Myanmar urges vigilance after deadly bombs
Fri Apr 16, 5:18 am ET
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar state media urged revellers at annual water festivities to be on guard Friday after bomb blasts killed eight people at a park in the military-ruled country's biggest city.
People should "remain vigilant against potential atrocities" and inform the authorities if they see anything suspicious, the English-language New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
Officials had initially reported that nine people died Thursday in three explosions near Kandawgyi Lake in the former capital Yangon, but later said they had miscounted the number of fatalities.
State media said 170 people were wounded in the park, where thousands of people were gathered for water-throwing festivities to mark the Buddhist New Year.
It was the worst bomb attack in Yangon since a series of blasts in May 2005 at two supermarkets and a convention centre killed 23 people. The junta blamed those explosions on exile groups.
Thursday's blasts came as the country prepares for elections planned for this year that critics have dismissed as a sham due to the effective barring of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi because she is a serving prisoner.
The United States condemned Thursday's attacks and said it was unsure about the motivation.
"We condemn any kind of violence that victimises innocent civilians," said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were the victims of this bombing," he said.
Washington maintains sanctions on the regime but initiated a cautious dialogue with the junta last year, concluding that the previous US policy of trying to isolate the regime had failed.
Hundreds of revellers returned to the same park Friday on the final day of the Thingyan New Year festival, watched by dozens of police officers.
State television said late Thursday that an investigation had begun to find the "destructionists" behind the explosions.
Myanmar has been hit by several bomb blasts in recent years, which the junta has blamed on armed exile groups or ethnic rebels.
The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by the need to fend off ethnic rebellions that have plagued remote border areas for decades.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never allowed it to take office.
The Nobel peace laureate, who advocates non-violent resistance, has been under house arrest almost constantly since.
Armed minorities in Karen and Shan states continue to fight the government along the country's eastern border, alleging they are subject to neglect and mistreatment.
The regime recently stepped up its decades-long campaign against the rebels in an apparent attempt to crush them before the polls, expected before early November this year.
Fri Apr 16, 5:18 am ET
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar state media urged revellers at annual water festivities to be on guard Friday after bomb blasts killed eight people at a park in the military-ruled country's biggest city.
People should "remain vigilant against potential atrocities" and inform the authorities if they see anything suspicious, the English-language New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
Officials had initially reported that nine people died Thursday in three explosions near Kandawgyi Lake in the former capital Yangon, but later said they had miscounted the number of fatalities.
State media said 170 people were wounded in the park, where thousands of people were gathered for water-throwing festivities to mark the Buddhist New Year.
It was the worst bomb attack in Yangon since a series of blasts in May 2005 at two supermarkets and a convention centre killed 23 people. The junta blamed those explosions on exile groups.
Thursday's blasts came as the country prepares for elections planned for this year that critics have dismissed as a sham due to the effective barring of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi because she is a serving prisoner.
The United States condemned Thursday's attacks and said it was unsure about the motivation.
"We condemn any kind of violence that victimises innocent civilians," said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were the victims of this bombing," he said.
Washington maintains sanctions on the regime but initiated a cautious dialogue with the junta last year, concluding that the previous US policy of trying to isolate the regime had failed.
Hundreds of revellers returned to the same park Friday on the final day of the Thingyan New Year festival, watched by dozens of police officers.
State television said late Thursday that an investigation had begun to find the "destructionists" behind the explosions.
Myanmar has been hit by several bomb blasts in recent years, which the junta has blamed on armed exile groups or ethnic rebels.
The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by the need to fend off ethnic rebellions that have plagued remote border areas for decades.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never allowed it to take office.
The Nobel peace laureate, who advocates non-violent resistance, has been under house arrest almost constantly since.
Armed minorities in Karen and Shan states continue to fight the government along the country's eastern border, alleging they are subject to neglect and mistreatment.
The regime recently stepped up its decades-long campaign against the rebels in an apparent attempt to crush them before the polls, expected before early November this year.
******************************************************
US condemns Myanmar blasts
Thu Apr 15, 9:23 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States on Thursday condemned blasts in Myanmar that left nine people dead and said it was unsure about the motivations.
"We condemn any kind of violence that victimizes innocent civilians," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were the victims of this bombing," he said.
Crowley said the United States did not know who was responsible or what their motivation was. No Americans were injured, he said.
Three blasts rocked a park in Myanmar's largest city Yangon as revelers celebrated an annual water festival.
The explosions come as the junta prepares for the nation's first elections in two decades later this year, which have drawn widespread criticism from Western nations and the opposition which fear they will be a sham.
President Barack Obama's administration last year initiated a cautious dialogue with the junta, concluding that the previous US policy of trying to isolate the regime had failed.
Thu Apr 15, 9:23 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States on Thursday condemned blasts in Myanmar that left nine people dead and said it was unsure about the motivations.
"We condemn any kind of violence that victimizes innocent civilians," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were the victims of this bombing," he said.
Crowley said the United States did not know who was responsible or what their motivation was. No Americans were injured, he said.
Three blasts rocked a park in Myanmar's largest city Yangon as revelers celebrated an annual water festival.
The explosions come as the junta prepares for the nation's first elections in two decades later this year, which have drawn widespread criticism from Western nations and the opposition which fear they will be a sham.
President Barack Obama's administration last year initiated a cautious dialogue with the junta, concluding that the previous US policy of trying to isolate the regime had failed.
******************************************************
Chicago News Cooperative
New York Times - Agencies Are Stretched in Efforts to Aid Refugees
By MERIBAH KNIGHT
Published: April 15, 2010
Sally Ryan/Chicago News Cooperative
Tulasa Biswa, a refugee from Bhutan, arrived in Chicago in winter 2009 with her family. They were unprepared for the cold.
Mostly they pointed and motioned. Myanmar needed scissors from Ethiopia. Bhutan needed help from Iraq to thread her machine. Eritrea was having trouble with her bobbin. Could Ethiopia help? Yes, of course. It’s nice to know they are not completely alone, the women said, even if the verbal exchange is difficult.
“We want the women to feel empowered while gaining skills that they can use,” said Melineh Kano, the program director of Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, the Chicago-based refugee resettlement organization responsible for the weekly class. What started as one day a week has now grown to three, attended by an average of 15 women — both the agency’s clients and others — who want to sew and socialize.
Women comprise more than half of all refugees worldwide, and classes like the one in Rogers Park offer access to a social and skill-building environment, said Helen Sweitzer, director of the women’s programs at the interfaith ministries. All of the machines and material are donated, a necessity at a time when state budget cuts are prompting major reductions in taxpayer financing of resettlement programs.
Even as budgets get slashed, arrivals are surging. Since 2003, refugee arrivals in Illinois have increased 175 percent, and the number of countries sending refugees has gone to 60 from 31. Iraqi refugees, according to the United States Office of Refugee Resettlements, went from zero to 1,298 from 2006 to 2009, making Chicago home to the second-largest Iraqi population in the country after Detroit.
Illinois and nine other states received more than half of all incoming refugees to the United States in 2008, the last year for which data is available. Yet severe cuts in financing —Illinois will receive $2.5 million in 2010 for resettlement services, down from $7.5 million in 2000 — have strained the budgets of local resettlement agencies.
What was once a public and private partnership has become increasingly private, said Ed Silverman, who directs the Illinois Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Services.
Resettlement agencies are trying to keep up with the growing diversity of the refugee population with culturally appropriate counseling, translation and other services. Greg Wangerin, the interfaith ministries’ executive director, said the agency resettled refugees from 44 countries in 2008, its busiest year to date. But tight budgets forced it to stop taking “free cases,” those that are not family reunification, he said.
“We want nothing more than to resettle refugees,” Mr. Wangerin said. “But we don’t want to do it sloppily.”
Last fall, the organization suspended its women’s sewing cooperative, an extension of the class that allowed women to sell their goods and receive 50 percent of the profits.
“We don’t have the additional funds to buy nicer fabric, pay the teacher for an extra day and rent out booths at different fairs to sell the items,” Ms. Sweitzer said.
The resettlement agencies got some relief in January when the United States State Department increased a one-time stipend for food, clothing and shelter to between $900 and $1,100 from $450. But the money is allotted for individuals and cannot be applied to services like the sewing class.
Tulasa Biswa, 30, a refugee from Bhutan who arrived 13 months ago with her husband and 4-year-old son, attends the class regularly. Ms. Biswa was 12 when her family left Bhutan in the back of a truck, a week after the government told the country’s ethnic Nepalese that they were no longer welcome. The government revoked their citizenship, forcing them over the border to Nepal and into a refugee camp that Ms. Biswa called home for the next 18 years.
“It was a miserable life,” Ms. Biswa said. High winds periodically tore through the camp, forcing her family to huddle in the middle of its bamboo hut and hold down the roof with a battered rope.
“I would pray to God that the wind would not take away our home,” she said, shaking her head.
Sitting in her neat apartment furnished with couches and chairs covered with brightly colored seat covers and crocheted doilies she has made, Ms. Biswa recalled her family’s arrival in Chicago in February 2009, the coldest winter in more than a decade. No one in the family had a proper coat, and it was the first time they had seen snow. When they entered their Rogers Park apartment, set up by the Ethiopian Community Association, it had only kitchenware and a single bed. Twice a day for the next two months, she and her husband went out looking for furniture left out for trash collection.
“We didn’t have money, and we had an empty house,” Ms. Biswa said.
Many of the women in the sewing group live in the diverse neighborhood of Rogers Park. Some agencies are able to secure refugee apartments with little more than a verbal agreement with landlords and a bit of good faith. “How can you say ‘I have this imaginary family coming in two weeks and we need an apartment with no lease?’ ” Ms. Kano said. “They must trust us.”
Back in the church’s sewing room, women milled about asking questions and socializing. Dei Thluai, from Myanmar, barely speaks a word of English, but with the help of universal hand gestures and a few women who act as translators, she has become a popular fixture in the class. In another corner, Sarah Araya, from Eritrea, asked for help with a pair of gauzy curtains from Tafesech Feyissa, an Ethiopian with luminous brown skin and a scarification tattoo on her forehead.
“We can talk because we speak the same language,” Ms. Araya said.
Across the room, Taggrid Albosherif, 36, worked on a blanket for summer picnics with her family. Ms. Albosherif came to Chicago from Iraq in 1997 to be reunited with her husband. In 2005 he went back to Iraq, leaving her and their four children behind. He has been missing for four years and six months.
“He’s dead — he’s kidnapped,” Ms. Albosherif said without emotion.
Five months ago, she was laid off from her job as a cashier, an increasingly common experience among refugees that experts said causes them to depend more on agencies, even as their resources dwindle.
She stopped working on her picnic blanket and took a moment to explain why the class is an important fixture in her life.
“I enjoy my time here; I love doing things for my family,” said Ms. Albosherif, who hopes to help refugees and abused women by working at an organization like the Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries. “It was my dream to come to America. Some days that dream comes true. Some days it’s really tough.”
New York Times - Agencies Are Stretched in Efforts to Aid Refugees
By MERIBAH KNIGHT
Published: April 15, 2010
Sally Ryan/Chicago News Cooperative
Tulasa Biswa, a refugee from Bhutan, arrived in Chicago in winter 2009 with her family. They were unprepared for the cold.
Mostly they pointed and motioned. Myanmar needed scissors from Ethiopia. Bhutan needed help from Iraq to thread her machine. Eritrea was having trouble with her bobbin. Could Ethiopia help? Yes, of course. It’s nice to know they are not completely alone, the women said, even if the verbal exchange is difficult.
“We want the women to feel empowered while gaining skills that they can use,” said Melineh Kano, the program director of Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, the Chicago-based refugee resettlement organization responsible for the weekly class. What started as one day a week has now grown to three, attended by an average of 15 women — both the agency’s clients and others — who want to sew and socialize.
Women comprise more than half of all refugees worldwide, and classes like the one in Rogers Park offer access to a social and skill-building environment, said Helen Sweitzer, director of the women’s programs at the interfaith ministries. All of the machines and material are donated, a necessity at a time when state budget cuts are prompting major reductions in taxpayer financing of resettlement programs.
Even as budgets get slashed, arrivals are surging. Since 2003, refugee arrivals in Illinois have increased 175 percent, and the number of countries sending refugees has gone to 60 from 31. Iraqi refugees, according to the United States Office of Refugee Resettlements, went from zero to 1,298 from 2006 to 2009, making Chicago home to the second-largest Iraqi population in the country after Detroit.
Illinois and nine other states received more than half of all incoming refugees to the United States in 2008, the last year for which data is available. Yet severe cuts in financing —Illinois will receive $2.5 million in 2010 for resettlement services, down from $7.5 million in 2000 — have strained the budgets of local resettlement agencies.
What was once a public and private partnership has become increasingly private, said Ed Silverman, who directs the Illinois Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Services.
Resettlement agencies are trying to keep up with the growing diversity of the refugee population with culturally appropriate counseling, translation and other services. Greg Wangerin, the interfaith ministries’ executive director, said the agency resettled refugees from 44 countries in 2008, its busiest year to date. But tight budgets forced it to stop taking “free cases,” those that are not family reunification, he said.
“We want nothing more than to resettle refugees,” Mr. Wangerin said. “But we don’t want to do it sloppily.”
Last fall, the organization suspended its women’s sewing cooperative, an extension of the class that allowed women to sell their goods and receive 50 percent of the profits.
“We don’t have the additional funds to buy nicer fabric, pay the teacher for an extra day and rent out booths at different fairs to sell the items,” Ms. Sweitzer said.
The resettlement agencies got some relief in January when the United States State Department increased a one-time stipend for food, clothing and shelter to between $900 and $1,100 from $450. But the money is allotted for individuals and cannot be applied to services like the sewing class.
Tulasa Biswa, 30, a refugee from Bhutan who arrived 13 months ago with her husband and 4-year-old son, attends the class regularly. Ms. Biswa was 12 when her family left Bhutan in the back of a truck, a week after the government told the country’s ethnic Nepalese that they were no longer welcome. The government revoked their citizenship, forcing them over the border to Nepal and into a refugee camp that Ms. Biswa called home for the next 18 years.
“It was a miserable life,” Ms. Biswa said. High winds periodically tore through the camp, forcing her family to huddle in the middle of its bamboo hut and hold down the roof with a battered rope.
“I would pray to God that the wind would not take away our home,” she said, shaking her head.
Sitting in her neat apartment furnished with couches and chairs covered with brightly colored seat covers and crocheted doilies she has made, Ms. Biswa recalled her family’s arrival in Chicago in February 2009, the coldest winter in more than a decade. No one in the family had a proper coat, and it was the first time they had seen snow. When they entered their Rogers Park apartment, set up by the Ethiopian Community Association, it had only kitchenware and a single bed. Twice a day for the next two months, she and her husband went out looking for furniture left out for trash collection.
“We didn’t have money, and we had an empty house,” Ms. Biswa said.
Many of the women in the sewing group live in the diverse neighborhood of Rogers Park. Some agencies are able to secure refugee apartments with little more than a verbal agreement with landlords and a bit of good faith. “How can you say ‘I have this imaginary family coming in two weeks and we need an apartment with no lease?’ ” Ms. Kano said. “They must trust us.”
Back in the church’s sewing room, women milled about asking questions and socializing. Dei Thluai, from Myanmar, barely speaks a word of English, but with the help of universal hand gestures and a few women who act as translators, she has become a popular fixture in the class. In another corner, Sarah Araya, from Eritrea, asked for help with a pair of gauzy curtains from Tafesech Feyissa, an Ethiopian with luminous brown skin and a scarification tattoo on her forehead.
“We can talk because we speak the same language,” Ms. Araya said.
Across the room, Taggrid Albosherif, 36, worked on a blanket for summer picnics with her family. Ms. Albosherif came to Chicago from Iraq in 1997 to be reunited with her husband. In 2005 he went back to Iraq, leaving her and their four children behind. He has been missing for four years and six months.
“He’s dead — he’s kidnapped,” Ms. Albosherif said without emotion.
Five months ago, she was laid off from her job as a cashier, an increasingly common experience among refugees that experts said causes them to depend more on agencies, even as their resources dwindle.
She stopped working on her picnic blanket and took a moment to explain why the class is an important fixture in her life.
“I enjoy my time here; I love doing things for my family,” said Ms. Albosherif, who hopes to help refugees and abused women by working at an organization like the Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries. “It was my dream to come to America. Some days that dream comes true. Some days it’s really tough.”
******************************************************
The Carletonian - Khant Khant Kyaw ’11 awarded Davis Project for Peace Grant
April 16, 2010
By Leaf Elhai
Junior Khant Khant Kyaw will spend this summer traveling the world, camera in hand. Her pictures will do more than document her time abroad, though. The recipient of a 2010 Davis Projects for Peace grant, Kyaw will use photography to foster community development among youth in Burma, officially known as the Union of Myanmar. She will spend two months in the country running a program for teens that will teach photography skills and encourage community dialogue on local issues.
The $10,000 Projects for Peace grant is part of an initiative founded by philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis in 2007 to “bring new thinking to the prospects of peace in the world” by funding 100 projects from 90 college campuses across the country.
Kyaw’s community photography project comes out of her passion for grassroots-based international development and love of photography. She is pursuing a special major in international development, and has been involved with a number of development organizations around the world during her time at Carleton. Last summer, Kyaw worked with a local NGO in Cape Town, South Africa to teach sex education to teenagers. She went on to spend the fall of 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya, where she visited the Mwelu Foundation, an organization that teaches photography and filmmaking skills to empower children in Nairobi’s slums.
Kyaw began developing her photography skills as a student photographer in the office of media and public relations at Carleton. During winter term, she had an exhibit of photos from her time in South Africa and Kenya, “Colors from Africa,” on display in the library. With her upcoming project in Burma, “I’m combining two of my biggest interests that I developed at Carleton,” said Kyaw.
Kyaw, who spent her childhood in Burma before moving to Singapore, is familiar with the country’s culture and language and will use her knowledge of available resources to help in the planning of the teen program. She has returned to Burma several times with family members, and this summer will be her third service trip to the country. In 2007, Kyaw led a group of 12 students from Singapore on a week-long trip to the Burma, where they taught English and first aid skills to orphaned children. In 2008, when Cyclone Nargis swept through Burma in the worst natural disaster in the country’s history, Kyaw helped raise money and awareness on the Carleton campus as part of the Doh Burma Club and traveled to five affected villages to deliver relief supplies.
Kyaw believes that Burma is especially well-suited to benefit from her community photography project. According to World Bank figures, the country is one of the poorest in Southeast Asia. Socio-economic obstacles there mean that many young people have limited opportunities for formal or informal education, said Kyaw. A project like hers, that teaches both practical skills and a greater understanding of community issues, “can generate so much energy and motivation for the youth,” she said. In the long-term, her project may serve the role of promoting media literacy, a skill that will become increasingly important in Burma and across the globe.
Kyaw also hopes that the project will help change public perceptions of Burma as a politically oppressed country under military rule. Though it is important to acknowledge the political situation in Burma, there is a danger that a perception of monolithic political oppression can prevent positive dialogue on social issues, Kyaw said. The country’s politics have made headlines, but “there are also other facets of Burma that haven’t been recognized,” she added. She points to the creative innovation she observed in poor communities in Africa as an example of the type of adaptation to poverty that she wants to capture on film in Burma. By teaching teens to photograph their everyday life, Kyaw’s program will highlight the country’s rich culture, as well as bring the community together to talk about the issues behind the photographs.
For Kyaw, the project is also one of personal development. “I feel like I’ve learned so much from just going around and talking to people,” she said said, discussing her goals in the field of international development and her past experiences abroad. “I am hoping that through the youths, I will know more about Burmese culture.”
April 16, 2010
By Leaf Elhai
Junior Khant Khant Kyaw will spend this summer traveling the world, camera in hand. Her pictures will do more than document her time abroad, though. The recipient of a 2010 Davis Projects for Peace grant, Kyaw will use photography to foster community development among youth in Burma, officially known as the Union of Myanmar. She will spend two months in the country running a program for teens that will teach photography skills and encourage community dialogue on local issues.
The $10,000 Projects for Peace grant is part of an initiative founded by philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis in 2007 to “bring new thinking to the prospects of peace in the world” by funding 100 projects from 90 college campuses across the country.
Kyaw’s community photography project comes out of her passion for grassroots-based international development and love of photography. She is pursuing a special major in international development, and has been involved with a number of development organizations around the world during her time at Carleton. Last summer, Kyaw worked with a local NGO in Cape Town, South Africa to teach sex education to teenagers. She went on to spend the fall of 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya, where she visited the Mwelu Foundation, an organization that teaches photography and filmmaking skills to empower children in Nairobi’s slums.
Kyaw began developing her photography skills as a student photographer in the office of media and public relations at Carleton. During winter term, she had an exhibit of photos from her time in South Africa and Kenya, “Colors from Africa,” on display in the library. With her upcoming project in Burma, “I’m combining two of my biggest interests that I developed at Carleton,” said Kyaw.
Kyaw, who spent her childhood in Burma before moving to Singapore, is familiar with the country’s culture and language and will use her knowledge of available resources to help in the planning of the teen program. She has returned to Burma several times with family members, and this summer will be her third service trip to the country. In 2007, Kyaw led a group of 12 students from Singapore on a week-long trip to the Burma, where they taught English and first aid skills to orphaned children. In 2008, when Cyclone Nargis swept through Burma in the worst natural disaster in the country’s history, Kyaw helped raise money and awareness on the Carleton campus as part of the Doh Burma Club and traveled to five affected villages to deliver relief supplies.
Kyaw believes that Burma is especially well-suited to benefit from her community photography project. According to World Bank figures, the country is one of the poorest in Southeast Asia. Socio-economic obstacles there mean that many young people have limited opportunities for formal or informal education, said Kyaw. A project like hers, that teaches both practical skills and a greater understanding of community issues, “can generate so much energy and motivation for the youth,” she said. In the long-term, her project may serve the role of promoting media literacy, a skill that will become increasingly important in Burma and across the globe.
Kyaw also hopes that the project will help change public perceptions of Burma as a politically oppressed country under military rule. Though it is important to acknowledge the political situation in Burma, there is a danger that a perception of monolithic political oppression can prevent positive dialogue on social issues, Kyaw said. The country’s politics have made headlines, but “there are also other facets of Burma that haven’t been recognized,” she added. She points to the creative innovation she observed in poor communities in Africa as an example of the type of adaptation to poverty that she wants to capture on film in Burma. By teaching teens to photograph their everyday life, Kyaw’s program will highlight the country’s rich culture, as well as bring the community together to talk about the issues behind the photographs.
For Kyaw, the project is also one of personal development. “I feel like I’ve learned so much from just going around and talking to people,” she said said, discussing her goals in the field of international development and her past experiences abroad. “I am hoping that through the youths, I will know more about Burmese culture.”
******************************************************
Minneapolis Star Tribune - Obama making rights progress, former Amnesty leader says
Last update: April 15, 2010 - 7:19 PM
President Obama has mended fences with the international community, boosting the country's credibility as a human rights leader, but he must confront human rights violations in such countries as China, Myanmar and Zimbabwe to be considered successful, the former head of Amnesty International USA says.
Bill Schulz said Obama has put the United States back on the U.N. Human Rights Council, reached out to the Islamic world and shown respect for the opinions of other countries and world leaders.
"In the very broad sense, he has made a very important step in the project of restoring U.S. credibility as a human rights leader," he said.
Schulz, who is an ordained Unitarian-Universalist minister, will speak in Minneapolis on Obama's human rights record at 7 p.m. Saturday at the First Universalist Church, 3400 Dupont Av. S. He also will deliver sermons during the church's Sunday services. Both events are free and open to the public.
Schulz, who was executive director of the human rights organization from 1994 to 2006, said Obama is also a pragmatist who has put such things as international financial stability and the quest to control nuclear weapons at the forefront, trumping some human rights issues. But the administration cannot let human rights abusers such as China and Zimbabwe "off the hook, he said.
"To the extent to which the president takes a pragmatic approach to them without recognizing that at some point the United States does need to stand firm, that will be a measure of his ultimate human rights success or failure," he said.
Last update: April 15, 2010 - 7:19 PM
President Obama has mended fences with the international community, boosting the country's credibility as a human rights leader, but he must confront human rights violations in such countries as China, Myanmar and Zimbabwe to be considered successful, the former head of Amnesty International USA says.
Bill Schulz said Obama has put the United States back on the U.N. Human Rights Council, reached out to the Islamic world and shown respect for the opinions of other countries and world leaders.
"In the very broad sense, he has made a very important step in the project of restoring U.S. credibility as a human rights leader," he said.
Schulz, who is an ordained Unitarian-Universalist minister, will speak in Minneapolis on Obama's human rights record at 7 p.m. Saturday at the First Universalist Church, 3400 Dupont Av. S. He also will deliver sermons during the church's Sunday services. Both events are free and open to the public.
Schulz, who was executive director of the human rights organization from 1994 to 2006, said Obama is also a pragmatist who has put such things as international financial stability and the quest to control nuclear weapons at the forefront, trumping some human rights issues. But the administration cannot let human rights abusers such as China and Zimbabwe "off the hook, he said.
"To the extent to which the president takes a pragmatic approach to them without recognizing that at some point the United States does need to stand firm, that will be a measure of his ultimate human rights success or failure," he said.
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Channel News Asia - Singapore condemns Myanmar's bomb attacks
Posted: 16 April 2010 1442 hrs
SINGAPORE: Singapore has condemned the bomb attacks that took place in Yangon on Thursday.
Responding to media queries about the bombings in Yangon, Singapore's Foreign Ministry Spokesman said Singapore is shocked to learn of the bomb explosions and condemns the act of violence that took place on the eve of the Myanmar New Year, leaving nine dead and at least 75 injured.
So far, Myanmar authorities have informed Singapore's embassy in Yangon that there are no reports of any Singapore casualties.
Three bomb went off in Myanmar's main city Yangon as thousand of revellers celebrated an annual water festival on Thursday.
Posted: 16 April 2010 1442 hrs
SINGAPORE: Singapore has condemned the bomb attacks that took place in Yangon on Thursday.
Responding to media queries about the bombings in Yangon, Singapore's Foreign Ministry Spokesman said Singapore is shocked to learn of the bomb explosions and condemns the act of violence that took place on the eve of the Myanmar New Year, leaving nine dead and at least 75 injured.
So far, Myanmar authorities have informed Singapore's embassy in Yangon that there are no reports of any Singapore casualties.
Three bomb went off in Myanmar's main city Yangon as thousand of revellers celebrated an annual water festival on Thursday.
******************************************************
Casualties rise to 178 in Myanmar water festival bomb blasts
English.news.cn 2010-04-16 10:48:37
YANGON, April 16 (Xinhua) -- A total of 170 people were injured in a series of three bomb blasts in Myanmar's third day water festival activities in Yangon on Thursday afternoon, up from 94, while the death toll remained at eight, Friday's official daily New Light of Myanmar reported.
Among the injured 125 are men, 45 are women, and among the dead, five are male, three are female, the report confirmed.
The report described such terrorist attacks in the water festival as being "merely intended to tarnish Myanmar traditional culture and insult the public."
The authorities warned revelers in various regions across the country including the new capital of Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay to remain vigilant against potential atrocities to help expose terrorists.
The daily condemned in an article the terrorist attacks, saying that "attacking those participating in the traditional Thingyan happily and peacefully with the bombs is an insult to the people. It is an inhuman act. Because of such subversive acts, we the people abhor and loath the terrorist insurgents."
The article warned that "terrorist insurgents usually hide themselves in disguise among the people. We cannot identify the terrorists easily. This is why they are brazenly committing subversive acts by sliding into the crowds of ordinary people in disguise".
The three bomb explosions occurred in front of a water throwing pandal, named X-2-O, on Mingala Taung Nyunt township's Kandawkyi Ring Road at the Kandawkyi lake park area at about 3 p.m. (local time).
Hundreds of thousands of revelers were overjoyed in water throwing when the blast went off.
The blasts caused panic among the revelers then, while the injured were rushed to nearby hospitals for treatment, especially the biggest Yangon General Hospital which was packed with relatives of the victims.
The scene was at once sealed off by the police to clear the crowds to pave way for ambulances to carry the dead and the injured to the hospitals.
Despite the case, revelers outside the scene continued water throwing with traffic jammed in other part of the area.
The situation, after the incident, remained calm through to the night on Thursday.
English.news.cn 2010-04-16 10:48:37
YANGON, April 16 (Xinhua) -- A total of 170 people were injured in a series of three bomb blasts in Myanmar's third day water festival activities in Yangon on Thursday afternoon, up from 94, while the death toll remained at eight, Friday's official daily New Light of Myanmar reported.
Among the injured 125 are men, 45 are women, and among the dead, five are male, three are female, the report confirmed.
The report described such terrorist attacks in the water festival as being "merely intended to tarnish Myanmar traditional culture and insult the public."
The authorities warned revelers in various regions across the country including the new capital of Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay to remain vigilant against potential atrocities to help expose terrorists.
The daily condemned in an article the terrorist attacks, saying that "attacking those participating in the traditional Thingyan happily and peacefully with the bombs is an insult to the people. It is an inhuman act. Because of such subversive acts, we the people abhor and loath the terrorist insurgents."
The article warned that "terrorist insurgents usually hide themselves in disguise among the people. We cannot identify the terrorists easily. This is why they are brazenly committing subversive acts by sliding into the crowds of ordinary people in disguise".
The three bomb explosions occurred in front of a water throwing pandal, named X-2-O, on Mingala Taung Nyunt township's Kandawkyi Ring Road at the Kandawkyi lake park area at about 3 p.m. (local time).
Hundreds of thousands of revelers were overjoyed in water throwing when the blast went off.
The blasts caused panic among the revelers then, while the injured were rushed to nearby hospitals for treatment, especially the biggest Yangon General Hospital which was packed with relatives of the victims.
The scene was at once sealed off by the police to clear the crowds to pave way for ambulances to carry the dead and the injured to the hospitals.
Despite the case, revelers outside the scene continued water throwing with traffic jammed in other part of the area.
The situation, after the incident, remained calm through to the night on Thursday.
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The Nation - Working towards a world without nuclear threat
Published on April 16, 2010
Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is high on the international agenda once again; Asean must play its part in the containment effort
United States President Barack Obama should be given credit for bringing 47 world leaders to Washington DC and accomplishing an almost impossible task. These leaders have pledged to protect the world from nuclear attack and destruction and make sure that nuclear weapons and materials will never fall into the hands of terrorists. The meeting agreed that countries that have weapons of mass destruction, and those that aspire to have them, must take responsibility to guard their arsenals to ensure the safety of humanity. Everyone understands clearly that the world's worst nightmare would be for terrorists to get hold of nuclear weapons, because they would have no hesitation to use them.
The Washington summit was a success for Obama as he was able to fulfil a pledge that he gave in Prague last year. Now, more attention must be focused, and concrete policies be formulated, to turn the summit's commitments into reality. Nuclear arms containment and reduction is once again high on the international agenda. Additional efforts in this arena will be made when the review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is held next month in New York.
Aside from Iran and North Korea's weapons development programmes, one of the world's biggest problems is the stockpile of nuclear weapons held by arch-enemies India and Pakistan. The leaders of both countries have expressed confidence in their own nuclear security policies.
Closer to home, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) must also come clean on their nuclear security policies. The region's 600 million people have been debating the pros and cons of a nuclear-powered future. With the limited life span of oil and gas supplies, the idea of nuclear power appeals to some in the region.
Several countries have established plans to build nuclear power plants to provide electricity. Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam already have such blueprints. Singapore has not ruled out the nuclear option either. These are the countries that have made their intentions known.
However, Burma has not yet done so. Previously, Burma had been the first regional country to declare that it would pursue a nuclear power plan for peaceful uses. It is believed that nearly 10,000 officials from Burma have been trained by nuclear experts in Russia. Worryingly, of late, various reports have emerged that Burma has another ambition - gaining the capacity to build a nuclear bomb. Obviously this would be a long-term objective for Burma - and is probably a far-fetched notion - but it cannot be completely ruled out if Burma received help from "rogue states" such as North Korea or Iran. International investigation is going on to determine if the reports of Burma's nuclear aspirations are true.
Meanwhile, it is incumbent upon Asean - which has a non-nuclear treaty called the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone - to uphold the principles it is bound to under this agreement. All Asean members signed this important treaty that does not permit any member state to own nuclear weapons, or build them. The treaty prevents the region from entanglement in the rivalries of the world's nuclear powers by refusing port calls from ships carrying nuclear weapons.
Now that Asean is increasing its international profile, it is imperative that the grouping makes sure that its members adhere to the treaty and the non-proliferation regime. Any deviation from this objective would be disastrous for the region as a whole.
Published on April 16, 2010
Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is high on the international agenda once again; Asean must play its part in the containment effort
United States President Barack Obama should be given credit for bringing 47 world leaders to Washington DC and accomplishing an almost impossible task. These leaders have pledged to protect the world from nuclear attack and destruction and make sure that nuclear weapons and materials will never fall into the hands of terrorists. The meeting agreed that countries that have weapons of mass destruction, and those that aspire to have them, must take responsibility to guard their arsenals to ensure the safety of humanity. Everyone understands clearly that the world's worst nightmare would be for terrorists to get hold of nuclear weapons, because they would have no hesitation to use them.
The Washington summit was a success for Obama as he was able to fulfil a pledge that he gave in Prague last year. Now, more attention must be focused, and concrete policies be formulated, to turn the summit's commitments into reality. Nuclear arms containment and reduction is once again high on the international agenda. Additional efforts in this arena will be made when the review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is held next month in New York.
Aside from Iran and North Korea's weapons development programmes, one of the world's biggest problems is the stockpile of nuclear weapons held by arch-enemies India and Pakistan. The leaders of both countries have expressed confidence in their own nuclear security policies.
Closer to home, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) must also come clean on their nuclear security policies. The region's 600 million people have been debating the pros and cons of a nuclear-powered future. With the limited life span of oil and gas supplies, the idea of nuclear power appeals to some in the region.
Several countries have established plans to build nuclear power plants to provide electricity. Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam already have such blueprints. Singapore has not ruled out the nuclear option either. These are the countries that have made their intentions known.
However, Burma has not yet done so. Previously, Burma had been the first regional country to declare that it would pursue a nuclear power plan for peaceful uses. It is believed that nearly 10,000 officials from Burma have been trained by nuclear experts in Russia. Worryingly, of late, various reports have emerged that Burma has another ambition - gaining the capacity to build a nuclear bomb. Obviously this would be a long-term objective for Burma - and is probably a far-fetched notion - but it cannot be completely ruled out if Burma received help from "rogue states" such as North Korea or Iran. International investigation is going on to determine if the reports of Burma's nuclear aspirations are true.
Meanwhile, it is incumbent upon Asean - which has a non-nuclear treaty called the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone - to uphold the principles it is bound to under this agreement. All Asean members signed this important treaty that does not permit any member state to own nuclear weapons, or build them. The treaty prevents the region from entanglement in the rivalries of the world's nuclear powers by refusing port calls from ships carrying nuclear weapons.
Now that Asean is increasing its international profile, it is imperative that the grouping makes sure that its members adhere to the treaty and the non-proliferation regime. Any deviation from this objective would be disastrous for the region as a whole.
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