Asia Times - Trees of Profit

Image by IceNineJon via Flickr

By Muhammad Cohen

HONG KONG - Cutting down Asia's forests has for decades been an easy way to get rich. Now a trio of pan-Asian "serial entrepreneurs" hope to prove planting trees can be a moneymaker, too. Paolo Delgado, Paolo Conconi and Victor Yap started Project Oikos last year hoping to profit from concerns about global warming. But their primary goal is to educate Asians about the benefits of tree planting and protecting forests.

The trio launched a website, www.projectoikos.com, where people can buy trees priced at US$10 and dedicate them to loved ones or special events. Buyers get a certificate (save paper and don't print it) that includes the dedication and a tracking number to identify their tree.

Project Oikos is one of several services that allow people to buy
trees for a variety of reasons. Equinox Publishing, a sponsor of WWF Indonesia's NewTrees planting program for corporate customers (see In a haze, Indonesia slows deforestation Asia Times Online, September 26, 2009), recently released My Baby Tree, a smart phone application as a retail version of the NewTrees corporate. Buyers can purchase a tree, locate it via an online map and give it a virtual watering by shaking their phone.

Different from many other online tree planting programs, Project Oikos aims to move beyond the virtual experience. "As we kept on digging we found that while planting trees does make a difference, the reality in this ever growing world is that the act of planting trees alone is not enough to make a substantial change in the world's environment," Delgado, who calls himself the project's creative director, said.

Delgado, a Philippine native educated in the US who worked in China before basing himself in Manila, and Conconi, an Italian citizen who worked with Danone in France before moving to Asia in 1992, germinated the idea over drinks in Beijing last year.

"We are both quite professionally driven and tend to forget things that are not alarmed on our phone calendars," Delgado said. "We were laughing about all of the silly, last minute gifts we purchased for girlfriends, when we forgot birthdays or anniversaries while off on some business trip somewhere.

"Buying a star was one of the most memorable, as it was last minute, reasonable, doable by Internet, and turned out to be hugely romantic - this was back in the '90s. Paolo [Conconi] then said, 'What if we sold trees'?"

That turned out to be a prescient suggestion. "I grew up active in the Boy Scouts, then became an avid mountaineer and scuba diver," said Delgado, whose family links to Boy Scouts of the Philippines (BSP) span three generations. "When you grow up around these influences, you become quite aware of the environment and our impact on it."

Those scouting links led his family's logistics company, Delgado Brothers, to partner with BSP and Coca-Cola on "Go Green", a project to plant 200,000 trees across the Philippines using saplings grown in BSP nurseries. The connection gave Delgado a potential source for trees and a process for planting them. Yap, a Hong Kong native who has worked with a variety of multinationals, joined the team to provide international marketing expertise, and Project Oikos was born.

The name Oikos traces to ancient Greece. "Oikos was the basic family unit, the shared center of an individual's world," Delgado explains. "In today's globalized world, we believe the environment has become our modern oikos. It is the center of our world, and we all should care for the well being of our shared oikos."

"Everyone is screaming about the environment and how we need to reduce this footprint, recycle that plastic, but for a lot of the developing world - particularly Southeast Asia - there is not enough information out there for individuals to understand exactly what the problem is and what they can do to assist ... This is why at Project Oikos we put a focus on developing an experience that we hope can change mindsets."

Down and dirty
Project Oikos doesn't only want participants to buy trees, it wants them to pick up a shovel and plant them as part of events it stages to build public awareness. "We involve local environmental groups, so that they too can gain some exposure and be part of the resource group that the public has access to," Delgado said.

Because trees absorb carbon wherever they grow, plantings don't need to be in wilderness areas. "There is that saying, 'if a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it ... ' [and] similarly, 'if a tree is planted and nobody knows it ...' Planting areas need to be in line with our focus on creating awareness," Delgado said. "We try to pick high visibility areas that can generate media impact as well as drive up participation."

For example, in the Intramuros area of Manila, Oikos staged plantings following a scandal that revealed decades-old trees were cut there. Another large planting took place at Manila's Smoky Mountain, the former central garbage dump that was transformed into a low-income housing area.

Planting events have been held in several areas of the Philippines and Malaysia, where co-founder Conconi now lives, in partnership with environmental groups, schools, community organizations, government and publications. Conconi says Project Oikos hopes to expand its base of corporate clients to build joint marketing campaigns. Targets include high profile polluters such as airlines, using trees to offset carbon emissions from passengers' travel.

"We feel that Project Oikos is a great CSR [corporate social responsibility] investment," Delgado says. "With the global financial crisis still reverberating through most companies, we offer an inexpensive alternative to traditional corporate gifts; we can be a part of company-client bonding experiences, and we fulfill CSR requirements."

Although it's traditionally non-profit organizations that offer CSR programs, Oikos' partners decided to make theirs a for-profit venture. "What we knew that we wanted was the ability to run Project Oikos like a business, with good professionals at each location for the activities," Delgado says. "We wanted it to have the freedom to invest in local organizations that were already in existence and making a difference in their own way.”

"We also felt that it would be wonderful to someday have Project Oikos work like a sort of investment fund, where MR = MC [marginal revenue equals marginal costs; the point at which profits are maximized], where we are answerable to investors for returns and growth,” he said. “It may be developing awareness today, but perhaps something related but different tomorrow. In this way, we keep ourselves sharp and efficient. I guess with these sort of ideas, a for-profit was the best way we knew how."

Project Oikos' founders are looking to clean up in every sense, and, everyone, including Mother Earth, can profit from their success.

Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America’s story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, financial crisis, and cheap lingerie. Follow Muhammad Cohen’s blog for more on the media and Asia, his adopted home.

Curbed in Towns, Philippines Islamists Take to the Forests - NYTimes.com

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By NORIMITSU ONISHI

LAMITAN, Philippines — Early this decade, American soldiers landed on the island of Basilan, here in the southern Philippines, to help root out the militant Islamic separatist group Abu Sayyaf. Now, Basilan’s biggest towns, once overrun by Abu Sayyaf and criminal groups, have become safe enough that a local Avon lady trolls unworriedly for customers.

Still, despite seven years of joint military missions and American development projects, much of the island outside main towns like Lamitan remains unsafe. Abu Sayyaf members, sheltered by sympathetic residents, continue to operate in the interior’s dense forests, even as the United States recently extended the deployment of troops in the southern Philippines.

Last month, Abu Sayyaf guerrillas killed 23 Philippine soldiers in a battle in the south of Basilan. This month, on the neighboring island of Jolo, Abu Sayyaf members, reinforced by a contingent from Basilan, killed eight soldiers in fierce fighting that displaced thousands of civilians. More than 40 insurgents were killed, though at least 10 were believed to have belonged to a different Muslim separatist group.

“We haven’t been able to eliminate the root cause of the problem,” said Maj. Armel Tolato, the commander of a Philippine Marine battalion here, explaining why Abu Sayyaf had not been eradicated. “It cannot be addressed alone by the military. It’s derived from the dynamics here, political and cultural. It’s very complex.” In an interview at a base shared with American troops, he said: “We’re just dealing with the armed elements. We might kill them. But there are young ones to take their place.”

Basilan, like many other Muslim and Christian areas in the southern Philippines, has a long history of political violence, clan warfare and corruption. Experts believe that Abu Sayyaf has been protected not only by friends and family, but also by friendly political and military officials.

It received support from Al Qaeda in the early 1990s and is believed to be sheltering leaders of the Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah. But as most of its original leaders have been killed or captured, Abu Sayyaf and its new recruits are said to be motivated less by radical Islamist ideology than by banditry, especially the lucrative kidnappings for ransom for which it has become known.

Last month, after consulting with the Philippine government, the United States decided to extend the operation of its force in the southern Philippines, known as the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines and composed of 600 elite counterinsurgency soldiers. The announcement drew angry responses from left-leaning politicians and news media; American officials declined to be interviewed for this article.

Since establishing the task force in 2002, the United States has provided the Philippines with $1.6 billion in military and economic aid. Much of that, including $400 million from the United States Agency for International Development, has been funneled into Mindanao in the southern Philippines, where Abu Sayyaf and another Muslim separatist group operate.

Some 1,300 American soldiers first arrived in 2002 in Basilan, which has a population of less than half a million, to support the Philippine military against Abu Sayyaf. Today, a force of 600 soldiers remains, spread out here and in the region, supplying its Philippine counterpart with intelligence, training and technology. According to the agreement with the Philippines, the American soldiers are prohibited from engaging in direct combat.

The Americans have also been directing development assistance here, including building roads, bridges and buildings; improving cellphone service and encouraging local businesses; training teachers and wiring schools for the Internet; and providing temporary medical and dental clinics.

But American troops have typically let their Filipino counterparts deal with the residents, thereby burnishing the image of the Philippines military, which has long been viewed as an occupying force in the south’s Muslim areas. “More people are doing business in Basilan because there’s much less fighting and kidnapping now,” said Wilma Amirul, 30, the Avon saleswoman, who was taking the morning ferry here from Zamboanga, the nearest city on the mainland. “Before, even the poor were kidnapped for ransom.”

Ms. Amirul, who has been selling cosmetics in Zamboanga for six years, said she started coming regularly to Basilan five months ago to expand her clientele. Another passenger, Jose Wee, 63, a candle manufacturer, said he now visited Basilan freely to sell his products — an indispensable item because of the frequent blackouts here. “The situation is good now, but maybe for the meantime only,” he said. “If the Americans leave, the Abu Sayyaf might regroup.”

Under a deep blue sky with low-lying clouds, the ferry arrived in Lamitan, fringed with white beaches and palm trees, dotted with simple houses made of wood or concrete. Soldiers guarded 30 checkpoints along roads into town.

Lamitan, along with Isabela, the provincial capital, is the only town on the island with a sizable Christian population. Roderick H. Furigay, 47, the mayor of Lamitan and the only Christian among Basilan’s 12 mayors, strongly backed the American presence because he believed the Philippine military lacked “adequate capability.” He called himself the “No. 1 target” of Abu Sayyaf — “threats are like breakfast to me” — as he toured the American-financed projects around town, accompanied by bodyguards.

“Peace here in Basilan is so elusive,” Mr. Furigay said, adding that poor governance created an environment in which groups like Abu Sayyaf grew. “Most of our leaders in Basilan are not really sincere. Most of them are holding their positions just to enrich themselves.” He said that because Abu Sayyaf’s leadership had been decimated, the group’s members were now motivated by “grievances.”

“There’s little ideology,” he said, estimating that Abu Sayyaf’s core members numbered fewer than 20 in Basilan.

That assessment was shared by other islanders, including those less welcoming of an American presence. Al-Rasheed M. Sakkalahul, Basilan’s vice governor, estimated that only 10 were longtime, ideologically driven members. But he said they were able to mobilize about 100 supporters in a conflict.

“All the rest are ordinary bandits, even civilians without any training on how to handle firearms,” Mr. Sakkalahul, 52, said at his office in Isabela. “They join Abu Sayyaf so they can divide ransom money from kidnapping victims.” He said that given those circumstances, he was skeptical of the American force’s presence here and complained that he had not been given facts about the mission. “You are my visitor in my house,” Mr. Sakkalahul said. “You just enter my house without even knocking on my door. What is your purpose in coming?”

Maj. Ramon D. Hontiveros, a spokesman for the task force’s Philippine side, said it was trying to “work through local politicians” and “keep the military footprint as small as possible.”

He said, “The Americans come with a lot of baggage, but the new roads and buildings they’ve brought here will outlive any controversy.”

VOA - Burma Embassy Protesters Mark 2nd Anniversary of Military Crackdown

By Daniel Schearf Bangkok 26 September 2009

Demonstrators enact a mock beating during a demonstration outside the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, 26 Sep 2009

Protesters have demonstrated in front of the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok to mark the second anniversary of the military crackdown on Buddhist monk-led calls for democracy.

About 30 protesters, including Buddhist monks, chant slogans outside the gates of the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok.

The demonstrators wear red bandanas and hold posters calling for democracy and the release of political prisoners.

Several wear T-shirts with photos of detained Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The monks also pray for peace in Burma.

They are marking two years since Burma's military government violently put down a Buddhist monk-led democracy movement, killing at least 31 people.

A few demonstrators are dressed as soldiers and pretend to beat the protesters with rolled up newspapers.

Ashin Teza is with the All Burma Monks Alliance, one of the groups organizing the protest. He says the military crackdown was also an attack on religious freedom.

"The military dictatorship, military regime, slandered veneration and the people's religion rights," said Ashin Teza.

Burma's military government arrested hundreds of people who took part in the 2007 calls for democracy including Buddhist monks.

The movement became known as the "Saffron Revolution" named after the robes worn by the monks.

Human Rights Watch said in a report this week that about 240 Buddhist monks are still imprisoned in Burma while thousands have been forcibly disrobed or are under constant government surveillance.

Burma's military government is suffering economic and diplomatic sanctions from the United States for locking up dissidents and refusing to allow for democracy.

But, this week the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said while keeping sanctions in place Washington would begin engaging with Burma's rulers.

Ashin Teza said the All Burma Monks Alliance did not support the dialogue.

"We don't dare to believe U.N. and United States because now they call to military government to come to their country," he said. "That is not suitable for our country, also our people."

However, the Burmese government in exile and detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi say they support Washington's move to engage the military government.

Aung San Suu Kyi has also written a letter to Burma's top military commander General Than Shwe saying she was prepared to work with him towards ending the economic sanctions.

But, they say the United States must also meet with opposition parties and stay firm on demands that political prisoners be released and democracy returned to Burma.

Obama to visit Jakarta en route to APEC

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Fri, 09/25/2009 4:26 PM

Millions of people in Indonesia will end their long wait as US President Barack Obama will visit Jakarta on Nov. 12, albeit only for a stopover before flying to Singapore to attend the APEC meeting a day after.

“The US Embassy in Jakarta has officially submitted a formal proposal for the visit,” an official, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with the media, said just before Obama hosted a dinner with G20 leaders, including Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, during the summit here Thursday.

Another official said Obama would be in his childhood town Jakarta and would spend the night before attending the annual Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC), which will be held on Nov. 14-15 in the city state, Singapore.

“The tentative schedule will be a two-day visit in the capital. But it depends on the security situation as it can also be just on the Nov. 12. One thing for sure is that President Obama will meet with President Yudhoyono for a bilateral talk and visit his old school in Menteng, Central Jakarta,” the source said.

Obama spent a few years as a child living in Jakarta from 1967 to 1971 after his mother married an Indonesian man.

Indonesia’s rainforests recover from deforestation due to illegal logging - Trends Updates

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More than 70 percent of Indonesia’s original forest cover has been lost. Logging, which is mostly illegal, is estimated to destroy over 2.4 million hectares per year.

Re-elected Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) gets international praise for leading the fight against deforestation in his country. All Indonesian presidents in the past have pledged to preserve Indonesia’s rainforests. What makes Yudhoyono different is that, unlike his predecessors, he has taken strong steps to keep his promise. One of his flagship projects is Operation Sustainable Forestry which was launched in 2005.

According to one veteran travel organizer, “Illegal logging decreased rapidly the first year SBY was in power. Powerful people, including government officials, were sent to jail for their roles in deforestation.”

Indonesia’s military has long been suspected of having ties with illegal loggers. Yudhoyono, a former general, has asserted greater civilian control over the military, particularly regarding illegal logging.

Logging concessions in Sebangau National Park, one of Kalimantan’s most infamous illegal logging areas, ended in 1990, yet there were 147 sawmills still operating as late as 2001. Illegal logging requires heavy investments in Indonesia. Loggers had also built extensive networks of canals to transport cut timber, making the lowland peat forest area more susceptible to burning.

Staunch environmentalist groups such as the WWF have always kept watch over deforestation in Indonesia. WWF has begun reforestation with corporate partners in 850 hectares of the worst hit areas of Sebangau, located just 45 minutes by speedboat from Central Kalimantan’s provincial capital Palangka Raya and believed to have one of world’s largest wild orangutan populations.

Burma's Junta Ratchets Up Pressure on Ethnic Minorities - washingtonpost.com

Image by Dan Bennett "Soggydan" via Flickr

Bringing Autonomous Ethnic Enclaves Back Into Fold Poses Major Challenges

Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 25, 2009

MONG LA, Burma -- The maps say that the town of Mong La is in Burma, but to the casual observer, it could be China. The shop names are in Chinese. The shopkeepers are mostly Chinese, and they accept only the Chinese yuan. A suggestion of a meeting at 4 o'clock is met with a question: "Burma time or China time?"

Mong La is the capital of an area known as Shan Special Region No. 4, one of 13 autonomous enclaves carved out of Burma's mountainous east over the past 20 years as part of cease-fire deals that armed rebel ethnic groups have signed with the generals who run the country.

While central Burma has been driven into penury by economic mismanagement and sanctions, areas such as Mong La have thrived, along with the National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State, which controls it. The region has over the years profited from drugs -- it lies at the heart of the opium-producing Golden Triangle -- and more recently from gambling.

In rebel territory, late-model Japanese sedans ferry Chinese punters from Mong La to the neon oasis of Mong Ma, 12 miles away, where they sip French brandy and play baccarat with stacks of 10,000-yuan chips. On the way, they pass the neoclassic pile that Sai Leun, commander of the National Democratic Alliance Army, has built for himself, complete with a golf course.

But Mong La's days as a tributary to the river of China's economic growth could be ending. Last month, a few hours to the north of Mong La, government troops attacked Special Region No. 1, which was run by the Kokang militia, driving about 37,000 residents over the border into China. Today, 80 percent of the shops in Mong La are shuttered, and their owners, taking refuge in China, are waiting to see whether Special Region No. 4 will be the government's next target.

Areas such as Mong La lie at the heart of the strategic conundrum that is Burma.

"Without a political settlement that addresses ethnic minority needs and goals, it is extremely unlikely there will be peace and democracy in Burma," the Transnational Institute, an Amsterdam-based research organization, said in a recent report.

For 15 years, the United Nations has advocated a three-way dialogue among the military government, the democratic opposition and the country's ethnic minorities, but given many of the groups' history of drug involvement, it has been a hard policy to promote in Western capitals.

In recent months, the world has focused on the role of Aung San Suu Kyi, the imprisoned opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, but although she is a key figure, her freedom is unlikely to solve Burma's long-standing political problems on its own.

Ethnic minorities make up about 40 percent of the country's 60 million people, dominating the mountainous regions that surround the flood plains where most of the majority-Burman population live. The minorities have no faith in the government and resent the majority's domination of politics. Several young Shan professionals used the same word -- "tricky" -- to describe the Burmans.

The Burmese government has been trying to unify the country since it gained independence from Britain in 1948, a crusade that has taken precedence over all other concerns, including democracy, and is still the driving force behind the current government led by Senior Gen. Than Shwe.

"When Than Shwe wakes up at night, he isn't worrying about democracy or international pressure," said a Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "He's worrying about the ethnic groups."

But the generals who run the country cannot afford to anger China, their most significant ally and investor, in the process.

Over the past 20 years, the Burmese authorities have signed cease-fire agreements with 27 key opposition groups, most of which are ethnically based.

China played a key role in persuading the groups to talk to the government. Many were part of the Beijing-sponsored Burma Communist Party, which controlled most of the territory along the Chinese border until it imploded in the late 1980s. At the time, Beijing's interests lay in keeping the groups as a buffer, but that policy came at a cost as many Burmese warlords established mini-states, funding themselves through drugs and gambling and spreading addiction, disease and crime into China's southern borderlands.

Many analysts now say that the Chinese are eager to see Burma reunified under a central government, pointing out that Beijing wants to build pipelines through Burma to import oil and gas from the Andaman Sea to the populous but relatively poor province of Yunnan and to open trade routes to the lucrative markets of India.

Signs are growing that the groups China used to see as a strategic buffer it now regards as a barrier to trade. When the Burmese army moved against the Kokang militia, one of the weaker groups, the Chinese government rebuked it over the refugees who were driven across the border. Beijing urged the junta to "properly deal with its domestic issues to safeguard the regional stability of its bordering area with China." Some analysts say, however, that the rebuke reflected displeasure over how the takeover was handled rather than the takeover itself.

Bringing Mong La and other cease-fire areas back into the Burmese fold poses significant challenges for the Burmese as well as the Chinese.

The Burmese authorities have called on the cease-fire groups to disband their militias and take part in elections set for next year, but the groups, which have received little assistance from the central government, are loath to give up the leverage provided by their armed wings, although many have said they are not intrinsically opposed to participating in the elections.

The groups seem more inclined to maintain their militias and use them to help force a better deal from the new government. The biggest cease-fire group, the United Wa State Army, is estimated to maintain 20,000 men under arms.

However, with their move against the Kokang militia, the generals have ratcheted up the pressure, and many residents of the border areas, like the Chinese traders in Mong La, think the authorities could move against other groups, picking them off one by one.

The stakes are high. As the Transnational Institute points out, if the cease-fire groups are not defeated decisively, they will simply retreat to the mountainous border territory, where they are likely to resume wholesale narcotics trading to fund a renewed guerrilla campaign, intensifying regional instability.

New Reform Party leaders - Straits Times

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By Kor Kian Beng & Jeremy Au Yong

THE opposition Reform Party unveiled a new central executive committee at a dinner on Friday night which marked the party's birth just over a year ago.

It also released its manifesto and outlined its plans to attract more members and to contest the next election which is due by early 2012.

The seven-member central executive committee is led by secretary-general Kenneth Jeyaretnam, 50. The hedge fund manager took over the reins in April.

He is the elder son of the late opposition politician J. B. Jeyaretnam who registered the party in April last year but died last September.

Other key office holders named at a press conference ahead of its first anniversary dinner were chairman Edmund Ng, 36, and treasurer James Teo, 50.

Mr Jeyaretnam told reporters that the 30-strong Reform Party aims to recruit 60 more over the next year. It plans to do this through twice-weekly open house meetings at its Chinatown office and by boosting its online presence through new media tools like social networking websites, he said.

The party is also awaiting approval from the Media Development Authority to publish a regular newsletter, added Mr Jeyaretnam.

The party, which also has plans for weekly walkabouts in constituencies islandwide, held its first one in Geylang Serai last weekend.

As for whether it is ready for the next election, he said: 'It's been only four months since I took over. We've recruited credible candidates.

'It is just a matter of focusing either on Group Representative Constituencies or single member constituencies.'

UNICEF - Resources on child protection in Southeast Asia

Image by Eddie C via Flickr

Reversing the Trend : Child Trafficking in East and Southeast Asia
This report is a regional assessment of UNICEF’s efforts to address child trafficking, drawing on country assessments conducted in China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam in early 2008. It also highlights trends, gaps, lessons learned, promising and good practices across the region. Despite varying contexts and different experiences across these countries. Click to download the report.

Everyday fears: A study of children’s perceptions of living in the southern border area of Thailand
The study found that the children suffer anxiety and stress associated with the ongoing threat andanticipation of violence, as well as their own violent experiences and their proximity to places vulnerableto violent attacks. Their everyday experiences...

Someone that matters: The quality of care in childcare institutions in Indonesia
A joint report released by DEPSOS, Save the Children and UNICEF is the first ever comprehensive research into the quality of care in childcare institutions in Indonesia. The report provides a detailed assessment of 37 childcare institutions across 6 provi

Charter change momentum hits a snag - Bangkok Post

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Writer: BangkokPost.com

Published: 25/09/2009 at 05:05 PM

The joint parliament whips' attempt to get the 2007 constitution amended hit a snag on Friday when Parliament President Chai Chidchob announced the tenure of the committee for reconciliation, political reform and constitutional amendment has expired.

The government, opposition and Senate whips on Thursday resolved to ask the committee, chaired by Senator Direk Thuengfang, to draft charter amendment bills, based on its own recommendation for constitutional amendments.

Mr Chai, also the House speaker, said the committee's term expired when it submitted its working report to parliament. If the whips wanted the committee to do additional work, it was the government's duty to make a request.

Government chief whip Shinaworn Boonyakiat said the whips would again meet to discuss this matter with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. In his opinion, the whips would send a letter to Mr Chai and ask him to reappoint the committee to draft the amendment bills.

"The whips will talk over this matter and consult Mr Chai about reappointing the committee, which will be given the new assignment. It should be completed in six months," Mr Shinaworn said.

The Peoples Network for Elections in Thailand (PNET) passed a resolution to oppose the move to amend the 2007 constitution.

“The six-point charter change proposed by the parliament’s committee for reconciliation, political reform and constitutional amendment are only for the self interest of politicians. None of the issues that have caused social conflict were touched on,” Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, a member of PNET, said on Friday.

Mr Somchai said the six recommendations for charter change should be turned down and new issues for reconciliation be proposed and the government should host the charter rewrite.

The proposal that a new charter drafting assembly be set up was just a pretext to justify the constitutional amendment, he said.

Political conflict was caused by current politicians. Therefore people with no interests at stake should take part in rewriting the charter - such as academics, lawyers, former politicians and former members of independent organisations, Mr Somchai said.

He did not think the dissolution of parliament as called for by the opposition party would help end th political dispute.

“Social disunity is occurring because the politicians keep on fighting for power, not because of the constitution,” he

Illegal firearms compound Mindanao insecurity - IRIN

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Nasi kandar is ours, say Penangites - Star

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Many upset rice dish and pasembur not included in heritage list

GEORGE TOWN: Nasi kandar and pasembur are definitely not Singapore’s — the Penang Indian-Muslim community is laying claim to it.

However, they also expressed disappointment that these two types of food were not included in the list of 100 types of heritage food and drinks in the National Heritage website (www.warisan.gov.my).

Restoran Kapitan chairman Abdul Wahab Mohamad Hanifah said nasi kandar is “definitely a Malaysian original” and should be promoted as such because their ancestors from India first dreamed it up in Penang in the 1900s.

“They worked at the nearby port and would concoct different curries with whatever ingredients they had.

“Nowhere else can you find nasi kandar that comes close to the Penang version because the water here is special — it is sweet.

“Even when my cooks bring all the ingredients to Kuala Lumpur and prepare the food there, the taste is slightly different,” he said, adding that the dish should be promoted as a “Malaysian original”.

Pelita Nasi Kandar chain director K.K. Sihabutheen said nasi kandar should be the number one item in any “original Malaysian food list”.

“Not only was the nasi kandar created here, but Penang nasi kandar is the most popular around.”

Since the 1930s, nasi kandar has played a prominent role in the culinary history of Penang.

Its origins date back to the days of yore when Indian-Muslim immigrants roamed the port and dusty streets of colonial Penang, carrying containers laden with home-cooked dishes and rice slung on both ends of a kandar (a wooden stick).

Most people also believe that pasembur, or Indian rojak, as it is known in some states, is another Malaysian original first served by the Indian-Muslim community here.

Gani Famous Pasembur owner Jamil Kader Gani, whose family had been making this dish for three generations, “guaranteed” that pasembur was born in the state.

“Nowhere else in the world will you find such variety and the gravy is also special because most pasembur sellers make their own gravy according to their family recipes.

“Pasembur arrived here around the same time as nasi kandar and should be promoted as wholly Malaysias,” he said.

Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen’s recent statement that nasi lemak, laksa, bak kut teh, chilli crab and Hainanese chicken rice were Malaysian dishes has sparked off a “food fight” on the Internet, with some unhappy Singaporeans insisting that chilli crabs, Hainanese chicken rice, nasi lemak and bak kut teh were theirs.

List of Malaysian heritage food items:

Nasi Lemak
Nasi Ayam
Nasi Kunyit (Pulut Kuning)
Nasi Tumpang
Nasi Kerabu
Nasi Dagang
Nasi Himpit
Nasi Goreng Kampung
Nasi Ulam
Ketupat
Lemang
Pulut Kukus Periuk Kera
Mee Mamak
Laksa
Mee Kari
Char Kuay Teow Pulau Pinang
Laksa Johor
Mee Siam
Bubur Pedas Sarawak
Bubur As-Sura
Bubur Sum-Sum
Bubur Kacang Hijau
Sagu Gula Melaka
Kuih Bingka Ubi
Rendang
Serunding
Ayam Percik
Manok Pansoh
Masak Asam Pedas
Gulai Tempoyak Ikan Patin
Ikan Bakar
Ikan Panggang Tanah Liat
Gulai Lemak Umbut
Gulai Asam Rom
Kari Kepala Ikan
Kurma Daging/Ayam
Pajeri
Masak Ikan dan Pisang Dalam Buluh
Yong Tau Foo
Daging Dendeng
Ayam Panggang
Botok-Botok Ikan
Sambal Tumis
Chili Crab
Teh Tarik
Cendol
Air Batu Campur (ABC)
Air Kelapa
Air Selasih
Hinava/Umai
Pekasam
Tempoyak
Otak-Otak
Sambal Belacan
Cencaluk
Sambal Gesek Ikan Bilis
Sate @ Satay
Yee Sang
Sata
Telur Pindang
Kerabu Mangga Muda
Acar
Kuih Keria
Kuih Koci
Akok
Kuih Seri Muka
Kuih Cara
Kuih Bingka
Kuih Bakul
Kuih Bulan
Kuih Cincin
Kuih Bakar
Kuih Sepit
Apam Balik
Pisang Goreng
Keropok
Opok-Opok
Karipap
Buah Melaka @ Ondeh-Ondeh
Lempeng
Bahulu
Dodol
Lempuk Durian
Wajik
Seri Kaya
Halwa
Agar-Agar
Pulut Panggang
Tapai
Masalodeh
Putu Mayam
Murukku
Roti Jala
Roti Canai
Tosai
Penderam
Kuih Lopis
Laddu
Ubi Kayu

The Resistance of the Monks - Human Rights Watch

Image by racoles via Flickr

Buddhism and Activism in Burma

September 22, 2009

This 99-page report written by longtime Burma watcher Bertil Lintner, describes the repression Burma's monks experienced after they led demonstrations against the government in September 2007. The report tells the stories of individual monks who were arrested, beaten and detained. Two years after Buddhist monks marched down the street of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, hundreds of monks are in prison and thousands remain fearful of military repression. Many have left their monasteries and returned to their villages or sought refuge abroad, while those who remained in their monasteries live under constant surveillance.

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Table of Contents

• The Resistance of the Monks
• Map of Burma
• I. Summary
• II. Burma: A Long Tradition of Buddhist Activism
• III. The Role of the Sangha in the 1988 Uprising and After the 1990 Election
• IV. Aung San Suu Kyi and Buddhism
• V. The SPDC and Buddhism
• VI. The Reemergence of Buddhist Political Activism in Burma
• VII. The September 2007 Crackdown
• VIII. Cyclone Nargis and Its Aftermath
• IX. International Networks
• X. Conclusion
• XI. Recommendations
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix I: Terminology and Abbreviations
• Appendix II: Letter to the Penang Sayadaw U Bhaddantapannyavamsa from the Burmese Foreign Ministry, October 27, 2007[195]
• Appendix III: Statement by Sasana Moli, the International Burmese Monks Organization, May 2008

Immigrants Cling to Fragile Lifeline at Safety-Net Hospital - NYTimes.com

By KEVIN SACK

ATLANTA — If Grady Memorial Hospital succeeds in closing its outpatient dialysis clinic, Tadesse A. Amdago, a 69-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia, said he would begin “counting the days until I die.” Rosa Lira, 78, a permanent resident from Mexico, said she also assumed she “would just die.” Another woman, a 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras, said she could only hope to make it “back to my country to die.”

The patients, who have relied for years on Grady’s free provision of dialysis to people without means, said they had no other options to obtain the care that is essential to their survival. But the safety-net hospital, after years of failed efforts to drain its red ink, is not backing away from what its chairman, A. D. Correll, calls a “gut-wrenching decision”: closing the clinic this month.

The sides confronted each other in state court on Wednesday morning as lawyers for the patients sought to keep the clinic open until other arrangements for dialysis could be secured. Dialysis patients and their families packed the benches and 60-year-old Nelson Tabares, a seriously ill illegal immigrant from Honduras, was wheeled into court in a portable bed.

Despite a judge’s urging that the two sides negotiate a solution Wednesday, there was no agreement by the end of the day on how to go forward. For the time being, a restraining order keeping the clinic open stands. The judge is considering whether to extend it.

The dialysis unit on Grady’s ninth floor might as well be ground zero for the national health care debate. It is there that many of the ills afflicting American health care intersect: the struggle of the uninsured, the strain of providing uncompensated care, the inadequacy of government support, and the dilemma posed by treating illegal immigrants.

Grady is one of many public hospitals that have been battered by the recession as the number of uninsured has mounted. New York City’s public hospital system is eliminating 400 positions and closing some children’s mental health programs, pharmacies and clinics. University Medical Center in Las Vegas has closed its mammography center and outpatient oncology clinic.

“It comes down to which service do you need to keep open,” said Larry S. Gage, president of the National Association of Public Hospitals. “You try your hardest to cut back on services that are going to be available elsewhere in the community.”

Public hospital officials are concerned that the health care legislation being negotiated in Washington could worsen their plight before making it better. Under bills traveling through both houses of Congress, as the number of uninsured declines there would be commensurate reductions in Medicaid subsidies to hospitals that provide large amounts of uncompensated care.

At Grady, about four in 10 patients are uninsured, and an additional 25 percent are insured by Medicaid, which reimburses at rates so low they often do not cover actual costs. As a result, the hospital lost $33.5 million last year, with the dialysis clinic accounting for about $2 million of that total, said Denise R. Williams, the hospital’s executive vice president.

Nonetheless, as a taxpayer-supported hospital with the mission of serving the indigent, Grady is expected to take all comers in need of emergency care, like dialysis. Treatment there does not depend on a patient’s insurance or immigration status.

The hospital has been encouraging some of the dialysis patients to move to other states or back to their home countries, offering to defray some costs.

Hospital officials estimate that two-thirds of the outpatient clinic’s roughly 90 patients are illegal immigrants. They do not qualify for Medicare, which covers dialysis regardless of a patient’s age, and they are excluded in Georgia from Medicaid and other government insurance programs. Legal immigrants face a five-year waiting period before becoming eligible. That leaves Grady to absorb costs of up to $50,000 a year per dialysis patient, some of whom have availed themselves of the thrice-weekly treatments for years.

After years of fiscal desperation and management turmoil at Grady, Atlanta business leaders stepped in last year to force a restructuring, from a quasi-governmental authority to a nonprofit corporate board. In response, the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation pledged $200 million over four years to replace dilapidated beds and modernize computers. A $20 million gift from Bernie Marcus, a founder of Home Depot, is helping to update the emergency department, which provides regional trauma services.

But the hospital’s operating deficits have continued. Grady’s senior vice president, Matt Gove, estimated that its uncompensated care would grow by $50 million this year, up 25 percent. The new nonprofit board eliminated 150 jobs this year, closed an underused primary care clinic and began charging higher fees to patients who live outside of the two counties that support Grady with direct appropriations.

The closing of the outpatient dialysis clinic was recommended by consultants in 2007, who said that equipment was outmoded, that most hospitals did not provide outpatient dialysis and that Atlanta had scores of commercial dialysis centers. When the hospital’s chief executive at the time tried to shut it down, the resulting firestorm helped prompt his dismissal.

This July, the new board voted to try again. The hospital gave patients a month’s notice of the scheduled Sept. 19 closing, and vowed to assist them in finding local dialysis providers, relocating elsewhere and qualifying for public insurance. “We committed that not a single person would be left behind,” Mr. Correll wrote in a newspaper advertisement published on Sunday.

About a third of the patients have been successfully moved, including several illegal immigrants who returned to Mexico with the hospital’s financial help, Mr. Gove said. But others have said they have no place to go, have no means to pay for dialysis or are too ill to travel.

The female illegal immigrant from Honduras, who has a 7-year-old son, said her parents live more than a four-hour drive from the nearest dialysis center, in Tegucigalpa. She is mindful that her sister died from a stroke while being driven to a hospital there. She said she had no money to pay for dialysis because she was too weary from her kidney condition to hold down a job.

“I feel like they are trying to get rid of me because I don’t work,” she said, her eyes tearing. “But being sick is not my fault.”

Samuel Tabares, who rolled his father into court in his bed, said his father, who was paralyzed by a stroke, would probably not survive the strain of relocation or repeated trips to the emergency room in search of treatment.

“They’re treating the closing of this clinic like it’s the closing of a dental clinic,” Mr. Tabares said, “as if people’s lives don’t depend on it.”

Bulgarian Who Is to Lead Unesco Advocates Political Pluralism - NYTimes.com

By DAN BILEFSKY

PRAGUE — The Bulgarian diplomat who defeated the Egyptian culture minister in a close vote on Tuesday night to become the first woman to lead Unesco is a 57-year-old mother with two grown children, an expert in arms control and the daughter of an influential family who came of age during the cold war.

But the diplomat, Irina Bokova, who is the Bulgarian ambassador to France and Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said in an interview on Wednesday that growing up in Communist Eastern Europe had made her a fervent advocate of political pluralism and European integration.

She also said she intended to work to diminish the acrimony that underlay the five rounds of voting that led to her election.

Ms. Bokova said she had been a member of the Communist Party as a young person in Bulgaria out of necessity rather than by choice and, like her country, had long since shown a strong commitment to democracy. “I am from this cold war generation that lived through this period; we didn’t choose it,” Ms. Bokova said by telephone from Paris, where Unesco’s headquarters are located. “All my life I have shown I supported the political transformation of my country. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Ms. Bokova is a member of the Socialist Party, formerly Bulgaria’s Communist Party, now in opposition. Her father, Georgi Bokov, edited the country’s leading Communist newspaper. Like many children of the elite at the time, Ms. Bokova studied at Moscow’s State Institute of International Relations.

After defeating the Egyptian culture minister, Farouk Hosny, who was accused of anti-Semitism and censorship in his 22 years as culture minister, she called Mr. Hosny a friend. Trying to reach out to the Arab world, she emphasized that she came from a small town in southwest Bulgaria, which had a large Muslim population, and she said she was committed to multiculturalism. She is expected to be confirmed at the Unesco general conference on Oct. 15.

She said she would strive to give Unesco a more prominent role in talks on climate change and would focus more resolutely on gender roles, the financial crisis and other issues. As the first Eastern European director of Unesco, she said she would help improve the region’s prominence in cultural affairs.

Assen Indjiev, a Bulgarian television journalist, said Ms. Bokova was a consummate diplomat, someone who avoided ideological battles in favor of quiet diplomacy. “She is a conciliatory politician who prefers to be behind the scenes,” he said. “No one in Bulgaria believed that she would make it, because we are a small and poor country, but she was determined and she succeeded.”

Meglena Kuneva, a former Bulgarian foreign minister who is now the European commissioner for consumer affairs in Brussels, said Ms. Bokova’s election would “help improve Bulgaria’s image on the world stage.”

Yet her election also prompted some division in her country on Wednesday, with some Bulgarians questioning whether someone with a Communist past was qualified to lead the United Nations’ leading agency for culture and education. Some analysts in Bulgaria said her former ties to the Communist Party had touched a nerve among many Bulgarians, who were dissatisfied that former Communists were still in positions of power.

“Those who dislike Communism in this country are not happy about her promotion,” Ivo Indzhev, a Bulgarian political blogger, said in a telephone interview. “For people in this region, her appointment sends the message that the West can swallow someone’s Communist past very easily but can’t abide an Arab who is anti-Israel.”

A reader on Mr. Indzhev’s blog lamented that while even some people in censorship-prone Egypt had dared to criticize Mr. Hosny, the establishment in Bulgaria had chosen to gloss over Ms. Bokova’s past.

Diplomats said that as ambassador to France, Ms. Bokova was an effective champion of her country, summoning senior French officials to the embassy and presenting Bulgaria’s point of view, in particular when the European Union issued scathing reports criticizing Bulgaria for flouting the rule of law. As a candidate for vice president in 1996, she advocated Bulgaria’s membership in NATO and the European Union.

Fluent in English, French, Spanish and Russian, she said her real ambition had been to be a foreign correspondent, but that was not considered appropriate for a woman in Communist Bulgaria when she was young. “You were expected to be a good and loyal wife,” she said.