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 ...
Burma election leaves opposition divided – The Irrawaddy
March 29th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18138
Burma’s military government has pledged to hold elections sometime in 2010. But far from energizing the long-oppressed opposition and ethnic groups, the prospect of a rigged election has left them divided, and apparently confused about what to do.
While nobody ever expected a totally free and fair election process, the regime made that doubly sure with the deviously thought-out electoral laws it announced recently. Among other notable implications, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), must expel its own leader if it wants to take part.
More generally, it appears that the election has acted like a time-bomb within and between Burma’s opposition and ethnic groups, with some opposed to taking part, others unsure and still others keen to get involved. (more…)
Burma’s Gruesome Animal Trade – The Irrawaddy
March 27th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18131
Noted wildlife photographer and cameraman Karl Ammann has made numerous trips to the Golden Triangle region to document the illegal and destructive trade in wild animals. His trips have included the Shan Special Region 4 in Burma where a lucrative cross-border business has emerged in recent years, with tigers, bears, leopards and other animals hunted, caged and killed for food and medicinal products, mainly for consumption in China’s Yunnan Province.
A stall in Central Market in Mong La, on the border between Burma and China, sells various dead wildlife, such as this bear (foreground), and skewers of unidentified meat in this undated photo. (Photo: Karl Ammann / National Geographic)
At a screening of his 2007 documentary on the Mong La animal trade in Bangkok earlier this week, Ammann lamented the apparent decline of the animal population in the region around Mong La, the revamped casino town in Shan State near the Chinese border. Once a haven for gambling, drug trafficking and prostitution, the people of Mong La and the surrounding area––for a time at least––have taken to hunting large, rare and exotic animals.
Ammann’s documentary featured some gruesome exhibits, such as a group of around 80 black bears kept in small cages, having their bile “milked” via catheters. This so-called “liquid gold,” is popular in traditional Chinese remedies, an apparent cure for eye and liver problems. Ammann highlighted the vast array of animal body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine––such as bear paws and gall bladders, big-cat teeth and tiger penis––which can be found at markets around the town.
Ammann believes that much of the economic motivation for the illicit animal trade comes from the reduced drug trade in Shan State in recent years. China closed its border post near Mong La in 2005, apparently after family members connected to the Communist Party leadership lost heavily while gambling at the casino there
The Swiss-born photographer’s images included cages stacked on top of each other, containing macaques, small primates, pangolins, rare birds and a wide variety of reptiles. Other pictures showed gore-laden tables covered with animal remains, including dogs and monkeys, some with bullet holes through their heads, their throats cut or beheaded. Many of the animals on display are listed as endangered species.
Ammann says the scale of the illicit trade he witnessed in Mong La outweighs anything he has seen, including the well-documented “bushmeat” trade in central and eastern Africa, adding that animal numbers have declined significantly due to hunting.
However, just as Ammann found a desolate Mong La in 2007, and a near traffic-free border post, he fears that the nearby hills and forest are now barren of much of the large wildlife that once roamed the region.
The border post has reportedly reopened from the Chinese side, enabling a return influx of Chinese gamblers and tourists, and a return to the older, bustling Mong La, once known as “Las Vegas in the Jungle.” (more…)
Amid debate in Burma, US calls for electoral law changes – The Irrawaddy
March 22nd, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18095
An official at the US embassy in Bangkok has said that Burma’s recently announced election law must be amended, otherwise the scheduled 2010 polls will be “very difficult to judge as free, fair or credible.”
Addressing a forum on Burma at Chulalongkorn University on Monday, George Kent, who is Political Counsel at the US embassy in Thailand, compared the military junta’s handpicked Electoral Commission––which has veto powers over candidates––to a similar system used by the rulers of Iran. He said that although the US is “trying to take advantage of any potential openings presented by the election period,” the electoral laws and bylaws indicate that “the government does not have the intention to respond.”
He reiterated calls for the release of all political prisoners and the holding of an inclusive dialogue process in Burma before the election is held.
Kent added that the US is “closely considering” the recent report and recommendations made by UN Special Rapporteur Tomás Ojea Quintana, including the suggestion that the UN Security Council discuss the possible establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma.
Earlier an array of activists, journalists, academics and civil society groups discussed the proposed election, with divisions emerging over whether the polls represented a real opportunity for change in Burma. (more…)
After blood comes the clean-up – The Diplomat/CBC Canada
March 21st, 2010
http://the-diplomat.com/2010/03/21/thailand’s-blood-red-protest/
For more than a week now, ‘red shirt’ demonstrators seeking to topple the Thai government have been stirring a mixture of curiosity, revulsion and some support among the people of Bangkok as they seek to use a show of numbers to pressure the government into calling fresh elections.
On Saturday, the demonstrators, also known as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), paraded around the capital in a 10 kilometre-long convoy in what was portrayed as a public relations exercise aimed at securing support from residents of a city assumed to be indifferent–or even outright hostile–to their cause and their putative leader, the fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
'Red shirts' get revved-up. Sukhumvit Soi 71, downtown Bangkok. (Photo: Simon Roughneen©)
Last week saw some creative and gruesome rituals, with protestors pouring their own blood outside Government House and the ruling Democrat Party office before, in a more sinister turn of events, spilling their blood at Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva’s house last Wednesday.
On Sunday, the last of the blood was to be used to make a mural, with artists and protestors collaborating to paint slogans and images explaining their political beliefs.
According to Thai politics analyst Paul Chambers, the red shirts have at the very least managed to call greater domestic and global attention to their agenda. Yet he says that he doesn’t think they’ll be able to achieve their stated ambition of toppling the government, ‘with the military, courts, ruling coalition, and most business interests aligned against them.’
Such scepticism hasn’t stopped them from trying. The protesters have worked to ensure a politically clean image, with leaders seemingly distancing themselves from firebrand allies in the military and the ‘Red Siam’ faction; they also managed to get lawmakers from the pro-Thaksin Peua Thai political party to address the rally (although the lingering blood ritual images could serve to undercut such efforts at moderation).
In response, and despite the gruesomeness of the blood spilling, the government has made less of an issue over the personalised nature of this protest than it has over what it’s spinning as ‘red disunity’. Going on the offensive over the weekend, Abhisit remained firm in his refusal to dissolve the government and call fresh elections. He said he’d talk to the red shirt leadership, but not Thaksin, and sought to amplify divisions within the red shirts by slamming Thaksin’s ostentation and wealth, a move aimed at pulling the rug from under the red shirt leaders’ efforts to contrast the alleged opulence of the premier’s house and neighbourhood with the rural and agrarian origins of many of the demonstrators….
To read the rest of the article, go to http://the-diplomat.com/2010/03/21/thailand’s-blood-red-protest/
Opposition: International Community Must Reject Election – The Irrawaddy
March 19th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18082
More than 150 organizations representing the Burmese opposition, ethnic minority groups and overseas supporters call for the international community to denounce the planned Burmese election and refuse to recognize the results.
The recently announced electoral laws should serve as “a wake-up call” for those who thought that the election represented a potential opening for change in Burma, according to U Thein Oo, an MP-elect for the National League for Democracy (NLD) in the 1990 election (more…)
“Prison is the only place where we can speak freely” – The Irrawaddy
March 19th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18077
Sounding resolute and appearing in good spirits, Kyaw Zaw Lwin walked through Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport yesterday a free man, after spending 6 months in detention in Burma.
Nyi Nyi Aung speaks to reporters at Bangkok's international airport on Thursday evening (The Irrawaddy).
Also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, he spoke briefly to journalists at the airport, saying “I am really happy to be free, but it is not a deep happiness. I have family and friends who are still in jail in Burma.”
Nyi Nyi Aung was jailed on February 10 last, on charges of carrying a fake identification card and undeclared foreign currency and for failing to give up his Burmese citizenship. The regime bars citizens from holding a foreign passport or multiple citizenship. He was arrested in September 2009 at the international airport in Rangoon, accused of attempting to foment political unrest in Burma, and was tortured while in detention. He says he visited Burma to see his mother, San San Tin, who is in prison. She was jailed for her participation in the 2007 Saffron Revolution, and is ill with thyroid cancer.
According to a press release issued by Freedom Now, which provided pro bono legal assistance to Nyi Nyi Aung. prominent US lawmakers were closely-involved in the campaign for his release. These included Senators Barbara Mikulski, Richard Durbin, John Kerry, Richard Lugar, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, and Benjamin Cardin, and Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Jim McGovern, and Frank Wolf, among others. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Czech President Vaclav Havel are Honorary Co-Chairs of Freedom Now, and both men have been prominent advocates for the release of political prisoners in Burma.
Nyi Nyi Aung is an American citizen, and is travelling back to the US today (Friday). He has a degree in computer science from Purdue University and worked for the U.S Government, at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. His fiancee, Wa Wa Kyaw, works as a nurse in Maryland. Her impassioned yet cogently-argued plea for the US to do more to secure Nyi Nyi’s release was published last month in the Wall Street Journal. She concluded – “President Obama and Secretary Clinton, my message is simple. Neither your words nor your actions show that you take my fiancé’s imprisonment seriously. I beg you to stop ignoring his plight, and to help secure his release from this illegal and unjust imprisonment.” (more…)
Thailand’s Blood Red Curse – The Irrawaddy/BBC/CBC Canada
March 17th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18055
BBC iPlayer – Mark Patterson 16-03-2010.htm – Radio report, about 90 mins in.
– TV report on Canadian afternoon news (no url yet).
- See photos from the march at:
http://www.simonroughneen.com/asia/seasia/thailand/build-up-to-blood-in-pictures/#more-2360
BANGKOK—Potent smells, vivid colours and ominous ritualism was again the order of the day in Bangkok as red shirt demonstrators found a way through riot police lines to make a blood curse at the residence of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva.
Dousing the PMs gate with blood. (Photo: Simon Roughneen©)
This comes after yesterday’s “blood sacrifice” at Government House and at the Democrat Party offices, when tens of thousands of red shirts lined up to donate blood at the main rally site at Phan Fa Bridge.
The demonstrators want the Prime Minister to step down and to call fresh elections, which the government has so far refused to do.
By 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning, thousands of Redshirt demonstrators in pickups and on foot thronged Sukhumvit Road near the Asoke intersection in central Bangkok. Their target was Abhisit’s residence, which is on Soi 31, a side street running off Sukhumvit Road lined with condominiums and restaurants.
Thousand of protestors moved across the city from the Phan Fa Bridge area to Sukhumvit Road, passing through some of Bangkok’s busiest shopping areas, before closing in on the street where the PM lives.
The PM’s house can be approached from at least three directions, and several lines of riot police 8-10 men deep backed by police vans and trucks formed cordons at successive points down the 400 meters from the main road to the PM’s compound.
The Redshirts chanted and cheered for about two hours until their leadership showed up with the remaining bottles of blood donated by thousands of their members yesterday. After a stand-off which was followed by negotiations with Pol Maj-Gen Wichai Sangprapai, Redshirt leaders were allowed to get closer. The crowd advanced down Soi 31, pushing the police lines back onto each other. (more…)
Build-up to Blood: in pictures
March 17th, 2010
Red shirt leaders pray for good luck at ceremony to open their week-long march (Photo: Simon Roughneen©)
Bloody-minded in Bangkok – Crikey
March 16th, 2010
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/16/bloody-minded-promises-in-bangkoks-sea-of-red/
It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood – William Shakespeare
A full bottle. Red shirts fill up before heading to Government House, where they will spill their blood (Photo: Simon Roughneen©)
What was supposed to be a peaceful political rally turned violent earlier on Monday. 3 Thai Army personnel were injured by 4 M79 grenades fired at camp on the outskirts of Bangkok, though no political motive has been ascribed yet.
Meanwhile, further up the protest site, I stood on a footbridge overlooking Red shirt leaders telling the Thai Government that the demonstrators will spill their blood tomorrow – a gesture to seek the dissolution of the current Government, which they regard as illegitimate. To be more precise, they told several dozen Thai special forces, who stood steadfast as the Red shirt leaders spoke right outside the gate. At one point, the Red shirts issued the soldiers a 15 minute deadline to open the gate into the barracks, which was then extended twice, before the demonstrators called it a day and made the 20km journey back into Bangkok, where they hope to remain for the rest of the week. (more…)
Who Will Blink First in Bangkok? – The Irrawaddy
March 15th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=18038
UPDATE Monday 4pm – 2 soldiers were injured after 4 grenades were thrown into a Thai army barracks outside Bangkok earlier today. This came during and after a tense stand-off outside the 11th Army Regiment, which ended at 130pm this afternoon. Tens of thousands of Red shirts made their way from central Bangkok. Red shirt leaders demanded that soldiers open the gates, and reiterated an ultimatum that the Government to step down.
Red shirt leaders re-issue an ultimatum to PM Abhsiit to step down, outside the 11th Army barracks. Troops lined up inside the gates in case of trouble. (Photo: Simon Roughneen©)
Predictably, the Army refused to open the gates, and the Government will not step down, though it says it will listen to what the Red shirts have to say. The demonstrators are moving back to Phan Fa bridge to spend the night there, and have said they will protest at Government House tomorrow, where they have vowed “to spill blood”.
Leaders of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) have told the Thai government that it must dissolve parliament by noon on Monday or have hundreds of thousands of Redshirt demonstrators on the march around Bangkok, The Army’s 11th Infantry Regiment, where the prime minister has spent the last few days, is a likely demonstration site for some of the group.
The statement came on Sunday while demonstrators celebrated in a carnival atmosphere on Ratchadamnoen Avenue. The crowd numbered around 600,000 by Sunday evening, according to UDD spokesman Sean Boonpracong. Other estimates put the crowd between 100,000 and 200,000.
While this is far short of the ‘million man march’ promoted by the UDD last week, the numbers may be enough to stifle traffic in Bangkok at the start of the working week, depending on where the demonstrators go. While the UDD pledged a peaceful demonstration, it is not clear how it could realise its stated ambition of forcing the government to disband by occupying the streets around Phan Pa bridge for a few days. At a press conference last week, senior Redshirt Jaran Dithapichai said that the demonstrators wanted to force the Government to “clamp down” on the march, if thedemonstration did not lead to a dissolution. At the same press conference, UDD spokespersons, including some former Communist rebels, spoke openly, albeit vaguely, to foreign media about “civil war” in Thailand, if the ‘million man march’ leads to violence. (more…)
