The Voice for Justice, Equal Right, Freedom, Genuine Federal Union, Democracy and Self-determination in Burma. "Justice War Must always Win over Injustice".
A bomb exploded near the Burmese military regime's Central Agriculture Research and Training under the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation in Mudon Township, Mon State, Burma last night.
The bomb went off in the Telecommunication Office precincts in front of Central Agriculture Research and Training in the eastern part of Kyone paik village about 20 miles from Moulmein, the capital of Mon State but no one was injured.
The authorities have not been able to identify the bomber yet. "It seems to be an internal affair and there were only three people present," an observer from the town said.
The local authorities are investigating. The office was built in 1996 and the local authorities seized a rubber plantation for constructing the building without paying compensation.
In July last year, a small bomb exploded in a brothel near the Azin Dam in Mudon.
A British hacker who admitted hacking into Pentagon and NASA computers searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life has lost his latest extradition appeal. After fighting the case for more than six years in UK courts, the British House of Lords officially dismissed his appeal.
Gary McKinnon, 42, admitted to illegally accessing around 100 U.S. military and government computers while living in his north London flat from Feb 2001 to March 2002. While roaming around the systems, he was caught after downloading an image that he thought could have been an alien spacecraft.
He reportedly crashed a computer network of 2,000 U.S. Army computers for one day, and also shut down 300 computers located at a U.S. Navy weapons facility.
McKinnon reportedly caused more than $700,000 in financial damage and first faced extradition to the United States in 2006. The U.S. requested his extradition in October 2004, but there was a two-year period where he was interviewed by UK computer crime investigators at the request of the U.S. government.
The U.S. District Court of Eastern District of Virginia had to spend a few additional months reassuring the British government that McKinnon will be offered a fair trial once he arrives on US shores. Specifically, Britain wanted reassurance McKinnon wouldn't be sent to Guantanamo Bay -- where the US holds suspected terrorists -- and will be eligible for parole.
In 2006 after it was confirmed the UK was interested in McKinnon's extradition to the U.S., critics claimed he was being made into a scapegoat because the U.S. military was unable to secure its own computer networks.
Now that all of his options in the UK have been exhausted, McKinnon is expected to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights, in an attempt to put a stay on the case until the possible ramifications of his extradition are studied.
"The biggest military hack of all time" could earn McKinnon at least 10 years in federal prison, and up to 70 years maximum if he is extradited and convicted.
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, July 25 -- As news of the currency exchange losses the UN accepted in Myanmar belatedly spreads, legislators in many donor countries which responded to the UN's appeals for Cyclone Nargis humanitarian assistance are preparing a demand that the "stolen" aid money be returned by the Than Shwe government. Meanwhile, the UN cannot or will not provide basis information about how much of the donated money it exchanged into devalued Foreign Exchange Certificates. Two weeks ago, Inner City Press requested this figure from the UN Development Program, which handles UN system finances, but beyond an admission that UNDP buys FECs through the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, no dollar figure has provided.
Nor has the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Assistance provided any figures. Rather, OCHA's acting spokesperson called Inner City Press to insist that OCHA's John Holmes admitted a loss, but not an "extraordinary" loss, as DPA reported in a story noting Inner City Press' work for the last month on the issue. Inner City Press at OCHA's request dropped "extraordinary" from the quote, despite not receiving any proof. The UN's Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar Dan Baker, who previously on camera told Inner City Press that there are few to no losses, now admits there are some -- but claims that some unquantified percentage of material is bought outside of Myanmar. Where are the numbers?
UNDP's Kemal Dervis, at left, with WFP Sheeran Shiner, lost money not shown
At Friday's noon briefing at the UN in New York, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Michele Montas for the second straight day for numbers of how much the UN converted into FECs, and how much was lost. Video here. Ms. Montas again deferred until a July 28 appearance by OCHA's John Holmes. Since OCHA asked for $200 million and then $300 million for Myanmar, and has been asked about this issue by Inner City Press for more than two weeks, not having basic numbers now is inexplicable. Expect this, too, to be raised by legislators from donor and neighboring countries.
Even before Cyclone Nargis, much of the UN system in Myanmar was accepting a 15% loss in converting dollars to FECs. But word has reached Inner City Press, and UNDP has as noted refused to respond, that UNDP in its so-called micro-finance program accepted an even worse exchange rate.Back on June 26, Inner City Press reported that the UN through UNDP "paid dollars to Myanmar's government, and got local currency back at an artificially low official exchange rate." UNDP has still not provide information about how much money it converted through FECs, and at what rate. On July 25, Inner City Press put the question directly to UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, who responded that "I don't answer questions in the hallway" and that he might hold a press conference at the end of summer. Far too late, most would think. Watch this site. And this --
ဒီဇင္ဘာလကတည္က ဖြဲ.စည္းထားေသာ အဖြဲ.၏အစည္းအဝးမွာ Australia, Britain, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, Vietnam, the European Community and the European Union. ႏုိင္ငံမ်ားပါဝင္လာေစသည္။
The United States warned Myanmar's military rulers that they must cooperate with UN mediator Ibrahim Gambari or face increased pressure from the Security Council.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters after closed-door consultations with Gambari that the 15-member council expected "concrete results" from the UN troubleshooter's visit to Myanmar next month.
"My message to the regime is to take advantage of Mr. Gambari's visit," the US envoy said. "Absent political progress, we see the potential for increased political instability and the council cannot remain indifferent to that."
He added that the ruling junta must "turn a new page" and agree to a political roadmap for elections in 2010 as well as to the release of political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"If there is not progress on these issues ... we would have to look at other measures, bringing more pressure to bear on the regime," Khalilzad said.
"Things have gone backwards in Burma (Myanmar) over the last six months," British Ambassador John Sawers said ahead of the council meeting.
"We're in a difficult situation in the sense that the Burmese government has not responded to the demands of the international community," he added.
Vietnam's UN Ambassador Le Luong Minh, the council chair this month, reaffirmed the 15-member body's support for Gambari's mission, set for mid-August, and said members wished him "success in his mission."
The visit had to be postponed after Cyclone Nargis struck the country in May, leaving at least 138,000 missing or dead.
Gambari, the UN's pointman in efforts to bring about reconciliation between the military regime and its pro-democracy foes, last visited Myanmar in March.
It was his third visit there since the regime launched a deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests last September, killing at least 31 people.
Wednesday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon also called for strong cooperation from Myanmar, after convening a meeting of the so-called Group of Friends to discuss Gambari's visit.
The group specifically said "tangible progress" was expected "with regard to the resumption of dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and the government, the credibility of the electoral process, and the regularization of engagement with the good offices of the Secretary General."
The meeting of the group, which was set up last December, brought together Australia, Britain, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, Vietnam, the European Community and the European Union.
China arrests online dissident in pre-Olympics crackdown
By Ben BlanchardWed Jul 23, 9:17 AM ET
Chinese police have arrested a prominent Internet dissident for violating his probation terms, a rights group said, as the country steps up a pre-Olympic crackdown on dissent to ensure the Games go smoothly.
Du Daobin, from the central province of Hebei, was given a suspended sentence for subversion in 2004 having been detained by police in Wuhan for posting online essays in support of fellow dissident, Liu Di.
Du was then released into house arrest, Reporters Without Borders said in an emailed statement, but was arrested this week having been accused of posting articles on overseas websites and receiving guests without permission.
"Du was living under a permanent threat," the group said. "He could have been imprisoned at any time under the sentence he received more than four years ago. He is the third leading cyber-dissident to be imprisoned in the run-up to the Olympic Games, after Hu Jia and Huang Qi."
Chinese police arrested Huang in the country's southwest for "possession of state secrets" after he offered help to parents of children killed in the Sichuan earthquake in May.
Hu, a prominent AIDS activist, was jailed for 3- years earlier this year for inciting subversion and criticizing the ruling Communist Party.
A fourth dissident, Ye Guozhu, jailed in 2004 for organizing protests against forced evictions, was due for release on Saturday but he was taken from the prison where he was being held and his whereabouts were unknown, Chinese Human Rights Defenders said.
"We believe that the police took him away to silence him during the Games, and that he will not be released until after the Olympics when most foreign journalists will have left Beijing," the group quoted his brother, Ye Guoqiang, as saying.
Ye Guoqiang said police told him they had taken Ye Guozhu from the prison, but did not say where he was being held or for how long.
Human Rights in China said the government was using the slogan of a "peaceful Olympics" to target rights activists.
"The current state of affairs is intolerable," said the group's China executive director, Sharon Hom, in a statement.
"Under the banner of a 'peaceful Olympics,' authorities continue to employ contradictory and counterproductive security methods, which only serve to exacerbate the human rights crisis and provoke greater instability in China," she added.
The government says the charges of a pre-Olympic campaign against dissidents are groundless.
Last week, the official Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed Games' spokesman as saying the Olympics were actually improving China's human rights record, and defended security measures.
"To ensure the hosting of a successful Olympic Games, and to ensure the safety of foreign athletes and visitors, China has indeed taken a series of necessary, legitimate and reasonable security measures," the spokesman said.
"lt's unnecessary to arrest so-called 'dissidents' for the sake of the Olympic Games. The accusation is untrue."
Still, the swirl of bad publicity in the run-up to the Games, which open on August 8, appears not to have dampened Chinese people's enthusiasm, though censorship means little foreign criticism is reported domestically.
More than 90 percent of Chinese surveyed by the Pew Research Center's Pew Global Attitudes Project said they thought the Olympics would help China's global image, and almost everyone thought the Games would be a success.
(Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic arrested in Serbia
BELGRADE, Serbia: Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused architect of war crimes including Europe's worst massacre since World War II, was arrested after more than a decade on the run, the country's president and the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said.
Charged with organizing the deadly siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Karadzic topped the tribunal's most-wanted list for more than a decade.
The tribunal described him as the suspected mastermind of "scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history." Prosecutors suspected he eluded the manhunt with the help of Bosnian Serb nationalists and a string of elaborate disguises.
"This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade," the tribunal's head prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, said. "It clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice."
Serbian President Boris Tadic's office said Karadzic, 63, was arrested Monday evening "in an action by the Serbian security services" and taken before the investigative judge of Serbia's war crimes court, indicating imminent extradition to the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands.
A Serbian police source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media, said Karadzic was arrested in a Belgrade suburb after a tip from a foreign intelligence service and weeks of surveillance of his safe house.
Sveta Vujacic, Karadzic's lawyer, said the fugitive had been arrested on a public bus around 9:30 a.m. on Friday and held until he was brought to the court Monday.
"He just said that these people showed him a police badge and than he was taken to some place and kept in the room. And that is absolutely against the law what they did," Vujacic told AP Television News. "The judge also said that he will look into this matter, who and why kept him for three days."
Investigative judge Milan Dilparic said early Tuesday that that he had questioned Karadzic — the first step in an process that includes presenting him with the indictment and allowing three days for him to appeal any decision to hand him to the Hague court.
Heavily armed special forces of the Serbian Gendarmerie were deployed around the war-crimes court in Belgrade — apparently fearing a backlash from nationalists who consider Karadzic their war hero.
"He did not surrender, that is not his style," his brother Luka Karadzic said outside the court.
Dozens of Karadzic supporters gathered near the building chanting "Karadzic Hero!" and "Tadic Traitor!" Several were arrested after attacking reporters in front of the courthouse.
Other officers took up positions throughout central Belgrade and in front of the U.S. embassy, which was targeted in nationalist rioting over Kosovo's declaration of independence in February.
In the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo — besieged throughout the war by Bosnian Serb nationalists — streets were jammed late Monday as Bosnian Muslims celebrated the arrest.
Operating from strongholds in Pale and Vraca high above the city, the Serbs starved, sniped and bombarded the center of Sarajevo, controlling nearly all roads into and out. Inhabitants were kept alive only by a thin lifeline of food aid and supplies provided by UN donors and peacekeepers, and risked their lives merely walking down the street, shopping in a market or driving on one of the main roads, which became known as "Sniper Alley."
The siege, which began in April 1992, was not officially lifted until February 1996, after NATO intervention and the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords. During that time, an estimated 10,000 people had died in and around the city.
The international tribunal indicted Karadzic on genocide charges in 1995. The psychiatrist and self-styled poet turned hard-line Serbian nationalist still wielded power among Bosnian Serbs from the shadows and occasionally appeared in public before he went on the run in 1998.
Serbia has been under heavy pressure from the European Union to turn over suspects but Karadzic's arrest came as a surprise to many. His whereabouts had been a mystery to U.N. prosecutors, unlike those of his wartime military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, who had last been spotted living in Belgrade in 2005 and remains at large.
However, nationalists lost power in Serbia when a new pro-Western government took over last month and removed the nationalist official who held the office of secret police chief, the official formally in charge of arresting war crimes suspects.
"It is clear that those changes led to Karadzic's arrest," prominent Serbian human rights activist Natasa Kandic said.
Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. diplomat who brokered the Dayton deal ending the war, said Karadzic was responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people and his arrest marked "a historic day."
"A man who has been on the run for 12 years, who NATO should have captured, has been captured and by the Serb government themselves," Holbrooke told CNN. "This guy was a kind of a Robin Hood to the Bosnian Serbs, evading capture for 12 years, fomenting dissent. His removal from the scene will help enormously to create stability."
On July 11, tens of thousands of people commemorated the 13th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, which saw Serb troops led by Mladic overrun an enclave supposedly protected by outnumbered U.N. troops. Mladic's troops rounded up the entire population and took the men away for execution.
"There is no better tribute to the victims of the war's atrocities than bringing their perpetrators to justice," the White House said.
Munira Subasic, a mother who lost two sons in the Srebrenica massacre, was overcome with emotion as she watched the news on television.
"After 13 years, we finally reached the moment of truth," she told AP Television News. If Karadzic is extradited to the tribunal in The Hague, he would be the 44th Serb suspect sent there. The others include former President Slobodan Milosevic, who was ousted in 2000 and died in 2006 while on trial on war crimes charges.
A statement from the EU presidency, currently held by France, called the arrest "an important step on the path to the rapprochement of Serbia with the European Union."
"The new government in Belgrade stands for a new Serbia, for a new quality of relations with the EU," EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana said.
Born in Savnik, Yugoslavia, in what is now the Republic of Montenegro, Karadzic became a founding member of the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1990. Two years later, he was elected president of the three-person presidency of the Serbian republic in Bosnia, which had just been freshly recognized as an independent state by the United Nations.
He became sole president of the Serb Republic in Bosnia that year, remaining in that position until 1996 and also serving as supreme commander of the armed forces.
As leader of Bosnia's Serbs, Karadzic hobnobbed with international negotiators and his interviews were top news items during the 3 1/2-year Bosnian war, set off when a government dominated by Slavic Muslims and Croats declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992.
His indictment alleges that he, acting together with others, committed the crimes to secure control of areas of Bosnia which had been proclaimed part of the "Serbian Republic" and significantly reducing its non-Serb population.
His life changed by the time the war ended in late 1995 with an estimated 250,000 people dead and another 1.8 million driven from their homes. He was indicted twice by the U.N. tribunal on genocide charges stemming from his alleged crimes against Bosnia's Muslims and Croats.
Karadzic's reported hide-outs included Serbian Orthodox monasteries and refurbished mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia. Some newspaper reports said he had at times disguised himself as a priest by shaving off his trademark silver mane and donning a brown cassock. Others said he wore women's wigs.
His wife, Ljiljana, told The Associated Press by phone from her home in Karadzic's former stronghold, Pale, near Sarajevo that her daughter Sonja had called her before midnight.
"As the phone rang, I knew something was wrong. I'm shocked. Confused. At least now, we know he is alive," Ljiljana Karadzic said, declining further comment.
Under the U.N. indictment, last amended in May 2000, the U.N. war crimes tribunal charged Karadzic with 15 counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities committed between 1992 to 1996.
It would almost certainly take many months for Karadzic to stand trial due to the complexity of his case, expected legal wrangling and a packed docket.
In the past, the court has sometimes released suspects under strict conditions to await trial in their home country. However there is virtually no chance that will happen in Karadzic's case.
___
Associated Press Writer Jovana Gec contributed to this report.
Story Highlights U.N. to stop flights between Thailand and Yangon on August 10 "It is a bit of a blow not to have the helicopters guaranteed", says World Vision U.N. helicopters allowed relief workers to reach remote stretches of flooded delta BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A United Nations decision to end aid flights to Myanmar next month could hurt relief efforts already struggling to reach millions of survivors with adequate food and water, humanitarian groups said Friday. The U.N. plans to stop aid flights between Thailand's Don Muang airport and Myanmar's commercial capital, Yangon, on August 10 and withdraw the last five U.N. helicopters that have been ferrying relief supplies to the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta. Five other helicopters have already stopped flying. Without the helicopters, relief groups will be forced to depend on boats and trucks to get supplies to the delta. The cargo at Don Muang will be transported by sea. "It is a bit of a blow not to have the helicopters guaranteed," World Vision emergency coordination specialist Ashley Clements said by telephone from Myanmar. "We're already dealing with a load that we didn't have enough helicopters for, so now the pressure will be compounded even more," he said. "If we have to go by road it means that supplies will be delayed." Christine Kahmann, a spokeswoman for Action Against Hunger, agreed that ending the flights would hurt the relief effort. The U.N. World Food Program's Paul Risley said the move to end the flights is a routine step as relief efforts in Myanmar shift to reconstruction following the May 2-3 cyclone that killed 84,537 people and left 53,836 more missing, according to the government. The U.N. helicopters have allowed relief workers to reach remote stretches of the flooded delta that were cut off when the cyclone hit. U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized Myanmar's military junta for its slow response to the disaster and for restricting access to the delta, saying it prevented enough food, water and shelter from reaching survivors. The U.N. says many survivors still lack adequate food and water. U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said last week that one out of two families in Myanmar have food supplies of only about one day or less and some 60,000 children are at risk of malnutrition. He said the cyclone wiped out 42 percent of the nation's overall food stocks.
Regional commanders said all ceasefire and non-ceasefire groups must comply with the new constitution approved by Burma’s ruling junta in May, while meeting with people from United Wa State Army and Shan State Army, according to SHAN sources.
On 5 July, the new Commander of Eastern Region Command and Chairman of Shan State South Peace and Development Council, Maj-Gen Ya Pyae who succeeded Maj-Gen Thaung Aye, called on Merng Zeun, former Shan State Army 758th Brigade commander who surrendered on 17 July 2006, at Namzarng and told that all ceasefire groups and the rebel groups must change their policies in accordance with the new constitution while expressing his thank.
“All armed groups must remain under the command of the Tatmadaw (Armed Forces) according to the new constitution which most people supported on the May 10 referendum and all must adjust themselves during the 2 years before the 2010 election,” said the commander.
“You are so lucky that you surrendered your arms to us earlier, if not you too will be in the list of the discussion.”
Likewise, last June, Maj-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, the outgoing Commander of Kengtung-based Triangle Region Command and the new Maj-Gen Kyaw Phyo also called the meeting with 20 representatives from the United Wa State Army (UWSA) at its command post before he transferred his position to the new commander.
“In the next two years, there will be an election. You all must tell your top officials that you must prepare to abide by the new constitution,” Maj-Gen Min Aung Hlaing said during the meeting.
“It is as good as saying we must surrender or retire. Does it mean they’re ready to fight us if we refuse to?” commented the source form the SSA.
On the other hand, the Burma Army has reportedly reinforced armored vehicles and troops at Loi Lang, opposite Mae Ai district, Chiangmai’s province. Unconfirmed report also says it will set up an FM 88 radio station in the area that will have many ethnic languages like Shan, Akha, Lahu and others, according to Shan State Army source based in Loi Kaw Wan, opposite Chiangrai.
The Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF) will not form a new party and will not contest the 2010 general election because the party did not accept the approved constitution, said MNDF Vice Chairman.
The MNDF had decided not to contest the elections which will be stage managed by the Burmese military junta.
"We will not contest. Even Mon people should not because the constitution was drafted for the army to retain power in the country and it will not benefit people," Nai Ngwe Thein told IMNA.
"We believe if we continue to struggle, one day we will get real democracy," he added.
MNDF was founded in 1988 and it won five seats in the 1990 election. But the party was abolished by the Burmese military junta in 1992 with other ethnic pro-democracy parties.
MNDF was illegally moved with other ethnic pro-democracy parties and the National League for Democracy which fared well in the 1990 elections.
The military government runs the New Light of Myanmar recently reported that the result was no longer valid and NLD should contest the 2010 election.
"The 1990 election result is legal because after the election no one decided when parliament would expire," Nai Ngwe Thein said.
He also asked the Mon community to avoid getting involved in the election. But the New Mon State Party splinter group led by former party's army chief Maj.Gen Aung Naing stated that his group will contest the election and asked people for support.
However the main armed political party has not decided whether they would join the elections. Although the NMSP sent representatives to the national convention which was drafting the constitution and later just sent observers, the junta ignored its inputs along with 13 ethnic other cease-fire groups.
