Friday July 3, 2009, 2:21 am
Join ONE MILLION VOICES FOR BURMA!
http://uscampaignforburma.org/

"Please use Your liberty to promote ours"
(Aung San Suu Kyi)

Friday July 3, 2009, 2:52 am
I was at the U2 concert in Barcelona last night and Bono dedicated one of the songs to Aung San Suu Kyi - fantastic support.

Friday July 3, 2009, 3:54 am
singed on Thanks Ben

Friday July 3, 2009, 6:38 am
Signed. Thanks Ben.

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Friday July 3, 2009, 9:40 am
Thanks Ladies!
Avaaz Org: "Free Aung San Suu Kyi!"
(Petition to Ban Ki-Moon, who is now in Burma)
405,927 have signed the petition. Help us get to 500,000
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/free_aung_san_suu_kyi/

Friday July 3, 2009, 10:10 am
Junta Itself is Main ‘Sanction’ on Burma (Irrawaddy)
The economic policies of Burma’s ruling junta have done far more damage to the country’s prospects for development than international sanctions, according to Sean Turnell, a specialist on the Burmese economy from Australia’s McQuarie University.

“Burma is not poor because of sanctions,” said Turnell, who produces Burma Economic Watch, a periodical that monitors economic developments in one of the world’s poorest countries. “The biggest sanction on Burma is the Burmese regime itself.”

Turnell told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the junta’s “willful mismanagement” of the economy, including its refusal to respect property rights, is the main obstacle to Burma’s economic development.

In a wide-ranging discussion on the current state of the Burmese economy, Turnell said that the regime has “deliberately suppressed the history of Burma’s economic success” during the parliamentary period (1948-62), when the newly independent nation made a remarkable recovery from the devastation wrought by the Second World War.
“Burma doesn’t need a foreign model of development,” he said. “It just needs to look at its own history.”

After more than four-and-a-half decades of military rule, however, Burma’s rulers have completely lost touch with economic reality, he said, making the country a “very, very high-risk environment” for potential foreign investors.

Burma has been subject to Western economic sanctions since the current regime seized power in a bloody coup in 1988. Since then, however, the junta has strengthened its economic ties with its neighbors, particularly China and Thailand.
More:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16262

Friday July 3, 2009, 10:13 am
NLD Delegation Travels to Naypyidaw to Meet Ban Ki-moon (Irrawaddy)
Members of the central executive committee of Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), have traveled to the country’s remote new capital of Naypyidaw to meet visiting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, according to the party.

Win Tin, a member of the NLD central executive committee, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the Burmese military authorities took four members of his party to Naypyidaw by car yesterday. The four—Hla Pe, Soe Myint, Nyunt Wai and Than Tun—will meet Ban during a two-day visit to the country that started today.
More:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16259

Saturday July 4, 2009, 2:09 am
"Burma's Frustrated Generation Looks Abroad" (Irrawaddy)
RANGOON — Armed with a law degree from the University of East Rangoon, 22-year-old Win is clear-eyed about his job prospects: Practically speaking, there are none. For him, the future lies overseas.

Abroad there is "some hope, some opportunity. But in our country, there's no hope left," said Win, who is applying to go to Australia for further studies.

Unlike the students who hit the streets in 1988 in big demonstrations against the military government, the generation now emerging from college is focused on avoiding political activism, learning English and seeking opportunities in a world they have come to know through TV and the Internet.

Two decades ago, it was very difficult to emigrate from the country. Today it's much easier, and every day long lines of people, many of them students, form outside the government office that issues passports.

There are no solid statistics, but historian Thant Myint-U estimates the number of emigrants over the past couple decades is in the millions.

"The main way young people express their unhappiness today is to leave the country. Before there was no possibility of emigration. That is a huge change. ... For more and more young people inside, their first desire is find work abroad," said the historian, who lives in Thailand and is author of "The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma."

"We are frustrated by the lifestyle, the opportunities and the politics here. But we don't care too much about political things because we can't do anything to change the situation. So we avoid it, we try to escape it," said Win, a thin lanky youth who spends his free time playing computer games. Like most people interviewed in Burma, he chose not to give his full name for fear of angering authorities...
More:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16266

Sunday July 5, 2009, 8:37 pm
Thanks Ben..
Signed & noted..