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Suu Kyi readies defense case

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

: Lawyers for Myanmar pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi said Sunday they were preparing to open the defense case at her trial this week, as the junta looked set to face further pressure from the West.

The tribunal´s second week promises to be crucial, with European nations likely to push Asian countries for help at a meeting in Vietnam and Aung San Suu Kyi´s official period of house arrest due to expire.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner pleaded innocent Friday at the court in Yangon´s Insein prison, where she faces charges of breaching the terms of her house arrest after an eccentric American man swam to her lakeside home.

“We expect to begin our defense case this coming week,” Nyan Win, a spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party and also a member of her legal team, told AFP.

“Now we are preparing a witness list and are preparing what we need for tomorrow (Monday),” he said, adding that the prosecution was expected to call final witnesses early next week.

Nyan Win estimated it would take another two weeks for a verdict at the trial, which has provoked a storm of international outrage over the military regime´s treatment of Suu Kyi.

The opposition leader faces up to five years in jail if convicted. American intruder John Yettaw and two female assistants who live with Suu Kyi are also on trial.

The latest, six-year period of Suu Kyi´s house arrest is due to expire on Wednesday and the junta has not yet said whether it will extend it.

Wednesday is also the 19th anniversary of Myanmar´s last general elections, which Suu Kyi´s NLD won by a landslide although the ruling generals never allowed it to take power.

On Friday Nyan Win quoted Suu Kyi as saying: “I have no guilt as I didn´t commit any crime.”

The prosecution case centers on her allegedly allowing Yettaw, a former US military veteran, to stay at her home for two days after the bizarre incident earlier this month in which he swam to her home.

Yettaw has said in the trial that his motive for the stunt was that he wanted to warn Suu Kyi that she would be assassinated.

He brought a number of unusual objects to her house including two black shawls for Muslim women and a copy of the “Book of Mormon”.

Myanmar´s ruling generals opened up the trial to journalists and diplomats on Wednesday for a day, in an apparent concession to international criticism of the trial, but then put the proceedings back behind closed doors.

The junta went on the offensive Friday, blaming “anti-government elements” for Yettaw´s visit and alleging he was a “secret agent or her boyfriend”.

Differences over how to handle the Myanmar regime are expected to dominate a meeting of European and Asian foreign ministers in Hanoi starting on Monday.

EU nations have talked of boosting their sanctions against Yangon, but while Myanmar´s partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have issued a rare expression of “grave concern” they have ruled out further action.

Myanmar´s giant neighbors China and India have been silent on the trial.

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South Korean ex-president Roh dies in apparent suicide

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

: Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, embroiled in a broadening corruption scandal, jumped to his death while hiking in the mountains behind his rural southern home, his lawyer said. He was 62.

Roh had been hiking in the village of Bongha on Saturday morning when he threw himself off a mountainside rock, lawyer Moon Jae-in told reporters. In a suicide note left for his family, Roh called life “difficult” and apologized for making “too many people suffer,” a TV report said.

Roh was rushed to a hospital in the nearby port city of Busan around 8:15 a.m. (2315 GMT) and died around 9:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) from head injuries, officials at Busan National University hospital said.

The lawyer confirmed that Roh left a “brief” suicide note for his family. Investigators have not seen the note, a Busan police official said. He did not give his name, citing department policy.

MBC television said the note asked that his body be cremated.

The apparent suicide — the first by a modern South Korean leader — shocked the nation.

President Lee Myung-bak said Saturday the news was “truly hard to believe” and called Roh´s death “sad and tragic,” presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said.

Many gathered around TV monitors at Seoul´s main train station watching broadcasts of the news.

“I´m heartbroken. I can´t imagine how much pain he was in,” said Park Kyung-hee, 46, in downtown Seoul.

Roh, a former human rights lawyer who served as president from 2003 to 2008, prided himself on being a “clean” politician in a country with a long history of corruption.

But he and his family have been ensnared in recent weeks in a burgeoning bribery scandal.

Last month, state prosecutors questioned Roh for some 13 hours about allegations that he accepted more than $6 million in bribes from a detained South Korean businessman while in office — accusations that deeply shamed him.

“I have no face to show to the people. I am sorry for disappointing you,” an emotional-looking Roh said April 30 before undergoing questioning by prosecutors.

Roh acknowledged that his wife took $1 million from Park Yeon-cha, head of a local shoe manufacturer, but suggested it was not a bribe. He also said he was aware that Park gave another $5 million to a relative but said he thought it was an investment. Prosecutors suspect the $6 million eventually was conveyed to Roh.

Several of Roh´s former aides and associates also have been investigated on suspicion of taking money from Park, who was indicted in December on separate bribery and tax evasion charges. Roh´s elder brother was indicted in December for his alleged involvement in a separate bribery scandal.

Roh denied the allegations against him during questioning, prosecution spokesman Cho Eun-sok said.

Prosecutors expressed their condolences Saturday and said the investigation will be wrapped up soon, MBC reported.

Roh — a native of Gimhae, located 280 miles (450 kilometers) from Seoul — came from a poor farming family and never went to college. He studied law on his own, passing South Korea´s difficult bar exam.

He built a reputation as a lawyer defending students accused of sedition under past military rule, and once was arrested, with his law license suspended, for supporting an outlawed labor protest.

Roh joined the National Assembly as an opposition liberal lawmaker in 1988.

His ascension to the presidency came after a surprise 2002 election win on a campaign pledge not to “kowtow” to the United States, a pledge that resonated with young voters.

He maintained predecessor President Kim Dae-jung´s “sunshine policy” of offering North Korea aid as a way to facilitate reconciliation, holding a summit in Pyongyang with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2007, the second such meeting between leaders of the wartime rivals.

In 2004, Roh called on the public to vote for candidates from his Uri Party in parliamentary elections, a violation of the president´s political neutrality. The move prompted lawmaker to vote for his impeachment, making him the first South Korean president to be impeached. He was reinstated after two months of suspension, after a court ruled against the impeachment.

(Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang and Jean H Lee contributed to this report.)

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New York closes schools as swine flu cases surge

Friday, May 15th, 2009

New York City authorities on Friday closed three schools following a swine flu outbreak as the World Health Organisation reported more than a 1,000 new cases around the globe in 24 hours.

The WHO said there are now 7,520 confirmed cases around the world, just a day after pleading for more time to decide whether to mass produce a vaccine.

New York officials said an assistant principal of one of the schools that will stay closed through next week was in serious condition in hospital.

There are about 4,500 students at the three schools and city mayor Michael Bloomberg said they were ordered closed because of “an unusually high level of flu-like illnesses.”

The A(H1N1) outbreak came less than two weeks after New York health authorities pronounced the all clear after other schools were affected by the virus through students who had visited Mexico.

Bloomberg said swine flu had been identified in four students at one of the schools, all in the Queens district, “as well as in a staff member at the school who is critically ill.

“More than 50 students have been sent home from the school with flu-like symptoms,” he said. At a second school, 241 students reported absent Thursday, and at a third 29 students were documented with “influenza-like symptoms.”

National health authorities earlier said that the number of confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States jumped Thursday from 3,352 to more than 4,298.

Sixty five people have died from swine flu, mainly in Mexico, but with three in the United States.

Health authorities around the world have acted to keep the lid on the virus.

In Geneva, acting assistant WHO director-general Keiji Fukuda said a meeting Thursday of experts came to “no big decisions” on whether to begin producing a vaccine.

Production of vaccines against the new virus could disrupt the production of seasonal flu vaccines, he added.

Fukuda said more meetings were needed to examine the technical process for manufacturers to ready themselves to go into mass production, which will “require several weeks.”

The WHO announced it would shorten its world assembly, scheduled to start on Monday in Geneva, from nine to four days because of the outbreak.

According to WHO figures the number of laboratory-confirmed swine flu cases has increased from 6,497 in 33 countries on Thursday. New countries are being infected nearly every day.

Malaysia on Friday confirmed its first swine flu case, Peru also registered its first case while Belgium became the latest European nation to record a case. New Zealand said its number of confirmed cases had risen from seven to nine.

China, meanwhile, stepped up a search for people who had come into contact with the mainland´s two confirmed swine flu patients.

Authorities in Beijing and eastern Shandong province were looking for passengers who might have travelled with a 19-year-old student, who on Wednesday became the second confirmed sufferer on the mainland.

The youth apparently felt ill on Sunday, two days after landing in China from Canada, but nevertheless boarded a train on Monday for Shandong province with a fever, sore throat and a headache.

Mexico, which has been the epicentre of the outbreak and now has 2,656 confirmed cases, has said it will seek compensation for the damages suffered after fear of the disease drove away thousands of tourists — a critical source of foreign revenue.

“There are grounds to apply for compensation… for the country that has been hardest-hit” by the virus, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told reporters.

Cordova said compensation for lost tourist revenue could come from the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank.

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Pakistan jets bomb Taliban strongholds

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Pakistan fighter jets and attack helicopters pounded Taliban targets in the northwest today as President Asif Ali Zardari called for global help to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled the punishing offensive in the Swat Valley, escaping Taliban fighters who have terrorised the population in a bloody campaign to enforce sharia law and expand their control.

Terrified residents trapped in Mingora, the district’s main town, told AFP by telephone that militants had planted mines and were digging trenches.

“Please, please, please, do not call me again, they will cut my throat and say that I was spying,” said one resident.

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Mortar shells claim 49 lives in Sri Lanka

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Colombo: A mortar shell struck the only functioning medical facility in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone today, killing 49 patients and bystanders, a government health official said. It was the second time this month the hospital was hit.

The attack, which also wounded 50 people, came after a weekend of heavy shelling that killed hundreds of civilians trapped in the tiny war zone. The military denied shelling the coastal strip under rebel control, which is packed with an estimated 50,000 civilians.

Dr Thurairaja Varatharajah, the top government health official in the war zone, said a single mortar shell hit the admissions ward in the makeshift hospital this morning. The death toll was expected to rise, he said.

Shells were still hitting the area hours later, including one that landed about 150 meters from the hospital, Varatharajah said.

Just outside the admissions ward — little more than a corrugated tin roof with blue tarp walls — bloody bodies were strewn about in the dirt while health workers hooked up the wounded to IV lines, according to photographs taken after the attack. Later, nearly two dozen dead bodies were lined up in rows in a sandy courtyard.

Other photographs showed civilians fleeing the area. One man running away was carrying a child with a bandaged head.

Two other hospital officials, who spoke separately on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the attack and said a hospital administrator was among those killed.

It was the second time this month the facility has come under heavy fire.

On May 2, 64 civilians died when the hospital was hit by artillery.

Meanwhile, army troops broke through a sand fortification the Tamil Tigers had built in the area, killing dozens of insurgents and advancing further into what little remains of rebel-held territory, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government bars journalists and aid workers from the war zone.

Rebel spokesman Seevaratnam Puleedevan blamed the attack on hospital on the government, and said civilians were fleeing in all

directions inside the tiny war zone, seeking safety.

“There’s no place to seek shelter or protect themselves,” he said.

Sri Lankan defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella denied the army had launched the attack and reiterated the government’s promise not to launch any airstrikes or artillery into the densely populated area.

The shelling came as a Red Cross boat sent to deliver food aid and evacuate the wounded waited off shore, the health officials said.

“There is fighting going on and we need a more quiet environment to land,” said Paul Castella, the head of the Sri Lanka office for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Castella said if the fighting did not soon subside, the boat would be forced to turn back. The rebels called on the international community to force the government to stop its offensive against the violent separatist group, which has been fighting for a homeland for the ethnic Tamil minority for more than two decades.

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China tries to have Guantanamo prisoners returned for trial

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

It has been revealed that China has used diplomatic efforts to prevent the Swedish government granting asylum to a Uighur prisoner released from the US facility at Guantanamo Bay.

Recently released Swedish government documents show China approached the Swedish government to complain that it had given a visa for “this terrorist.”

Adil Hakimjan was granted protection in Sweden after the Obama presidency in the US decided 17 Uighur prisoners at Guantanamo Bay should be resettled.

Adil Hakimjan and the other Uighurs are members of a largely Muslim minority in western China.

The Chinese government regards them as terrorists and wants them returned for trial.

Hakimjan was captured in Pakistan in 2001, was released from Guantanamo in 2006 and now lives in Sweden.

A court there upheld his bid for political asylum in April.

Germany is now considering a US request that it accept nine more of Guantanamo’s Uighurs.

Seven others are being considered for resettlement in the US.

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Food scarce for Sri Lankan refugees

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

UN aid agencies have said food is starting to run out for an estimated 50,000 people trapped in a conflict zone in northern Sri Lanka.

The agencies have been unable to help as they are unable to enter the area.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in recent fighting between Sri Lankan government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels in what aid agencies have called a bloodbath.

Already 200,000 Tamil civilians have managed to flee the conflict zone, but tens of thousands of others are trapped.

While temporary transit centres have been provided with food, it has been estimated there is only enough to feed about 60,000 people for five days.

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School girls subjected to poison attack

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Whoever could do this to little girls who are trying to get some education are really sick people. How can they call themselves holy if all they seek is to destroy and bring about misery. How truly misled!! Are women folks that inferior? These kind of men should be ashame of themselves. You call this your religion?? or your way of life?? You are fooling yourself. Suffer the little children. If you hate girls why produce them, why have sex at all. Carnal and base bastards you are!!! Who are you trying to cheat?Only yourself and your society. See how far back you have fallen behind. Soon you will be blaming others for your backwardness. I bet you.

I feel like this kind of properganda is what we in the military world call “fubarallegations” in which a group of people commissioned to either falsly exaggerate pathetic and dishonest behavior or even frame an association or in this case the Al queda/Taliban regimes in order to make people hate which is wrong. But understand as an enemy of the Al queda/Taliban regimes I respect the honor of their cause and the bravery of their military and know that this is bullshit — all to get away from the truth that the US and all other forces are losing an anciant war and the bloodshed is only starting.The “tyrant” that was Sadam was the only man capable of holding back these anciant tribes who feel that their land and rights have been stolen since the times of the communist Byzantine christian empire. I guess what I am tring to say is dont believe everything you read or hate what is hard for you to understand without proper research because though I am an enemy of these determined militants, I empathize with these soilders and actually respect them more than the cowardly civilians who are so eager to condemn all warriors to hell(if you believe in that silly shit)and anyone who they feel is imperfect when the truth is you cant judge especially when you don’t have the intentional fornitude to revolt and fight for any real cause….

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Japan, Russia seek to resolve territorial disputes

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Tokyo, May 12 (RIA Novosti) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow and Tokyo could resolve their existing territorial dispute by building mutual trust and developing strong economic ties.

Putin, who arrived in Tokyo Monday, said he was in Japan to discuss a long-standing territorial dispute, along with economic, energy and international issues with the Japanese leadership.

‘With this attitude in mind, our mutual work will allow us to resolve a number of global issues, including the signing of a peace treaty (between Russia and Japan),’ Putin told a Russian-Japanese business forum here.

Russia and Japan have yet to sign a formal World War II peace treaty due to their territorial dispute over the four South Kuril Islands, former Japanese territory annexed by the Soviet Union after the war.

The Russian prime minister said both countries were interested in developing strong economic ties, primarily in the energy sector.

‘Cooperation in the energy sector, which plays a key role in steady supplies of fuel-carriers to the Asia-Pacific region and strengthening the global energy security, remains our priority,’ Putin said.

Japan is one of Russia’s major trading partners in Asia, ranking third in terms of bilateral trade. Last year trade turnover between the two countries totalled almost $29 billion.

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Scramble for post-poll alliance to form govt

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

New Delhi: As the 15th Lok Sabha elections are likely to produce a fractured mandate, major political parties, particularly the Indian National Congress (INC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are making early overtures to their potential allies. Some of the old allies of the United Progressive Alliance and National Democratic Alliance have already left these fronts and some others have hinted that every thing is up for grabs once the results are declared on May 16. The INC and the BJP leads the UPA and the NDA, respectively.

UPA allies like Samajwadi Party (SP), Rastriya Janata Dal (RJD) have distanced themselves from the UPA. The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), another UPA ally, also remains non-committal to the UPA. On the other hand, Navin Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal in Orissa has joined the Third Front, ending a decade-long alliance with BJP.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which was with the NDA until a few years ago, has joined the Third Front being led by the Communist parties. The CPI-M, which initially ruled out any alliance with the INC and the BJP, has started softening its stance vis-à-vis the Congress.

INC Leader Rahul Gandhi has made it clear that there is no permanent enemy in politics. His praise for non UPA partners, like Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu and AIADMK’s J Jaylalitha is a case in point. The INC’s decision not to give much pre-poll importance to its old allies Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, which helped UPA government to survive a no confidence motion over the controversial Indo-US nuclear deal last year, has on the other hand reminded people if there is no permanent enemy in politics then there is no permanent friend, either. “Political parties’ early overtures indicate that they are trying to rope in their potential allies as quickly as possible,” said Sanjay Kumar, fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Since there has been a coalition government for last 18 years at the Centre, it is not that the political parties are not ready to deal with the problems of fractured mandate. But analysts believe that it would be easier only when either INC or the BJP is in the driver’s seat. “There will be a coalition government this time again. But there will be so many regional parties that the harmony of interests will prove to be very difficult,” said senior journalist Kuldip Nayar. Kumar echoes his views. “If the PM is from the party other than the INC and the BJP, then I fear there would be a mid-term elections after a while,” Kumar said.

Confident of emerging as the single largest party, the INC decided to ignore its allies – the SP, RJD and LJP — in most crucial states like UP and Bihar. “Had INC fought elections jointly with their allies in these two states, it would have benefited the UPA. But, it would have further eroded the party’s base,” explained Kumar. The BJP, too, does not want to lag behind in the race of wooing new allies.

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