By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer Eric Talmadge, Associated Press Writer – 28 mins ago
TOKYO – Japan's ruling conservative party suffered a crushing defeat in elections Sunday as voters overwhelmingly cast their ballots in favor of a left-of-center opposition camp that has promised to rebuild the economy and breathe new life into the country after 54 years of virtual one-party rule, media projections said.
The opposition Democratic Party of Japan was set to win 300 of the 480 seats in the lower house of parliament, ousting the Liberal Democrats, who have governed Japan for all but 11 months since 1955, according to projections by all major Japanese TV networks.
The vote was seen as a barometer of frustrations over Japan's worst economic slump since World War II and a loss of confidence in the ruling Liberal Democrats' ability to tackle tough problems such as the rising national debt and rapidly aging population.
National broadcaster NHK, using projections based on exit polls of roughly 400,000 voters, said the Democratic Party was set to win 300 seats and the Liberal Democrats only about 100. Official results were expected early Monday.
As voting closed Sunday night, officials said turnout was high, despite an approaching typhoon, indicating the intense level of public interest the hotly contested campaigns have generated.
The loss by the Liberal Democrats would open the way for the Democratic Party of Japan, headed by Yukio Hatoyama, to oust Prime Minister Taro Aso and establish a new Cabinet, possibly within the next few weeks.
It would also smooth policy debates in parliament, which has been deadlocked since the Democrats and their allies took over the less powerful upper house in 2007.
"The ruling party has betrayed the people over the past four years, driving the economy to the edge of a cliff, building up more than 6 trillion yen ($64.1 billion) in public debt, wasting money, ruining our social security net and widening the gap between the rich and poor," the Democratic Party said in a statement as voting began Sunday.
"We will change Japan," it said.
The Democrats have also said they will make Tokyo's diplomacy less U.S.-centric. But Hatoyama, who holds a doctorate in engineering from Stanford University, insists he will not seek dramatic change in Japan's foreign policy, saying the U.S.-Japan alliance would "continue to be the cornerstone of Japanese diplomatic policy."
Hatoyama's party held 112 seats before parliament was dissolved in July. The Democratic Party would only need to win a simple majority of 241 seats in the lower house to assure that it can name the next prime minister.
"We don't know if the Democrats can really make a difference, but we want to give them a chance," Junko Shinoda, 59, a government employee, said after voting at a crowded polling center in downtown Tokyo.
With only two weeks of official campaigning that focused mainly on broadstroke appeals rather than specific policies, many analysts said the elections were not so much about issues as voters' general desire for something new after more than a half century under the Liberal Democrats.
The Democrats are proposing toll-free highways, free high schools, income support for farmers, monthly allowances for job seekers in training, a higher minimum wage and tax cuts. The estimated bill comes to 16.8 trillion yen ($179 billion) if fully implemented starting in fiscal year 2013.
Aso — whose own support ratings have sagged to a dismal 20 percent — repeatedly stressed his party led Japan's rise from the ashes of World War II into one of the world's biggest economic powers and are best equipped to get it out of its current morass.
But the current state of the economy has been a major liability for his party.
Last week, the government reported that the unemployment rate for July hit 5.7 percent — the highest in Japan's post-World War II era — while deflation intensified and families have cut spending because they are insecure about the future.
Making the situation more dire is Japan's rapidly aging demographic — which means more people are on pensions and there is a shrinking pool of taxpayers to support them and other government programs.
Opposition wins landslide in Japan election
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy dies at age 77
By Scott Malone Scott Malone – 1 hr 5 mins ago
BOSTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, a towering figure in the Democratic Party who took the helm of one of America's most fabled political families after two older brothers were assassinated, died at age 77, his family said.
"Edward M. Kennedy, the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply, died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port (Massachusetts)," the Kennedy family said in a statement early Wednesday.
One of the most influential and longest-serving senators in U.S. history -- a liberal standard-bearer who was also known as a consummate congressional dealmaker -- Kennedy had been battling brain cancer, which was diagnosed in May 2008.
His death marked the twilight of a political dynasty and dealt a blow to Democrats as they seek to answer President Barack Obama's call for an overhaul of the healthcare system.
Kennedy made healthcare reform his signature cause. He recently urged Massachusetts lawmakers to change state law so the governor, if necessary, could quickly fill a Senate vacancy as the chamber debates the contentious healthcare issue.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said in a statement, "As we mourn his loss, we rededicate ourselves to the causes for which he so dutifully dedicated his life."
Known as "Teddy," he was the brother of President John Kennedy, assassinated in 1963, Senator Robert Kennedy, fatally shot while campaigning for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, and Joe Kennedy, a pilot killed in World War Two.
When he first took the Senate seat previously held by John Kennedy in 1962, he was seen as something of a political lightweight who owed his ascent to his famous name.
Yet during his nearly half century in the chamber, Kennedy became known as one of Washington's most effective senators, crafting legislation by working with lawmakers and presidents of both parties, and finding unlikely allies.
At the same time, he held fast to liberal causes deemed anachronistic by the centrist "New Democrats," and was a lightning rod for conservative ire.
He helped enact measures to protect civil and labor rights, expand healthcare, upgrade schools, increase student aid and contain the spread of nuclear weapons.
"There's a lot to do," Kennedy told Reuters in 2006. "I think most of all it's the injustice that I continue to see and the opportunity to have some impact on it."
After Robert Kennedy's death, Edward was expected to waste little time in vying for the presidency. But in 1969, a young woman drowned after a car Kennedy was driving plunged off a bridge on the Massachusetts resort island of Chappaquiddick after a night of partying.
Kennedy's image took a major hit after it emerged he had failed to report the accident to authorities. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene and received a suspended sentence.
Kennedy eventually ran for his party's presidential nomination in 1980 but lost to then-President Jimmy Carter.
His presidential ambitions thwarted, Kennedy devoted himself to his Senate career.
A 2009 survey by The Hill, a Capitol Hill publication, found that Senate Republicans believed Kennedy was the chamber's easiest Democrat to work with and most bipartisan.
Republican Senator John McCain called Kennedy "the single most effective member of the Senate if you want to get results."
In January 2008, Kennedy endorsed Obama, who was serving his first term as a senator, for the Democratic presidential nomination. Many saw the endorsement -- Obama went on to win the nomination and the White House -- as the passing of the political torch to a new generation.
'LION' BATTLED ON
Kennedy had been largely sidelined in Congress since becoming ill. The "Lion of the Senate" began to use a cane and often looked tired and drained as he mixed work with treatment.
Yet colleagues and staff said he remained determined to fulfill what he called "the cause of my life," providing health insurance to all Americans. He helped draft legislation to overhaul the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system.
Kennedy's interest in healthcare dated from his son's bout with cancer in the 1970s. More recently, he cited his own illness as he made a case for reform.
"I've benefited from the best of medicine, but I've also witnessed the frustration and outrage of patients and doctors alike as they face the challenges of a system that shortchanges millions of Americans," he wrote in a May 28, 2009, issue of the Boston Globe.
His charisma as "the last of the Kennedy brothers" was such that draft-Teddy drives were a feature of U.S. presidential election years from 1968 through the 1980s.
But he never fully escaped the cloud of the Chappaquiddick accident. A decades-long argument arose about whether he tried to cover up his involvement by leaving the scene while Mary Jo Kopechne's body remained submerged and whether police helped sweep such questions under the rug. All involved denied any cover-up.
Later crises involving younger Kennedys, notably the 1991 Palm Beach rape trial of his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, caught a bloated and weary-looking Uncle Ted in a media glare. Reports of heavy drinking and womanizing led to a public apology for "the faults in the conduct of my private life."
Kennedy was remarried soon after that to Victoria Reggie, a 38-year-old lawyer with two young children from her first marriage. He poured renewed energy into the Senate, where he would become the third-longest serving senator in history.
Even his Republican foes recognized Kennedy's dedication as he worked to protect civil rights, give federal help to the poor, contain the spread of nuclear weapons, raise the minimum wage, expand health coverage and improve America's schools.
FAMILY STANDARDS
Born on February 22, 1932, Edward Moore Kennedy was the last of four sons and five daughters born to millionaire businessman Joseph Kennedy, who would later be ambassador to Britain, and his wife, Rose.
The Boston Irish family combined the competitive spirit of nouveau riche immigrants with acquired polish and natural charm. The sons were expected to mature into presidential timber and were groomed for that starting with the oldest, Joseph Jr., a bomber pilot who died in World War Two.
"I think about my brothers every day," Kennedy told Reuters. "They set high standards. Sometimes you measure up, sometimes you don't."
Like his brothers, Kennedy was known for his oratory, delivered in a booming voice at rallies, congressional hearings and in the Senate.
He drew praise from liberals, labor and civil rights groups and scorn from conservatives, big business and anti-abortion and pro-gun activists. His image was often used by Republicans in ads as a money-raising tool.
Tragedies dogged Kennedy throughout his life. They included a 1964 plane crash that damaged his spine and left him with persistent pain; bone cancer that cost son Teddy a leg; first wife Joan's battles with alcoholism that contributed to their divorce, and drug problems involving nephews, one of whom died of an overdose. His nephew, John Kennedy Jr., died in July 1999 when his small plane crashed into the ocean near Cape Cod.
In May 2008, Edward Kennedy collapsed at his Cape Cod home and was flown to hospital in Boston, where he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Brain cancer kills half its victims within a year.
Kennedy's illness kept him from attending the funeral of his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a leading advocate of the mentally disabled, who died on August 11 at the age of 88.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Peter Cooney)
[Ye Yint Thet Zwe] တံလွ်ပ္
ဘ၀က (ည) အိပ္မက္ဆိုးတခုလို
ေက်ာက္စရစ္ေတာ မာေခါင္ေခါင္မွာ
အေတာင္ကၽြတ္သည့္ ႀကိဳးၾကာ
ေရရွာမရသကဲ့သို ့ ဆိုတာမ်ိဳး
ငါ့ ၀င္တိုးတဲ့အခ်ိန္
ခ်ဳပ္ညေနရီရဲ ့
သက္တံ့ခံုးအစြန္းမွာ
လ ကေလးကတြဲလဲခိုလို ့ ။
ဘာမွမေသခ်ာဘူး
သံသရာတဆံုး
ရွိတာထက္ပို ရႈံံးခဲ့ရၿပီ
မွတ္တမ္းမွတ္ရာမ်ားလည္း
သက္တံ့ထဲမွာ ေပ်ာ္၀င္
တံလွ်ပ္ကို ေရထင္
ေရႊသမင္အလိုက္မွားၾကသူမ်ားအၾကား
လေရာင္ကရႊန္းပ အဲဒီညမွာ။
အဆံုးသတ္ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ဟာ
အဲဒီညကိုေတာင္ ေခ်ာက္ခ်ားေစခဲ့ၿပီးမွ
ျပာပူကို ဘာအတြက္ေၾကာက္ေနရဦးမွာလဲ
ျပာပူကို ဘာအတြက္ေၾကာက္ေနရဦးမွာလဲ
ရဲရဲေရွ ့တိုး
လေရာင္ကိုပ်ိဳးယူမယ္ႀကံကာရွိေသး
ခ်ဳပ္ညေနရီထဲက လကေလး
သက္တံ့ခံုးအစြန္းနေဘးမွာ
ငါ အိပ္ရာကႏိုးထ
အဲဒီည
ျပန္ရွာမရေတာ့ ၊၊
ရဲရင့္သက္ဇြဲ
အလြမ္းသင့္ က်ိန္စာျမစ္ထဲက ပန္းတပြင့္၏ အတၳဳပၸတၱိ
ေမေမ
ဒုကၡကို အေရာင္ဆိုးထားတဲ့ ေခတ္ပၽက္ႄကီးထဲမွာ
ကၽေနာ္ဟာ အေမ့ရဲ႔၀န္ထုပ္၀န္ပိုးႄကီးပါ၊
အေမေႁပာေနႂကစကား
မိဘေကၽးဇူး မသိတတ္တာေလးကလြဲလို ့
အလြန္လိမၼာတဲ့သား ၊ မွတ္မွတ္ရရမွတ္သားရင္း
တိတ္ဆိတ္စြာ သားေကာင္အနံ ့ကိုရတဲ့
မုဆိုးတေယာက္ရဲ႔ စိတ္လူပ္ရွားမႈမၽိဳးနဲ ့
ႏူတ္ဆက္ခြဲခြာ
အနာဂတ္သစ္ေတြရွိမယ့္ေနရာ
ထြက္ခြာသြားေပါ့ ။
နွစ္ဆယ့္တႏွစ္ တဲ့
အလြမ္းသင့္ကၽိန္စာႁမစ္ထဲမွာ
အႄကိမ္ႄကိမ္နစ္လို႔
အိမ္ႁပန္ခၽင္တဲ့ စိတ္မွာ
ကၽေနာ္တမ္းတ
ေမေမ့ အမည္နာမတခုသာ
ႂကယ္ေႂကြေတြႂကားမွာ
သားေတြရဲ ့ ကံႂကမၼာ
ေမေမ့ရဲ႔ ၀ဠ္ေႄကြးေတြမၽားလား
ငမိုက္သားမၽားက္ု ခြင့္လႊတ္ပ ။
ေမေမ
အိပ္မေပၽာ္တဲ့ ညမၽားမွာ
ေကာင္းကင္ကိုေမာ့ႂကည့္
ႂကယ္ေတြကို ရည္တြက္ရင္း
လရဲ႔မၽက္ႏွာႁပင္မွာ
သားေတြရဲ႔ ပံုရိပ္ကိုရွာ
ေဆြးေႁမ့စြာေႂကကြဲ
အိပ္မက္ေတြက သတိတရနဲ႔
ေမေမ့အေပၚ လဲႃပိဳပိကၽ
ကၽေနာ့္အေပၚလဲႃပိဳပိကၽ ။
ေမေမေရ
ႁပန္လည္ႂကားေယာင္မိေပါ့
(သူပုန္မိခင္တရား ၂၁ႏွစ္ႂကာလည္းမခါး)
သူရဲေကာင္းတို႔ရဲ႔ အေမြ
တဘ၀မွာ တခါသာ ေသ
သားေရ
တဘ၀မွာ တခါသာေသသတဲ့
အားႄကီးတဲ့ ရန္သူေရွ႔မွာ
ႏွမ္းတေစ့ေလာက္ေတာင္
အေႂကာက္တရားနဲ႔ မေဖာက္ႁပားေလနဲ႔
ေမေမ့ကို ဖမ္းဆီးႏွိပ္စက္
အဲဒီအတြက္လည္း စိတ္မပူနဲ႔
မတရားတဲ့ အမိန္႔အာဏာဟူသမွ်
တာ၀န္အရ ဖီဆန္ႂကရမွာပဲ မဟုတ္လား ။
ႏွစ္ဆယ့္တႏွစ္လံုးလံုး
ေဗဒါပန္းထံုး ႏွလံုးမူႃပီး
ေစာင့္ခဲ့ရတာပါ
အခုမွေတာ့
သန္းေခါင္ထက္ ညၪ့္မနက္ေတာ့ပါဘူး
သန္းေခါင္ထက္ ညၪ့္မနက္ေတာ့ပါဘူး ။
ရဲရင့္သက္ဇြဲ
Burma at a Crossroads-Editorial
The southeast Asian nation of Burma is one of the poorest, sickest, most oppressive places in the world. The military junta that has ruled ruthlessly for two decades has enriched itself with the country’s abundant natural resources, but left most of the population of about 56 million destitute. Burma’s health system is the second worst on earth. HIV/AIDS is rampant, more than a quarter of the population lacks access to clean water, forced labor is widespread, and the nation is home to the world’s largest number of child soldiers.
Even its name has been stolen. The military regime changed it to Myanmar. The United Nations went along with this thievery. Fortunately, the United States did not.
Every so often, the veil is lifted, and the plight of Burma pierces our consciences. It happened when the junta summarily refused to honor the outcome of elections in 1990, after the opposition party garnered 82% of the vote. And again, when the imprisoned head of that party, Aung San Suu Kyi, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. When brave Buddhist monks ignited the “Saffron Revolution” in 2007 until it was brutally quashed. And when the rulers initially refused international aid to help their own people after a deadly cyclone hit in 2008.
Now, again, is one of those times.
Burma may be at a crossroads. Its brutal path is continuing — after a months-long show trial, Suu Kyi, the regal face of the beleaguered pro-democracy movement who has spent 14 of the last 20 years under house arrest, was sentenced to 18 more months on August 11. If her sentence is upheld, it could prevent her from participating in elections that the regime has scheduled for next year.
Free and fair elections cannot take place without her. As Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nation’s special envoy to Burma, told the BBC: She “is absolutely indispensable to the resumption of a political process that can lead to national reconciliation.”
But there may be a more heartening story emerging from Burma, building on the success of the recent mission by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, who was able to secure the release of an American detained and sentenced to prison after he intruded on Suu Kyi’s home in May. Even more astonishing, Webb was allowed to meet with her, an honor denied even the U.N. secretary general just last month.
The Obama administration said Webb went to Burma in his role as senator and not as a representative of the White House. But his belief in a new policy of engagement with the ruling generals fits nicely with statements from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who back in February acknowledged that years of economic sanctions had failed to make a dent in Burma’s relentless oppression and signaled her willingness to change diplomatic course.
Engagement is the mantra of this administration. Be it Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Burma — no nation is automatically cut off from the possibility of conversation. This, of course, reflects the personality of a president who believes that he can smooth out deep-rooted tensions by sitting down with anyone over a beer. But it also reflects the reality that in many of these cases, strident political confrontation and economic isolation have only tightened the noose around millions of innocent lives.
How does a nation like ours, intent on promoting democracy and human rights, confront governments so devoted to opposing these values? How do we appeal to a brutal regime without bolstering its oppression? How do we champion the cause of a magnificent public servant like Suu Kyi without prolonging her suffering?
We begin by acknowledging that Burma may, indeed, be at a crossroads, and that it’s our obligation to explore any path that leads to more freedom for its people.
http://www.forward.com/articles/112454/
[Ye Yint Thet Zwe] အမွန္တရားတို ့ ေမွာက္က်သြားခဲ့ၿပီးေနာက္
ဒီလမ္း ဒီစခန္းမွာ
ဘယ္သူက သူရဲေကာင္းလည္း
ဘယ္သူက ဗီလိန္လဲ
ဘယ္သူက ဘယ္သူ ့ကို
ဘယ္သူက ဘယ္သူ ့ကို
စြဲခ်က္တင္ရမွာတဲ့လဲ
ရိုက္ခ်က္ကျပင္းတယ္ ။
ဖြတ္ဖြတ္ညက္ညက္ေၾကေနတဲ့
ေဟာဒီ ေျမဟာ
တို ့ပိုင္တဲ့ေျမ
အဲဒီေျမမွာ
လူသားျခင္းစာနာမႈ ဆိုတဲ့ စကား
လိမ္လည္လွည့္ဖ်ားတတ္သူတို ့ရဲ့ ႏႈတ္ဖ်ား
ေ၀ါဟာရအသစ္မ်ားလား
ငါတို ့မွာ နာက်ည္းေၾကကြဲရေပါ့ ။
တကယ္ေတာ့
သူတို ့ သူမ ကို
အေသသတ္ခဲ့ၾကတယ္
သူမကို တခါသတ္တိုင္း
သူတို ့ ႏိုင္ငံတကာအလယ္မွာ အႀကိမ္ႀကိမ္အခါခါ ေသရတယ္ ။
တရားမွ်တမႈတို ့ ပ်က္သုဥ္းလာတဲ့အခါ
ကမၻာေျမဟာ နာက်င္ ဆြံ ့အ
ဘုရားသခင္အလိုေတာ္ရေတာ့မဟုတ္ဘူး ။
ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ထားတဲ့အတိုင္
ဇာတ္သိမ္းက ဇာတ္နာလြန္းလွတယ္
အားႀကီးသူတို ့ရ ့ဲ ကိုယ္က်ိဳးၾကည့္မႈမွာ
တရားစီရင္ေရးကို ေစာင့္ေရွာက္တဲ့
နတ္သမီးခမ်ာ
အႀကိမ္ႀကိမ္အခါခါ ေရတိမ္နစ္ရရွာတယ္၊
ဆႏၵျပ၊ အစည္းအေ၀း၊ ဆင္ဖိုစီယမ္၊ ကြန္းဖရန ့္စ္
လုပ္ထံုးလုပ္နည္းေတြၾကားမွာ
အျငင္းပြားစရာေတြ မ်ားမ်ားလာတယ္၊
တိုင္းျပည္ကေတာ့ ရင္ဘတ္စည္တီး
ေခတ္ႀကီးကေတာ့
အမွန္တရားတို ့ေမွာက္က်သြားတဲ့အခါ
ေ၀သာလီျပည္ ဘီလူးစီးသလိုပ ။
Asean Officials to Discuss Suu Kyi Pardon Proposal
Asean Officials to Discuss Suu Kyi Pardon Proposal
By THE IRRAWADDY Tuesday, August 18, 2009
A Thai government proposal for a request by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to the Burmese junta to pardon Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to be discussed at a meeting of senior Asean officials in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Wednesday and Thursday.
Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said on Monday that the pardon proposal had been winning more support among Asean member countries, according to a report in the Bangkok English-language daily The Nation.
Cambodia and Vietnam, however, were reported to be still opposed to the proposal.
“We respect Burma's justice system but are concerned about the unity of Asean too, since Aung San Suu Kyi's case makes Asean and Burma a common target,” Kasit was quoted in The Nation.
Kasit noted that Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as Indonesia and Singapore, had spoken positively about the rate of progress in Burma.
American Senator Jim Webb, who met Burmese junta leader Than Shwe in Naypyidaw last week, said in a CNN interview on Monday that an Asean request for a pardon for Suu Kyi would be a “major step forward in resolving the situation.”
Webb said: "I am of the understanding that we are possibly going to see from Asean. a petition of some sort that would ask for amnesty for her as well.”
During his visit to Burma, Webb, chairman of a US Senate foreign relations sub-committee on East Asia, secured the release of John Yettaw, the American who intruded into Suu Kyi’s home and then found himself on trial alongside the pro-democracy leader. Yettaw was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, while Suu Kyi was given a further 18 months’ house arrest.
Burma will also be on the agenda of an Asean summit in October in Thailand, when leaders of the grouping will announce the formation of the Asean Human Rights Body. Observers say Burma is one of the issues challenging the credibility of the first human rights body in the region.
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 16594
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Army attacks displace thousands of civilians in Myanmar
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19 August 2009
While the world’s attention was focused on the trial and subsequent sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese army is quietly busy in crushing ethnic minorities, says Human Rights watch. Last three weeks have seen displacement of more than 10,000 ethnic Shans.
New York: Burmese army attacks against ethnic Shan civilians in northeastern Burma (Myanmar) have displaced more than 10,000 people in the past three weeks, Human Rights Watch has said.
It has called on Burma's military government to immediately end attacks against civilians and other violations of international humanitarian law.
Burmese Army.jpg
Burmese troops have been battering civilians as part of the longstanding campaign against ethnic minorities/ Photo credit: New Statesman
Following democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence last week to return to house arrest on August 11, Human Rights Watch reiterated its call to the United Nations Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Burma.
It also calls to create a commission of inquiry to investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by all parties to the fighting in Burma's ethnic minority areas.
"While the world has been focused on the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese troops have been battering civilians as part of the military government's longstanding campaign against ethnic minorities," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Marginalised and brutalised
"These attacks in Shan state should remind the international community that in addition to the persecution of the Burmese political opposition, Burma's ethnic minorities are systematically marginalised and brutalised by the Burmese government and army."
According to credible reports by Shan human rights groups, the Burmese army, or Tatmadaw, has deployed seven army battalions to clear civilians from large areas of Laikha township and parts of Mong Kerng township in central Shan state between July 27 and August 1.
Troops have reportedly burned down more than 500 houses as they attacked 39 villages in the area. Human Rights Watch believes this recently scaled-up forced relocation operation is part of an intensified counterinsurgency campaign, as Tatmadaw units attack the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), an insurgent armed group that operates in the area.
The SSA-S has been conducting deadly ambushes regularly for years and on July 15, SSA-S forces attacked the 515th Light Infantry Battalion in Laikha, killing 11 Tatmadaw soldiers. There are reports that many of the displaced civilians are moving toward the Thailand-Burma border.
The Thailand-Burma Border Consortium annual internal displacement survey reports that more than 13,000 civilians were displaced in 2008 in Laikha and surrounding townships because of increased Tatmadaw operations against the SSA-S. This follows years of similar operations.
Between 1996 and 1998, the Tatmadaw effectively cleared central Shan state of its civilian population. Burmese army forces have been responsible for deliberate attacks on civilians, summary executions, rape, torture, destruction and forced relocation of villages, and use of child soldiers and forced labor. More than 350,000 civilians were forcibly displaced during that campaign, many of them becoming refugees in neighboring Thailand.
Flouting the laws of war
"While the Burmese Army flouts the laws of war, Shan civilians pay the price," said Adams.
"The ongoing Burmese army attacks in Shan state demonstrate the vicious modus operandi of the Tatmadaw and its disdain for the lives and well-being of civilians."
Recent attacks by the Tatmadaw and their proxy forces, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, forced some 5,000 ethnic Karen across the border into Thailand in June. The civilians, mostly women and children, were fleeing fighting, forced labour, and the widespread sowing of landmines.
According to the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium's annual survey, nearly half a million people are internally displaced in eastern Burma, either in government relocation sites, within non-state armed groups ceasefire zones, or in so-called free-fire areas highly vulnerable to Tatmadaw patrols that maintain an unlawful "shoot on sight" policy against civilians.
Human Rights Watch has documented abuses against civilians in ethnic areas of Karen state in eastern Burma and in Chin state in western Burma. Abuses such as extrajudicial killings, torture and beatings, and confiscation of land and property continue with impunity.
The refugee problem
There are more than 140,000 Burmese refugees along the Thailand border in nine temporary refugee camps. Although 50,000 refugees have been resettled to third countries like the United States, Norway, and Canada, more refugees continue to arrive, fleeing the armed conflict in eastern Burma.
Thailand does not recognise people from Shan state as refugees, and refuses to permit the establishment of refugee camps for ethnic Shan, fearing a larger influx of civilians fleeing repression from northeastern Burma.
Instead, those Shan who reach Thailand eke out an existence as migrant workers, often without legal status.
Human Rights Watch called on the government of Thailand to offer sanctuary to refugees fleeing abuses in Shan state in accordance with international law.
Although Thailand is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, it is bound by the customary international law prohibition against returning people to countries where they face persecution.
Institute commission of inquiry
Human Rights Watch reiterated its calls to the United Nations Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma and to pursue a comprehensive arms embargo against Burma.
Human Rights Watch said that Burma should become a regular topic for discussion on the Security Council agenda, to pressure the Burmese government to respect basic freedoms of its citizens and continue to inform Security Council members of its progress. Security Council Resolution 1674 on the protection of civilians in armed conflict states that "peace and security, development and human rights are the pillars of the United Nations and the foundations for collective security."
A May 2009 report by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, "Crimes in Burma", reviewed United Nations human rights reports for several years and concluded that human rights abuses are widespread, systematic, and part of state policy. The report, endorsed by five eminent international jurists, cited cases of forced relocation, sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, and torture. It similarly called for a commission of inquiry to be established by the Security Council to investigate potential crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma.
Human Rights Watch said an arms embargo could stop the supply of weapons, military assistance, and technology that enable continued attacks against civilians in ethnic conflict areas. China and Russia, both of whom supply weapons to Burma, are the military government's main diplomatic supporters and continue to block stronger international action against the ruling junta.
On August 13, the UN Security Council issued a weak press statement on Burma that both "reiterate[s] the importance of the release of all political prisoners," but also affirms Security Council members' "commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Burma.
"The UN Security Council should end its inaction and authorise a commission of inquiry into human rights abuses and enforce an arms embargo," said Adams.
"This will not happen unless China and Russia stop protecting Burma's generals."
Aung San Suu Kyi left to pay the price for John Yettaw’s indiscretion
August 17, 2009
The Times online - Aung San Suu Kyi left to pay the price for John Yettaw’s indiscretion
Richard Lloyd Parry: Analysis
First it was Bill Clinton in North Korea, escorting home two scared US journalists from the clutches of Kim Jong Il. Now, Senator Jim Webb returns from Burma with the hapless American eccentric, John Yettaw.
For a politician, there are few more glorious moments than jetting home from a despotic regime with imprisoned compatriots in tow. But the liberation of Mr Yettaw was the least important and interesting achievement of Mr Webb’s trip.
Whether you regard Mr Yettaw as a well-meaning buffoon or an arrogant busybody, he hardly deserved such a prompt and high-level intervention.
The ironies of his release this weekend are painful. In setting him free, the Burmese junta manages to project an image of magnanimity for cancelling a sentence out of all proportion to Mr Yettaw’s “crimes”. And, as he flies back to obscurity in Missouri, Aung San Suu Kyi and her two female companions are left to pay the price of his fecklessness.
Mr Webb did at least see Ms Suu Kyi and their conversation must have been an interesting one. For the senator is a firm supporter of an approach very different from her uncompromising idealism. In the absence of any ideal solutions for dealing with the regime, he believes in making the most of a bad lot and in engaging with the junta, dropping sanctions, and also backs participation in the bogus-sounding election promised for next year.
These would be highly risky steps, but the time is long overdue for a serious debate about alternatives to the present policies of Ms Suu Kyi and her Western supporters, which have achieved nothing very obvious other than high-minded isolation.
For encouraging such a conversation, Senator Webb deserves credit.
He would have done much to overcome stereotypes about American parochialism, and made a valuable point to the dictatorship, if he had requested Ms Suu Kyi’s release before that of Mr Yettaw, rather than vice versa.
မန္မာနိုင္ငံအလုပ္သမားသမဂၢမ်ားအဖြဲ ့ခ်ဳပ္ မွ လူထုေခါင္းေဆာင္အားေထာင္ဒဏ္ခ်မွတ္ျခင္းအေပၚ
မန္မာနိုင္ငံအလုပ္သမားသမဂၢမ်ားအဖြဲ ့ခ်ဳပ္ မွ လူထုေခါင္းေဆာင္အားေထာင္ဒဏ္ခ်မွတ္ျခင္းအေပၚ
ျပင္းထန္စြာကန္ ့ကြက္ ျပီး ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုႀကည္ လႊတ္ေျမာက္ေရးအားနိုင္ငံတစ္ကာသမဂၢမ်ားနွင့္
ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္သြားမည္ျဖစ္ေႀကာင္းေႀကညာခ်က္
Suu Kyi Sentence Stirs World Outrage
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By WAI MOE Tuesday, August 11, 2009
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World leaders have expressed outrage over the 18-month sentence in the trial of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the European Union plans tougher sanctions against the Burmese regime.
Shortly after the sentence was announced on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicola Sarkozy quickly responded.
“I am both saddened and angry at the verdict today…following the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi,” Brown said in a statement, adding that the sentence was further proof that the regime is “determined to act with total disregard for accepted standards of the rule of law and in defiance of international opinion.”
“This is a purely political sentence designed to prevent her from taking part in the regime’s planned elections next year,” Brown said. He said that the 2010 elections will not have credibility or legitimacy unless Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are released, and they are allowed to participant in the poll.
Britain will assume the chair of the UN Security Council in August. Brown said, “I also believe that the UN Security Council—whose will has been flouted—must also now respond resolutely and impose a world wide ban on the sale of arms to the regime.”
The leader of another UNSC veto power, French President Sarkozy, also reacted strongly, calling for the European Union to pass tougher sanctions against the Burmese regime.
Sarkozy said that the verdict was “brutal and unjust,” and he will ask the EU to respond quickly by adopting new sanctions.
He said the EU’s new sanctions “must in particular target the resources that they [the junta] directly profit from, in the wood and ruby sector.” He said the gas industry, which supplies Thailand and other countries, should be spared from sanctions, according to the statement.
The EU, now under the presidency of Sweden, also condemned the sentence. The EU presidency statement said that the proceedings against Suu Kyi which stem from “charges which were brought twenty years after she was first wrongfully arrested, have been in breach of national and international law.”
Threatening tougher sanctions on Burma, the EU presidency said that the EU will further reinforce its restrictive measures targeting the Burmese regime, including its economic interests.
“The EU underlines its readiness to revise, amend or reinforce its measure in light of the developments in Burma/Myanmar,” said the statement.
The European Parliamentary Caucus on Burma called the military regime “the real criminal” and said the international community should wake up and take stronger action against the regime.
Among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (Asean), the Philippine Foreign Minister Alberto G. Romulo said that the verdict is “incomprehensible and deplorable.”
Thailand, the current chairmanship of Asean, has not yet issued a statement. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said that Thailand will consult with other Asean members before deciding Asean’s next move on Burma following the sentencing, according to The Nation, an English-language newspaper.
After the sentence, several leading campaign groups, such as US Campaign for Burma and Burma Campaign UK, called for the UNSC to pass an arms embargo on the Burmese regime.
“The dictatorship is directly defying the United Nations Security Council,” said Zoya Phan, the international coordinator for the London-based Burma Campaign UK, in a press release. “It is time the generals faced consequences for their actions; a global arms embargo should be imposed immediately.”
In a statement released soon after the verdict was announced, British Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis said that the British government would urge the UN to impose further sanctions.
"Specifically we now want to see an arms embargo against the regime. We want to see Burma's neighbors, the Asean countries, China, Japan, Thailand, apply maximum pressure," he said.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Delays in the trial of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi have fuelled the rumour mill about what the secretive junta is really up to
Delays in the trial of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi have fuelled the rumour mill about what the secretive junta is really up to as elections draw closer
Writer: By Larry Jagan Published: 9/08/2009 at 12:00 AM Newspaper section: Spectrum
The delay in the trial of Burma's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has fuelled intense speculation about why the military junta is dragging out the court ruling and what its real agenda is. As Burma's top general Than Shwe has often told subordinates, international pressure "is like an elastic band" - when it's pulled tight nothing should be done as it only makes matters worse. When the elastic band is relaxed "we proceed with our plans".
There is no doubt that the international pressure is very taut at the moment, and the delaying tactics appear to fit neatly into Than Shwe's strategy of dealing with the opposition leader's continued detention. But he must know that the campaign in support of Aung San Suu Kyi will not subside.
The democracy icon is poised to learn her fate on Tuesday when the judges reconvene their secret court inside Insein prison. She is on trial for allegedly breaking the conditions of her house arrest, when she gave food and shelter to an uninvited American who swam to her lakeside residence. If found guilty, she faces a maximum of five years in jail.
The verdict was originally scheduled to be announced more than a week ago, but the court postponed its decision on the grounds that it needed more time to consider the legal arguments in relation to the 1974 constitution - which Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers insist is no longer relevant.
There is no doubt that one of the regime's main concerns is the possibility of street protests when the verdict is announced. The state-run media warned the public against protesting for several days before the scheduled court verdict last week. They particularly wanted to avoid the Aug 8 anniversary of the mass pro-democracy movement which toppled the previous military ruler, Ne Win.
Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Bangkok-based Burma researcher, said the delay could be a tactic to "bait any potential demonstrators or activists anticipating a guilty verdict to identify themselves, and then switch the date of the verdict so there is enough time to crack down on them".
2
At least 30 National League for Democracy (NLD) activists were arrested in Rangoon and other towns on the eve of the original verdict hearing, although many have since been released.
Some Burma watchers say that Aung San Suu Kyi being found guilty is a fait accompli.
"These charges are a complete and crude fabrication, a pretext to keep Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in detention," the former UN human rights rapporteur for Burma, Professor Paulo Pinheiro, told Spectrum.
British ambassador to Burma Mark Canning, who completed his posting there last month, said: "The trial has been entirely scripted and the end already decided before hand," he said after a rare occasion when he was allowed to attend the court hearing.
Public sentiment echoes that of the diplomats. "No one is in any doubt about the outcome," said Moe Moe, a taxi driver in the country's main commercial city.
"Those men in green in Naypyidaw [the new capital] know she is the people's hero and the real leader of this country."
But is it as cut and dried as the diplomats would have us believe, or is Than Shwe unsure of how to handle the case with one eye on next year's election and the ongoing problem Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters would present him with after a transition to his homegrown version of "democracy"?
Than Shwe plans to announce the formation of an interim government that will hold administrative power for at least one year, until the elections are staged, according to senior military sources in Naypyidaw.
He and other senior generals around him, especially Maung Aye, plan to stand down when the time is right, after the elections planned for next year. New houses are being built for them near Maymeo. The regional commander has confiscated large tracts of land there and new residences for the top military brass are already being built, according to Burmese military sources.
All government ministries have been told to complete all their outstanding work by the end of August, especially the preparation of statistical information.
Aung Thaung, the minister and a close confidant of Than Shwe's, recently told his deputies that there would be a new government soon, and he may no longer be the minister. Most of the
3
current crop of ministers have also told their staff they will no longer be ministers by the end of the year. It is understood that members of the interim government will not be allowed to run in the elections, which is why the ministers will resign their posts and not take part in the pre-election administration.
"According to Than Shwe's plans, all the current ministers will have to resign, if they are to join a political party and fight the forthcoming elections," said the independent Burmese academic, Win Min.
Many analysts believe Than Shwe has been waiting for the verdict to further marginalise Aung San Suu Kyi before proceeding with his plans for a a civilian administration ahead of the elections. "The whole country will really be surprised to see how power is handed over," he reportedly told a high-ranking visiting foreign official.
So far there have been no hints as to who will be in the interim administration. Some analysts speculate that it may even include a senior member of the NLD - which would then preclude them from running for office in next year's elections.
This would also be one way of giving this body credibility - both nationally and internationally. It is possible that Than Shwe wants Aung San Suu Kyi herself to participate in the interim administration, a senior government official recently told Spectrum.
For Than Shwe, there is another major consideration - what to do with Aung San Suu Kyi after the elections. While it may be relatively easy to keep her locked up until then, the problem is that releasing her afterwards would only ensure she would be an enormous thorn in the side of any civilian government.
So Than Shwe's plans must involve finding a way to neutralise her and at the same time give her her freedom. That is the key issue Than Shwe now has to grapple with, and until he decides what to do with her, she will remain in detention.
The timing of the election is crucial to what happens next week. All indications are that it is likely to take place towards the end of next year. So the further away it is, the more likely it is that the process will be drawn out - first a verdict, then another delay before sentencing, and appeals to the high court.
4
If Than Shwe is considering ways to co-opt Aung San Suu Kyi, then there must be secret talks or contact between the two. Leading opposition figures in Rangoon, including her lawyers, categorically dismiss these suggestions. Diplomats are equally sceptical.
"But if there were such talks I wouldn't tell diplomats - and certainly not journalists," a western diplomat in Rangoon told Spectrum. After all, it took months for news of the regime's secret talks with Aung San Suu Kyi to emerge, when she was under house arrest in 2000. Those, brokered by the UN envoy Razali Ismail, led to her release in May 2002.
"Whatever happens, Aung San Suu Kyi will be freed before the elections take place," claimed a senior government official with close links to Than Shwe.
Narinjara: Increase in child labour in Arakan
Tue 4 Aug 2009
Filed under: News, Inside Burma
There has been a quantum leap in child labour in Arakan State after the state started facing severe economic crisis, said a social worker in Sittwe.
“If we compare child labour with last year, there has been an increase this year. Most child labourers are waiters in restaurants and teahouses, pavement vendors, newsvendors, plastic collectors everywhere in Arakan state,” he said.
Most children in Arakan state could not attend schools this year because of financial crisis in the family.
“Most children in rural areas could not attend schools in this academic session. Only 10 per cent of children from some villages in rural areas attended schools because most could not afford the expensive school fees,” he said.
A parent from Maungdaw said a student in a primary level school has to pay 5000 kyats for entrance and stationery fees in Maungdaw Township.
A traveller, who shuttles between Sittwe and Buthidaung by ship, said, “Yes, it is true many children in rural areas in Arakan could not join schools this year. Many aged between 10 and 15 are working in many places as child workers.”
On the ferry ships plying between Sittwe and Buthidaung, there are many children who sell food items in packages to passengers.
“I have never seen children selling food on the ships in the past. Now many children are seen selling foods packages on the ships,” the traveller said.
The number of child workers has increased in places like jetties and bus stations in major towns of Arakan including Kyauk Taw, Mrauk U, Sittwe, Ann, Minbya, kyauk Pru, Taungup and Thandwe.
A woman in Sittwe told Narinjara over telephone that the number of beggars has also increased since the onset of the monsoons in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan state. Among them, three fourths are children.
ရွစ္ေလးလုံးဘာဝနာ
သမီးေရ
ေရာက္ခဲ့ျပန္ေပါ ့ႀသဂက္စ္သို ့တစ္ေခါက္
နွွစ္ဆက္တစ္ရဲ ့ရွစ္ရက္ေျမာက္မွာ
မိုးေတြအုံးဆိုင္း အဲ့ဒီေန ့ေပါ ့
ေနကမပူ မိုးလဲမရြာ
ဗမာျပည္နိမိတ္ မေသခ်ာတဲ့ပုံရိပ္ေတြ
သမိးေရ
မွတ္မိျပန္ေပါ့ရွစ္ေလးလုံးဆိုတာ
သမိုင္းစာမ်က္နွွာ
အေသညစ္တဲ့ ေနဝင္းရဲ့ဆိုရွယ္လစ္
ေျမမွာျပားျပားဝပ္
ဒါ--------ဒုတိယေတာ္လွန္ေရး
ေသြးေတြနဲ ့စေတးခဲ့
ဘဝေတြနဲ ့ရင္းခဲ့
သမီးေရ
ရွစ္ေလးလုံးေသြးေတြညွီစို ့ေနတုန္း
ရွစ္ေလးလုံးေႀကြးေတြ ေပးဆပ္ေနတုန္း
ရွစ္ေလးလုံးမာန္ ဝင့္ထန္ေနတုန္း
ရွစ္ေလးလုံးနတ္ပူးကပ္ေနတုန္း
သမီးေရ
ေစာင့္ႀကည့္ဦးေပါ့
မိုးမလင္းခင္ေတာ့ညည့္ဆိုတာနက္စျမဲ
ဝဋ္ဆိုတာလဲ လည္ႀကစျမဲ
အမွန္တရားဟာ ျမက္နွာမလိုက္သလို
ရွည္လ်ားတဲ့ မိစၦာညလည္း
အာရုဏ္က်င္းေတာ့ ေပ်ာက္ကြယ္ျမဲပါကြယ္
သမီးေရ
ရွစ္ေလးလုံးသံစဥ္မခ်ိဳခဲ့သမွ်
အာဏာရွင္ဇာတ္သိမ္းေသြးနဲ ့လိမ္းဖို ့
တုန္းျပန္ဂလဲ့စား ျပဳမိမွားနဲ ့
စစ္ေခြးနိဂုံး အၿငင္သာဆုံးျဖစ္ေအာင္
ဆုေတာင္းေပးေနာ္
သမီးေရ
ေနမင္းထိန္ထိန္
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