The Agonist - Agonist Compilation Threads

The Road to Annapolis

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:16:48 -0800

Michael Moran | Nov 26

Council on Foreign Relations - If the Bush administration intended to lower expectations ahead of the Middle East peace conference it is hosting in Annapolis on November 27, the effort has been a resounding success. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spent weeks shuttling back and forth to the region, and at times sounded decidedly pessimistic about prospects for progress. Then, on November 20, the administration announced it had invited over forty nations to attend.

In spite of an upbeat assessment (video) from David Welch, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, the ground looks anything but fertile. Prodded by Rice, the primary diplomatic actors -- Israel and the Palestinian Authority -- spent weeks in a fruitless effort (Ynet) to agree to a joint declaration on a "two-state solution" that Washington hoped would form the foundation of the conference. In the latest twist, rhetorical outrage swept the Arab world when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted the Palestinian side accept the notion of Israel as a Jewish state, as opposed to a multicultural one, as a precondition to any grand bargain (BBC).

** Ode to Condi
** Broken Peace Process
** Annapolis: A View From the Middle East
** Haniyeh: Annapolis deal won't be binding
** Tension rises as Hamas threatens fresh bloodshed

Earlier post: Expectations low for U.S.-Mideast peace talks

Musharraf's "Second Coup" (1)

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:13:22 -0800

Team Agonist

Nov 11

Rights Suspended in Pakistan - Restrictions in the state of emergency declared by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf include: protection of life and liberty; property rights; media coverage of militant activity; and the right to free movement, public assembly, free speech and equal legal protection.

All is well tho as Bush defends
and praises Musharraf , even as reports come out saying the Pakistani military can now try civilians(retroactive to Jan 2003) and reporters are kicked out of the country.

As for Bhutto's intentions, questions arise:

** Bhutto’s Persona Raises Distrust, as Well as Hope
** Bhutto speech broadcast on Pakistani TV

For all the talk about needing emergency rule to combat extremism and terrorism there has been no huge push to free Swat Valley or new initiatives to fight the tribes or Taliban.

Musharraf calls for elections before Jan 9, but doesn't say when emergency rule will be lifted. Opponents note it will be hard to campaign for those in jail and with rules against congregating.

previous updates after the jump and more articles in comments

Nov 9 Updates

Bhutto placed under house arrest

Pakistani police backed by armored vehicles surrounded the Islamabad home of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Friday, and a security official said she had been placed under house arrest ahead of a major protest.

The move against Bhutto came amid a broader crackdown on her supporters, who were planning to rally near Islamabad against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule. Bhutto's party said some 5,000 of its supporters have been rounded up in the last three days, and riot police were out in force in nearby Rawalpindi, the city where Friday's rally was to take place.

"It is wrong to say that she is under house arrest. Security has been provided to her," Junior Minister for Information Tariq Azeem told IANS.

Azeem said Bhutto was free to go anywhere she liked but "the government wants to ensure her security. link

** ‘Iron hand’ warning for PPP meeting
** Editorial: Pakistan’s Crisis ~ Arab Times
** A country at a crossroads
** Berlin to review arms sales to Pakistan for imposing state of emergency
** Intelligentsia Finds Ways to Beat Emergency Rule
** Mushies Patriot Act

Meanwhile back at the ranch...while Musharraf is busy arresting lawyers 200 more security personnel handed their weapons over to militants in Swat Valley.

Nov 8 Updates:

Well Bush finally talked to the indispensable Musharraf and all is better now that elections will be in February, and Musharraf promises again to remove the uniform....

Benazir Bhutto condemns Musharrafs martial law, calling for protests as more of her supporters are arrested.

** Taliban kill three Pakistani soldiers
** Pakistan: Suicide Bombers In Rawalpindi -- Police
** The Silenced, Imprisoned Opposition
** Biden compares Pakistan to 1970s' Iran
** Militants take control of Swat’s four tehsils

Nov 7 Updates:

** Bhutto issues ultimatum to Musharraf

** Taliban stage a coup of their own

** News banned from TV; Pakistanis turn to Web

** Juan Cole Updates

Nov 6 Updates:

** AP — Pakistan's deposed chief justice called on lawyers nationwide Tuesday to defy baton-wielding police and protest President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule.
** WSJ Editorial
** See also Barnett Rubin's final posting in his series from Islamabad, in which he explains the puzzlement of the Pakistani populace as to why the Pakistani military is leaving alone, even encouraging radical Muslims striving for a caliphate in the tribal north, while rounding up lawyers, judges and other secular people in the urban areas.

Nov 5 Updates:

** AP
** terrorism
** State Dept. happy that Pakistan is distracting the public.
** Pakistan police raid newspaper office--officials
** Bhutto demands polls under independent caretaker govt
** Pakistan Cracks Down on Protests as US Suspends Talks with Ally
** Analysis: Pakistan through Musharraf's eyes
** Musharraf plays his last ace
** Pakistan shakes off US shackles

Nov 4 Updates

** Witnesses, police: 1,500 lawyers, judges, activists arrested
** Pakistani lawyers call strike against emergency
** U.S. is unlikely to halt aid~ well surprise surprise..not
** Musharraf asked to quit army post by WH ~ now they ask?
** Final shreds of Pakistan's democracy are ripped up
** NYT
** Text of ‘Proclamation of emergency’ *
** Musharraf declares state of emergency, jams TV
** Pakistan Chief Justice Chaudhry Has Been Told His "Services No Longer Required"
** Pakistan's Musharraf invokes emergency rule

Kurdish Rebels (PKK) vs Turkey: Updates

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:00:32 -0700

The Qandil mountains, a vast mountain range that straddles Iraq, Turkey and Iran.

Please check comments for current articles and events

Reuters
October 21

Nine Turkish soldiers were killed overnight in a clash with Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border, military sources said on Sunday.

They are the first Turkish casualties since Wednesday when Turkey's parliament, in defiance of the United States, authorised troops to conduct cross-border incursions into northern Iraq to hunt down rebels using the region as a base.

The attack took place in south-eastern Hakkari province near the town of Yuksekova, state news agency Anatolia said.

About 3,000 PKK fighters are believed to be based in northern Iraq near the Turkish border, says the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul.BBC

please check comments for more updates

Iran Adapts to Economic Pressure

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 05:48:19 -0700

Steven Mufson & Robin Wright | October 29

WaPo - Oil Market Could Help It Weather U.S. Sanctions

Confronted by mounting U.S. and U.N. pressure, Iran has been steadily shifting its trade from West to East and, with the benefit of record high oil prices, is likely to be able to withstand the new U.S. sanctions, according to U.S., European and Iranian analysts.

China, a permanent member of the Security Council that can veto any U.N. resolution, is expected to overtake Germany as Iran's biggest trading partner this year. Germany and other European countries had consistently been Iran's largest trading partners for more than a decade, according to the Iran Investment Monthly.

The U.S. Treasury said that more than 40 banks, mostly in Europe, have curbed business with Iran as a result of U.S. pressure, but smaller banks, Islamic financial institutions and Asian banks are likely to step in and replace the Western financial institutions through which Iran has long sold oil on the international market. Oil traders said that Iran does an increasing portion of its petroleum sales in euros and yen, instead of U.S. dollars, and often through third parties, to help its customers circumvent U.S. financial sanctions.

"Given particularly the price and demand for oil, Iran clearly has leverage with countries that need Iran's oil," said Shaul Bakhash, a George Mason University historian and author of "The Reign of the Ayatollahs." In addition, he said, "Iran has a huge cushion of foreign-exchange reserves."

Is The US an Operating Democracy Any More? (Real ID Act Updates)

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:00:19 -0700

Originally posted August 22

From Slashdot, (hat tip MediaGirl):

rev_media writes to tell us that CNN has a few updates to the Real ID act currently facing legislators. The Real ID acts mandates all states to begin issuing federal IDs to all citizens by 2008. Costs could be as much at $14 billion, but only 40 million are currently allocated. Several states have passed legislation expressly forbidding participation in the program, while others seem to be all for it. The IDs will be required for access to all federal areas including flights, state parks and federal buildings. People in states refusing to comply will need to show passports even for domestic flights.

So yeah. Internal passports (along with exit visas) are the very mark of the beast. At the point where you have to show internal papers you are no longer living in the land of the free.

I find this all very interesting because there are majorities for universal healthcare and for abortion on demand, and have been for ages - yet there has been no action on either of these things. There is a majority for getting out of Iraq yet every nominee who stands a chance of being the President with the exception of Richardson won't rule out "residual forces" - just as American legislators won't do what the majority wants, yet there seems to be this bipartisan consensus for spying on Americans (there was no public outcry for the FISA changes); for torture; for ending habeas corpus; and for internal passports and a computer system which will tell you if you can work or not and which you won't be able to fully appeal the damages of false positives to the court system (this restriction of the courts right to try cases is becoming more and more common.)

The only conclusion one can come to anymore is that the US is no longer a functioning democracy. The elites in the country are doing what they want to do no matter what the majority opinion. If the opinion is far too far against them, well, they will use propaganda (the 70% of Americans who believed Iraq was behind 9/11) and they expect (indeed, they know from repeated experience) that the media will propagate their propaganda and not challenge it. Indeed, when 5 media conglomerates control about 80% of all media, it would be surprising if it were otherwise.

More After the Jump

The US is an oligarchy and it acts like one. Hourly wages for non supervisory employees haven't gone up in 30 years but the proportion of national income for the top 1% has soared. The majority of all gains from the last expansion went to the rich. Bonuses on Wall Street last year were equal to the raises of 80 million ordinary Americans. When the housing bubble started crashing last year there was no bailout, but when hedge fund millionaires started hurting the Fed rushed in (might not work, but they're at least trying).

There was a class war in the US. The rich won it and their employees in government are working for the people who pay them (when you have to raise $10,000 a week as a House Representative, who do you think gives it to you? Think they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? Don't make me puke.)

However, the forms still remain. Despite thumbs on the scale, and despite some electoral problems, it is still possible for Americans to toss the bums out. Failure to do so will reap the entirely predictable and expected result of a continuation of the trend until a Depression hits. Then... you might get FDR... or you may get someone much nastier, and with it lose even the pretense of Democracy.

Where the Jihad Lives Now: Pakistan

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:38:12 -0700

Ron Moreau & Michael Hirsh | Oct 29 Issue

Newsweek - Islamic militants have spread beyond their tribal bases, and have the run of an unstable, nuclear-armed nation.

Today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to the West and security services that don't always do what they're supposed to do. (Unlike in Iraq or Afghanistan, there also aren't thousands of American troops hunting down would-be terrorists.) Then there's the country's large and growing nuclear program. "If you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it's right in their backyard," says Bruce Riedel, the former senior director for South Asia on the National Security Council.

The conventional story about Pakistan has been that it is an unstable nuclear power, with distant tribal areas in terrorist hands. What is new, and more frightening, is the extent to which Taliban and Qaeda elements have now turned much of the country, including some cities, into a base that gives jihadists more room to maneuver, both in Pakistan and beyond.

much much more at link

Geopolitical jockeying for position in Myanmar

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 04:57:55 -0700

F William Engdahl | Oct 16

Asia Times Online -

There are facts and then there are facts. Take the case of the recent mass protests in Burma or Myanmar, depending on which name you prefer to call the former British colony.

First it's a fact which few will argue that the present military dictatorship of the reclusive General Than Shwe is right up there when it comes to world-class tyrannies. It's also a fact that Myanmar enjoys one of the world's lowest general living standards. Partly as a result of the ill-conceived 100% to 500% price hikes in gasoline and other fuels in August, inflation, the nominal trigger for the mass protests led by saffron-robed Buddhist monks, is unofficially estimated to have risen by 35%. Ironically the demand to establish "market" energy prices came from the IMF and World Bank.

This is all understandable powder to unleash a social explosion of protest against the regime.

It is also a fact that the Myanmar military junta is on the hit list of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Bush administration for its repressive ways. Has the Bush leopard suddenly changed his spots? Or is there a more opaque agenda behind Washington's calls to impose severe economic and political sanctions on the regime? Here some not-so-publicized facts help.

The tragedy of Myanmar, whose land area is about the size of George W Bush's Texas, is that its population is being used as a human stage prop in a drama scripted in Washington by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the George Soros Open Society Institute, Freedom House and Gene Sharp's Albert Einstein Institution, a US intelligence asset used to spark "non-violent" regime change around the world on behalf of the US strategic agenda.

Myanmar's "Saffron Revolution", like the Ukraine "Orange Revolution" or the Georgia "Rose Revolution" and the various color revolutions instigated in recent years against strategic states surrounding Russia, is a well-orchestrated exercise in Washington-run regime change, down to the details of "hit-and-run" protests with "swarming" mobs of monks in saffron, Internet blogs, mobile SMS links between protest groups, well-organized protest cells which disperse and re-form. CNN made the blunder during a September broadcast of mentioning the active presence of the NED behind the protests in Myanmar.

In fact the US State Department admits to supporting the activities of the NED in Myanmar. The NED is a US government-funded "private" entity whose activities are designed to support US foreign policy objectives, doing today what the CIA did during the Cold War. As well, the NED funds Soros' Open Society Institute in fostering regime change in Myanmar. In an October 30, 2003 press release the State Department admitted, "The United States also supports organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Institute and Internews, working inside and outside the region on a broad range of democracy promotion activities." It all sounds very self-effacing and noble of the State Department. Is it though?

In reality the US State Department has recruited and trained key opposition leaders from numerous anti-government organizations in Myanmar. It has poured the relatively huge sum (for Myanmar) of more than $2.5 million annually into NED activities in promoting regime change in Myanmar since at least 2003. The US regime change effort, its Saffron Revolution, is being largely run, according to informed reports, out of the US Consulate General in bordering Chaing Mai, Thailand. There activists are recruited and trained, in some cases directly in the US, before being sent back to organize inside Myanmar. The US's NED admits to funding key opposition media including the New Era Journal, Irrawaddy and the Democratic Voice of Burma radio.

The concert-master of the tactics of Saffron monk-led non-violence regime change is Gene Sharp, founder of the deceptively-named Albert Einstein Institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a group funded by an arm of the NED to foster US-friendly regime change in key spots around the world. Sharp's institute has been active in Myanmar since 1989, just after the regime massacred some 3,000 protestors to silence the opposition. CIA special operative and former US military attache in Rangoon, Col Robert Helvey, an expert in clandestine operations, introduced Sharp to Myanmar in 1989 to train the opposition there in non-violent strategy. Interestingly, Sharp was also in China two weeks before the dramatic events at Tiananmen Square.

'Sudan expects full-blown fight'

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:50:22 -0700

Nairobi | Oct 15

SA -
The combination of a crisis in Sudan's unity government and fresh violence in Darfur is threatening to trigger a full-blown conflict in the oil-rich region of Kordofan, say observers.

They said that Kordofan, which had increasingly seen the Darfur conflict spill over its borders, could be Sudan's next frontline.

Late last month, suspected Darfur rebel groups killed 10 African Union peacekeepers in Haskanita, which lies on the border with Kordofan. Rebels also launched a deadly raid against police inside Kordofan in August.

Last week, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement suspended its participation in the country's unity government, the most serious snag yet in the peace deal signed by Khartoum and the former southern rebels in January 2005.

The man who knew too much

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:44:05 -0700

Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark | Montana/Washington, DC | October 13

The Guardian - Richard Barlow was the CIA's expert on Pakistan's nuclear secrets, but he was thrown out and disgraced when he blew the whistle on a US cover-up. Now he's to have his day in court.

Rich Barlow idles outside his silver trailer on a remote campsite in Montana - itinerant and unemployed, with only his hunting dogs and a borrowed computer for company. He dips into a pouch of American Spirit tobacco to roll another cigarette. It is hard to imagine that he was once a covert operative at the CIA, the recognised, much lauded expert in the trade in Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

He prepared briefs for Dick Cheney, when Cheney was at the Pentagon, for the upper echelons of the CIA and even for the Oval Office. But when he uncovered a political scandal - a conspiracy to enable a rogue nation to get the nuclear bomb - he found himself a marked man.

This is a great backgrounder on the blind eye turned to the Khan network being allowed to get Pakistan the bomb in defiance of stated US policy. Names will be familiar. ~ CiL (and similarities to the Sibel Edmonds case) - qB

Key activists arrested in Burma

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:28:47 -0700

Oct 13

BBC - Burma's military rulers have arrested three of the last remaining leaders of the recent pro-democracy protests which were violently suppressed.

Among those detained was Htay Kywe, who led some of the first marches and was a prominent activist in a 1988 uprising.

The arrests came as thousands attended a pro-government rally in Rangoon, many of them apparently under duress.

** Myanmar stages rally as UN envoy heads back to region ~ (Every factory in the industrial zone had to send at least 50 people to attend," one resident told AFP on condition of anonymity.)
** Myanmar: guns vs. Google
** Jewel Industry Wants Out Of Burma, Yet A Gemstone Ban Might Prove Hard To Enforce
** Myanmar generals visit arms maker in Russia

Only now, the full horror of Burmese junta's repression of monks emerges

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:30:36 -0700

Rosalind Russell | October 11

Independent - Monks confined in a room with their own excrement for days, people beaten just for being bystanders at a demonstration, a young woman too traumatised to speak, and screams in the night as Rangoon's residents hear their neighbours being taken away.

Harrowing accounts smuggled out of Burma reveal how a systematic campaign of physical punishment and psychological terror is being waged by the Burmese security forces as they take revenge on those suspected of involvement in last month's pro-democracy uprising.

The first-hand accounts describe a campaign hidden from view, but even more sinister and terrifying than the open crackdown in which the regime's soldiers turned their bullets and batons on unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Rangoon, killing at least 13. At least then, the world was watching.

The hidden crackdown is as methodical as it is brutal. First the monks were targeted, then the thousands of ordinary Burmese who joined the demonstrations, those who even applauded or watched, or those merely suspected of anti-government sympathies.

"There were about 400 of us in one room. No toilets, no buckets, no water for washing. No beds, no blankets, no soap. Nothing," said a 24-year-old monk who was held for 10 days at the Government Technical Institute, a leafy college in northern Rangoon which is now a prison camp for suspected dissidents. The young man, too frightened to be named, was one of 185 monks taken in a raid on a monastery in the Yankin district of Rangoon on 28 September, two days after government soldiers began attacking street protesters.

"The room was too small for everyone to lie down at once. We took it in turns to sleep. Every night at 8 o'clock we were given a small bowl of rice and a cup of water. But after a few days many of us just couldn't eat. The smell was so bad.

"Some of the novice monks were under 10 years old, the youngest was just seven. They were stripped of their robes and given prison sarongs. Some were beaten, leaving open, untreated wounds, but no doctors came."

On his release, the monk spoke to a Western aid worker in Rangoon, who smuggled his testimony and those of other prisoners and witnesses out of Burma on a small memory stick.

Most of the detained monks, the low-level clergy, were eventually freed without charge as were the children among them. But suspected ringleaders of the protests can expect much harsher treatment, secret trials and long prison sentences. One detained opposition leader has been tortured to death, activist groups said yesterday. Win Shwe, 42, a member of the National League for Democracy, the party of the detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has died under interrogation, the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said, adding that the information came from authorities in Kyaukpandawn township. "However, his body was not sent to his family and the interrogators indicated that they had cremated it instead." Win Shwe was arrested on the first day of the crackdown.

It was the russet-robed Buddhist clergy, not political groups, who had formed the backbone of demonstrations during days of euphoric defiance and previously undreamed-of hope that Burma's military regime could be brought down by peaceful revolution. That hope has been crushed under the boots of government soldiers and intelligence agents and replaced by fear and dread.

A young woman, a domestic worker in Rangoon, described how one woman bystander who applauded the monks was rounded up. "My friend was taken away for clapping during the demonstrations. She had not marched. She came out of her house as the marchers went by and, for perhaps 30 seconds, smiled and clapped as the monks chanted. Her face was recorded on a military intelligence camera. She was taken and beaten. Now she is so scared she won't even leave her room to come and talk to me, to anyone."

Another Rangoon resident told the aid worker: "We all hear screams at night as they [the police] arrive to drag off a neighbour. We are torn between going to help them and hiding behind our doors. We hide behind our doors. We are ashamed. We are frightened."

Burmese intelligence agents are scrutinising photographs and video footage to identify demonstrators and bystanders. They have also arrested the owners of computers which they suspect were used to transmit images and testimonies out of the country. For each story smuggled out to The Independent, someone has risked arrest and imprisonment.

Hein Zay Kyaw (not his real name) received a telephone call last week telling him to be at a government compound where the military were releasing 42 people, among them Mr Kyaw's friend, missing since he was plucked from the edge of a demonstration on 26 September. Mr Kyaw told the aid worker: "The prisoners were let out of the trucks. Even though now they were safe, they were still so scared. They walked with their hands shielding their faces as if they were expecting blows. They were lined up in rows and sat down against the wall, still cowering. Their clothes were dirty, some stained with blood. Our friend had a clean T-shirt on. We were relieved because we thought this meant that he had not been beaten. We were wrong. He had been beaten on the head and the blood had soaked his shirt which he carried in a plastic bag."

The United States yesterday threatened unspecified new sanctions against Burma and called for an investigation into the death of Win Shwe.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement: "The junta must stop the brutal treatment of its people and peacefully transition to democracy or face new sanctions from the United States."

The scale of the crackdown remains undocumented. The regime has banned journalists from entering Burma and has blocked internet access and phone lines.

Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK says the number of dead is possibly in the hundreds. "The regime covers up its atrocities. We will never know the true numbers," he said.

At the weekend the government said it has released more than half of the 2,171 people arrested, but exile groups estimate the number of detentions between 6,000 and 10,000.

In Rangoon, people say they are more frightened now than when soldiers were shooting on the streets.

"When there were demonstrations and soldiers on the streets, the world was watching," said a professional woman who watched the marchers from her office.

"But now the soldiers only come at night. They take anyone they can identify from their videos. People who clapped, who offered water to the monks, who knelt and prayed as they passed. People who happened to turn and watch as they passed by and their faces were caught on film. It is now we are most fearful. It is now we need the world to help us."

Burmese monks defy army warning

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:30:41 -0700

Rangoon | First posted Sept 25

BBC - Tens of thousands of monks and civilians in Burma's main city Rangoon have defied military warnings and staged new anti-government protests.

Some chanted "we want dialogue", others simply shouted "democracy, democracy".

Earlier lorries with loudspeakers warned residents that the protests could be "dispersed by military force".

Updates:
Violent Crackdown Launched
Myanmar agrees to receive UN envoy
Thousands Dead in Massacre of Monks
Massacre of the monks in Burma

After the march finished, eyewitnesses told two news agencies they had seen several military trucks moving on Rangoon's streets.

===

'No injustice can last for ever': Burma's biggest protest for 20 years provokes ominous threat

The Independent, By Andrew Buncombe, September 25

As Gordon Brown sent a message of hope to the people of Burma, the military regime has issued an ominous threat to the Buddhist monks who are leading the series of extraordinary democracy demonstrations.

After 100,000 people filled the streets of Rangoon yesterday – the largest demonstration by far since the protests of 1988 – a government minister told senior monks that if they did not rein in the activities of those heading the marches, the regime would take unspecified action.

The threat by Brigadier General Thura Myint Maung, the religious affairs minister, represents the first public acknowledgement by the regime of the mounting challenge it faces as thousands of monks in maroon robes chanting slogans fill the streets of the country's largest city on a daily basis with calls for peaceful change.

At the same time, it has heightened speculation that the regime is preparing to crack down hard against the demonstrators if the protests continue, possibly with mass arrests and detentions.

For the regime, the stakes are huge...

===

Commentary: The last public voice of democracy in Myanmar

Globe and Mail Update, By Jeff Pearce, September 24

It's hard to watch the news these days when it's full of Afghanistan and Iraq, while an astonishing display of courage goes on almost completely ignored (at least until the past few days) in another Third World corner. This is Myanmar, where Buddhist monks are leading protests against the ruling military junta. It's up to the monks because no ordinary person can march in the streets of Rangoon (officially known as Yangon) without the risk of being shot or hauled away to prison. It also seems to be up to the monks because we in the West aren't doing very much about it.

Fuel-price hikes touched off this wave of rebellion, but there is so much more to the saga. For one thing, aid groups warn that Myanmar (formerly called Burma) is suffering a silent humanitarian crisis, with widespread poverty and lack of health care in remote areas, plus thousands of refugees near the Thai border displaced by the army fighting with ethnic groups. The Burmese would be the first to tell you they don't want any Afghanistan-style military intervention. But they would probably welcome the supportive chorus of a watching West and increased diplomatic pressure.

Myanmar is called the Golden Land. Even a brief stay there makes you feel like you dropped between a Somerset Maugham short story and a historical docudrama. Men and women still wear the traditional sarong, the longyi, and the potholed streets of Rangoon boast trishaws and rusting Toyotas. Most of the universities are located outside the city limits — the regime knows where radicals are born. There are Internet cafés, but personal e-mail and news sites such as Hotmail and BBC are banned, and the government can eavesdrop on phone calls. It's a place of curious anachronisms — no McDonald's but you can buy an Avril Lavigne poster on the street.

When I briefly lived there, an American tourist complained to me that in this predominantly Buddhist nation the "people are so passive." That was the arrogant Western interpretation — that Buddhism has somehow leached rebellion from people's souls. Many a Rangoon street corner has a soldier on it with a machine gun; you'd be passive, too.

===

Previous Agonist Threads:

Democracy icon Suu Kyi greets Myanmar monks
Myanmar Blames Suu Kyi for Unrest
Protests persist in Myanmar, despite arrests by junta
Protests spread around Myanmar

U.S. and EU are ready to recognize Kosovo independence

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:11:29 -0700

Judy Dempsey | Berlin | Sept 25

IHT - The United States and the European Union will recognize Kosovo if the Balkan province declares independence from Serbia in early December when last-ditch negotiations end, senior U.S. and European officials said Monday.

The officials spoke as the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians prepared to sit down this week at the United Nations for talks that diplomats have billed as part of a final effort to get agreement on the issue. It has turned into a confrontation between the West and Russia, which has threatened to veto any Security Council resolution approving independence for Kosovo.

"The game plan is set," said a senior European diplomat who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "The talks end on Dec. 10. If there is no sense then that Serbia and Kosovo can agree on the province's future, then Kosovo will make a unilateral declaration of independence. The U.S. will recognize that independence, and the Europeans, as far as they can remain united, will follow, too," he said.

The EU will support the U.S. stance despite a clear preference for a UN-backed solution. But it will find it difficult to speak with one voice for all the 27 member states, diplomats said.

Somalia: Descent into Hell

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 07:14:55 -0700

candy | March 13

Things continue to deteriorate in Somalia. This morning there are reports that mortars were fired at President Abdullahi Yusuf's residence in Mogadishu. A young boy died in the attack. It seems Somalians need a little help in understanding what a furtive return to the capital entails. ;)

Two more people died in an attack on the deputy mayor of Mogadishu. Gunfights have continued to erupt across the city, in one children were caught in the crossfire. Gwynne Dyer notes that Somalia has slipped back into perpetual war

In a move that will only increase the violence Deputy Defence Minister Salad Ali Jelle announced plans to forcefully disarm residents in the capital and promises to secure the capital in 30 days. The TSG also decided to move the government seat from Baidoa to Mogadishu.

Reporters continue to be abused which has brought calls from The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to the African Union (AU) to protect journalists in Somalia. In other sad news at least 42 people, mainly children, have died in the last 24 hours from a suspected cholera outbreak in southern Somalia.

Agonist Economics Compilation Threads

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:39:32 -0700

In the Agonist Economics Forum

All of the threads mauberly maintains in the Agnost Economics Forum are Compilation Threads.

For example:

U. S. Economy
Chinese Economic Roundup
Shipping
Asian Developments
U.S. Dollar
Housing Market
Enron matters
Debt market issues
Latin America
India
Metals Topics
Hedge Funds
Labor
Europe
Oil, etc.
World economy