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Give a dog a good name.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Indonesia and East Timor are not the best of friends, unsurprisingly. Lots of background here.

So, what do they call their joint effort to fend off the UN?: The Commission of Truth and Friendship.

Yeah, right. It was established in 2004, and has just made its final report, exhibiting the glacial speed of some of our commissions.

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The country that won the lottery - so to speak - and blew it

Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Cat calls and jeers for the leaders of Indonesia:

"Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said yesterday that Indonesia was considering quitting OPEC because it is no longer a net oil exporter....The country is Southeast Asia’s only OPEC member. But it has to import oil because of decades of declining investment in exploration and extraction because of corruption and a weak legal system that makes oil companies wary of doing business there". Source

Meanwhile, "Oil set a new record high of $122 a barrel on Tuesday, the latest spurt in an advance that has seen prices double over the past 12 months". Source

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The things you find on ebay - Burmese junta members

Friday, September 28, 2007
And here, for the moment at least, it is:


(Click image for improved visibility)

Than Shwe has been listed by a group of Danish art terrorists at Ebay.com in the following category: Home & Garden > Gardening & Plants > Other Gardening & Plants. Yes, really.

And the item description:

"General for sale
We know that former generals can be cumbersome to handle.
They are often very overweight after many years in power, and they always wear military outfits.
That is certainly the case with Than Shwe, whom we are offering for sale to the highest bidder.
He is soon a man of the past in Burma, where everyone wants him to get a good home far away from us, with nice and kind employers. As a worker, Than Shwe is rather heavy going – he is fat and lazy. So his new owners should start with a hard disciplining programme. No luxurious food and champagne for Than Shwe for many years, but plenty of hard work and a simple bed. Gardening, weeding and gathering leaves would suit him well. Not work requiring independent thought – remember that as a head of state, he ran a whole country down! Washing up would also be good for Than Shwe – but be prepared for plate throwing if he hears the word ”monk”!
Due to his hot and unpredictable temper, we recommend that the new owner chains him after the end of the working day.

With best wishes
The people of Burma

Despite the auction being for a fixed $1m, it has been bid up to over $2m already.

Thanks are owed to Libération, which is running this story, and for naming the pranksters as artist Jan Egesborg and journalist Pia Bertelsen. Previously, "[they] went beyond its usual medium by placing an advertisement in a small Tehran newspaper with an insulting but hidden message describing the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the acronym "SWINE".



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Brown's hypocrisy

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Not for the first time, the Lord Protector is not very good at matching action to rhetoric. Spotting an opportunity for a bit of grandstanding, he is now talking a good talk about Burma / Myanmar:

"The Prime Minister has called on the international community to take a tougher stance with Burma as pro-democracy demonstrations in the country intensify".

However, we still have an embassy in Rangoon, and British companies still trade with Burma. Still, care of the EU, there appears to be no legal arms trade with Burma, so I imagine that is supposed to make it all right.

There may well be good reasons for maintaining diplomatic links, and there are plenty of other vile regimes we do business with, but all that this outbreak of cant amounts to is 'If everyone else agrees, we'll help out. Maybe'.

Meanwhile, they are doing things differently on the other side of the Atlantic:

"President Bush announced today that the United States was taking a series of steps to tighten economic sanctions on Myanmar’s leaders and their backers and would impose a visa ban on the leaders and their families..."The country’s rulers have been coming under increasing pressure from the United States, which has imposed sanctions on Myanmar for years, including a ban on all Burmese products".

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Good news. For once.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The Cambodian authorities have arrested and will charge Pol Pot's second in command, Nuon Chea, 'known as Brother Number 2'. "He is expected to face charges of crimes against humanity and possibly genocide". Source.

This delightful individual was the chief ideologist of the Khmer Rouge.

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An Asian update - featuring an unnerving prospect for MPs and a Marxist apologising

Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Form the Bangkok Post: "Political office holders will face criminal prosecution on top of a five-year ban if they conceal their wealth or wilfully file false financial statements". And on that basis, Mandelson would not have been able to stand in Hartlepool in 2001 because of his mortgage dealings in 1998...

As to the Marxist apology, regrettably it was not for being espousing Marx, Lenin or Engels, or accepting part of the collective blame for the Gulag, but rather for this:

"When the House resumed and Baalu stood up to speak, Anil Basu followed by Shaumik Lahiri (both Communist Party India (Marxist)) barged towards the minister. As Basu was about to snatch papers from Baalu’s hand, minister of state for Finance SS Palanimanickam came from behind and formed a wall in front of the minister. In the meantime, other CPI-M members rushed towards the Well, who were confronted by DMK MPs resulting in jostling and both groups shouting at each other. Two union ministers - Shivraj Patil and PR Dasmunsi - were caught in between them even as DP Yadav of RJD and Prabunath Singh of JD-U tried to separate the two groups, with BJP members as spectators".

And all this over the siting of the Indian Maritime University. Our MPs get photographed demostrating about hospital closures from time to time, but rarely resort to parliamentary jostling...

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The things you can get qualifications in...

Monday, February 12, 2007
What the Malaysians call 'Toilet' Studies. Yes, really.

"Malaysia is to introduce college courses in toilet management as part of a battle against the nation's notoriously filthy public restrooms, a report said on Thursday". More here

While there are issues involving non-urbanites not being used to water closets, I am dumbfounded that proper use of bleach and a brush merits more than a five minute lesson, including introductions and fond farewells.

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Saloth Sar, AKA Pol Pot

Sunday, January 07, 2007
The most appalling person of the 20th century, measured in terms of the level of horrors inflicted on his country's population?

However, someone interviewed by Der Spiegel takes a contrary view: "Nhem En, 46, a member of the staff of S-21 [the Tuol Sleng torture prison, which should be as famous as Auschwitz or the Kolyma camps in Siberia] ... took most of the photos now on display at the Genocide Museum. He, too, joined the Khmer Rouge as a child soldier. It was a decision he has never regretted. ... "I heard the people screaming, but my hair grew on my head." In other words: To survive, worry about yourself first. "Every day they brought in new ones," he says. "We had to take drastic measures." When Pol Pot fled in 1979, pursued by Vietnamese troops, Nhem En followed him and became his private photographer. "He was not a bad man," he says of the dictator. "He always took care of his comrades. Without him, we would have been an American province."

The rather more encouraging element to the item is that the UN and the Cambodian government have agreed a tribunal process to bring surviving Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. This, apparently, is the first time that any Communist leaders have been subject to a proper legal reckoning.

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