China's new European trade hub: An Irish town of 18,000 - Christian Science Monitor
The Athlone Institute of Technology hosts more than 200 Chinese students – one of the links that helped bring the trade hub to the town, says Prof. Ciaran Ó Catháin, the president of the school and one of the players in the project negotiations. Professor Ó Catháin would not disclose ...
Vietnam’s Problems, Promises - Asia Sentinel/RTÉ World Report
“We tend to lose around 20% of our staff every year after Tet” (the Vietnamese New Year), said Kim Jung Hee, manager of a factory in Binh Duong province, an hour's drive from Saigon's centre. Her Korean company NB Blue employs a thousand workers, in a clean and well-lit factory ...
Thailand sentences American to prison for insulting king - Los Angeles Times
"In Thailand they put people in jail without proof," Lerpong said Thursday, his arms and legs shackled, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. "I was born in Thailand, but this does not mean I am Thai. I am proud to be an American citizen."
DMZ: Road trip to the world's most heavily armed border - CNNGo
SEOUL - As the tour bus moves from central Seoul to the city outskirts, the seamless transition from one of the world's biggest and most vibrant cities to the world's most heavily armed border is as surreal as it is functional, with roadside bus-stops giving way to military watchtowers even ...
Potent mix for Timor-Leste - Asia Times
DILI - Land, corruption and poverty are all on the table as Timor-Leste gets into political mode ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2012, with one controversial figure already throwing his hat into the ring.
If Samuel Beckett met Pol Pot - Asia Sentinel/Irish Examiner
TIK PANHAO, CAMBODIA - In some of Cambodia’s thousands of killing fields, the bones of the dead can sometimes be seen, rising to the surface after storms or rain, like grisly emblems of an unburied past. Perhaps 16,000 died at the s-21 Detention Camp in Phnom Penh, or at Choeung ...
Voting ends in southern Sudan referendum - Sunday Tribune
Kyeli, Blue Nile State, Sudan - “Soon after we married, my husband was killed during the war”, says Hawa Abdul-Gadr. Her eyes show a suppressed grief, but her demeanour is purposeful. That said, there is a perceptible sadness - long-kept under wraps but perhaps closer to the surface than she ...
An unbreakable bond? – Asia Times
JERUSALEM – In 'The Great Divorce' C.S. Lewis attempted to allegorise about a reality which he admitted he could not know, but tentatively hoped to suggest. The US-Israeli relationship, to most, seems like an unbreakable bond, and any potential divorce might be regarded as unimaginable. But when Israeli Prime Minister ...
Narcotic use, drought rob babies of food – The Washington Times
DIRE DAWA, Ethiopia | When drought and food shortages hit, it is the very young who suffer first, and most. Weighing only 10 pounds, Ayaan is among nearly 100,000 Ethiopian children whose lives are at risk. Just four days before her first birthday, she is lighter than an average 3-month-old ...
Corruption trumps tribalism – New York Times (IHT)
Kenyans were cynical about their political establishment long before the latest election violence. One wisecrack doing the rounds since last year says "there is more chance of a Luo becoming president of the United States than president of this country" - referring to Barack Obama, whose father hails from the ...
Thailand not smiling anymore – The Sunday Tribune
April 25th, 2010
Bangkok – It was the third evening of a tense face-off between red shirt anti-Government protestors and a rival group who had taken to the streets to taunt the reds and urge the Government to crack down.
Red shirts at their barricade close to the Silom intersection. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
By 6pm the atmosphere was tense, even as red shirts gyrated on top of the tyre and spear-sharp bamboo wall laid across the entrance to their rally area, dancing to one of their political theme tunes set to a sort of Thai hip-hop. Across the road, around two thousand ‘no-colours’ protestors – who want the red shirts removed – stood close to dozens of riot police, and beneath hundreds of soldiers watching from the overhead train station.
At around 8pm, several blasts were heard over the street, in what was later alleged to be m79 grenades launched from the red shirt area and exploding on the roof of the overhead train station, 600 yards from the interface and in the heart of Bangkok’s banking and finance area. (more…)
Violence looms as Thai PM refuses compromise deal – RTÉ World Report
April 25th, 2010
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0425/worldreport.html
As the Thai Prime Minister snubs a red shirt offer to end their protest – if their demand that the parliament is dissolved in 30 days is met – more violence looms in Bangkok.
By Saturday night Thai police and soldiers were conducting security checks on traffic passing along the Silom road. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
The tourist-board spin calls the country Land of Smiles, but Thailand is rapidly approaching a point of no return in its 4 year old colour-coded political stand-off.
On Thursday night, I ran for cover along with hundreds of Thais and other journalists, as explosions rocked the Silom district of Bangkok, where many banks and finance houses are located. People screamed and ran in all directions, unsure if, when and where the next explosion was going to take place. (more…)
After Silom Explodes, Murmurs of Compromise in Bangkok – The Irrawaddy
April 24th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=18310
The day after deadly explosions hit the main banking district of Bangkok, conciliatory voices were heard urging compromise and suggesting that talks remained possible.
The calls for renewed negotiations come despite the depth of disagreement between anti-Government “Redshirts” on the one hand, and the government and its “multi-colored” supporters on the other.
After a meeting with a group of foreign diplomats, the Redshirts relaxed their previous demand that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve the Thai government immediately, asking instead for a 30-day deadline.
Diplomats arrive at the red shirt rally area in Rajaprasong, Bangkok, on Friday. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
As the massed ranks of red-shirted protesters at Rajaprasong applauded, Redshirt leaders stood on stage in front of a banner that claimed the movement to be one of peaceful protestors, rather than terrorists—refuting the claims that grenades had been fired from the Redshirt encampment into the Silom district the previous night.
The Government has since said it has not come to a conclusion as to who was responsible for the blasts, which caused chaos and terror in Bangkok’s main banking and finance district.
Earlier on Friday morning, Redshirts and police agreed on a temporary pull-back deal after a tense 7 a.m. confrontation at the Silom/ Lumphini Park intersection when police sought the removal of the Redshirts’ tire and bamboo wall. The protesters demurred, moving their people back from the barricade, which remained intact at the original location, but refused to tear down the wall. By 10 p.m. On Friday evening, the police had moved the much-diminished pro-government, anti-Redshirt group a further 100m the other direction along Silom Road. (more…)
Election parallels between Sudan and Burma? – The Irrawaddy
April 23rd, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18303&Submit=Submit
BANGKOK—Since Gen. Omar al-Bashir’s 1989 coup, Sudan has been run as by a military dictatorship, but not quite as long as Burma, which has been under army rule since 1962.
Still, there are many parallels between the two countries: both are multi-ethnic, poly-religious populations oppressed by a violent elite. Both are prey to a vast state security apparatus funded by natural resource revenues, in turn abetted by close links with China and Russia.
Beijing shields both countries from criticism and action at the UN Security Council, and its investment helps undermine the Western sanctions in place against both regimes. Both regimes stand accused of large-scale human rights abuses and violence against their own citizens, and a Harvard Law School report published in May 2009 drew a direct parallel between violence in western Sudan’s Darfur region and that in eastern Burma. (more…)
Bangkok eyewitness: Silom explodes – TodayFM/Newstalk
April 22nd, 2010
http://www.newstalk.ie/news/news-headlines/explosions-hit-bangkok-business-district/
Injured man taken away by ambulance (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Thursday evening saw chaos and bloodshed in Bangkok’s main financial and banking district. Three people reported dead and over 70 injured after five explosions rocked the Silom area of the city. The Thai Government believes the blasts were caused by m79 grenades fired from within the anti-government red shirt camp.
Amid chaotic scenes, this correspondent saw several bloodied and screaming casualties being lifted into ambulances by Thai soldiers. Further down the street, hundreds of Thai soldiers and riot police hunkered down under the shelter provided by the overhead rail-line. (more…)
Thailand’s Mexican Stand-off – The Irrawaddy
April 19th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=18275
As soldiers and riot police gather near the main red shirt rally stage, fears grow of more violence in Bangkok
Thai troops practice formation on Monday night, outside a Mexican restaurant in Bangkok's Silom district. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Watching as a pair of twenty-something ladies clambered out of a blue Mercedes saloon outside Silom metro station, before handing riot police bottles of cold water, one onlooker scoffed before beckoning this correspondent over.
“It’s not fair,” said the middle-aged lady, who said she is a lawyer “living in Bangkok” and giving her name only as Phatarphon. “What is not fair?” I asked. “the soldiers and police get cold drinks”, she said, “but those people are sitting in the hot sun for more than one month.”
A group of around fifty red shirts stood fifty meters away, across the busy intersection at the entrance to Lumphini Park. Behind lay the main red shirt protest, comprising thousands, stretching over a kilometer down to the main shopping area in Bangkok, where the leaders stage pounds to incessant speeches and intermittent song. A line of protestors crouched behind green netting and barbed war, with sharpened bamboo spears propped against the wire, as if awaiting a cavalry charge. (more…)
Fallen Angels in Bangkok – ISN
April 16th, 2010
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=115035
As the Government moves in to arrest protest leaders and alleged ‘terrorists’ in Bangkok, more violence looms in the city.
Red shirts gathered at Rajaprasong, last Thursday night (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Even as the eponymous protagonist in Shakespeare’s Macbeth descended into madness, there were fleeting moments of sentience; enough, at least, for him to deliver some memorably prescient insights.
‘Blood will have blood‘, he said, implying that once blood is spilled, more will follow. And so three weeks after the anti-government red shirts poured their blood on the gates of the Thai Prime Minister’s Abhisit Vejajjiva’s residence and the country’s Government House, the gruesome symbolism was transfigured into tragic reality last weekend, with 19 civilians and 5 soldiers killed in the ‘The Battle of Bangkok’. Over 800 people were injured, as tourists looked on, and there are calls for the Government to establish an inquiry into what happened in Bangkok – or to give it its less well- known abbreviated name – Krung Thep or ‘City of Angels’. (more…)
Czech support for UN War Crimes Inquiry on Burma – The Irrawaddy
April 7th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18242&Submit=Submit
The Czech Republic has become the third country to back the recommendation made by UN human rights Special Rapporteur on Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, that the UN Security Council examine setting up a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma.
In a statement to The Irrawaddy, the Czech foreign ministry said, “We believe that the possibility of establishing a Commission of Inquiry should be seriously examined.”
“Political repression and military attacks against civilians of ethnic nationalities continue in scale and gravity that may entail international crimes under the terms of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” the statement said.
The statement added that it “remains concerned at continuous grave human rights violations in Burma/Myanmar” and questioned the efficacy of the regime’s “road map to democracy.” (more…)
‘Time running out’ in Burma as jailed MPs remembered – The Irrawaddy
March 31st, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18170
*version published by The Irrawaddy differs slightly from the text below
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is urging free and fair elections in Burma, and is asking Asean member-states to take a strong stand in favour of democracy in Burma. Sen Aquilino Pimentel Jr. (Philippines) is President of the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians. Speaking earlier today, he said “we wish to echo the world’s concern that the elections in Myanmar should be free, fair, credible and inclusive.” He said that “the Myanmar Government is using the elections to pretend that is is a democracy.” The IPU believes that democratic elections are impossible, given that the electoral law excludes Aung San Suu Kyi and over 2100 political prisoners. It concludes that “time is running out”, if steps to ensure free and fair elections are to be implemented before voting takes place.
Delegates stroll past the 'Myanmar display' at the IPU in Bangkok. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
The IPU is chiefly concerned with parliamentarians who are suffering abuses or are in detention. Sen. Pimentel and his committee are finalising a report on jailed MPs in Burma, a draft copy of which is available at the 122nd IPU assembly in Bangkok. The parliamentarians in question were elected in 1990, the last time Burma held an election. 13 remain in jail, 7 more died while in detention or shortly thereafter , and two others were assassinated outside the country. It is thought that at least one MP contracted HIV from infected needles while in custody.
The MPs were never allowed to take their seats, and the junta ruled the 1990 election invalid in its recently-published electoral laws. The report outlines the harsh, and often brutal conditions the parliamentarians are kept in. One excerpt – by no means the worst – is illustrative:
“3.3.1 Kyaw Khin was reportedly arrested on 5 June 1996 for recording and distributing video and audio tapes containing foreign news reports and documentaries on Burma. He was charged, along with eight others, under the 1985 Video Act, and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, and was given an additional seven years’ imprisonment under the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act, Article 5(j).
3.3.2 Shortly after his release in 2005 he was rearrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison under the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act after pamphlets were reportedly found near him in a classroom. He is currently detained in Taung-lay-lone Prison. Kyaw Khin has been suffering from a severe form of ocular pain since 2005 and is now close to losing his eyesight because he is being denied medical treatment. The office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Taunggyi was informed by his wife of his plight but has been prevented by the authorities from providing assistance.” (more…)
Standing Tall or Stepping Down? – ISN
March 30th, 2010
What now for the opposition in Burma after Aung San Suu Kyi’s party refuses to take part in what it deems sham elections being organized by the country’s military dictatorship?
Burma’s main opposition party has refused to take the bait and run in the country’s sham military-run election scheduled for later this year.
Members of the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy Party gather at the party's headquarters before its central committee meeting Monday, March. 29, 2010, in Rangoon. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)
“Without any objections, all the party leaders reached a consensus not to register the party and join the election because the junta’s election laws are unjust,” said senior party official Khin Maung Swe yesterday. The decision came days after the party’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi voiced her opposition to the National League for Democracy (NLD) taking part, however adding that she would leave the final decision to a party vote.
While nobody ever expected a free and fair election in Burma, the regime made doubly-sure with some Machiavellian electoral laws published a few weeks ago. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the NLD, would have had to expel its leader if it wanted to take part.
John Dale teaches at George Mason University and is an analyst of Burma’s domestic politics. He reminded ISN Security Watch that “the new election laws make clear that the 2010 elections will not be democratic because they restrict from participation at the outset the very candidates who legitimately won the previous elections that the military refused to honor. Therefore, “many defenders of Burma’s democracy are concluding that these elections will be even less fair than those of 1990.”
Confusion and division
The prospect of an election has caused division among the opposition and the various ethnic groups living in the borderlands near China, Thailand, India and Bangladesh. Sixty percent of the country is ethnic Burman, with the remainder split among over 130 different ethnic groups – the Chin, Karen, Mon and Shan among the most numerous. Many of these have been at war with the junta, on and off, since the end of World War II, while the Muslim Rohingya in the west are denied citizenship, with hundreds of thousands fleeing to squalor and abuse in Bangladesh and beyond.
Ethnic parties are being set up to take part in the election, despite exhortations from mainstream ethnic leaders to boycott the polls. This comes after years of ‘divide and rule’ military campaigns, where the junta set up proxy militias drawn from the ethnic minorities to fight against their own kin. Last June, thousands of Karen fled to Thailand after an attack by the Democratic Buddhist Karen Army (DBKA), backed by the army, ostensibly on the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), but also on civilians. (more…)
