Fugitive Myanmar dissident appeals to U.N. chief

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BANGKOK (Reuters) - A dissident leader on the run from Myanmar's crackdown on protests triggered by huge fuel price rises appealed to the head of the United Nations on Friday to refer the military junta to the Security Council.

In a letter written from hiding to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, activist Htay Kywe said he feared the suppression of a rare string of protests could turn bloody, as it did in 1988 when up to 3,000 people are thought to have been killed.

"As you are aware, demonstrations are growing in many parts of the country in spite of the violent crackdowns and continuing abduction of protesters by the authorities," Htay Kwye said.

"These violent responses must be seen as early warnings of more brutal violence," he said in the signed letter obtained by Reuters in Bangkok.

Htay Kwye, a prominent member of the so-called "88 Generation Students Group", has been on the run since police arrested 13 of his colleagues in midnight raids in Yangon two weeks ago.

"We urgently need your practical support this time to prevent the real possibility of further violence and urge you as head of the United Nations to take prompt action with preventive measures by taking accounts of these early warning signs," he said.

International condemnation of the junta's suppression of the protests has mounted this week, with U.S. President George W. Bush and the European Union calling for the release of all those arrested.

Even China, the former Burma's main trading partner and the closest the generals have to a friend, has appeared frustrated, saying it wanted reconciliation and "improvement in the situation".

The United States and Britain referred Myanmar to the U.N. Security Council in January, but China and Russia cast a rare joint veto against a motion calling for an end to the persecution of ethnic minorities and opposition groups.

Myanmar junta blames exiles for unrest

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By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's ruling generals accused exile dissident groups on Friday of fomenting two weeks of rare protests and signalled there would be no let up in efforts to crush them despite harsh U.S. and European Union criticism.

"The government has information that external anti-government groups are giving directives and providing various sorts of assistance to internal anti-government groups to stir up mass demonstrations and instability," state-run newspapers said.

"The people will not accept any acts to destabilise the nation and harm their interests and are willing to prevent such destructive acts," they said.

There was no direct reference to tough criticism from U.S. President George W. Bush and the European Commission of one of the harshest crackdowns on dissent in the former Burma since the army ruthlessly crushed an uprising in 1988.

The Myanmar military, which has ruled since 1962, rarely reacts directly to external pressure or rhetoric, much to the frustration of fellow members of the Association of South East Asian Nations which have tried and failed to foster change.

But China, Myanmar's largest trading partner and the closest it has to a friend, also sounded frustrated on Friday, saying it wanted reconciliation and improved conditions there and welcomed international efforts to that end.

"China is willing to strengthen its communication and dialogue with all the relevant sides, including the United States," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said during an Asia-Pacific summit in Sydney.

"We hope to see reconciliation and improvement in the situation in Burma," he said in a pointed comment that followed an unflattering account of Myanmar's new jungle capital his ministry published earlier this year.

However, Myanmar did not come up in bilateral meetings Chinese President Hu Jintao held in recent days, including one with Bush, Liu said.

MONKS "MANHANDLED"

The comments came after two days of protests by Buddhist monks in the town of Pakkoku, 80 miles (130 km) south-west of Mandalay, the latest against huge fuel price rises last month.

State-owned MRTV said the seizure of 13 government officials and torching of their cars by young monks on Thursday was the result of external agitation.

Pakkoku residents blamed the junta, whose troops fired warning shots over the heads of monks during a peaceful protest march the previous day.

Soldiers and pro-junta gangs had manhandled monks and bystanders when they broke up the march, some people said.

"The monks were just peacefully marching, reciting holy scriptures. But it was handled very cruelly and rudely. Some monks were beaten and tied up to the lampposts," one said.

Another said local members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, the pro-junta civilian group used to break up many of the protests, had gone into hiding because some young monks had been looking for them.

The repeated outbreaks of protest, albeit generally small and not swelled by onlookers cowed by all-pervasive security, have been notable for their persistence despite the prospect of long jail terms.

They have continued despite the detention of most of the leaders of the 1988 protests for their roles in the latest demonstrations. Up to 3,000 people are believed to have been killed in the military's crackdown against the 1988 protests.

Those arrested include Min Ko Naing, the most influential dissident after detained Nobel laureate and National League for Democracy chief Aung San Suu Kyi.

Min Ko Naing spent 15 years in jail after the 1988 uprising and official newspapers say he and his colleagues face up to 20 more years behind bars.

Bush called for the release of all those arrested and for action, although years of U.S. and European Union sanctions on Myanmar appear to have left the junta unmoved.

"We must press the regime in Burma to stop arresting, harassing and assaulting pro-democracy activists for organising or participating in peaceful demonstrations," Bush said.

The European Commission called human rights violations in Myanmar a scandal and said the junta was a threat to Southeast Asia, but it said the world needed to engage Myanmar, one of the world's most isolated regimes.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Sydney and David Brunnstrom in Strasbourg)

Angry monks move Myanmar protests up a notch

By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Sporadic protests in army-ruled Myanmar look set to rumble on despite a major crackdown as savage fuel price rises feed through to the wider economy, analysts and diplomats said on Friday.

Throughout two weeks of determined demonstrations by social activists, monks and opposition politicians, the focus has stayed unwaveringly on the worsening daily grind of the former Burma's 53 million people.

Calls of "Freedom" for opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, now in her 12th year of house arrest, have been remarkable mainly by their absence.

Instead, Buddhist monks say they cannot afford razors to shave their heads, and people in Yangon -- the engine of what 50 years ago was one of Asia's brightest economies -- complain of selling family heirlooms to buy kerosene or pawning cooking pots to pay the bus fare to work.

"People genuinely have their backs to the wall and we haven't seen the end of it," one Yangon-based diplomat said, predicting accelerating inflation as last month's two-fold hike in the price of diesel and five-fold rise in natural gas prices pass through the economy.

But the longer the protests drag on and the worse living conditions become, the greater the chances of a spark that could ignite a more widespread "people power" revolt.

"I don't see it as gaining sufficient traction to really start, but the longer this ticks on, and the more electricity and other commodity prices feed through, there's always the risk of a trigger that will move it into a second gear," the diplomat said.

The currency, the kyat, is near historic lows at around 1,350 to the dollar and economists estimate annual inflation at around 50 percent.

High-grade rice is now 32,000 kyat a sack compared to 28,000 six months ago, triggering speculation the junta that first seized power in a 1962 coup may start doling out food to assuage public hunger and anger.

"All it needs is one little spark to harness people's suffering and hatred of the military," said Aung Naing Oo, a student activist who fled to Thailand to escape a ruthless military crackdown on a nationwide uprising in 1988.

Then, as many as 3,000 people are thought to have been killed.

MONKS MARCHING

While more than 100 people have been detained in the current protests so far, the junta is reluctant to go all out and send in the troops, perhaps mindful of the 1988 bloodshed, a watershed moment in the Southeast Asian nation's post-independence history.

Apart from soldiers firing over the heads of demonstrating monks in the central town of Pakokku this week, most of the protests have been broken up by pro-junta civilian gangs.

Despite the crackdown and removal of most of the leaders of the 1988 uprising, the protests have spread from Yangon, the former capital, to the centre and the coastal northwest. Monks, major players in 1988, are becoming increasingly involved.

As several hundred angry monks torched government vehicles in Pakokku, the junta number two, Vice-Senior General Maung Aye, postponed a trip to Bangladesh, a sign of how seriously the junta takes the threat from the monasteries.

"There will be a great deal of anger among the monkhood when they get to hear about what happened," one human rights worker said. "It's pretty obvious it's gone to another level."

As well as the wave of dissent assuming a life of its own, diplomats and exile groups said Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party was playing a quiet, behind-the-scenes role.

"Everywhere that protests have occurred, NLD members have been involved. They may not have been leading party members, but they've been involved," said Soe Aung of the National Council of the Union of Burma, a group of MPs now in exile in Thailand.

Greater access to mobile phones and the Internet is also playing a role in disseminating news beyond the rigidly controlled state media, which paint the protests as the work of "external destructive forces" -- junta shorthand for exiled dissidents and foreign governments.

However, the most powerful media remain the Burmese-language services of the BBC, Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, the only source of news most people have.

"Myanmar radio is just pop singers and lies," a man in Kyaing Tong in eastern Shan state told Reuters last month.

The BBC and VOA also pump in the scathing comments from Western governments, especially the White House, and messages of support from Hollywood stars such as Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, who posted a clip on Youtube urging Suu Kyi's release.

"People listen to the radio on a regular basis and I'm pretty sure they enjoy these kind of messages from around the world," Soe Aung said.

Burmese army opens fire in monks' clash

Rangoon (dpa) - Burmese state-controlled media on Friday admitted for the first time that the military regime was at loggerheads with rebellious Buddhist monks in Pakokku, in the central region of the country.

The New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece, acknowledged that security personnel had clashed with hundreds of protesting monks on Wednesday in Pakokku, 530 kilometres north of Rangoon, and were forced to disperse the demonstration by firing over the heads of the monks.

The monks were protesting against fuel price hikes implemented last month, and the arrests of more than 100 anti-inflation protestors in Rangoon in recent weeks.

The state media also confirmed reports that Magway Division military officials had visited the Bawdimandine monastery in Pakokku on Thursday and had their vehicle burned by 50 stone-throwing monks. The government officials spent several hours in the monastery before making their getaway.

Before Friday, the government-controlled press had kept quiet about the rebellious monks of Pakokku, a centre for Buddhism in Burma.

Meanwhile, according to eyewitnesses in Pakkaku, monks on Friday attacked the Nay La Store owned by a prominent government official and allowed a mob to sack the place.

Buddhist monks have a long history of political activism in Burma, a predominantly Buddhist country.

The monkhood played a prominent role in Burma's struggle for independence from Great Britain in 1948 and joined students in the anti-military demonstrations that rocked Burma in 1988, which ended in bloodshed.

Like the recent protests, the 1988 mass demonstrations were sparked by rising discontent with the military's mismanagement of the economy and refusal to introduce some semblance of democracy.

After the 1988 events, the military, although still very much in charge, dropped its socialist ideology and opened the country up to foreign investments and market forces.

But the generals' brutal 1988 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, that left an estimated 3,000 dead, resulted in the severing of nearly all international aid to the regime.

The aid blockade and other sanctions have been kept in place for the past 19 years. Although the military allowed a general election in 1990 it ignored the outcome when 80 per cent of the votes went to the National League for Democracy (NLD) of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sealing its pariah status in the West.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been under house arrest since May, 2003. Her ongoing incarceration was harshly criticized earlier this week by US President George W Bush, who is currently attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Sydney.

လူထုဆႎၬထုတ္ေဖာ္မႁကို ဦးေဆာင္ရန္ မန္းအဖဲြႚခ်ႃပ္က ဗဟုိသိုႚ တိုက္တြန္း

သတင္းႏွင့္မီဒီယာကြန္ယက္။
စက္တင္ဘာ၇ရက္၊ ၂၀၀၇ခုႏွစ္။

မႏၱေလးတိုင္း အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖဲြ႕ခ်ဳပ္ ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ ၃၀ မွ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ား အစည္းအေ၀းကို ယေန႕နံနက္ တြင္ က်င္းပခဲ့ၿပီး နအဖအေနျဖင့္ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးပဲြကို လက္မခံပါက ျပည္သူတို႕၏ ဆႏၵသေဘာထားထုတ္ ေဖာ္မႈမ်ားကို အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီမွ ဦးေဆာင္ေပးရန္ ဗဟိုအဖဲြ႕ခ်ဳပ္(စီအီးစီ)သို႕ ဆႏၵျပဳတိုက္တြန္းလိုက္သည္။

ယေန႕ က်င္းပခဲ့ေသာ အစည္းအေ၀းတြင္ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ ၈ရပ္ခ်မွတ္ခဲ့ၿပီး ယင္းဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ကို မႏၱေလးတိုင္း အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီမွ ဦးတင္ေအာင္ေအာင္က ယခုလို ဖတ္ၾကားျပသည္။

“ျပည္သူလူထု ဘ၀ဖံြ႕ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္ေရးအတြက္ အေျခခံလိုအပ္ခ်က္ျဖစ္သည့္ အမ်ိဳးသား ျပန္လည္သင့္ ျမတ္ေရး အတြက္ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးမႈသည္ မျဖစ္မေနေဆာင္ရြက္ရမည့္ လုပ္ငန္းတရပ္အေနျဖင့္ ပိုမို ပီျပင္ထင္ရွား လာေပသည္။ ပထမဦးစြာ နအဖႏွင့္ အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီတို႕ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးရန္ တုိက္တြန္း ေတာင္းဆိုသည္။ ဤနည္းလမ္းအား ျငင္းပယ္ပါက အခက္အခဲအက်ပ္အတည္းမ်ားအား ခံစားေနရ ေသာ ျပည္သူလူထုအမ်ားစု၏ ဆႏၵသေဘာထားမ်ားအား လြတ္လပ္ ပြင့္လင္း လံုၿခံဳစြာျဖင့္ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ ျပနိဳင္ေရး အစီအစဥ္မ်ားအား ဦးေဆာင္ေပးရန္ ဗဟိုအဖဲြ႕ခ်ဳပ္သို႕ တိုက္တြန္းေတာင္းဆိုသည္။”

မႏၱေလးတိုင္း အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီ ၿမိဳ႕နယ္၃၀ အစည္းအေ၀းက ၾသဂုတ္လ ၁ရက္ေန႕တြင္ ကုလသမဂၢသို႕ေပးပို႕ေသာ ျပည္သူ႕လႊတ္ေတာ္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ၉၂ဦး၏ စာတမ္းကို ဗဟိုအလုပ္အမႈေဆာင္က ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားႏွင့္ ညိွႏိႈင္း၍ ဦးေဆာင္မႈေပးရန္ႏွင့္ ဗဟိုအလုပ္အမႈေဆာင္အဖဲြ႕ကို ျပန္လည္ဖဲြ႕စည္းေပးရန္ အႀကံျပဳထားသည္။

အစည္းအေ၀းသို႕ တက္ေရာက္လာေသာ ၿမိဳ႕နယ္၃၀မွ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားကို အာဏာပိုင္မ်ားက တားဆီးသျဖင့္ ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ ၂၀မွ ကို္ယ္စားလွယ္ ၅၀ေက်ာ္ခန္႕တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့သည္။

မႏၱေလးၿမိဳ႕တြင္ က်င္းပေသာ ယေန႕အစည္းအေ၀းကို အာဏာပိုင္မ်ားက ေႏွာက္ယွက္ခ့ဲေၾကာင္းကို မႏၱေလး တိုင္း အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီ တိုင္းတဲြဖက္အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမႈး ဦးေမာင္ေမာင္သန္းက ယခုလိုေျပာသည္။

“လံုၿခံဳေရးအေျခအေနက ေတာ္ေတာ္ကို ဆိုးပါတယ္။ မနက္ပိုင္းမွာ အစည္းအေ၀းက်င္းပမယ့္ က်ေနာ္ တို႕၀င္းရဲ႕ထိပ္မွာ စည္ပင္သာယာကေန သန္႕ရွင္းေရးလုပ္တယ္ဆိုၿပီးေတာ့မွ ေျမာင္းေတြေဖာ္ၿပီးေတာ့ မွ ေျမာင္းထဲက ဗြက္ေတြအကုန္လံုးကို က်ေနာ္တို႕ ၀င္းထိပ္မွာ ပံုထားၿပီးေတာ့မွ က်ေနာ္တို႕ အဖဲြ႕၀င္ ေတြအကုန္လံုးကို ၀င္လို႕မရေတာ့တဲ့ အေျခအေနမ်ိဳးအထိဆိုးသြားပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္တို႕ အတုိက္အခံ ေျပာၿပီးေတာ့မွ ဒါေတြကို ရွင္းလင္းခိုင္းတဲ့အခါက်မွပဲ အဖဲြ႕၀င္ေတြ အထဲ၀င္လို႕ရပါတယ္။”

အစည္းအေ၀းက်င္းပရာေနအိမ္၏ လမ္းထိပ္မ်ားတြင္လည္း စြမ္းအားရွင္ဟု ယူူဆရသူမ်ားကို အာဏာပိုင္မ်ားက ခ်ထားသကဲ့သို႕ ၿမိဳ႕ထဲတြင္လည္း စစ္တပ္မွ လက္နက္အျပည့္အစံုႏွင့္ လံုၿခံဳေရးခ်ထားသည္ဟု ဟု ၄င္းက ဆက္လက္ ေျပာသည္။

ယေန႕က်င္းပခဲ့ေသာ မႏၱေလးတိုင္း ၿမိဳ႕နယ္၃၀မွ ကိုယ္စားမ်ားအစည္းအေ၀းက ကုန္ေစ်းႏႈန္းက်ဆင္းေရး အတြက္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာဆႏၵျပေတာင္းဆိုသူမ်ားကို အၾကမ္းဖက္ ႏွိပ္နင္းေနမႈကို ကန္႕ကြက္ရႈတ္ခ်လိုက္ၿပီး ဖမ္းဆီး ထိန္းသိမ္းထားသူမ်ား အားလံုးကို ခြၽင္းခ်က္မရိွ အျမန္ဆံုးလႊတ္ေပးရန္၊ အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီေဒသရံုးမ်ားအားလံုးကို ျပန္လည္ဖြင့္ခြင့္ ေပးရန္ႏွင့္ ဦးတင္ဦး၊ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ ဦးခြန္ထြန္းဦးအပါအ၀င္ နိဳင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသား မ်ားအားလံုးကို ခြၽင္းခ်က္မရိွလႊတ္ေပးရန္တို႕ ေတာင္းဆိုထားသည္။

လြန္ခဲ့သည့္လကုန္ပိုင္းက ဧရာ၀တီတိုင္းဘိုကေလးၿမိဳ႕နယ္ အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီမွလည္း အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီဗဟို သို႕ လက္ ရိွျပႆနာမ်ားကို ျပတ္သားစြာကိုင္တြယ္၍ ရဲ၀ံ့စြာဦးေဆာင္သြားရန္ တုိက္တြန္းခဲ့သည္။

Bush and Putin seek to engage Asia

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuters) - President George W. Bush prepared for an Asia-Pacific summit in Australia, saying on Friday the United States would consider a peace treaty with North Korea if it gave up nuclear arms.

Washington has been accused of ignoring Asia as it focuses on Iraq, but on the eve of this weekend's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Bush weighed into major regional issues.

"We must press the regime in Burma (Myanmar) to stop arresting, harassing, and assaulting pro-democracy activists for organizing or participating in peaceful demonstrations," Bush said in a speech to Asia-Pacific business executives in Sydney.

The comments come a day after hundreds of Buddhist monks held a group of government officials for several hours and torched their cars in anger against the military that rules impoverished Myanmar, formerly called Burma.

Bush also said China should allow more freedoms ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games and later after meeting South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun offered the possibility of a treaty with Pyongyang.

"We're looking forward to the day when we can end the Korean War. That will happen when Kim Jong-il verifiably dismantles his weapons program," said Bush.

"If you could be a little clearer..." Roh urged the president. Bush then said more directly that he was referring to a formal peace agreement. Fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an inconclusive truce.

Bush's comments follow several weeks of apparent progress in ending a crisis over the weapons program of a country he had once bracketed with pre-war Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil."

A Foreign Ministry spokesman for China, which fought along side the North in the Korean War and was a party to the original ceasefire, said Roh had raised the issue in a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao earlier in the day and Beijing had a "positive attitude" toward the prospect of a truce.

Next week, nuclear experts from the United States, China and Russia will visit North Korea to conduct a survey of nuclear facilities to be disabled, U.S. envoy Chris Hill said on Friday.

The inspections "would mark another important step toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," said Hill in Sydney.

RUSSIA LOOKS EAST

Myanmar's crackdown on protests against huge fuel price rises also drew expressions of dismay from other Asia-Pacific nations. China, Myanmar's closest ally which is usually reticent when it comes to the affairs of others, also sounded frustrated with its southeast Asian neighbor.

"We hope to see reconciliation and improvement in the situation in Burma," said a foreign ministry spokesman.

But while Bush was reinforcing his Asian credentials, Russian President Vladimir Putin was seeking to forge new links.

"Closer ties with APEC naturally complements our own plans of economic development of Siberia and the Far East," Putin said.

Putin signed a major deal on Friday to buy Australian uranium to fuel civilian nuclear plants -- a day after snaring a $1 billion arms sale deal with Indonesia.

Australia holds 40 percent of the world's reserves, but only agreed to sell uranium to Moscow after guarantees it would not be resold to Iran or Syria. Russia has close ties with both states.

Putin is vying with the United States and China for a leading role in the region and wants Russia to host 2012 APEC summit.

Putin and Bush met in Sydney but did not delve deeply into any sensitive subjects, instead the men reminisced about fishing.

Bush on Friday offered to host a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders at his Texas ranch, as he sought to counter perceptions that he was not paying enough attention to the region.

He also said he planned to name an ambassador to the 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations, or ASEAN.

On the issue of trade, Bush said he was ready to show flexibility to jump-start the moribund Doha round of world trade talks, which he called a "once-in-a-generation" opportunity.

But he said intransigence by just a handful of countries could bring negotiations to a standstill.

Host Australia has placed climate change at the top of the APEC leaders' agenda and Bush says he will support a strong statement on global warming.

But there is a split in APEC over climate change, with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer conceding there were "very difficult negotiations" underway.

"If we can get a good declaration out of this, that will be a very great achievement. But I make no predictions about how those negotiations will go," Downer told reporters.

(Additional reporting by John Ruwitch, Caren Bohan, Matt Spetalnick and Jalil Hamid)

Burma blocks You Tube

September 7, 2007 - You Tube, the popular website which featured the ongoing protests in Burma on video, has been banned by the military junta. Access to the video-uploading website was barred four days ago.

As is usual in the secretive military ruled country, no reason has been ascribed by the internet service provider under the control of the Myanmar Post and Telecommunication Department. BaganNet, the other internet service provider had banned You Tube earlier.

However, here say among rare internet friendly users in Burma suggest that blocking the site was due to footages of demonstrations in Burma which were uploaded.

Most internet users in Burma rely on BaganNet while MPT internet users are mainly from business houses.

An internet user in Rangoon told Mizzima that the video uploading of ongoing protests against the increase in fuel prices could be the reason for the ban.

"Since August 22, when the Hledan demonstrations began, it spread through You Tube among online users here. Later more followed," he said. "We could watch every demonstration on videos," the user said.

No response was available from MPT even though Mizzima contacted the department several times.

Cyber cafés in Burma have prohibited users from browsing banned sites which include news websites such as www.cnn.com and dissidents' and pornographic websites.

Mizzima is also in the list of hundreds of banned sites.

Bush invites Southeast Asian leaders to Texas but Myanmar junta chief unlikely to be there

SYDNEY, Australia: U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday invited Southeast Asian leaders to his Texas ranch this year but it was unclear if Myanmar's junta chief, whom Bush has blasted as a tyrant, would be there.

Bush issued the invitation to heads of state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations over lunch in Sydney with seven of them, said Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, one of the leaders present.

The invitation to a Texas summit was intended in part to make up for Bush's earlier cancellation of celebrations in Singapore to mark the 30th anniversary of Washington's ties with the ASEAN bloc.

"He invited us to Texas," Arroyo told reporters. "We'll have it done there at the convenience of ASEAN."

Bush and the leaders and senior ministers from seven of ASEAN's 10 member countries were in Australia's business capital for a summit of another grouping, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

The seven in APEC are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The three ASEAN members not in APEC are Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

No date has been set for the summit, said Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo.

Asked if Bush's invitation extended to all ASEAN members, including Myanmar, Romulo said he believed it was so since the American president invited the whole bloc.

But Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the leader of the junta that rules Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, would not likely be welcome.

Washington is among Myanmar's harshest critics, with Bush renewing his criticisms on Wednesday for the junta's recent suppression of pro-democracy advocates.

"It's inexcusable that we have this kind of tyrannical behavior in Asia," Bush said at a joint news conference in Sydney with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who is hosting this year's APEC summit.

Myanmar's junta has beaten and detained scores of activists and used gangs of hired thugs in Yangon, the capital, to curtail a rare wave of protests last month that began after fuel prices were raised overnight by as much as 500 percent.

Even fellow ASEAN members have grown more critical of Myanmar's dismal human rights records despite the group's bedrock policy of noninterference in each other's domestic affairs.

During a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday, Romulo said he expressed ASEAN's concern over Myanmar's failure to abide by a roadmap to democracy it agreed to follow a decade ago.

"It's now 10 or 11 years, and we are still waiting," Romulo said he told Rice. "There is now impatience in the ASEAN about the fact it's not working out the way we thought it would work out."

Bush offers N.Korea peace deal, scolds Myanmar

By Bill Tarrant

SYDNEY (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Friday the United States would be willing to consider a formal peace treaty with North Korea if it gave up its nuclear weapons program.

"We're looking forward to the day when we can end the Korean War. That will happen when Kim Jong-il verifiably dismantles his weapons program," Bush told reporters after meeting South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun as Asia-Pacific leaders gathered for a summit in Australia.

"If you could be a little clearer," Roh urged the president after his initial comment.

Bush said he thought he had been as clear as he could be, then said more directly that he was referring to a formal peace agreement. Fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War was halted with an inclusive truce.

Bush said he was "optimistic" about the progress of the effort to get North Korea to give up its weapons, but said there was still more work to be done.

While Bush was circumspect about North Korea, which has one of the most repressive regimes in the world, the president was less reticent about political freedom elsewhere in Asia, urging China and Russia to be more open and rebuking Myanmar for its assault on political activists.

OLYMPICS FREEDOM

In a speech to business executives, Bush said the eyes of the world would be on Beijing and called on China to allow more freedoms ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games.

"We urge China's leaders to use this moment to show confidence by demonstrating a commitment to greater openness and tolerance," said the President a day after accepting an invitation from China's President Hu Jintao to attend the games.

Bush also demanded the immediate release of Myanmar activists detained by the army and called on the ruling junta to stop "assaulting pro-democracy activists."

On Thursday, hundreds of Buddhist monks held a group of government officials for several hours and torched their cars in anger against the military that rules the impoverished Southeast Asian country, formerly called Burma.

Beijing shuns interference in the domestic affairs of other countries, but China welcomed international efforts to help the situation in Myanmar as long as it was done with a "constructive attitude and on the basis of mutual respect," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

Southeast Asian leaders will discuss Myanmar with Bush at lunch on Friday, said a spokesman for Thailand's prime minister.

Hours before talks with President Vladimir Putin, Bush said the United States would encourage Russian leaders "to respect the checks and balances that are essential to democracy."

RUSSIANS ARE COMING

Putin, vying with the United States and China to be a part of the booming Asia-Pacific region, signed a deal on Friday to buy uranium from Australia to power its civilian nuclear power plants.

Australia holds 40 percent of the world's reserves, but only agreed to sell uranium to Moscow after guarantees it would not be resold to Iran or Syria. Russia has close ties with both states.

Putin visited Indonesia on Thursday in a clear sign of his commitment to turn Moscow's face to Asia, signing a $1 billion deal to sell Russian tanks, helicopters and submarines.

Russia has now become the largest weapons supplier in Asia.

Putin and Bush were expected to talk later in the day about

U.S. missile defense plans in Europe, the most recent irritant to their relations.

Bush also said he was ready to show flexibility to jump-start world trade talks, but intransigence by just a handful of countries could bring negotiations to a standstill.

Bush has made accelerating the Doha trade talks a top priority at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' meeting.

The talks, which started in 2001, have been bogged down by divisions between developed and developing nations over farm subsidies and industrial tariffs.

APEC economies account for almost half of global trade and nearly 60 percent of the world's gross domestic product, and a collapse of the Doha round could have a chilling effect.

(Additional reporting by John Ruwitch, Caren Bohan, Matt Spetalnick and Jalil Hamid)

Gambari Must Now Prove His Effectiveness

By Aung Zaw
September 7, 2007

Twenty years ago, on the campus of Rangoon University, a masked student leader read to us a letter he had written on behalf of the people of Burma to the then UN Secretary-General, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar de la Guerra.

“We will ask the UN Secretary-General to take action on the Ne Win government,” he declared loudly, to cheers from his student audience. one hour later, the peaceful gathering was violently broke up by riot police and we were all in prison.

Twenty years later, many Burmese realize that it’s unrealistic to have high expectations of UN action on Burma. The regime remains unchanged, while we have seen several UN special envoys to Burma come and go, finally admitting failure.

In a new appeal to the UN, Htay Kywe, a prominent Burmese activist now in hiding, sent a letter to Ban-Ki-moon asking the world body to intervene on Burma. His letter was dated September 6, and was written by on behalf of members of the 88 Generation Students group.

The UN Secretary General’s spokeswoman, Michele Montas, told reporters in New York that the office of Ban Ki-moon had received several letters—including ones from the 88 Generation Students group—asking for the issue of Burma be taken up by the Security Council and appealing for action to secure the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

In his letter, Htay Kywe also asked Ban Ki-moon to dispatch his special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Burma as soon as possible.

Shortly before the junta’s current crackdown in Burma, Gambari visited Asia to “promote positive changes.” He went to China, India and Japan—three key countries that support the repressive regime economically and militarily, while keeping quiet on its human rights abuses and brutal suppression of its people.

In public statements on Burma, Gambari referred to “progress,” leading The Irrawaddy to question his use of such a positive term. Now a leading American daily newspaper, the Washington Post, has questioned his work, saying the UN envoy is “missing in action.”

The criticism stung Gambari into responding: “I have been the only international actor to maintain face-to-face dialogue with Myanmar's [Burma’s] leaders about the need for democracy and human rights. In that context, I have been able to advance the international community's concerns directly with Myanmar's [Burma’s] senior leadership and with Aung San Suu Kyi each time I have visited Myanmar [Burma],” the UN envoy wrote in the Washington Post.

At a New York press conference, Gambari also condemned the regime’s brutal suppression of the peaceful demonstrations in Burma.

Fair enough. It is understood that Gambari has to play a delicate game. It seems his job is not only to facilitate the dialogue but also to “broaden the agenda” to include the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, the cessation of hostilities against ethnic groups, humanitarian access and progress in implementing the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in the areas of education and health. But can he achieve his mission?

Gambari is not the first UN special envoy to visit Burma and he won’t be the last.
Since 1988, about seven UN envoys, including human rights investigators, have been appointed to find a solution on Burma, but they all failed.

One of them, Rajsoomer Lallah, the UN’s second special rapporteur was denied entry to Burma during his four years in office, because of his criticism of the regime. He is noted for saying: “We are faced with a country which is at war with its own people.”

The most successful of the seven envoys was probably Razali Ismail, who broke the news of a “secret dialogue” between Suu Kyi and the regime leaders.

This Malaysian diplomat made twelve visits to Burma. In the early years of his term, he was praised for brokering talks between the opposition National League for Democracy and the junta.

His influence waned, however, after it was disclosed that he was part owner of a Malaysian company, Iris Technologies, which supplied the regime with 5,000 electronic passports.

The regime also suspected that Razali became too close to Suu Kyi and the then Prime Minister and military intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt, who was purged in October 2004. Finally, Burmese leaders shut the door, showing they no longer wanted to “turn the new page.” When Razali quit, he told The Irrawaddy: “It is best to conclude that I have failed.”

After Razali’s failed mission, Burmese leaders skillfully revived optimism in 2006, hoping to stave off growing international pressure by inviting Gambari, a UN diplomat who rarely visited Southeast Asia and was looking for a job after his boss, Kofi Annan, left office in 2006.

After a series of meetings in New York, Gambari traveled to Burma for talks with the junta’s top leader, Snr-Gen Than Shwe. He was also allowed a one hour session with Suu Kyi.

That first visit was followed by a second. The junta controlled the schedules of both visits, including a call on the military-sponsored National Convention, which had been shunned by previous envoys who considered it to be a political minefield

The regime-organized schedule also included meetings with senior ministers at which they lectured him on the regime’s “achievements,” its “booming economy” and “road map” progress.

Gambari did say he wanted to see “concrete results” in Burma, although other statements were vague and contained the usual catch phrases and jargon.

Now a third visit to Burma is being prepared for Gambari in October. This time he needs to make sure he and his good offices are put to good use for the Burmese people, who hold high expectations from the visit.

I don’t want to discourage Gambari. I understand he needs to go to Burma to carry out his delicate mission. But everything depends on the generals and their political will to make positive change. They will be happy to receive Gambari as long as they find him useful.

Burmese generals and Burmese diplomats in New York know full well that the UN is toothless. Gambari needs to prove that he is not also clueless.

With Signs of Resistance Continuing, Myanmar Offers Rare Concessions

BANGKOK, Sept. 7 — The authorities in Myanmar, apparently bowing to bad publicity, released a political prisoner today whose leg was broken when he was arrested in the recent outbreak of antigovernment protests. His case had gained international attention when fellow prisoners staged a hunger strike calling for his freedom.

On Thursday, a delegation of military officers was briefly held hostage by Buddhist monks at a temple outside the main city of Yangon. The officers had reportedly gone there to apologize to the monks for treating them roughly during a demonstration the day before.

These are not the kind of conciliatory gestures Myanmar’s iron-fisted military junta is known for. But it has been put on the defensive by an unusual campaign of public protests over the past three weeks, just as it is trying to portray itself to the world as a mature, democratically-oriented military government.

The junta has just completed 14 years of fitful work on an outline of what it calls a democratic constitution, and it is facing a possible onslaught of criticism from the United States at the United Nations Security Council this month.

Despite its efforts at conciliation, there were reports of continuing opposition activity today.

Leaders of the opposition party, the National League for Democracy, were reported to be meeting in Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay. Angry monks were reported to have destroyed two buildings owned by officials involved in Wednesday’s crackdown in Pakokku, a center of Buddhist learning about 400 miles northwest of Yangon.

The New Light of Myanmar, a state-controlled newspaper, reported its version today of the violence and the hostage-taking, saying the officers handed over their cellphones to the monks after they had “supplicated to them” over the situation.

Its report confirmed witnesses’ accounts that monks had burned several military vehicles on Wednesday and that shots had been fired to disperse the rally.

It added: “The government has got information that external antigovernment groups are giving directives and providing various sorts of assistance to internal antigovernment groups to stir up mass demonstrations and instability.”

Though the protests have mostly been small, scattered and quickly suppressed, they have been publicized by an international network of well-established prodemocracy groups with ties to the dissidents inside Myanmar.

That publicity has now caught the attention of more widely known names like Laura Bush and a lineup of Hollywood celebrities who have spoken out in support of the prodemocracy movement and particularly its symbolic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who is being held under house arrest.

“She represents to me, really, the hopes of everyone in Burma, of all the Burmese, who long for a day of democracy there, a day without an oppressive regime,” Mrs. Bush said, using the country’s former name.

President Bush also mentioned the protests in a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Sydney, Australia. “We must press the regime in Burma to stop arresting, harassing and assaulting prodemocracy activists for organizing or participating in peaceful demonstrations,” he said, according to Reuters.

Myanmar’s crackdown also drew expressions of dismay from other Asia-Pacific nations. China, Myanmar’s closest ally, which is usually reticent when it comes to the affairs of others, also sounded frustrated with its neighbor. “We hope to see reconciliation and improvement in the situation in Burma,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters.

The demonstrations began Aug. 19, triggered by an abrupt rise in the price of fuel that caused a steep increase in the costs of transportation and basic goods in what is already one of the poorest countries in Asia.

They coincided with the conclusion of a Constitutional Convention on Sept. 3 that the junta calls the first step on its “road map to democracy.” That process, which the generals say will conclude with a democratic election, is the junta’s frequent response to criticism of its record in human rights and political repression.

Washington has not confirmed whether it will try for the second year to introduce a Security Council resolution condemning abuses by the junta. Last year China and Russia vetoed an American move to include Myanmar on the council’s agenda.

The United States has led escalating international economic sanctions against Myanmar, prodded by prodemocracy groups and by a wave of municipal boycotts a decade ago.

The fuel price rise offered an opportunity to the junta’s opponents to remind the world of Myanmar’s record, said John Dale, a sociologist at George Mason University who has studied what he calls the “transnational networks and symbolic politics” of Myanmar’s prodemocracy movement.

“They wanted to rain on this party and didn’t want them to come away looking like they were really making any steps toward democracy,” he said.

The junta has handled the protests carefully since they began last month, using military-backed civilian gangs rather than uniformed officers to break up demonstrations and make arrests.

A number of arrested protesters have been released and have reported that they were treated well.

This contrasts with the military massacres that took thousands of lives during a major prodemocracy uprising in 1988.

“One interpretation is that the state doesn’t want to take on these protests through its usual means, through violence and an indiscriminate crackdown, knowing that they have a broader international audience,” Mr. Dale said.

The other interpretation is that the government is biding its time, as it did in 1988, before coming down very hard on protesters.

In the current protests, there had been no reports of gunfire until Wednesday’s military attack on the monks. Buddhist clergy members have been at the center of major protests in the past, and any spread of unrest among them would be a worry to the junta.

It was not clear whether the new reports of violence at the monastery were an isolated eruption or were the beginning of a new round of unrest.

The Democratic Voice of Burma, a prodemocracy organization based in Norway with contacts inside the country, said “a few monks” visited the home last night of a leader of the crackdown “to have a talk with him and teach him some Buddhist manners.”

“But he wasn’t at home,” it reported, “so they destroyed a few things from his house to teach him a lesson instead.”

Two more activists arrested in Bogalay

Sep 07, 2007 (DVB) Two more people have been arrested for their involvement in Wednesdays protest against high fuel and commodity prices led by the National League for Democracy in Bogalay. NLD officials Daw Khin Lay and Daw Mi Mi Sein were arrested in Bogalay market by female members of the government-supported Myanmar Women Entrepreneurs Association on 5 September, according to a family member who did not want to be named. This followed the arrests of party chairman U Aung Khin Bo and deputy secretary U Khin Maung Chit that morning. "The Women Entrepreneurs were accompanied by the township police chief. They said they wanted to talk to Daw Khin Lay and Daw Mi Mi Sein and promised they would let them go after they had spoken to them, said the family member. The protest was reportedly supported by over 1000 bystanders. Reporting by Aye Naing

ပခုကၠႃမႀာ ေဒါသထြက္ေနေသာ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားက ႒ကံ့ဖြံႚနႚဲ စြမ္းအားရႀင္ပိုင္ ဆိုင္ႎႀင့္အိမ္ကို ဖ်က္ဆီး

မဇၩိမ သတင္းဌာနမွ အခ်ိန္ႏွင့္ တေျပးညီ ထုတ္လႊင့္ေပးေနသည္။
စက္တင္ဘာလ ၇ ရက္၊ ၂၀၀၇ ခုႏွစ္။

1:45 PM
လံုျခံဳေရး ရွင္းေနတယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ ပခုကၠဴ

“ၿမ့ဳိေပၚမွာ လံုျခံဳေရးရယ္ ဘာရယ္ မရွိဘူး။ အကုန္ ရွင္းေနတာပဲ။ ၿမ့ဳိမွာ သြားသြားလာလာပဲ။ အထက ၁ ကေတာ့ သင္တန္းရွိလို႔ ပိတ္ထားတယ္ဗ်။ သင္တန္း ၅ ရက္ရွိလို႔ ဟိုကတည္းက ႀကဳိပိတ္ထားတာပါ။ က်န္တဲ့ ေက်ာင္းေတြကေတာ့ ဒီအတုိင္းပါပဲ။ တကၠသိုလ္ေတြ ဘာေတြ။ ဘာမွ ထူးျခားမႈ မရွိဘူး။ လူစုေဝးတာေတြလည္း မရွိပါဘူး။ ကိုယ့္အဖဲြ႔နဲ႔ကိုယ္ လၻက္ရည္ဆုိင္ ထုိင္လိုက္၊ ဘာထုိင္လိုက္ေပါ့ေနာ္။” ဟု ၿမိဳ့ခံတဦးက ေျပာျပသည္။

“ဘုန္းႀကီးေတြလည္း သူ႔ဟာနဲ႔သူ မနက္ ဆြမ္းခံထြက္တာပဲ။ ေဗာဓိမ႑ိဳင္ ေက်ာင္းတုိက္တို႔၊ ဝိသုတာရာမ ေက်ာင္းတိုက္တို႔မွာလည္း မထူးျခားပါဘူး။ မနက္က အိပ္ယာထ ေနာက္က်လို႔ ဘုန္းႀကီးေတြကိုေတာင္ မေလွ်ာက္လိုက္ရဘူး။ ဘုန္းဘုန္းေတြကလည္း ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ မေျပာဘူး။ သူတို႔လုပ္မယ့္ အစီအစဥ္ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ မေပါက္ဘူး။ ၿပီးမွသာ ဘုန္းဘုန္းတို႔ ညက ပါလားဆိုၿပီး အဲလို ေလွ်ာက္လိုက္မွသာ ဘယ္လိုဘယ္လို လုပ္တယ္ဆိုတာ ေျပာေတာ့တာပဲ။ လုပ္မယ့္ အစီအစဥ္ေတာ့ လံုးဝမေပါက္ဘူး။” ဟု သူက ထပ္ေျပာသည္။

12:45 PM
ပခုကၠဴမွာ ေဒါသထြက္ေနေသာ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားက ႀကံ့ဖြံ႔နဲ႔ စြမ္းအားရွင္ပိုင္ ဆိုင္ႏွင့္အိမ္ကို ဖ်က္ဆီး

ပခုကၠဴတြင္ ေဒါသ ထြက္ေနေသာ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားက ယမန္ေန႔ညက ႀကံ့ဖြံ႔ႏွင့္ စြမ္းအားရွင္ ႏွစ္ဦးတို႔ ပိုင္ဆိုင္ေသာ ေစ်းဆိုင္ႏွင့္ အိမ္တို႔ကို ဖ်က္ဆီး ပစ္လိုက္ၾကသည္ဟု သိရသည္။

ပခုကၠဴ ၿမိ့ဳခံတဦးက မဇၩိမ သို႔ ေျပာျပခ်က္

“ျပည္ခုိင္ၿဖဳိးက စတိုးဆိုင္ တဆုိင္ရယ္ကို ညပိုင္းတုန္းက ဖ်က္လိုက္တယ္။ လွဝင္းႏိုင္ ဆိုတာေလ ၿမ့ဳိနယ္ အလုပ္အမႈေဆာင္ေလ၊ အဲဒီ ျပည္ခုိင္ၿဖဳိးရဲ့ စတိုးဆုိင္က လမ္းမေပၚက ေနနတ္သား လွ်ပ္စစ္ ပစၥည္းဆိုင္။ မိန္းလမ္းမႀကီးေပၚမွာ ကုန္သည္ပဲြစား အသင္း႐ံုးရဲ့ မ်က္ႏွာခ်င္းဆုိင္မွာ ရွိတယ္။ ၿမ့ဳိမ လမ္းေပါ့ေနာ္။ ၿမ့ဳိရဲ့ အေရွ့ဖ်ားေလး နည္းနည္းက်တယ္။”

“တံခါးဖြင့္ ဝင္ၿပီးေတာ့ အထဲမွာ ရွိတဲ့ဟာကို နည္းနည္းပါးပါး ဖ်က္လိုက္တဲ့ သေဘာပါပဲ။ ည ၁ဝ နာရီေလာက္၊ လူေတြ အနားမကပ္ရဘူး။ ဘုန္းႀကီးက ၄-၅ဝ ေလာက္ ရွိမယ္။ လံုးဝကို လူေတြကို အနားကပ္ မခံဘူးဗ်။”

“ေနာက္ စြမ္းအားရွင္ တေယာက္ရဲ့ တဲသာသာ အိမ္ကိုလည္း ဖ်က္လိုက္တယ္။ အမွတ္ ၁ ရပ္ကြက္ထဲက။ ႏွစ္တစ္ ခင္ေမာင္ဝင္း အိမ္။ ဒီေကာင္က ငယ္ငယ္တုန္းက ရိုက္ရင္ ႏွစ္တစ္ (သစ္သားဒုတ္)နဲ႔ ရိုက္တတ္လို႔ နာမည္ေရွ့က ႏွစ္တစ္ တပ္ထားတာ။ အိမ္ကေတာ့ သိပ္မေကာင္းဘူး ေျပာပါတယ္။ နဂိုကတည္းက စီးပြားေရး အဆင္မေျပတဲ့ တဲသာသာ အိမ္ေပါ့။ အဲဒါကိုေတာ့ ဖ်က္ပစ္လိုက္တယ္ ေျပာပါတယ္။ လူေတြကလည္း မရွိဘူးေလ။ လူေတြကလည္း ေရွာင္ေနၿပီေပါ့။”