It's a bit of a coincidence that having posted a reminder of the 'material support' petition last night, I just today received a forwarded email from the US Campaign for Burma regarding some new developments on the issue.

Currently, four senators are sponsoring or co-sponsoring the Coleman-Leahy amendment to H.R. 4393. Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) are sponsoring the Act, while current co-sponsors are Lisa Murkowsky (R-Alaska) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland).

The amendment is for the Immigration and Nationality Act and reads as follows:

Purpose: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide an exception for refugees who have been forced against their will by terrorist organizations to provide support to such organizations.   more »

This is just a quick note to remind, or notify, you that the Petition to exempt refugees from the bar to admission for material support to 'terrorists' is still up. The issue has not been resolved, so we still need signatures. For those of you not familiar, the quicky quick description is that an overly broad definition of 'terrorist' activity in the Patriot and Real ID acts has caused all insurgents, even those fighting repressive military regimes for democracy, to be labeled as terrorists (or engaging in terrorist activity). Consequently, refugees from Burma who ever provided any amount of support to an ethnic armed group are being denied asylum in the US under the 'bar to admission' - for providing support to those engaged in 'terrorist activity'. There are already laws existing which prevent those guilty of criminal acts, or real terrorism, from being admitted to the US as refugees - so this additional red tape is both redundant, harmful, and possibly causing human rights violations. The petition will be forwarded and/or mailed to the relevent officials in Washington.

http://www.petitiononline.com/givrefge/petition.html

About two weeks ago I'd mentioned here that the Kachin Independence Organization had held an emergency meeting amid rumors that the Burmese army was preparing to seize parts of the Kachin liberated areas from the KIO. There has been no confirmation that the emergency meeting was in fact related to the rumors, or to the build-up of Burmese troops near Laiza which had sparked the rumors, but there have been a few developments in the situation since then.

The KIO meeting resulted in the formation of a "political working committee to find solutions to existing problems between the junta and ceasefire or peace groups." (from the DVB). There was also speculation that this committee was formed as a means of involving the younger generation of Kachins who've become disillusioned with KIO leadership - but again, there's no confirmation of the veracity of this claim. KIO leadership say simply that it is meant to be a "committee which could always advise the KIO Central with the best available means when it comes to dealing with current political situation in Burma."   more »

Newsweek has a cringe inducing article from a Mr. Joe Cochrane regarding his visit to Rangoon for the New Year Festival. It's titled, Techno Revolution. The title doesn't immediately reveal the inanity of the article, although you might be able to guess what's coming. The page's descriptive title is "Burma: Despite Military Junta, Partying Goes On". Reading it seriously made my head hurt. If I ever meet Joe Cochrane in person, I'd have to put the smack down for the following quote: "People with a rudimentary understanding of the place think it’s only authoritarian rule, forced labor and gross human rights abuses around the clock. But that’s only one side of the story. Despite its endless woes, Burma is also a pretty happening place, as I learned last week."    more »

A few weeks ago I added a cluster map to my blog - it's down below in the right hand column. Some of you may not have noticed, particularly if you are reading this on a news feed. It plots out the locations of all the IP addresses that visit my blog onto a map of the world, and I'm finding it very entertaining. It counts actual hits, so each repeat hit by the same visitor is also counted, but it still gives a pretty accurate picture of how many new and how many repeat visitors I'm getting. My blog doesn't get an impressive number of hits, but still, I'm quite pleased with the distribution of my dots.

There is a large dot in Portland, which presumably represents me, but there are quite a few other smaller dots in my area as well. Somewhat predictably, the largest clusters are in the eastern US and Europe, but there are quite a few somewhat surprising countries showing up. Although, it shouldn't be too surprising given the ubiquity of the internet; my surprise probably has more to do with my own lack of knowledge of said countries and my general tendency to not think about them on a regular basis. In particular, from South America we've had visitors from Venezuela and Uruguay or Argentina (the dot is on the border). In Africa, Cote d'Ivoire is represented, along with Nigeria and South Africa, with an extra dot on the border of South Africa and Botswana. In the Middle East we have Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and another dot on the border of Turkey and Syria.   more »

Every so often, a Google blog search of "Burma" will turn up something both interesting and not bad. I rarely post about non-political cultural issues here - but there's no reason I shouldn't on occasion, right? Every once in a while I'll come across a blog of someone who's traveled to Burma, with their knowledge of the country limited to the military dictatorship and Orewellian metaphors that are so often bandied about. When they get there and find that people appear to be going about their daily lives just like anywhere else, all smiling and whatnot, they seem to get the impression that Burma (which they happily start calling Myanmar) is not really so bad. Of course, the good things they see do not preclude the reality of the bad news we so often read, but perhaps a more balanced picture of daily life and society in Burma would help people to consider things on a deeper level.   more »

The sequence of events happening over the last few months has made it apparent that the Burmese junta is up to something. From stepping up their counterinsurgencies to denouncing the NLD and Daw Suu Kyi as irrelevant, it seems they are taking steps to consolidate and/or extend their power over the beleugered nation. It also seems that they are still suffering from the delusion that people can't see through their thinly veiled propaganda and lies, but knowing they are full of shite is cold comfort when witnessing bits of their evil plan for dominion slowly roll forth.   more »

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced he was stepping down from his post on April 4th, after months of peaceful but adamant protests in Bangkok. His resignation followed closely on the election, which his party Thai Rak Thai won, but with a much smaller margin of approval than in any previous elections, and in which record numbers of abstention votes were cast in protest. The opposition parties had boycotted the election, essentially making it a referendum on Thaksin's leadership. There were enough abstentions in 39 districts that Thai Rak Thai members were unable to claim victory - parliament will be unable to convene until fresh elections are held in those districts.   more »

Yours truly will soon be a radion star. At least, as much of a star as one can be on a late night radio show broadcast in the U.K., but still. I had received a request several months ago when was still in Thailand to do an interview on a segment of "The World" at the BBC, but nothing ever came of it. Today, however, I got an email requesting an interview for a Radio Five Live program, and they actually called me to do the interview. It won't air for a few hours yet in the UK, so who knows when it will be available on the site's blog.

I don't think I'll be listening to it myself, but I encourage you to. If I come off sounding like an idiot - keep it to yourself, I'd rather not know.