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 ...
Big task for Abu Dhabi bishop – RTÉ World Report
January 10th, 2010
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0110/worldreport.html
ABU DHABI – When Irish people think of a diocese, they likely imagine a county-sized region with townland parishes within.
Not so for Bishop Paul Hinder. He is the Pope’s representative in the heartland of Islam, in charge of a diocese encompassing six Arab countries – Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
I caught up with him at St Josephs Cathedral in the oil-wealthy city of Abu Dhabi, part of the Emirates. That same day, neighbouring Dubai launched the world’s tallest building, the 800 meter high Burj Khalifa, with the building effectively paid-for by Abu Dhabi, which is footing Dubai’s bills after spectacular property bust last year.
Bishop Hinder is more concerned about the estimated 2 million Catholics across his vast diocese. The majority are Filipino migrant workers, with an estimated 1 million or more in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and site of its holiest places. Here open Christian worship is not permitted, and priests cannot serve. (more…)
Karen Refugees Have a White Christmas in Ireland – The Irrawaddy
January 4th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=17519
CASTLEBAR, Ireland — After fleeing an army campaign of human rights abuses in eastern Burma, a group of Karen refugees celebrated a white Christmas this year in the snowbound west of Ireland.
Christmas in the west of Ireland (Photo - Simon Roughneen)
“Every now and then, the military comes through our village and asks my mother, ‘Where is your son?’” said Po Hta. His mother tells them that he is in Thailand.
But that’s no longer true.
As a teenager, Po Hta fled Burma in 1994, spending a couple of years in Bangkok before the Thai authorities moved him to Ban Don Yang refugee camp in the north. He spent 10 years there, before being sent to Ireland in 2007 under a UN refugee resettlement program
Now he calls a friend in Bangkok every few weeks, who keeps in touch with his mother, mother and son pass information back and forth through the friend.
Po Hta, who asked that his real name not be used, is part of a group of 100 Karen refugees who resettled in Ireland two years ago. Estimated to number around 7 million of Burma’s 56 million population, with another 400,000 Karen native to Thailand, the Karen are both Christians and Buddhists. Of the six Karen who met with The Irrawaddy in Castlebar, Po Hta was the sole Buddhist. (more…)
North Korean Weapons Mystery: Is Burma the Missing Link?
December 16th, 2009
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17410
The North Korean arms cargo interdicted in Bangkok seems unlikely to be bound for Burma, despite ties between
Thai military unloads weapons from North Korean cargo plane in Bangkok
Pyongyang and the Naypyidaw military junta. Burmese junta strongman Snr-Gen Than Shwe visited Sri Lanka in November, reciprocating a visit made by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in June this year.
The final destination of the cache remains unclear. The crew claim that the airplane was to land in Sri Lanka to refuel, eventually to conclude its journey in the Ukraine, apparently after the cargo had been dropped off elsewhere. Sri Lankan officials denied any knowledge that the embargo-breaking flight was going to land in that country.
Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said the plane was going to “a destination in the Middle East” to unload the weapons. Earlier this year, authorities in the United Arab Emirates seized 10 containers of North Korean arms on board a Bahamian-flagged ship. Like the Ilyushin-76 flight cargo, the manifest was listed as “oil drilling equipment.” The consignment was supposedly destined for Iran.
Other speculation surrounds a possible African destination. Sudan is also under a UN arms embargo, but acquires weapons from China and Russia among others, and has become increasingly close to states such as Iran and Burma in recent years. The latter two are thought to be key buyers in North Korea’s US $1bn per annum illicit arms bazaar, prompting speculation that a bevy of human rights violators are collaborating in an underground weapons trade.
Sudan’s deputy foreign minister visited Burma in October 2009 to discuss “beneficial cooperation on investment and energy sectors,” according to The New Light of Myanmar, a junta-backed publication based in Rangoon. Both Sudan and Burma are important sources of energy supply to China, which has fostered these links while Western competitors remain largely absent, due to international sanctions on both Khartoum and Naypyidaw. Sudan, like Burma, will stage controversial elections next year, amid speculation that oil-rich southern Sudan will later secede, a move that Khartoum is likely to resist with military force. (more…)
Bad cops, mean streets – Sunday Tribune/VoA/RTÉ World Report
December 13th, 2009
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/west/decapua-sierra-leone-kids-7dec09-78673062.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1213/worldreport.html
FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE – “The police stop us all the time. Sometimes they try to take money from us, sometimes they threaten to arrest us. But the usual trick is to check our handbags. They plant some drugs, then tell us to come with them to the station. The only way to get out is have sex with the policeman, otherwise we go to jail.”
Just 20 years old, Maryama* has lived on the ramshackle streets of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, for eight years.
Her father died when she was 10 – possibly from HIV-AIDS, although nobody knows for sure – leaving her mother unable to bring up their three children. This was at the height of Sierra Leone’s civil war, infamous for anti-government rebels who hacked off arms and hands to deter civilians from voting in elections.
Inside Freetown's Marbella slum. During the rainy season, the whole area is flooded due to poor/non-existent drainage and sanitation. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Government-allied militias believed that their magic rendered them invisible and invulnerable in battle against the rebels who funded their war with “blood diamonds” smuggled out of the country and sold on at profit. The mainstream diamond industry and its customers turned a blind eye to the suffering caused by the fighting.
Now the country is peaceful and the diamond trade better regulated. The 2007 elections saw an orderly transfer of control to the winning party, and the economy is growing at around 5% a year. War seems a distant memory, brought to mind only by the sight of war amputees on Freetown’s bustling streets. Their arm (and sometimes leg) stumps are a physical testament to what was a notoriously vicious war, fought at close quarters with AK-47s and sharp blades. Around 50,000 people were killed, mostly non-combatants. (more…)
Yellow vs Red to Roll On in Thailand – The Irrawaddy
December 12th, 2009
http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17387
With the red-shirted supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra taking to the streets once more in Bangkok, Thailand will close 2009 much as it did the previous year. Protests, counter-demonstrations, questions over legitimate government and a spat with Cambodia linger, meaning that the country will remain polarized and unstable for the foreseeable future.
Around 15-20,000 members of the pro-Thaksin National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) convened near Bangkok’s Democracy Monument on Thursday to listen to a video-linked message from Thaksin and to seek the dissolution of parliament and a repeal of the 2007 Constitution, drafted by the army after it ousted Thaksin in a coup in 2006.
The protesters called the Constitution undemocratic and said they want a return to the 1997 Constitution under which Thaksin won two landslide elections in 2001 and 2005.
The UDD earlier canceled a planned three-day rally out of respect for King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who celebrated his 82nd birthday on Dec. 5. Thaksin had been stung by allegations of treachery for taking up a job as economic adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and for an interview with the UK newspaper The Times, which the Thai government views as undermining the country’s revered monarchy.
The night before the demonstration, a fund-raising dinner was held in Bangkok for prachatai.com, a website started in 2004 to attract readers disillusioned with the mainstream Thai media. (more…)
For Now, Peace in Sierra Leone – ISN
December 11th, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=110478
Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war is a receding memory, but corruption and poverty need addressing to avoid any relapse
Lungi beach, running along the third-biggest natural harbour in the world at Freetown (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
By Simon Roughneen in Freetown for ISN Security Watch
The civil war in Sierra Leone was one of the most violent anywhere in the late 20th century. A death toll of around 50,000 did not tell the full story of a conflict where much of the fighting was carried out at close quarters.
Rebels were funded by diamond exports and supported by Liberian warlord-later-president Charles Taylor – who is now standing trial in The Hague at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Machetes were used to lop off hands and arms as a deterrent against voting; child soldiers were forced to kill family members; women were abducted and raped; cannibalism was a war ritual among some combatants; and foreign mercenaries dotted the land.
Then-president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah declared the war officially over in 2002, after the British Army intervened in 2000 to end eight years of carnage in its former colony. At one stage, despite being only around the same size as Ireland, the country hosted the world’s largest UN peacekeeping mission, with 18,000 blue berets in place.
Today, the country is at peace. A 2007 election saw a peaceful transfer of power from Kabbah’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) to the party that was in power back when the war started – the All Peoples Congress (APC), led by Ernest Bai Koroma.
The president was in London recently, where he was joined by former UK prime minister Tony Blair in touting the resource-rich West African state as an investment location. Blair was made an honorary paramount chief by Freetown in acknowledgement of the UK’s intervention, which was decisive in ending the war. (more…)
Burma Threatens Thailand’s stability – The Irrawaddy
December 9th, 2009
http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17375&Submit=Submit
BANGKOK—Speaking at a dinner talk on Tuesday night, city governor M.R. Sukhumbhand Paribatra said that Thailand’s already-precarious stability faces an additional spoiler across the border in Burma.
Addressing a forum at the Bangkok Sheraton Grande Hotel, the Democrat Party Deputy Secretary-General and former deputy foreign minister said,“a major source of regional instability is the large standing army maintained by the Myanmar [Burmese] government.”
He compared Thailand’s 430,000-strong military with Burma’s, which has been estimated at more than 500,000 strong and is thought to be the largest standing army in Southeast Asia.
Commenting on the Burmese junta’s attempts to upgrade and expand its military, Paribatra said, “Myanmar [Burma] has been modernizing [its military] for a long time, and this could fuel a regional arms race.” (more…)
Monarchies and Political Systems Discussed in Bangkok – The Irrawaddy
December 8th, 2009
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17365&Submit=Submi
In a rare gathering, four ambassadors representing constitutional monarchies in Europe and Asia convened at Chulalongkorn University on Tuesday to discuss the political system in their countries.
Opening the discussion, Dr Charas Suwanmala, the dean of the political science faculty, said that “as academics, we want to learn more about how monarchy works in Europe and in Japan.”
The discussion, hosted by the Institute of Security and International Studies (ISIS), took place just days after His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej celebrated his 82nd birthday, with thousands of Thais taking to the streets of Bangkok to catch a glimpse of the long-serving monarch. (more…)
Unsettling Climate Change – ISN
December 7th, 2009
The Copenhagen climate conference may be overshadowed by leaked emails showing some scientists apparently colluding to exaggerate global warming; and while the scandal does not mean that climate alarmism is unfounded, it does suggest that global warming science is less than ‘settled’.
By Simon Roughneen for ISN Security Watch
Arctic Circle designation in Norway (cc) Børge Antonsen/flickr
As world leaders gather today to discuss actions to prevent and mitigate climate change, the conference could be overshadowed by hundreds of emails and files showing prominent climate scientists expressing dismay at the fact that, contrary to predictions, global temperatures have been falling since 1998.
Sometime over the past two weeks, a hacker/whistleblower released thousands of emails and related files from the University’s Climate Reseach Unit (CRU) into cyberspace, after apparently failing at first to get these picked up by mainstream media.
Messages exchanged between scientists at the CRU and counterparts and colleagues elsewhere feature discussions in which scientists lament their inability to explain the post-1998 fall-off as a ‘travesty – internecine doubt that contrasts sharply with public statements that global warming science is ‘settled’.
CRU Director Professor Phil Jones remarked in one 1999 email that he had used “Mike’s Nature [magazine] trick” to “hide the decline” that inconveniently shows up after 1960 in one set of temperature records. In another, dated July 2005, to climatologist John Christy of the University of Alabama, Jones says: “As you know, I’m not political. If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences.”
Missing data
Perhaps most significantly, the CRU – which is one of a handful of key climate research centers and data collectors involved in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – claims that it has “lost” some of the raw data upon which climate projections are ultimately made (more…)
Muddy waters in Thailand’s deep south – ISN
November 24th, 2009
More shootings in Thailand’s troubled south show that no end is in sight for an often brutal insurgency, despite the army’s ‘hearts and minds’ efforts.
-By Simon Roughneen in Bangkok for ISN Security Watch
Lieutenant-General Pichet Wisaijorn, regional commander of the Thai 4th army, told reporters in Thailand’s capital on
Thai army soldiers in Bangkok (cc) Ross Websdale/flickr
18 November that “things are getting better, the number of violent incidents are down, and the traditional life of villagers in the south is returning.”
He was discussing conditions in the country’s ‘Deep South,’ the four southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia, where 90 percent of the two million-strong population are Malay Muslims. Overall, 94 percent of Thailand’s 66 million people are Buddhist.
An oft-described “murky, shadowy” insurgency and terror campaign has rolled on since 2004, with over 3,700 killings. Intermittently heavy Thai army crackdowns impinge on civil liberties, but now the military is attempting hearts and minds development projects to win over ordinary Malay-Muslim Thais.
Coming from the section head of the Thai army responsible for military operations in a region beset by five years of bombings, beheadings and gun battles, such words might be of consolation – if they rang true. Violence dipped in 2008, but has climbed back up in recent months – though how many incidents can be attributed to insurgents on the one hand, or criminals on the other, is not clear. Small arms and drug trafficking are rife in the region, and violence is not always political, according to Marc Askew, a University of Melbourne researcher based in the southern city of Pattani. (more…)
