October 11, 2007 archive

I’m late for work, but I had to post this.

Anyone who wants to expand on this–feel free to steal my idea.

This is an OPEN THREAD. Here are four stories in the news at 4 o’clock to get you started.

1. Rosalind Russell of The Independent reports that ‘Only now, the full horror of Burmese junta’s repression of monks emerges‘. “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.” First-hand accounts, smuggled out of Burma, are now revealing a “systematic campaign of physical punishment and psychological terror”.

   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.

   Monks and novices, as young as 10 years old, were confined to a room — 400 in one room — with no toilets, beds, blankets, buckets, or water. “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.” Onlookers who applauded the monks were taken away and beaten. One such spectator “is so scared she won’t even leave her room” or talk 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.”

   The junta’s “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.”

2. The New York Times reports that Turks are angry over a House committee’s Armenian Genocide vote. “Turkey reacted angrily today to a House committee vote in Washington on Wednesday that condemned the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during World War I as an act of genocide, calling the decision ‘unacceptable.'” Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, criticized the vote saying “Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games… This is not a type of attitude that works to the benefit of, and suits, representatives of a great power like the Unites States of America. This unacceptable decision of the committee, like similar ones in the past, has no validity and is not worthy of the respect of the Turkish people.”

   The Bush administration’s concern that passage of the resolution could hamper their ability to continue the occupation of Iraq. “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates noted that about 70 percent of all air cargo sent to Iraq passed through or came from Turkey, as did 30 percent of fuel and virtually all the new armored vehicles designed to withstand mines and bombs.” “Turkey severed military ties with France after its Parliament voted in 2006 to make the denial of the Armenian genocide a crime.” Turkey has recalled its ambassador for 10 days of consultations.

   Meanwhile in northern Iraq, The New York Times reports Iraq’s worries on Turkish border grow. Mahmoud Othman, a “Kurdish lawmaker in the Iraqi Parliament today condemned preparations by Turkey’s government for potential cross-border military action against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, even as he reported that the Turkish military was mobilizing on the border and Turkish warplanes were flying close to Iraq.” Othman said Turkey’s military was mobilizing on the frontier and “Turkish warplanes were flying close to the border but not crossing it.” Reuters reports that Turkey may request incursion into Iraq. Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, “will ask parliament next week to authorize a military push into north Iraq to fight Kurdish rebels”. The Washington Post confirms Turkey’s military mobilization. “On Tuesday, Turkey’s top civilian and military authorities ordered the armed forces to their highest state of alert. On Wednesday, the Turkish air force used F-16 and F-14 fighter jets and Cobra helicopter gunships to bomb suspected PKK hideouts and escape routes in the mountainous border region, the Turkish Dogan news agency reported. Iraqi residents said Turkish artillery shells landed in Iraqi territory, according to news reports from the border area.” The U.S. and European Union have implored Turkey not to invade northern Iraq.

There is more below the fold: a mixed court ruling on Al Gore’s film, today’s “Guns of Greed”, and a bonus story on the natural evolution of English irregular verbs.

For some time now Michelle Malkin (née Maglalang) has been helping keep America safe from murderous hordes of foreigners by alerting us every time she hears about a horrendous crime committed by an illegal alien.