I'm afraid this is the first I've heard of a " Kyaw Thet" flavoured Blosxom. Try dropping the "/+ Kyaw Thet" bit from the end of the URL.
Tue, 04 Nov 2008
Abandoned, but not forgotten
The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITWF) released the
following 10-minute documentary about the plight of Burmese seamen
in Thailand's fishing industry.
Dr. Kyaw Thet gave a lecture at the once-prestigious Rangoon University. The clip was
taken from 1957 CBS Edward Murrow's "See It Now" program on "Burma, Buddhism, and
Neutrality".
From New York
Times regarding Barack Obama's victory for the Democratic nomination:
"We as black people now have hope that we have never, ever had," Mr. Sam-Brew [an
immigrant from Ghana] said. "I have new goals for my little girl. She can't
give me any excuses because she's black."
Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American poet. She wrote
"The New Colossus" in 1883, that is now engraved on a bronze plaque on a wall in the base
of the Statue of Liberty.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Paul Auster wrote that
"Bartholdi's gigantic effigy was originally intended as a monument to the principles of
international republicanism, but 'The New Colossus' reinvented the statue's purpose,
turning Liberty into a welcoming mother, a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden
of the world".
Illegal Burmese Labor Fuels Thailand Economy by William Boot
The deaths of more than 50 Burmese migrants last week in a sealed container truck transporting them to illicit jobs in southern Thailand starkly illustrates the growing reliance Thailand places on unofficial labor to help run its economy.
The Thai authorities acknowledge that there may be 1 million Burmese migrant workers living in Thailand, yet Thailands Migrant Assistance Program recently recorded that only 367,834 were registered with work permits in 2007.
Various NGOs campaigning for the rights of abused minorities and refugees say the number of illegal Burmese in Thailand is closer to 1.5 million. Many of them are children.
The Migrant Worker Group, a coalition of NGOs pressing for human rights, documents many instances of abuse by employers.
The MWG estimates that illegal Burmese laborers, especially in the booming construction industry, are paid up to 50 percent less than Thai unskilled labor and have no rights.
Migrant workers are very badly regarded and very badly treated by Thai society, wrote academic and former Thai Senator Jon Ungphakorn in the Bangkok Post. Yet it is hard to imagine how our economy would manage without them.
Ungphakorn says that since illegal laborers are not taking jobs away from Thais they should all be given legal status and employment rights.
The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is
itself a political attitude.
George Orwell said those words in his 1946 essay "Why I write."
Pro-Chinese governments, including Burma, and the Chinese government have been
saying that olympics should not be politicized.
[Chinese] Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang says the Beijing
Olympics is a grand event both for China and for the whole world, and that the
Games should not be politicized.
The statement by Qin Gang is in itself a political one, describing a "grand event"
showcasing the "rich and powerful" China. Olympics have long been used by various
governments to promote their ideology. Hitler used the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin,
Germany as a tool to
promote Nazi ideology
by allowing only members of the "Aryan race" to compete for Germany.
Looking as far back as ancient Olympics events, winning athletes were heroes who
put their home towns on the map. Winning medals at the Olympics signify the wealth
and power of a town. A young Athenian nobleman used the number of his entries
in chariot-race in the Olympics to defend his political reputation.
[From Tufts]
Therefore, as far as I am concerned, olympics is a sporting as well as political
event. As much as the Chinese government has the right to make the "grand" event
successful, activists around the world should also have the right to express
their anger towards the Chinese government and its policy.
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
Injured Burmese from Mae Sot bomb blast detained and sent back to Burma
Eleven persons who were injured in a blast apparently caused by some kind of homemade bomb at the Mae Sot dump on Thailands border were themselves detained and then sent back to Burma on February 26 because they didnt have ID cards.
