Burma

[writing irish]

RIP.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7016608.stm

Is the US doing anything to help? Is there anything ordinary citizens in the US can do to help? I'm working and don't have the time this evening to do a bunch of online research. Thought I'd ask the board.

 

[Chi City 81]

RIP, Peaceful Myanmarese Demonstrations.

And there's probably nothing we can do. And since Burma has nothing we want, there's nothing the government can do, either.

 

[writing irish]

So what's this ****ing country called now? Bur-may-to? Or Myan-mah-to?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7013943.stm

 

[jgmacg]

I'm not sure there's much to be done. This military junta has been completely unresponsive to foreign outrage since 1988. I got an email this morning from PEN International which included the following:

PEN has long been concerned about freedom of expression in Myanmar. Since the 1988 crackdown on the National League for Democracy (NLD) in which thousands were killed and thousands more arrested, the numbers of detained writers known to PEN has remained largely unchanged. The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), that seized power in a military coup on 18 September 1988, have remained apparently impervious to the considerable and sustained international pressure for its gross human rights violations).

PEN is currently campaigning for the release of nine writers serving sentences ranging from seven to twenty-one years imprisonment in Myanmar. All are detained for their peaceful opposition activities. They include Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the NLD and writer, who has spent the large part of the past eighteen years in detention.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Democrats say

we must get out

And poor Myanmar?

They only pout.

Burma-Shave.

 

[NoOneLikesUs]

Beyond Rangoon is pretty solid film about Burma's ****ed up situation.

 

[Dirk Legume]

Democrats say

we must get out

And poor Myanmar?

They only pout.

Burma-Shave.

Nice.

 

[jgmacg]

In an homage to Tiananmen Square, they're shutting down communications, too.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/burmese-government-clamps-down-on-internet/index.html?hp

 

[OTD]

A Japanese news photographer was killed over there yesterday:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-myanmar28sep28,1,2519432.story?coll=la-headlines-world

What a wreck that place is.

 

[jgmacg]

A Japanese news photographer was killed over there yesterday:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-myanmar28sep28,1,2519432.story?coll=la-headlines-world

What a wreck that place is.

There's a thread over on the j-board about him. I posted some video of the shooting from the Guardian, too. Terrible.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

A Japanese news photographer was killed over there yesterday:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-myanmar28sep28,1,2519432.story?coll=la-headlines-world

What a wreck that place is.

There's a thread over on the j-board about him. I posted some video of the shooting from the Guardian, too. Terrible.

He was probably on a balcony in Amman.

 

[Shifty Squid]

"You most likely know it as Myanmar, but it'll always be Burma to me."

 

[Inky_Wretch]

RIP, Peaceful Myanmarese Demonstrations.

And there's probably nothing we can do. And since Burma has nothing we want, there's nothing the government can do, either.

I think it should be "And since Burma has nothing we want, there's nothing the government will bother to do."

 

[Football_Bat]

I love Crab Rangoon, which is weird that you get it at a Chinese restaurant.

 

[Cansportschick]

I just want to point out that ABC's Jim Scuitto has done a wonderful job reporting from Myanmar.
If any of you have a chance, you should go to ABC NEWS and find his reports from there.

 

[Hustle]

CNN just showed some smuggled video from there. There's a link to it on their front page.

Cooper made reference to the government saying its soldiers had used the greatest restraint possible (which I'm sure no one believed anyway) and then showed soldiers beating people with sticks. Like they were just walking away and got a shot or two on the back on on the head.

One video (from, as they said, dissident journalists) showed a dead monk laying in a creek; apparently he had been abused.

Very disturbing stuff.

 

[Cosmo]

"You most likely know it as Myanmar, but it'll always be Burma to me."

Ah, Peterman.