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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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 Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:35 pm Post subject: Call to Action - People of the World |
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Will you be there ?
SOUTH KOREA:
Time: 12:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: Embassy of the Union of Myanmar (in front of)
Street: 723-1 Hannam-dong, Yongsamn-ku
City/Town: Seoul, South Korea
- It is time.
- Time to speak the truth.
- Time to deal with reality.
- If we want to have a better standard of living, now is the time.
- If we want better recognition of, and respect for, our culture, now is the time.
- If we want to lower the number of our people in custody, now is the time...
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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i've already done my part in passing the relevant info on.
wish i could do more 
anyways, sounds like a few of my more 'conscientious' minded friends from Seoul will be going.
Good karma! 
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/04/myanmar.unrest.ap/index.html
CAN ANYONE ELSE NOT ACCESS THIS WEBSITE?
It's linked right off the main CNN homepage.
Have inexplicably been denied for the last 30 minutes ... plus.
Hmmmmm ... |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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Myanmar Death Toll: Where Are The Monks?
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- One hundred shot dead outside a Myanmar school.
Activists burned alive at government crematoriums.
A Buddhist monk floating face down in a river 
People protest at the Myanmar mission to the United Nations earlier this week in New York.
more photos � After last week's brutal crackdown by the military, horror stories are filling Myanmar blogs and dissident sites. But the tight security of the repressive regime makes it impossible to verify just how many people are dead, detained or missing.
"There are huge difficulties. It's a closed police state," said David Mathieson, a consultant with Human Rights Watch in Thailand. "Many of the witnesses have been arrested and are being held in areas we don't have access to. Other eyewitness are too afraid."
Authorities have acknowledged that government troops shot dead nine demonstrators and a Japanese cameraman in Yangon. But witness accounts range from several dozen deaths to as many as 200 
"We do believe the death toll is higher than acknowledged by the government," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press on Monday. "We are doing our best to get more precise, more detailed information,
not only in terms of deaths but also arrests."
Villarosa said her staff had visited up to 15 monasteries around Yangon and every single one was empty.
She put the number of arrested demonstrators -- monks and civilians -- in the thousands.
"I know the monks are not in their monasteries," she said. "Where are they?
How many are dead? How many are arrested?"
MORE ...
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/01/myanmar.dead.ap/index.html |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:02 am Post subject: |
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So that's tomorrow morning? 12 NOON, eh?
Best of luck to everyone attending this important vigil / demonstration |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:37 am Post subject: |
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| Report from a Burmese general's maid: The first thing he asks for every morning when he gets up is: Where are the South Korean newspapers? |
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arjuna
Joined: 31 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:53 am Post subject: |
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I support y'all wholeheartedly, and I don't mean to poop on the thread, but... We really need to think about doing similar things for other peoples and against other regimes.
Anyway,
My Last Conversation With Aung San Suu Kyi - John Pilger |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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Arjuna is for doing similar things for other peoples and against other regimes - unless they are against the US .
Arjuna you are so dishonest.
Like John Pilger.
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| Quote: |
first casualty of Pilger. . ., The
Sweeney, John
John Sweeney says that John Pilger blames the Americans alone for birth defects in Iraq, and overlooks evidence that implicates Saddam Hussein
The Americans arc making a hash of rebuilding Iraq, but one of the not so bad things they have done is to give Iraqis the freedom to scribble. On the wall outside the Baathist ministry of health the other day, a graffiti artist had scrawled in perfect English, 'We need a health ministry free of corruption.'
For years John Pilger - 'one of the world's most renowned investigative journalists', it says on the back of his latest book - has been insisting that the West, not Saddam, is to blame for the crisis in Iraq's public health; that 5,200 Iraqi children were dying every month; that Western depleted-uranium weapons were to blame for an epidemic of cancers; that sanctions crippled Iraq's doctors. Funnily enough, Pilger's journalism echoed what the Baathist regime wanted people to hear.
But very recently in Baghdad what some might call the Pilger-Baathist line was put to a very public test by yet another American blunder. They handpicked a new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan al-Janabi, who was number three at the health ministry under Saddam. According to virtually every Iraqi doctor I spoke to, he was an unacceptable choice. The Iraqi doctors were not keen to say so to the BBC on camera. To criticise the Baath party on the record is, even now, something that no Iraqi will do lightly. Then two surgeons at Al Kindi teaching hospital in Baghdad, Dr Rahim Ismael and Dlair Omar, mulled it over and said, 'OK, we'll do it.' They damned the health ministry under Saddam as a corrupt and brutal instrument of state oppression. They said that many medicines had been held back in warehouses. The ministry was trying to make healthcare worse in Iraq, the goal being to blacken the name of UN sanctions, which Saddam detested as a brake on his power. The fewer drugs, the worse the equipment and the more dead babies, the better it was for the regime. Any Iraqi doctors who didn't toe the line were punished.
At a press conference to launch the new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan replied that what his critics were really complaining about were Western-led United Nations sanctions against Iraq. As the words came out of his mouth, I thought to myself, 'He's talking John Pilger.' But Dr Ali Shenan was sacked, thanks to the doctors, while John Pilger is still in business.
In Victorian London the biggest killer was not the absence of medicines. It was unclean water, untreated sewage and uncollected rubbish. In Saddam's Iraq dirty water, untreated sewage and uncollected rubbish from the Shia slums of Baghdad and Basra were state policy for a regime that earned $12 billion in oil revenue every year. Yet Pilger makes no mention of Saddam's neglect of public health. Why?
And then there's the 'Hiroshima effect' of depleted uranium. Pilger wrote in the Daily Mirror just before the war, 'Depleted uranium [is] a sinister component of tank shells and airborne missiles. In truth, it is a form of nuclear warfare, and all the evidence suggests that its use in the Gulf war in 1991 has caused an epidemic in southern Iraq: what the doctors there call "the Hiroshima effect", especially among children.' That the cancer rates from 1991 onwards are the fault of the West's depleted-uranium weapons alone was one of Saddam's central messages.
In his television documentary film, Paying the Price, broadcast three years ago, Pilger did the rounds of a Basra hospital. He spoke to a paediatrician, Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen. He wrote it all up in his book The New Rulers of the World: 'In the next bed, a child lay in his shrouded mother's arms. One side of his head was severely swollen. "This is neuroplastoma," said Dr Hassen. "It is a very unusual tumour. Before 1991, we saw only one case of this tumour in two years. Now we have many cases. I am a doctor; I am not supposed to cry, but I cry every day, because this is torture." ' Pilger asked her, 'What do you say to those in the West who deny the connection between depleted uranium and the deformities of these children?' That is not true. How much proof do they want? There is every relation between congenital malformation and depleted uranium. Before 1991, we saw nothing like this at all.'
Felicity Arbuthnot, Pilger's senior researcher for the film, wrote in a magazine article published in September 1999, 'By early 1992, doctors in Iraq were bewildered by the rise in birth deformities - some so grotesque and unusual that they expected to see them only in textbooks and perhaps once or twice in a life-time. They compared them to those recorded in the Pacific Islands after the nuclear testing in the 1950s. Cancers, too, were rising, especially among the young, the most susceptible to radiation.'
Hang on a minute. Cancers don't happen overnight. They develop after a latency period of at least four years. The Iraqis reported a rash of cancers in the south from 1992 onwards. The cancers that happened in 1992 cannot, scientifically, have been caused in 1992 - or 1991 when the depleted uranium was used - but at least four years before that. 'To say any different is ridiculous; it would deny the evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,' Dr Nick Plowman, the head of oncology at Barts, told me.
In the mid-1980s Iranian human-wave offensives almost took Basra, but they were stopped by Saddam's chemical weapons. The UN found incontrovertible evidence that Saddam used mustard gas against the Iranians every year between 1984 and 1988. When the Iranians came close to Basra, the Iraqis dropped gas on their own people, too. Nearly all of the war was fought in Iraq, not Iran, so that's where Saddam dropped his chemical weapons.
Mustard gas - sulphur mustard - is carcinogenic and mutagenic. That is, sulphur mustard causes cancers, leukaemias and birth defects. The children of Iranian soldiers who were gassed by Saddam's men have developed terrible cancers and birth defects. No depleted-uranium weapons were used on them. The children of Halabja, the Kurdish town gassed by Saddam, have developed cancers and birth defects. Again, no depleted uranium was used on them.
Pilger knows all about chemical weapons. He wrote in the Minor in January, 'I often came upon terribly deformed Vietnamese children in villages where American aircraft had sprayed a herbicide called Agent Orange. This terrible chemical weapon was dumped on almost half of South Vietnam. Today, as the poison continues to move through water and soil and food, children continue to be born without palates and chins and scrotums or are stillborn. Many have leukaemia.' If chemical weapons cause cancers in Vietnam, why don't they do the same in Iraq? The answer seems a simple one: chemical weapons cause cancer so long as they are dropped by the Americans.
Shortly after Pilger's programme was broadcast in 2000, Arbuthnot phoned Gwynne Roberts, the only journalist brave enough to go to Iraq in 1988 and dig up soil contaminated by Saddam's chemical weapons. Portland Down found mustard gas in Roberts's soil samples. Arbuthnot was puz-zled: how could the cancers in Iraq have started in 1992? Roberts's view, like mine, is that - without letting the West off the hook on the question of depleted uranium - the contribution that Saddam's chemical weapons may have made to the Hiroshima Effect should be seriously investigated.
I emailed John Pilger, asking him, 'You know about Saddam's use of chemical weapons, so why didn't you raise the possibility of that being the cause of the cancers and birth defects?' He replied, 'You apparently think my film was made in 1991. It wasn't. It was made in 1999, eight years after the 1991 Gulf war, or twice the time it takes for deformities to develop, according to you. In the film I clearly put to one of the doctors the doubts that depleted uranium is the cause of the deformities. Her answer was a good one. Another specialist himself raises the doubts and addresses them. At no point in the film do I say that DU is, on its own, responsible for the extraordinary rise in cancers over, I repeat, a period of eight years up to when the film was made.'
This is artful. If Pilger and Arbuthnot accept that DU cannot have caused cancers observed in 1992, why haven't they made this clear? None of the cancers and birth defects that Pilger's researcher dates hack to 1992 can be the fault of depleted uranium. To omit the possibility that some of the cancers were caused by Saddam's chemical weapons is to misrepresent the facts. To imply by that omission that depleted uranium is solely responsible for the cancers and birth defects in Iraq as he docs in his book, his film and in the Daily Mirror is a disgrace to journalism.
I accuse John Pilger of cheating the public and favouring a dictator.
John Sweeney is special correspondent for the BBC.
Copyright Spectator Jun 28, 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved |
Remember Saddam regime was more oppressive than the regime in Burma.
The left's support for the Iraqi fascist "resistance"
| Quote: |
After 9/11, few leftists came out openly in support of the Islamist attacks. As the War on Islamism progressed however, they became bolder. The post-war "resistance" in Iraq by Baathists and Islamists marked the real emergence of the left as open supporters of the Islamist killing.
* Robert Fisk
o Robert Fisk's apparent support for the Iraqi fascist "resistance"
o Coalition of the whining still wrong on Iraq
* John Pilger
o John Pilger seems to support the killing of brave Iraqi democrats by the Saddam butchers and Islamofascists, November 2003: "Next week is critical. The movement in Britain has an opportunity, in conjunction with the resistance in Iraq, to deal a blow to the US Empire."
o Pilger's open support for the Iraqi fascist resistance, Dec 2003: "I think the resistance in Iraq is incredibly important for all of us. I think that we depend on the resistance to win so that other countries might not be attacked"
o Pilger, Jan 2004 - Q. "Do you think the anti-war movement should be supporting Iraq's anti-occupation resistance?" - A. "Yes, I do. We cannot afford to be choosy. While we abhor and condemn the continuing loss of innocent life in Iraq, we have no choice now but to support the resistance, for if the resistance fails, the "Bush gang" will attack another country. If they succeed, a grievous blow will be suffered by the Bush gang."
o Pilger's open support for the Iraq fascist "resistance", March 2004 - Q. "Can you approve in that context the killing of American, British or Australian troops who are in the occupying forces?" - A. "Well yes, they're legitimate targets."
+ Pilger says: "I think the situation in Iraq is so dire that unless the United States is defeated there that we're likely to see an attack on Iran, we're likely to see an attack on North Korea and all the way down the road it could be even an attack on China within a decade, so I think what happens in Iraq now is incredibly important." - This is what Pilger stands for. Sovereignty. The safe continued existence of all dictators, including those who run concentration camps and gas chambers, like North Korea. This is what this man stands for.
+ Comment - "I'm completely at a loss. There is no logic here. Could someone explain this .. to me ... Why is it that the trans-nationalists are the greatest proponents of untouchable national sovereignty?"
+ The Deputy Prime Minister of Australia describes him as "this well known apologist for Saddam Hussein" and says: "I am glad that Pilger with his nutty extremism was not around to "report" during the Second World War. It's all too easy to imagine him condemning Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt for "invading" Europe in June 1944."
+ Traitors in our fight for survival by Andrew Bolt, March 14, 2004 (formerly here), describes Pilger as: "This apologist for terrorists - this moral pygmy".
o Pilger, Aug 2004, describes the Iraqi fascist "resistance" as "nationalists defending their homeland". He is also delighted that by killing and wounding the brave American liberators, the Iraqi fascists have "forestalled attacks on Iran, Syria or north Korea". See discussion.
o Pilger is simply a defender of tyranny and a hater of democracy, no different from the World War Two traitors.
* George Galloway
o George Galloway's all-out support for Iraqi fascism, Sept 2002 (and search).
+ "George Galloway, the Labour MP and a leading defender of Saddam Hussein, yesterday called on Arab states to fight the British and American "Crusaders" if a military attack is mounted against Iraq."
+ His open call for Arab states to fight the Allies: "Will they send forces to defend Iraq this time .. or will they allow the use of their forces, air space and land by the Crusaders and foreigners"
+ "I stand by every word. If the Arabs watch Iraq destroyed as part of a plan to keep the Arabs divided and weak, they will face the same kind of century as the one they have endured in the past and they should rise up and stop it."
+ Asked whether he would support military action against British and American forces, he said: "I am against this invasion. Therefore I am in favour of everything than can be done to stop it - everything."
o During the Iraq War itself, when liberating British and American troops were being killed by the Iraqi fascists, Galloway urged the Arab world to fight Britain and America, Apr 2003: "Iraq is fighting for all the Arabs. Where are the Arab armies? ... Even if it is not realistic to ask a non-Iraqi army to come to defend Iraq, we see Arab regimes pumping oil for the countries who are attacking it. We wonder when the Arab leaders will wake up. When are they going to stand by the Iraqi people?". See summary.
o Galloway openly supports the killing of US troops and brave Iraqi democrats by the Saddam butchers and Islamofascists, March 2004: "The Iraqi resistance have a right to defend their country against the occupying invader. They are exercising that right, with a considerable degree of success". He describes the fascists as: "Arab nationalists who are fighting for their country."
o TV interview, Nov 2004, in which Galloway panders to the Islamic TV audience: "The people who invaded and destroyed Iraq and have murdered more than a million Iraqi people by sanctions and war will burn in Hell in the hell-fires, and their name in history will be branded as killers and war criminals for all time. ... Not the resistance, not anybody else but these criminals who invaded and fell like wolves upon the people of Iraq."
o Interview, Sunday Times, 5 Dec 2004, in which Galloway says it is legally "legitimate" for the Iraqi fascists to kill British soldiers: "If the war in Iraq was illegal, as no less than the secretary-general of the UN has said, then logically the only legally legitimate people fighting in Iraq are Iraqis."
o Brit MP says suicide attacks in Iraq legitimate, December 11, 2004
+ On the fascist suicide bombings of brave British troops and Iraqi civilians: "I will not condemn an occupied people for using their legal rights, their legal rights as well as their moral rights to resist the illegal occupation of their country."
+ On the liberation of Iraq being so-called "illegal": "It follows that the only people fighting legally in Iraq, therefore, are the people defending their country against an illegal invasion."
o Galloway on Arab TV, July 2005.
+ On Israel and Iraq: "Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners - Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters."
+ On the Iraqi fascist and jihadi "resistance": "These poor Iraqis - ragged people, with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons - are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day, which has made the country ungovernable by the people who occupy it." He glosses over their ferocious onslaught on the people of Iraq: "Most of the operations which they carry out are against the occupying forces and their collaborators, and this is normal in every liberation struggle."
o Interview, Aug 2005 - Galloway says something that is actually true! "Socialism and Islam are very close, other than on the issue of the existence of God." In this interview he also defends Tariq Aziz, and again supports the evil Iraqi "resistance". |
http://markhumphrys.com/iraqi.resistance.html |
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hogwonguy1979
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: the racoon den
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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despite having a very sore ankle from a stupid fall last nite i plan to be there to show my support.
since going there this summer i have become very interested in whats going on there |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Did anyone take pictures? |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Nothing of use. |
Let me get this straight: you support the Junta vs. democracy in Burma? |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 1:09 am Post subject: |
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| keane wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Nothing of use. |
Let me get this straight: you support the Junta vs. democracy in Burma? |
Unlikely, but wouldn't be surprising 
Analysis: Crackdown May Haunt Junta
By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer
Sat Oct 6, 9:38 PM ET
BANGKOK, Thailand - Myanmar's "saffron revolt" has been crushed by an entrenched junta, but the brutality inflicted on Buddhist monks who braved its guns may be the only thing that could splinter the ranks of its fiercely loyal military.
As Myanmar's prisons fill with monks and other demonstrators and the bloodstains of revolt are expunged from the streets, many in Myanmar fear they might never see the return of democracy.
The Southeast Asian nation formerly named Burma has witnessed British colonial domination, a fleeting era of democracy and 45 years of iron-fisted military rule.
Yet the monks are deeply revered in this mostly Buddhist nation, and imprisoning them upsets the faithful, no matter what their occupation or political bent.
"The crackdown by the military against the monks may be a major element in the destruction of the very military unity they seek. Many may be profoundly disturbed by the actions of their colleagues," says David Steinberg of Georgetown University, an author of several books on Myanmar.
The beating and mass arrests of the monks, who led pro-democracy demonstrations last month across the country, struck at the junta's greatest fear � that factions within its ranks may side with those seeking change.
And that side showed unexpected strength.
The world was caught by surprise at the determined, organized and wide-ranging opposition that sprang up in the last two months.
Drawn in by graphic images of the crackdown, governments around the world responded with unprecedented condemnation, some sanctions and calls for neighboring China and India, major trading partners of Myanmar, to use their leverage on the junta.
Given the past record, however, neither outside pressure nor possible talks between the junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi are likely to have significant effect on the intransigent leaders.
But the military, in trying to woo a hostile people, has constantly trumpeted an image as Buddhism's protector, building new pagodas, repairing monasteries and offering alms to monks.
"Buddhism has been a critical element in this legitimacy process. But all of a sudden you have delegitimization of a lot of that effort," Steinberg said.
One faithful Buddhist summed up common sentiment after emerging from a pagoda in Yangon last week.
"If the military kill monks, merciful monks, they are not Buddhists, they are savages," the retired teacher said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear.
Others unleashed their hatred of the regime by screaming abuse and even exposing their genitals to soldiers.
"Terror reigns in Rangoon (Yangon) now, but anger is there also and it's not going away," says Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at Australian National University. "The pro-democracy movement sees this as the beginning of the end (of the junta), even if it takes 10 years."
Red-robed monks, university students, labor activists, ordinary people and remnants of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party all took part in the protests.
"A new generation has emerged of people we have never heard of before. Even if this new movement has been suppressed now, it's not been decapitated, so it may rise again," says Donald M. Seekins, a Myanmar expert at Meio University in Japan.
However the movement shapes up, activists may again have to face the army's guns alone.
Experts, including some Chinese academics, say even Beijing has limited influence over the generals, never mind the United Nations.
"China's soft spot would be a boycott of the Olympics next year. That's something they definitely don't want," says Seekins. "I don't see the American team not going to Beijing, but if there is a boycott movement it would be very embarrassing to China."
Chinese security experts tasked with studying risks to the 2008 Beijing Olympics believe chances of a boycott over Myanmar, Darfur, Tibet or other issues are slim because governments and world leaders are resistant to the idea. President Bush, for one, has already accepted the Chinese president's invitation to attend the games.
World pressure on the junta to hold talks with Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years, also shows little promise.
Following last week's trip by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Myanmar, the junta chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, said Thursday that he would be willing to meet with Suu Kyi, but only if she stops calling for sanctions.
However, the two already met five years ago and those talks broke down in acrimony.
"I don't believe there is one shred of evidence that they (the junta) are sincere," says Josef Silverstein, a retired Rutgers University professor who has studied Myanmar for more than half a century. "(Than Shwe) is still the commander and she's expected to come crawling to him on her belly."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071007/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_what_next_4
;_ylt=AmCYTZk7L.yWku0tD6r2fUvlWMcF
___
Bangkok bureau chief Denis D. Gray has covered events in Myanmar since the mid-1970s. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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Chinese Loggers Raping Myanmar's Ancient Forests
by Benjamin Morgan
Thu Oct 11, 3:20 PM ET
NONGDAO, China (AFP) - In eight weeks the quiet narrow road that hugs Nongdao's sugarcane fields on the way to the ancient jungles of Myanmar will be overrun with Chinese trucks loaded down with illegal timber. :censored:
The large wheezing diesels will dump their logs in this southwestern border sawmill town where it will be processed, then shipped to Chinese furniture makers on the seaboard before being exported for Western consumption.
"Come December and January this road will be so packed with trucks heavy with Myanmar timber that you can't pass for hours," said Xiao Zhengong, a 32-year-old resident of the area.
Nongdao, a town of just hundreds of people, is one small link in the global supply chain that makes up the multi-billion-dollar wood processing industry centred in China.
Each year caravans of Chinese trucks haul tens of thousands of tonnes of Myanmar's tropical trees to China, the world's largest importer of rare timber and a wood manufacturing centre.
"Six of ten timber logs chopped in the world's forest are destined for China," said Tamara Stark, a forestry expert for Greenpeace in China, a rapacious pace many fear will soon leave much of Southeast Asia treeless.
After 10 years of intense harvesting, Myanmar's forests have disappeared to such an extent that Chinese loggers from Yunnan province are now struggling to find accessible swathes of forest to cut.
"Only a few years ago loggers could travel a couple of days, now they have to travel a least a week into Myanmar to find the forests," said Yang Minggao, general manager of Rongmao Wood Trading Company in nearby Ruili.
The piles of illegally hewed trees, many also from Papau New Guinea and Indonesia, arrive at one of China's 200,000 mills, before being destined for the showrooms of major US and EU retailers as floorboards or furniture.
According to official Chinese statistics, the total value of China's forest exports were worth 17.2 billion dollars in 2005, up six times from 1997, making it a hugely profitable business.
Global demand has pushed China's total imports of timber logs up nine-fold over the last decade to be worth 5.6 billion dollars last year, according to Chinese customs data that does not include the illicit trade.
The insatiable appetite means many of Asia's ancient forests face imminent extinction, and, with it, the demise of hundreds of forest-dependent plant and animal species, environmental groups say
"It is estimated that at present cutting rates the natural forests in Papua New Guinea will be logged out in 13-16 years," Washington-based environmental group Forest Trends warned in a report published last year.
"The equivalent figure for Indonesia is 10 years. The situation is Myanmar is no better, and maybe even worse."
China has taken steps to protect its own forests, but in turn that has forced suppliers to tap the resources of nations like Myanmar, where a corrupt military government is directly involved in the trade.
Amid pressure from environmental groups, China has taken measures to ban timber imports from northern Myanmar, a move which according to Yunnan government figures saw import volumes drop 75 percent in the first six months from the same period last year.
"The government has really cracked down and many have been scared off," said Yang Mingque, a local farmer at Chinese sawmill hub Yingjiang, about 150 kilometres (95 miles) northwest of Nongdao.
"But it's part of many people's livelihoods here and many are still willing to do it," said Yang.
The timber trade is mired in a web of official corruption on both sides of the border, locals said.
The issue is made even more complex in northern Myanmar's Kachin state, where the Kachin Independent Organisation and a coalition of guerrillas rule the territory with de facto independence.
On the Chinese side, police give out special logging permits to private local companies, a system that fosters kickbacks and a black market, farmer Yang said.
Inside Myanmar, Chinese loggers bring piles of cash to bribe the Southeast Asian nation's unpredictable militias and corrupt government officials.
For Chinese loggers the dangers in Myanmar include being shot at, deadly accidents and disease, but the chance to earn 10,000 yuan (1,300 dollars) for a 15-day journey is too tempting for many, Yang said.
"The trucks are already on the border waiting, and soon as the roads are dry they will go in. In the winter you will see them go past here by the hundreds."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/chinamyanmarenvironmentlogging
;_ylt=Ah3587SJwhpxLjryrVfTdYADW7oF |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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African Gangs Deliberately Mutilate
Ramadan's Beggar Children
by Habib Trabelsi
Fri Oct 12, 11:03 AM ET
DUBAI (AFP) - Child beggars have proliferated in Mecca and Medina, some maimed by traffickers to draw the sympathy of Muslim faithful who flock to Islam's holiest cities in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr.
"Organised African gangs deliberately mutilate these child beggars before sending them into Saudi Arabia," Mecca police spokesman Abdul Mohsen al-Mimaan was quoted as saying September 27 in the Saudi pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
"These Africans practice the trade of children who have an arm or a leg amputated or whose body is burned with incendiary materials," Mimaan said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071012/lf_afp/gulfsaudireligionislamchildrenbeggars
;_ylt=Aqu2707uPtu2auuxXXz5KR9g.3QA |
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