The Shanty-Town Shakedown Goes Global

A face you can trust "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!"

One thing that amazes about some folk back in the first world is how much they believe and trust the UN. If you have any experience with Third World countries, their police and governments you understand that as a body made up of such countries the UN is going to employ the same sort of little greedy Nabobs that run those countries. No doubt flunkies of who ever is the current dictator. In the Third World being the sneakiest and most corrupt means you will end up with the most pay. What more plum job could some one corrupt bastard ask for than being part of the UN. Good pay, nice posting, expense accounts, perks, and no accountability for what little work you actually do. It sure beats trying to shake down the locals or the tourists.

I'm not surprised the UN jumped on the Global Warming bandwagon. What actually surprises me is why they didn't think of it themselves. It is a cash cow. The Mother of all Shakedowns. No need to plant drugs or hire the police chief's niece to make false accusations. The UN can shake down the whole Western World for a crime it didn't commit and like a frightened traveller in a foreign land they have no recourse. In fact they even believe they did something wrong so they will folk over all the money in their bank account to make the problem "go away" and like those I have known who have been kidnapped will continue to pay protection money to the Police to keep from being re kidnapped.

Sure beats working!

UN Statement Does Nothing

‘UN’s Myanmar statement not tough enough’

Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Saturday the UN Security Council should have issued a tougher statement against Myanmar, where it says 13 journalists are detained.

The group said in a statement issued with the Burma Media Association that it feared for the safety of the detained journalists and writers, including eight who were arrested during last month’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests. “The UN Security Council statement which deplored the crackdown is to be welcomed, but it did not go far enough,” the groups said.

“We regret that the Security Council did not call for the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners,” they added. Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, is the most famous of the more than 2,000 political prisoners that Myanmar is believed to be holding.

A prisons watchdog in Thailand said last week that a member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party had died after being tortured during interrogation while in a prison outside the central city of Mandalay.

The media rights groups said the announcement of that death “makes us fear the worst” for the detained writers and journalists, who include video directors, reporters, columnists, photographers and a poet.

The UN Security Council on Thursday issued a statement deploring Myanmar’s crackdown that left 13 dead last month.

13?? Try THOUSANDS. AFP always gets the facts screwed up.

UN Delivers "Strongly Worded Message"

Sticks and stone might break their bones but strongly worded messages will do little to dislodge the likes of the Myanmar Junta. In fact I think the John Lennonesque notion of how to deal with their ilk should be replaced with a more Churchillian approach. But that's just my opinion.

UN chief says 'strong message' delivered to Myanmar rulers

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday said his special envoy Ibrahim Gambari delivered a 'strong message' to Myanmar military rulers about their crackdown on pro-democracy protests and would brief him shortly on his mission.

'Mr. Gambari has delivered a strong message from me personally (to Myanmar's ruling junta),' Ban told reporters. 'We are now awaiting his return, and I am going to be briefed by him tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon' before deciding on the next course of action.

'The concerns of the international community have been clearly and loudly conveyed to the Myanmar authorities,' the UN secretary general said.

Ban said Gambari was assured during his four-day mission -- he met with Myanmar's ruling generals and detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi -- that he would be able to make a return visit in November.

The UN chief said he would consult with members of the 15-member Security Council Friday to weigh the international community's next step. Gambari was also to brief the council on his four-day mission Friday, UN officials said.

Ban was also asked to react to the arrest of a local UN worker in Yangon and three of her family members.

'I am going to do whatever I can to, first of all, address this issue (and) the overall human rights situation in Myanmar,' he replied.

Back in Myanmar, the military junta kept up the pressure on its people Wednesday after last week's bloody crackdown on protesters.

Troops who last week killed at least 13 and arrested over 1,000 people to suppress the largest pro-democracy protests in nearly 20 years have continued overnight arrests and mounted patrols to strike terror into the population.

The protests first erupted in mid-August after a massive hike in the price of fuel, but escalated two weeks ago when Buddhist monks emerged to lead the movement, drawing up to 100,000 people onto the streets.

UN Wants Death Toll

A strongly worded letter is being composed now.

Myanmar Junta Must Reveal Protest Death Toll, UN Says (Update3)

Myanmar's junta must reveal the death toll from last week's anti-government protests and give details about those jailed and missing, a United Nations official said after envoy Ibrahim Gambari met with the regime's leader.

``We are all extremely concerned with the aftermath of the unrest,'' Charles Petrie, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, said by telephone today from the former capital, Yangon. ``That was raised at the highest level in the strongest terms.''

Gambari met yesterday with General Than Shwe and other leaders of the regime to discuss its crackdown on the biggest pro-democracy protests in almost 20 years. Gambari is scheduled to brief UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the talks tomorrow before meeting with the Security Council.

At least 30 people were killed by security forces during last week's demonstrations and 1,400 others were arrested, the Australian government said yesterday. The junta in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, put the death toll at nine.

``We need to have a better understanding of what happened,'' said Petrie, who accompanied Gambari to the capital, Naypyidaw. The UN asked Myanmar's leaders to provide details about the number of people killed, wounded and detained and help trace missing people, said Petrie, the UN's most senior official in the Southeast Asian nation.

Gambari, who is scheduled to fly to New York today, declined to speak with reporters after meeting with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Singapore currently presides over the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-member group that includes Myanmar.

Asean is ``fully behind'' the UN's push for ``national reconciliation and a peaceful transition to democracy'' in Myanmar, Lee told Gambari, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

International condemnation of the regime has increased since soldiers clubbed and shot at demonstrators, raided monasteries and arrested Buddhist monks who led the protests.

The UN Human Rights Council unanimously adopted a resolution yesterday that ``strongly deplores'' the crackdown.

China and Russia, which blocked a U.S.-drafted Security Council resolution on Myanmar in January, were among the 47 member states that backed the measure criticizing the ``continued violent repression of peaceful demonstrations.''

The resolution, adopted in Geneva, is one of the toughest issued by the year-old body. It also urged the regime to release political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and take steps toward installing a democratic government.

Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has spent almost 12 years in detention since the junta rejected the results of parliamentary elections in 1990 won by her National League for Democracy. Gambari was allowed to meet with Suu Kyi twice at her home in Yangon, where she is detained.

``The Myanmar authorities should no longer expect that their self-imposed isolation will shield them from accountability,'' Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said yesterday. ``The government must give a full account of its actions during and after the protests.''

The military has ruled the nation of 47 million people since 1962. The regime has a record of human rights violations, including summary executions, torture and the recruitment of child soldiers, which, according to the UN, are widespread and systematic.

Anti-junta protests began more than a month ago when the government doubled some fuel prices and intensified when Buddhist monks took to the streets.

UN Envoy Meets With Myanmar Head Honcho

I'd also like to meet with the Myanmar leader. Alone. With a taser and handcuffs and a baton. Then deliver him to a jail where he and is gang of drug dealing, gun running, human trafficking, monk murdering cohorts belong.

U.N. Envoy Meets With Myanmar Leader

A U.N. envoy met with Myanmar's military leader Tuesday in a bid to end the country's political crisis, as the junta's foreign minister defended a deadly crackdown on democracy advocates that has provoked global revulsion.

Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N.'s special envoy to Myanmar, met with Senior Gen. Than Shwe in the junta's remote new capital, Naypyitaw, said a foreign diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing protocol. No details of the meeting were available.

Security forces lightened their presence in Yangon, the country's main city, which remained quiet after troops and police brutally quelled mass protests last week. Dissident groups say up to 200 protesters were slain, compared to the regime's report of 10 deaths, and 6,000 detained.

Gambari has been in the country since Saturday with the express purpose of seeing Than Shwe about the violence. The leader had avoided him until Tuesday.

Than Shwe doesn't normally bother with the usual diplomatic protocol and is not an easy man to meet with. In previous sparring with the United Nations and other international bodies over human rights abuses, the regime has repeatedly snubbed envoys and ignored diplomatic overtures.

Instead of the meeting Gambari sought Monday, he was sent to a remote northern town for an academic conference on relations between the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, diplomats reported, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The town of Lashio, where the conference was held, is 240 miles north of Naypyitaw, the secure, isolated city carved out of the jungle where Than Shwe moved the capital in 2005.

U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq earlier said Gambari would urge the junta "to cease the repression of peaceful protest, release detainees, and move more credibly and inclusively in the direction of democratic reform, human rights and national reconciliation."

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the U.S. wanted to see Gambari convey a clear message on behalf of the international community "about the need for Burma's leaders to engage in a real and serious political dialogue with all relative parties."

UN Envoy in Myanmar

Maybe the Junta will give his some free samples from one of their many drug operations.

UN envoy back in Myanmar capital for junta talks: Official

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari who met Myanmar's detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi over the weekend has returned to the nation's remote capital for expected talks with the junta leader, a UN official said on Monday.

Gambari met with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi for more than an hour on Sunday, and later that night flew to the administrative capital Naypyidaw in central Myanmar, the official said.

"He flew back to Naypyidaw yesterday evening," the UN official said. Gambari hopes to meet with the regime's reclusive leader Than Shwe, after holding talks with other senior officials on Saturday.

Gambari was dispatched by UN chief Ban Ki-moon to intervene after the regime unleashed a military campaign to stop anti-government demonstrations several days ago, leaving at least 13 dead and hundreds arrested.

The four days of repression, which has seen live rounds, baton charges and tear gas used against monks, protesters and civilians alike, succeeded in largely shutting down the demonstrations over the weekend.

Gambari arrived in Myanmar Saturday and travelled to the remote official capital of Naypyidaw for talks with senior leaders where he was expected to convey worldwide outrage over the violence.