure that market transactions conform to any specific pattern of holdings will involve constant interferences with individual freedom.


As Gaus (2004) has argued, the distinction between ‘political’ and ‘comprehensive’ liberalism misses a great deal. Liberal theories form a broad continuum, from those that constitute full-blown philosophical systems, to those that rely on a full theory of value and the good, to those that rely on a theory of the right (but not the good), all the way to those that seek to be purely political doctrines. Nevertheless, it is important to appreciate that, though liberalism is primarily a political theory, it has been associated with broader theories of ethics, value and society.
3.2 Liberal Ethics
Following Wilhelm von Humboldt (1993 [1854]), in On Liberty Mill argues that one basis for endorsing freedom (Mill believes that there are many), is the goodness of developing individuality and cultivating capacities:
Individuality is the same thing with development, and…it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings…what more can be said of any condition of human affairs, than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the best thing they can be? or what worse can be said of any obstruction to good, than that it prevents this?

This is not just a theory about politics: it is a substantive, perfectionist, moral theory about the good. And, on this view, the right thing to do is to promote development or perfection, and only a regime securing extensive liberty for each person can accomplish this (Wall, 1998). This moral ideal of human perfection and development dominated liberal thinking in the latter part of the nineteenth, and for most of the twentieth, century: not only Mill, but T.H. Green, L.T.

Hobhouse, Bernard Bosanquet, John Dewey and even Rawls show allegiance to variants of this perfectionist ethic and the claim that it provides a foundation for endorsing a regime of liberal rights (Gaus, 1983a). And it is fundamental to the proponents of liberal autonomy discussed above, as well as ‘liberal virtue’ theorists such as William Galston (1980). That the good life is necessarily a freely chosen one in which a person develops his unique capacities as part of a plan of life is probably the dominant liberal ethic of the past century.

According to Kantian contractualism, ‘society, being composed of a plurality of persons, each with his own aims, interests, and conceptions of the good, is best arranged when it is governed by principles that do not themselves presuppose any particular conception of the good…’(Sandel, 1982: 1).

On this view, respect for the person of others demands that we refrain from imposing our view of the good life on them.

Only principles that can be justified to all respect the personhood of each. We thus witness the tendency of recent liberal theory (Reiman, 1990; Scanlon, 1998) to transform the social contract from an account of the state to an overall justification of morality, or at least a social morality. Basic to such ‘Kantian contractualism’ is the idea that suitably idealized individuals are motivated not by the pursuit of gain, but by a commitment or desire to publicly justify the claims they make on others (Reiman, 1990; Scanlon, 1982). A moral code that could be the object of agreement among such individuals is thus a publicly justified morality.
In contrast, the Hobbesian version of contractualism supposes only that individuals are self-interested, and correctly perceive that each person's ability to effectively pursue her interests is enhanced by a framework of norms that structure social life and divide the fruits of social cooperation (Gauthier, 1986; Kavka, 1986). Morality, then, is common framework that advances the self-interest of each.

The upshot is that each person must devote herself to some ends at the cost of ignoring others. For the pluralist, then, autonomy, perfection or development are not necessarily ranked higher than hedonistic pleasures, environmental preservation or economic equality. All compete for our allegiance, but because they are incommensurable, no choice can be interpersonally justified as correct.

The pluralist is not a subjectivist: that values are many, competing and incommensurable does not imply that they are somehow dependent on subjective experiences. But the claim that what a person values rests on experiences that vary from person to person has long been a part of the liberal tradition.

The Mind has a different relish, as well as the Palate; and you will as fruitlessly endeavour to delight all Man with Riches or Glory, (which yet some Men place their Happiness in,) as you would satisfy all men's Hunger with Cheese or Lobsters; which, though very agreeable and delicious fare to some, are to others extremely nauseous and offensive: And many People would with reason preferr [sic] the griping of an hungry Belly, to those Dishes, which are a Feast to others.

Those who insist that liberalism is ultimately a nihilistic theory can be interpreted as arguing that this transition cannot be made successfully: liberals, on their view, are stuck with a subjectivistic or pluralistic theory of value, and no account of the right emerges from it.

4.1 Is Liberalism Justified in All Political Communities?
In On Liberty Mill argued that ‘Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion’ (1963, vol. 18: 224). Thus ‘Despotism is a legitimate form of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement…. ’(1963, vol. 18: 224). This passage — infused with the spirit of nineteenth century imperialism — is often ignored by defenders of Mill as an embarrassment.

principle should only be applied within a liberal state such as the United States (where the least well off are the least well off Americans), or whether it should be applied globally (where the least well off are the least well off in the world)

4.3 Liberal Interaction with Non-Liberal Groups: International
Liberal political theory also fractures concerning the appropriate response to groups (cultural, religious, etc.) which endorse illiberal policies and values. These groups may deny education to some of their members, advocate female genital mutilation, restrict religious freedom, maintain an inequitable caste system, and so on. When, if ever, is it reasonable for a liberal group to interfere with the internal governance of an illiberal group?
Suppose first that the illiberal group is another political community or state. Can liberals intervene in the affairs of non-liberal states? Mill provides a complicated answer in his 1859 essay ‘A Few Words on Non-Intervention’. Reiterating his claim from On Liberty that civilized and non-civilized countries are to be treated differently, he insists that ‘barbarians have no rights as a nation, except a right to such treatment as may, at the earliest possible period, fit them for becoming one. The only moral laws for the relation between a civilized and a barbarous government, are the universal rules of morality between man and man’ (1963, vol. 21: 119). Although this strikes us today as simply a case for an objectionable paternalistic imperialism (and it certainly was such a case), Mill's argument for the conclusion is more complex, including a claim that, since international morality depends on reciprocity, ‘barbarous’ governments that cannot be counted on to engage in reciprocal behavior have no rights qua governments. In any event, when Mill turns to interventions among ‘civilized’ peoples he develops an altogether more sophisticated account as to when one state can intervene in the affairs of another to protect liberal principles. Here Mill is generally against intervention. ‘The reason is, that there can seldom be anything approaching to assurance that intervention, even if successful, would be for the good of the people themselves. The only test possessing any real value, of a people's having become fit for popular institutions, is that they, or a sufficient proportion of them to prevail in the contest, are willing to brave labour and danger for their liberation’

Asean News

Japan says to Myanmar

Singapore's Lee said Western sanctions on Myanmar were ineffective because the regime had chosen to isolate itself.
"You say I don't want to do business in Myanmar but it's water off a duck's back," Lee said.
Myanmar's Prime Minister Thein Sein told Japanese leader Yasuo Fukuda that "Myanmar hopes to surely move on with democratisation and solve problems," adding its citizens were suffering from sanctions, according to a Japanese official.
Fukuda, on his Asian diplomatic debut, gave Thein Sein a frosty response when he was invited to visit Myanmar.
"I hope you can create an environment under which I would be able to visit," Fukuda said, according to the aide.

Trade sanctions are counter productive

Laos and Cambodia slams western trade sanctions

"We denounce the imposition of sanctions or economic embargoes against Myanmar," Lao Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh told Reuters in an interview on Sunday ahead of an Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen also rejected sanctions, ahead of a summit in Singapore on Tuesday where ASEAN leaders will sign a charter that calls for promotion of human rights.
"Economy sanctions are no good. They will not make the leaders of Myanmar die, but will lead to disaster for the civilian population. They are counter-productive," Hun Sen said in reply to questions at a business forum.

Singapore state broadcaster Channel News Asia's Web site quoted Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as saying that nobody in Asia supports sanctions against Myanmar.
"It's been tried in Iraq and nobody wants to have an Iraq in Southeast Asia," Lee was quoted as saying.

Asean decision on Myanmar

``From the perspective of the American decision-makers, maybe it is doable, but from our perspective, we believe that we should be a bit more circumspect,'' Asean secretary-general Ong Keng Yong told reporters in response to the U.S. decision.
Ong said in Singapore today there was ``unanimity'' among the group that it would rather keep Myanmar in the family than out, and there would be no sanctions or suspension.

China will meet Thein Sein

Monks view of military government.

Interview of Chief abbot penang sayadaw.

Things will not happen if the government or the King is fair. Since 1962 they acted unfair, took away people's properties. They did it in 1987 demoneytizing. Each time people revolt they killed.
Soldiers are supposed to protect the country. In Burma they kill the people.
They are not doing their duties.
They do not have ethics. People just suffer their abuse without any complaints. Where in the world they have such kind of citizens.

Burmese people shall not stay in active anymore. All Burmese inside and outside the country shall do politics actively to have a good government.

Where is our future?

Are we going to be like them?

Vietnam traffic

Cambodia

Laos People got arrrested in US. tourism laos

Our neighbors become super while we are left behind!

Foreign companies are there in China and everywhere except Burma.

Why are we left behind? Whom to blame?

China the next super power

No need for Chinese to go overseas for opportunities. Opportunities are here at home for Chinese people.

India

Russia

Pakistan

now or never

warning to the regime by myat thu pan

Look at China

This video is taken in Kumming China. Why are they prosperous? Yangon should be the same like this if there is no trade sanctions.

No democracy there. FDI foreign direct investment is there . No trade sanctions there.

is the world fair to Burma? NO!

What do we do now? Ask Than Shwe and Daw Su. Do something before it is too late. We need to provide jobs and hopes for the poor people of Myanmar so they will not go out to work as slaves of other countries.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqnPByIZy40

ASSK card

Globe and mail article about latest ASSK used by junta.

My comment: This time it should be real. Let her work together with the generals.

What is Freedom?

Freedom in the West is not the same as Freedom in the East.

Democracy comes with responsibility.

Bogyoke Aung San said, " you cannot piss anywhere you want when you get freedom."

He was lucky to die at an early age of 30 to know that the people he liberated still today do not know how to practice freedom.

ASSK and ASEAN

Asean and Suu Kyi develop a new rapport
The Nation -Published on November 12, 2007
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's reaction last week to the situation in Burma was constructive as he implicitly indicated that Asean has finally accepted National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
In a carefully worded statement issued after meeting with UN special envoy for Burma Ibrahim Gambari on Friday, Lee noted Suu Kyi has expressed readiness to cooperate with the Burmese government to open dialogue on national reconciliation and said he believed the UN's help is needed to facilitate this effort. It was the first time Asean has acknowledged Suu Kyi and her political role. The grouping has called for her release since 2003 following international pressure, but it has never been this enthusiastic.
Earlier, Suu Kyi released a statement through Gambari in Singapore that mentioned Asean's role. She wrote: "I believe that stability, prosperity and democracy for my country, living at peace with itself and with full respect for human rights, offers the best prospect for my country to fully contribute to the development and stability of the region in close partnership with its neighbours and fellow Asean members, and to play a positive role as a respected member of the international community." As such, she also accepts Asean as an indispensable player.
A total of 12 years have elapsed since two failed attempts to link up Asean and Suu Kyi. She was released in July 1995 after six years under house arrest ahead of the Asean ministerial meeting in Brunei Darussalam. A few days later she wrote a letter to Asean foreign ministers urging them not to recognise the regime in Rangoon.
Her letter was sent directly to ministers, but there was no response. Truth be told, there was no precedent in Asean of a dissident leader's direct correspondence with Asean leaders being answered. Asean's strict protocol would just not permit that kind of intervention. Indeed, it was Suu Kyi's first known attempt to develop a rapport with Asean leaders. But they rejected her.
Another attempt was made for her to meet Rangoon-based Asean diplomats in one of their residences ahead of the meeting in Brunei. Burma, which was about to accede to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, protested and as a result the meeting was immediately called off.
In the more than a decade since then, Asean has become extremely tolerant and has believed naively that Burma, admitted in 1997, would yield to peer pressure as well as contribute to the grouping's solidarity and common objective in pursuing dialogue and national reconciliation. This has been wishful thinking on the part of Asean.
Apart from Suu Kyi's new-found pragmatism, the Burmese regime has also come forward to re-establish dialogue with the UN. Despite the mixed signals following comments made by Charles Petrie, the head of the United Nations Development Programme in Burma, the UN in its "good office role" remains the key facilitator in ending the deadlock.
Why did the junta leaders not reject the UN's role this time round? There are many reasons, but three stand out. First, international pressure has not yet evaporated, as the junta and many analysts would have wished. If planned sanctions spread to include the banking sector, they would further damage the Burmese economy, and its trading partners, especially those in Asean, would suffer.
Second, the junta's leaders known who their friends on the UN Security Council are, so it is better for them to deal at that level. In the worst-case scenario China and Russia would come to the rescue. After all, they have made it clear that they will not back any measure that Burma does not support.
At the end of last month, the Rangoon regime reacted angrily to a Thai proposal calling for peace talks modelled after the successful six-party talks with North Korea. In his second letter to General Than Shwe, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont suggested that Burma hold talks with representatives from China, India, the UN and Asean to search for a solution after the violent crackdown against monks and civilians.
The idea was first hatched during a meeting between Surayud and Gambari during the latter's trip here. Surayud was careful to exclude the big players such as the US, Russia and the EU from his plan at this juncture. They could join in the second stage if the situation allowed. Even with such a friendly approach, the regime was upset. The Thai envoy in Rangoon was summoned for a lecture on the Burmese way of thinking.
Finally, through the UN, Asean can be actively engaged with Burma and the credibility of the country as a member of Asean can be rehabilitated at the same time. Burma has obviously been studying the Cambodian situation back in the 1990s when the UN was a major player there. Successful UN operations in the past have always included the presence of international monitoring units and others. A peaceful transition of power in Burma, which the junta still resists, would involve the presence of an international supervisory board with numerous subcommittees to handle complicated issues related to national reconciliation, power sharing and the reconstruction process. Junta leaders want to be informed and engaged in the process at every level.
It remains to be seen how all players will engage with one another from now on. The litmus test is whether the junta really wants dialogue. The Burmese junta's brutality has been a blessing in disguise for Asean in more ways than one. True to its survival instincts, Asean is now determined to make the best out of the worst situation. Fittingly, this comes on the eve of its 40th anniversary.
Kavi Chongkittavorn
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/11/12/pda/opinion_30055680.html

China Olympics

Mao will meet youtube

You can always count on the Olympics for drama. Next summer's Games in Beijing will produce powerful stories and riveting television. But much of the action this time will occur outside the stadiums: in the streets, where Chinese police will clash with activists from around the world. These clashes promise to be spectacular and well documented—by protesters' camera phones, if not by professional news crews. Given that, the next Olympics will offer more than another opportunity to test the limits of human athletic performance. They will also test China's ability to thwart a nebulous swarm of foreign activists who will be well-armed with BlackBerrys. A police state organized according to 20th-century principles will meet 21st-century global politics; Mao will meet YouTube.
Like the athletes, the China's government and the activists from around the world are already training hard for the showdown. Beijing, which will spend a total of $40 billion on the Games, has, according to the Associated Press, already begun its "broadest intelligence-collection drive [ever] against foreign activist groups." Xinhua, China's official news agency, has reported that Zhou Yongkang, the minister of Public Security, has ordered the police next summer to "strictly guard against and strike hard at hostile forces at home and abroad."
Meanwhile, planning by these "hostile forces"—the activists—is well underway. A Prague-based nongovermental organization that calls itself Olympic Watch has been hard at work since 2001 crafting various ways to use the Games to challenge China's policies on freedom of speech, the death penalty, Tibet, religious freedom and forced-labor camps. Darfur campaigners have started using the term "Genocide Olympics" to pressure Beijing to stop supporting Sudan's government. And the recent upheaval in Burma has led some activists to coin the term "Saffron Olympics" in order to underline China's support for the murderous Burmese junta and its massacre of unknown numbers of saffron-clad monks.

Urgency!

Request to SPDC

reconciliation with urgency

things not like before

cannot prolong your lies like Khin Nyunt

People are fed up of military regime

they have seen enough of business

where soldiers and Chinese

take away their lands

people who are not Buddhists

people who will not support sarsanar ( religion )

Mandalay is now a Chinese city

Burmese men and women

in brothels or laborers in Thailand and Malaysia

pensioners cannot retire peacefully

soldiers remain slaves for you forever

only your sons prosper

only Chinese prosper

you spend your cash in Singapore and Bangkok

instead of helping poor at home

whats the point?

try your best to show your real cetanar

love to your people

reconciliation as soon as possible

to appease the people and international

your seat is getting too hot to sit

your kingdom has trembled

about to tumble

be careful and leave before its too late

Our cause!

McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) address the people of Myanmar

Capitol Hill Broadcasting

blah blah blah you live so far

tell China and India

1988 - 2007 ----19 years wasted - 5 terms of election and practice of democracy

Congratulations for Myanmar and UN

After reading the New Light of Myanmar news, there is hope for future of Myanmar.

Remember that Myanmar officials work for SPDC-- their head of state who is SG Than Shwe.

Gambari works for UN whose major donor is --US, president is Mr.Bush.

All officials are working hard,

looking for solutions

whilst they are getting attention from the West and East part of the world,

acting diplomatic to bring these heads together.

This is a big major step for the country that they are expressing their points.

Congratulations for both sides.

UN and the world clearly understand our situation and all are on the same page.

We all step together from today, one step a day

Better than before when we were forgotten and left with the opportunists for 15 years

bring our beloved country and a nation to a proper way to greet the world.

Poverty is not we Burmese are afraid of ,

we only need two meals a day to survive,

we have Buddhist monastic system for sharing

People are not totally neglected

people take care of their neighbors

Ignorance and unfairness is what this blog is fighting for !

Prepare for future and protect our rights on our own land.

Burmese shall never give up their land to foreigners.

Stay home and take part in developments of their nation

do not look west nor east

stay home and try your best to survive

Help each other

stay united as ever

we can hear the baby cry, its smile can't be far behind

Irrawaddy: Do-it-Yourself democracy, Burmese style - Satya Sagar Mon 5 Nov 2007 Filed under: News, Opinion, Other

Quotes:

If sheer sacrifice of body, mind and soul for a noble cause were convertible into hard currency Burma’s legions of pro-democracy campaigners would be among the richest citizens in the world.

That in reality they happen to be among the poorest in the world is only a reflection of how money and power can be hard to defeat.

They are misled, among other reasons, by their simplistic equation of democracy with parliamentary elections and a handful of its associated institutions.

A better understanding of the Burmese experience also lies in going beyond short-term, media-driven notions of success and failure of mass movements.

In fact, the good news that is crying out to be recognised today is that Burma’s brave activists—despite repeated setbacks—are forging the foundations of a democratic society. A more nuanced view of the history of democracy around the world shows that long-term prospects of building a genuinely democratic Burma appear extremely promising for a variety of reasons.

First and foremost is simply the participation of more and more ordinary Burmese in the fight for democratic rights, even if the price means certain imprisonment, injury or even worse—brutal murder.

In contrast, almost a century ago, the first stirrings of revolt against British colonial rule involved only a handful of Buddhist monks and student activists.

Later in the thirties and forties, while Burma’s legendary “thirty comrades,” led by Aung San Suu Kyi’s father Gen Aung San, steered the nation to independence from both British and Japanese rule, it was done with little participation from the bulk of the population.

In 1945, when Burma became a free nation, the deeply authoritarian structures of both feudal, traditional society as well as the newly imported machinery of the nation-state remained unchallenged by both leadership and ordinary citizens alike.

By 1962, using the excuse of “preserving national unity” following demands by Burma’s ethnic minorities for greater autonomy, the Burmese military managed to take over the young nation. Since then it has tightly held on to power through a mix of high intrigue and naked force.

The biggest uprising till date was in 1988 that, for all its intensity, unfortunately failed to dislodge the regime from power. The dictatorship was, however, forced to hold national elections in 1990, which they lost by massive margins, underlining their complete lack of legitimacy forever.

It is true the military rulers managed to claw their way back and recoup some losses since then, thanks mostly to external support from the Asean group of nations, China, and oil companies interested in Burma’s natural resources.

But opponents of the Burmese junta, under very difficult circumstances, have been carrying out propaganda and organisational work within the belly of the beast in myriad ways helping achieve—bit by bit—what Aung San Suu Kyi famously called ‘Freedom from Fear’.

But of all the achievements of the Burmese struggle listed so far, the most important has been a deeper and richer understanding of the concept of democracy itself.
When an average Burmese activist talks of democracy today he or she does not simply refer to the replacement of an unelected regime by an elected one.

They understand—from bitter experience—it is not so much about who wields state power but how and on whose behalf it is exercised.

If there are no larger-than-life leaders at the head of the Burmese protests, it is because the men and women on the streets are learning to become leaders all on their own.

And that is why those who are fixated on a quick end to this long-running saga can’t see the birth of Burmese democracy.

We can already hear the baby cry, its smile can’t be far behind.

Satya Sagar is a writer, journalist and video maker based in New Delhi. He can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com

Gambari second visit

Gambari Gambari

U gambira and Mr. gambari

we kick out your rep

you do not do fair reports

we stop internet

you stopped my private jet

try sanctions in Singapore

I stay in my caves

with my employed slaves

I shake hands with N Koreans

buy russian nuclear tech

to protect my wealth and safety

I have gas and natural wealth

Thais and Singaporeans court us bad

Chinese pat our back

Russians sell its tech

US so far so Ha Ha

China so near he's Pa Pa

US Smart Sanctions

List of targets in this link

Hooray for Thai Airways and Silk Air of Singapore

no competition for them from cheaper airline

Singaporean hotels in Yangon ( Summit Parkview, Sedona ) and Singaporean JVs with Myanmar Holdings in Yangon ( Myanmar Brewery Ltd ) will have more security without local rivals.

But sorry! there are no business travellers nor tourists for their hotels

another airline from Hong Kong arrives?

is it connected to Tay Za? or Steven Law?

oh! man! whats the point? whats the point?

going around and around

like dogs and cats

chasing and blocking

running and hiding

gleaming and screaming

playing political games

with private jets and lumbhargini

while ordinary people mal nourishing

Save our culture

Quote from this link: A celebration of Burmese Culture!

News of Burmese American song released on youtube

“We want these people to be happy,”

“For them to be happy, we have to communicate about our country.”

"There’s a message going out about the people, and it’s coming back to the Burmese and imbuing a sense of shame,”

“After living there it was so different from what I’ve read,” he said. “I love the people.”

“The single focal point is Burma is not what you think it is,” he said.

“It’s beautiful, the people are friendly, and you can move around in the country – at least at that time.”

Handley hopes he does not sing in vain.

“I want to save the culture,” he said, choking back tears.

Quotes from this link

"It was terrible when they killed the students in 1988," but this time "when they started killing the monks, the hurt and anger was the worst ever," "The monks are part of all of us. It's like they're killing our sons, our Buddha," she said.

"The point of the video is that despite everything, the people there are very happy and peaceful,"