Burma

In today's roundup: Burma, Bolivia, China, Kosovo, USA, Zimbabwe, and Haiti and the global food crisis. Photograph of children in Haiti by Flickr user sagabardon.

In today's roundup: Zimbabwe, Egypt, Italy, Burma, Australia and China.

Photo of Pangsau, Burma, by Flickr user Artisteinconnu-back.

After bloody protest led by Burmese munks the UN brokered a deal with the Burmese government who promised to start negotiations with Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The first meeting between the new 'minister for relations' General Aung Kyi and Aung San Suu Kyi took place today. As of yet, there is no news on what was discussed during the meeting. And it is still unclear whether Burma is any further along the path towards democracy.

It is the first known meeting between the government and the pro-democracy forces in the past 12 years. The Burmese Junta agreed to start the negotiations with Suu Kyi if she agreed to denounce international sanctions against the Junta. 

A few days ago it was reported that Burma's ruling generals had set up a 'Minister of Relations' who would begin talks with the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The international community generally saw this as a step towards democracy.

However, according to a recent article in the Bangkok Post by Kyaw Zwa Moe, the military generals are playing games.

Since 1988 when the military took power, three different military leaders have been named to start negotiations with Suu Kyi.

To calm international pressure the Military also held elections in 1989, which they simply nullified after losing by a landslide to Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy. It has also hosted a National Convention to write a constitution for the past 14 years.

Kyaw Zwa Moe argues that the military junta is playing games and the international community is falling for it.

Organisations and initiatives like Reporters Without Borders and Global Voices Advocacy are doing excellent work promoting freedom of expression and helping the cause of journalists and citizens who are persecuted (as are the bigger and more well-known Amnesty, Human Rights Watch etc).

Supporting dissidents may be more important than ever – because it is more dangerous than ever to speak out against repressive regimes. German editor Joachim Widmann makes this point in an essay published this week (in Norwegian), one year after Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in Moscow (disclosure: I commissioned the article as editor of the Norwegian magazine Vox Publica. Die Zeit Online has published the original German text.) Widmann compares the situation for dissidents during the Cold War and today. People like Vaclav Havel, Andrei Sakharov and Robert Havemann could count on the media and citizens in the West for support and continous attention. The media knew how to portray the dissidents as brave heroes for freedom. The public supported them by buying their books. The news from the West crept back behind the iron curtain and made it difficult for the Communist authorities to silence the critics.

source: Times online

Read more Burmese stories and about how bloggers worldwide took action on yesterday's "International Bloggers' Day for Burma on the 4th of October".

The information compiled through a massive Facebook group about Saturday's global protests in support of Burma is now available at burma-watch.org. If there's a protest happening in your city, chances are there are details here.

They've also got PDFs for download with comprehensive news roundups.

As reported by Burma Digest David Miliband said this about the situation in Burma:

"Human rights and democracy in Myanmar are not optional extras that would be nice to have; they are integral to creating the kind of stable regime that everybody wants to see. I hope that the recent presence in Myanmar of UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari will help jump-start this process. He has our full support."

You can read the full statement: Myanmar: Asean nations have vital role.

'Democracy' is hard work and for billions around the world the definitions vary.

In India, my home country and indeed the 'world's largest democracy'- governments have been voted in and out for generations since independence in 1947. The elected have always chosen to impose their
will and the expeditious re-naming as in the case of Iran has been frequent. Hence Bombay, became Mumbai when the Hindu 'extremists' of the Shiv Sena deemed it more culturally appropriate. And now we have Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkata and so many more. The pretext is often the idea of re-claiming national identity and in some of these cases, obliterating the painful memories of a colonial past.

A former officer in the Burma military defected and went into hiding after being ordered to shoot on Buddhist monks.

He is now fearing for his life and the life of his family.

The story is telling of the military situation in Burma.

Read the rest of the story on Al Jazeera.