YANGON, Myanmar - Soldiers and police took control of the streets Friday, firing warning shots and tear gas to scatter the few pro-democracy protesters who ventured out as Myanmar’s military junta sealed off Buddhist monasteries and cut public Internet access.
On the third day of a harsh government crackdown, the streets were empty of the mass gatherings that had peacefully challenged the regime daily for nearly two weeks, leaving only small groups of activists to be chased around by security forces.
“Bloodbath again! Bloodbath again!” a Yangon resident yelled while watching soldiers break up one march by shooting into air, firing tear gas and beating people with clubs.
Thousands of monks had provided the backbone of the protests, but they were besieged in their monasteries, penned in by locked gates and barbed wire surrounding the compounds in the two biggest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Troops stood guard outside and blocked nearby roads to keep the clergymen isolated.
Additional troops arrived in the two cities overnight. Soldiers and police were stationed on almost every street corner in Yangon. Shopping malls, grocery stores and public parks were closed, and only a handful of residents ventured out.
The monks remained inside their monasteries late Saturday morning with troops remaining on guard outside and blocking nearby roads. The streets of the Yangon and Mandalay were quiet.
We-ve just been handed another view of Verizon’s gatekeeper tendencies with a report Wednesday night that the company’s wireless arm is blocking pro-choice text messages.
According to the New York Times, Verizon Wireless has rejected Naral Pro-Choice America efforts to use Verizon’s mobile text-message program to communicate to its membership.
Such text messaging is an important new tool for advocacy organizations seeking to educate and alert their members. Verizon decision to block this new form of political speech interferes with its users- right to get information that they choose to receive.
The move gives off a familiar scent - and puts Verizon in the same league with its cohorts at AT&T, who in August censored the live Webcast of a Pearl Jam performance that included criticism of President George Bush.
The truth is that whenever given the choice, phone companies will opt to discriminate against content they don-t like. Such efforts to stem the free flow of information should be a wake up call for anyone concerned about phone company plans to begin filtering Internet content.
Verizon and AT&T routinely rail against Net Neutrality as a “solution in search of a problem.” They swarm Washington with lobbyists offering promises never to interfere with the free flow of online content. And then they lobby for new laws that will allow them to do just that.
AT&T and Verizon share a history of breaking trust with the public, including handing over customer phone records to the government - and then seeking immunity from prosecution for doing so; promising to deliver services to underserved communities and then skipping town; pledging never to interfere with the free flow of information while hatching plans with the likes of Cisco and Viacom to build and deploy technology that will spy on online traffic.
The Bush administration submit a request for an additional $42.3 billion in war-related funding to Congress today. This is on top of the extra funding already allocated to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, which means that they are, in effect, requesting a supplemental for the supplemental.
The additional funds will bring the total amount of 2008 supplemental funding to $189.3 billion-a nearly 30 percent increase over the $142 billion that was requested in February of this year. The overwhelming majority-approximately $158 billion-will go to funding the war in Iraq. If approved, the total spending for the Iraq war would total $617 billion.
The National Priorities Project today released new calculations showing just what effect this surge in spending has had on taxpayers in each state. The interactive map below displays this data and shows state-by’state how much taxpayers have already spent, how much more they will likely spend this year, and what their total cost will be.
It is time to end this misadventure in Iraq and begin a phased redeployment of our forces over the next 10 to 12 months, while implementing a Strategic Reset in the entire Middle East. Until we do so, our troops and our national security will remain hostage to events on the ground.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. unions, taking lessons and tactics learned from the effort to arrest organized labor’s long decline, say next year’s presidential election will be crucial to their resurgence.
“You have more ground-level, grass-roots excitement about this election — this is our election,” said Greg Denier of the Change to Win coalition, which is composed of seven unions representing 6 million workers.
Denier said union polls showed most Americans wanted their government to redress the balance toward workers hurt by spiraling health-care costs and the outsourcing of work by “abusive” corporations.
Despite the overall decline in union membership, some American unions led by the fast-growing Service Employees International Union have expanded by targeting entire industries, instead of individual employers, and by focusing on sectors where the jobs cannot move, such as janitors, health-care workers and retail workers.
Similarly, unions have tapped into technology that will help them get their members to the polls and identifies receptive voters by learning what magazines they subscribe to and other data.
By JOHN M. BRODER and JAMES RISEN
The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - The American security contractor Blackwater USA has been involved in a far higher rate of shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq than other security firms providing similar services to the State Department, according to Bush administration officials and industry officials.
Blackwater is now the focus of investigations in both Baghdad and Washington over a Sept. 16 shooting in which at least 11 Iraqis were killed. Beyond that episode, the company has been involved in cases in which its personnel fired weapons while guarding State Department officials in Iraq at least twice as often per convoy mission as security guards working for other American security firms, the officials said.
The disclosure came as the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had sent a team of officials to Iraq to get answers to questions about the use of American security contractors there.
The State Department keeps reports on each case in which weapons were fired by security personnel guarding American diplomats in Iraq. Officials familiar with the internal State Department reports would not provide the actual statistics, but they indicated that the records showed that Blackwater personnel were involved in dozens of episodes in which they had resorted to force.
WASHINGTON - New-homes sales tumbled in August to the lowest level in seven years, a stark sign that the credit crunch is aggravating an already painful housing slump.
Sales of new homes dropped by 8.3 percent in August from July, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, driving down sales to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 795,000 units. That was the lowest level since June 2000, when sales clocked in at a pace of 793,000.
The home sales report came on the same day that the government reported a relatively brisk business growth rate in revised figures for the second quarter. But the 3.8 percent GDP figure was less than first estimated and it occurred before the credit crisis and its repercussions across the broad spectrum of the economy had taken hold.
YANGON, Myanmar - Security forces fired automatic weapons into thousands of pro-democracy protesters for a second day Thursday, and the military government said nine people were killed and 11 wounded.
Tens of thousands defied the ruling military junta’s crackdown with a 10th straight day of demonstrations in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon. Security forces also raided several monasteries overnight, beating monks and arresting more than 100, according to a monk at one monastery.
The protests are the stiffest challenge to the generals in two decades, a crisis that began Aug. 19 with protests over a fuel price hike, then expanded dramatically when monks started leading the marches. The crackdown has drawn increasing international pressure on the isolated regime.
Thousands of protesters ran through the streets of Yangon on Thursday after warning shots were fired into the crowds. Bloody sandals were left lying in the road.
“Give us freedom, give us freedom!” some shouted at the soldiers.
Ye Htut, a government spokesman, said riot police clashed with anti-government protesters in Yangon on Thursday, killing nine people and injuring 11. Thirty-one government troops were also injured, he said.
from The Pew Research Center
Benedict XVI Viewed Favorably But Faulted on Religious Outreach
Summary of Findings
The Muslim and Mormon religions have gained increasing national visibility in recent years. Yet most Americans say they know little or nothing about either religion’s practices, and large majorities say that their own religion is very different from Islam and the Mormon religion.
A new national survey reveals some notable similarities, as well as major differences, in the ways that Americans view these faiths and their followers. Public impressions of both religions are hazy - 58% say they know little or nothing about Islam’s practices, while 51% have little or no awareness of the precepts and practices of Mormonism. The number of people who say they know little or nothing about Islam has changed very little since 2001.
Most Americans believe that their own religion has little in common with either Islam or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fully 70% say that their religion is very different from Islam, while 62% say this about the Mormon religion. The proportion who say that Islam has little or nothing in common with their own religion has increased substantially since 2005 (from 59% to 70%).
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, conducted Aug. 1-18 among 3,002 adults, finds that overall evaluations of Mormons and Muslim Americans are on balance positive: 53% say they have a favorable opinion of Mormons, while an identical percentage views Muslim Americans favorably. As in past surveys, more people have a positive impression of “Muslim Americans” (53%) than of “Muslims” (43%).
This is wonderful news. The evil military dictators in their country may be able to ban journalists, but they’ll never get all the cellphones and computers out of the country. God Bless those who care about their freedom. Anybody here in America “hear” that last sentence?
OSLO, Norway - Cell phones and the Internet are playing a crucial role in telling the world about Myanmar’s pro-democracy protests, with video footage sometimes transmitted one frame at a time. Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday the junta has cut some cell phone service.
On the other side of the world in Oslo, a shoestring radio and television network called the Democratic Voice of Burma has been at the forefront of receiving and broadcasting such cyber dispatches by satellite TV and shortwave radio.
Chief editor Aye Chan Naing said the station, founded in 1992 by exiled Myanmar students, is able to pass on nearly real-time images and information about anti-government protests - unlike in 1988, when a similar uprising was shut down in a bloodbath that left more than 3,000 dead.
On Wednesday, the military opened fire after a month of mostly peaceful demonstrations by tens of thousands led by Buddhist monks, and the government confirmed at least one demonstrator killed and three wounded. Activists reported the death toll was five.
Bush: I want $190,000,000,000 more for the war on terror in Iraq!!!
Congress: NO!
Bush: Roll over and play dead.
Congress: Plop.
Bush: Nice dog.
WASHINGTON - President Bush and Congress are headed toward another showdown on war spending, this time sparring over nearly $190 billion the Pentagon says is needed to keep combat in Iraq afloat for another year.
Sen. Robert Byrd, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, vowed Wednesday not to “rubber stamp” the request and said it was time to put Bush’s policies in check.
“We cannot create a democracy at the point of a gun,” said Byrd, D-W.Va., whose speech during a Senate hearing on the spending request was interrupted several times by cheers of anti-war protesters.
“Sending more guns does not change that reality,” Byrd said.
The tough rhetoric was reminiscent of last spring, when Congress passed and Bush vetoed a bill funding the war through September but ordering troop withdrawals to begin by Oct. 1. Democrats still lack the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.
If approved, Congress would have appropriated more than $760 billion for the two wars, having already approved of $450 billion for Iraq and $127 billion for Afghanistan.
Testifying before Byrd’s panel, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that America’s “difficult choices” on the war “will continue to be a source of friction within the Congress, between the Congress and the president and in the wider public debate.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Umpire Mike Winters was suspended by Major League Baseball for the remainder of the regular season on Wednesday because of his confrontation with San Diego’s Milton Bradley last weekend.
The Padres claimed Winters baited Bradley, who has a history of losing his temper. Bradley tore a knee ligament when his manager spun him to the ground while trying to keep him from going after the umpire during Sunday’s 7-3 loss to Colorado in San Diego.
Winters was suspended because the commissioner’s office concluded he had used a profanity aimed at Bradley, a baseball official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the reasoning for the suspension was not announced.
Padres manager Bud Black declined to comment.
“In this case, I think it’s best for my position to just stay away from it,” he said by phone from San Francisco, where the Padres were to finish a series against the Giants on Wednesday night.
The 48-year-old Winters became a major league umpire in 1990 and worked the World Series in 2002 and last year.
Winters became the first umpire suspended since 2003, when Bruce Froemming and John Hirschbeck each were suspended for 10 days. Froemming made an anti-Semitic slur about an umpiring administrator and baseball said Hirschbeck threatened a senior official in the commissioner’s office.
I was looking through some old files, records, and CDs today. I came upon this song and listened to it, marveling at how relevant it is today, September 26, 2007. Almost 40 years have passed since this song was first released about 1970. - JS
UNITED NATIONS - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday that the continued flow of weapons, suicide bombers and terrorism funding into his country would result in “disastrous consequences” for the region and the world.
Al-Maliki, who met with President Bush Tuesday, urged the international community and countries in the region to support Iraq’s national reconciliation process to rid terrorism from the country and bring peace to the region.
“National reconciliation is stronger than the weapons of terrorism,” he said. “Today we feel optimistic that countries of the region realize the danger of the terrorist attacks against Iraq, that it is not in their interest for Iraq to be weak.”
Al-Maliki said his country had reduced sectarian killings and brought stability to some regions, such as Anbar province in the west. He said thousands of displaced families have been able to return to their homes.
He said Iraq also has hundreds of political parties active within 20 political alliances; more than 6,000 civil organizations; hundreds of newspapers and magazines and 40 local and satellite TV stations. But terrorists are targeting this “new Iraq,” he said.
“Terrorism kills civilians, journalists, actors, thinkers and professionals. It attacks universities, marketplaces and libraries. It blows up mosques and churches and destroys the infrastructure of state institutions,” al-Maliki said.
On the third day of a harsh government crackdown, the streets were empty of the mass gatherings that had peacefully challenged the regime daily for nearly two weeks, leaving only small groups of activists to be chased around by security forces.
Tens of thousands defied the ruling military junta’s crackdown with a 10th straight day of demonstrations in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon. Security forces also raided several monasteries overnight, beating monks and arresting more than 100, according to a monk at one monastery.
The Muslim and Mormon religions have gained increasing national visibility in recent years. Yet most Americans say they know little or nothing about either religion’s practices, and large majorities say that their own religion is very different from Islam and the Mormon religion.
