This is an OPEN THREAD. Here are four stories in the news at 4 o’clock to get you started.
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The news from Burma today.
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Spiegel brings this chilling story out of Burma: ‘They Come at Night and Murder the Monks’.
…It is completely quiet for a moment in the car park. Then a young man emerges from the darkness. He was obviously waiting for a chance to be alone with foreigners. He is poorly clothed, but speaks English that is somewhat understandable. “Please don’t believe what the junta says,” he whispers. “The repression is continuing every night. When there are no more witnesses, they drive through the suburbs at night and kill the people.”
…It was around midnight when the long convoy of military vehicles drove into the district. They contained police officers from the anti-insurgency unit and the so-called “Lome-Ten,” a unit of gangsters and ex-convicts, who do the regime’s dirty work.
They surrounded a monastery on Weiza Yandar Street. All the roughly 200 monks living there were forced to stand in a row and the security forces beat their heads against a brick wall. When they were all covered in blood and lay moaning on the ground, they were thrown into a truck and taken away. “We are crying for our monks,” said the man, and then he was gone.
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The Guardian reports the surviving monks are fleeing the crackdown as reports of brutality emerge. “Scores of Burmese monks were stranded in Rangoon’s railway station yesterday while trying to flee the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests that has left thousands languishing in prison. ¶ Bus drivers refused to take the russet-robed monks, fearing the security forces would cut off fuel supplies for their vehicles if they accepted the fares, even as the military conducted further raids and made dozens of arrests… ¶ Fearing the violence that was to come, a Burmese army major, Htay Win, deserted from his unit in Rangoon before the killings began. He fled to Thailand in search of asylum, and yesterday explained why. ‘I knew the plan to beat and shoot the monks, and if I had stayed I would have had to follow those orders,’ said Major Htay, 43, yesterday. ‘But because I’m a Buddhist I didn’t want to follow those orders. I did not want to kill the monks.'”
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According to The Independent, a French oil firm is accused of complicity with military regime in Burma. “The French oil giant Total faces a renewed inquiry into claims that it was complicit in crimes against humanity committed by the military regime in Burma. ¶ The federal prosecutor’s office in Belgium has re-opened a five-year-old case brought by four Burmese refugees, who allege that France’s largest company financed human rights violations and used forced labour supplied by the junta to build a gas pipeline in the 1990s. A preliminary court hearing is expected later this month, according to Alexis Deswaef, the Belgian lawyer acting for the refugees. ¶ The Belgian government’s decision, following a ruling by the country’s constitutional court, is a further blow to Total as it struggles to defend its presence in Burma.”
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The Independent reports Burmese troops round up activists. “The Burmese regime has stepped up its search for democracy activists in the aftermath of last week’s demonstrations – rounding up suspected participants and dividing them into ‘passers-by’, ‘those who watched’, ‘those who clapped’ and ‘those who joined in’. ¶ Patrolling the streets of Rangoon before dawn in trucks equipped with loudspeakers, troops broadcast a series of messages that warned: ‘We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!'” In another story, The Independent adds that many protesters are staying put to battle junta as world waits on Burmese border. “At the Moei river in Thailand there is sticky sunshine, jungle and the world’s media in waiting. Yet there is no flood of refugees from across the border in Burma… ¶ In recent years, analysts have argued that non-violence against such regimes doesn’t work, generalising from the failure of non-violent struggles, such as that of the Tibetans against the Chinese, to make significant headway. It worked for Gandhi because the British were soft-hearted foreigners who had to worry about elections and who in any case would have gone home some day anyway. But against pitiless regimes such as that in Burma, hands dripping with blood, it is futile… ¶ this new generation of rebels is bent on proving them wrong.”
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BBC News reports Burma sets conditions for Suu Kyi. “Burma’s military leader, Gen Than Shwe, has agreed in principle to meet the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, state media has reported. ¶ In return she must drop her support for international sanctions and abandon her confrontational attitude, it said. It is the first time during his 15-year rule that Gen Shwe has indicated he may be ready for dialogue with Suu Kyi.”
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The rest of today’s Four at Four can be found below the fold. Today’s stories are:
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Gonzales’ secret DoJ opinion condoning torture.
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The daily Blackwater news round-up.
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Sailing the Northwest Passage and climate change legislation in Congress.
Plus, there’s a bonus story today. Happy 50th anniversary day, Sputnik!
More below the fold…