Current Affairs

From BBC:

A senior United Nations official has met Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sources close to the military rulers say.

The talks between Ms Suu Kyi and UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari lasted for about an hour, the sources say.

Ms Suu Kyi has been in prison or under house arrest since 2003.

The last foreigner to see the Nobel Peace laureate was UN special envoy Razali Ismail in 2004.

Ms Suu Kyi and Mr Gambari met in a government guesthouse, the sources say.

A spokesman for Ms San Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) later confirmed that the meeting took place, according to the AFP news agency.

In Burma:

Military-run enterprises control key industries, and corruption and severe mismanagement are the hallmarks of a black-market-riven economy.

The armed forces - and former rebels co-opted by the government - have been accused of large-scale trafficking in heroin, of which Burma is a major exporter. Prostitution and HIV/Aids are major problems.

US wants the Burmese Government to be referred to the Un Security Council. I agree with US this time: they have even tried three youths for writing a poem and:

have been tried behind closed doors inside the local prison, without having access to legal representatives. The three, Aung Aung Oo of A20 Computing Business, Zeya Aung of King Star teashop and Aung Than, are currently detained in Pegu Prison.

Related information in Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), Burma Net News,

Tags: Burma, UN Security Council

It appeared in an Italian television…

Tags: Italy, Spain, Zapatero

From Spain Herald:

Police union spokesman Rodrigo Gavilan said yesterday that the administration canceled a flight that would have carried 90 officers to Grand Canary island in order to proceed to the deportation of 180 illegal immigrants to Mauritania and Guinea. However, those two countries were not willing to accept the deportees. Gavilan added that, as it is not possible to deport the immigrants, “all those that arrive are transported to mainland Spain, five thousand so far.”
Deputy prime minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega said that due to the mass arrival of open boats carrying illegals to the Canary coasts, that all illegal immigrants would be repatriated. She also announced agreements with the illegals’ countries of origin to return them. According to Gavilan, however, reality is very different.

News24.com:

With the Canary Islands struggling to cope with a stream of would-be immigrants from Africa, the Spanish government has launched a diplomatic offensive to bring the situation under control.

On Thursday, foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said a special ambassador and a team of diplomats would begin “three to six-month” missions in Africa from Sunday. He said the diplomats would operate in Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Niger. Almost 7 000 people have survived the maritime odyssey to reach the Canaries in makeshift vessels so far this year. Moratinos, speaking a day after Madrid called on African governments to help stem the number of arrivals, said the diplomats would “work jointly with the countries to face up to the migratory flux”.

Thursday saw dozens of more arrivals, with 57 immigrants picked up at Los Cristianos port in southern Tenerife.The immigrant hopefuls added to the 278 who landed on the island in “cayucos”, makeshift boats from Senegal and Mauritania, on Wednesday.

6 785 illegal immigrants have arrived so far

Moratinos said the Spanish cabinet would approve the “immediate” sending of an ambassador to Mali on Friday. Malians make up a large proportion of the immigrants coming to Spain. He said: “Spain will set up a bureau for the centralisation of all efforts (to deal with the immigrant issue) in sub-Saharan capitals.”

In fact they are so much that they are overflowing Canarian facilities, whatever Vice-President De La Vega says (By the way, she was proposing that Spanish people should use an “inhabitant solution of only 30 m2 while she has built for herself one of 505 m2. What a good example of equality! Just like the Chinese one I was referring to in this post).

(more…)

Who would guess someone was going to take advantage of the physical similarity of Che and Aznar?

Well, at first no one. But Converse’s poster designer, the Polish Andrej Dragan, has infuriated the far-leftists in Spain with this new campaign (poster: right). Because for them Che, is so opposed to Aznar that this is an insult. And they are seeing both united in one photo.

For them, Aznar is the one who caused March 11th terrorist attacks -just forgetting about the real authors of it-. They have just changed his support, more moral than real, for Iraqi intervention, into the leit-motiv of their oposition.

But I really think it is going to be somewhat difficult to make Ché and Aznar the same thing. Che was nothing but a intelectual terrorist and Castro supporter who defended :

hate as a fight factor; intransigent hate against the enemy, who impulses human being to a place far beyond his limitations, and makes him a violent and cold killing machine”.

I really can not imagine someone who made Spain rise above the corruption scandals and the dirty war against ETA, saying or even thinking, something like that.

But that Polish designer, has accomplished what he wanted: that people talk about his campaign.

Note: Trackback sent to Carnival of Trackbacks.

Tags: Aznar, Converse, Publicity

Tha Canadian National Post published some news about a law that would make Christians, Jews or Zoroastrians wear different colors each. Anyway, it looks like it is not true, BUT there are reports that says that this and other measures could have been at least thrown around or considered. I have written about it here.

From Reuters:

A prominent U.S.-based rights group has said it did not expect China to promote human rights at home despite its new position on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Human Rights in China (HRIC) said that China should use the opportunity to promote human rights as befits its role as an increasingly important global player, but expressed doubts that the country with the world’s largest population would change.

“While there has been some improvement in the human rights situation in China, over the past 17 years HRIC has documented continued and increasing detentions, arrests and other forms of persecution,” the group said in a statement seen on Wednesday.

“China’s position that countries can differ on human rights due to cultural and historic differences undermines the universality and indivisibility of human rights,” it added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said on Wednesday that Beijing will honor its commitment to protect human rights.

“As a member of the council, the Chinese government will comprehensively push forward the human rights cause in China and seriously carry out its obligations under relevant international human rights conventions,” Liu said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn).

China was elected to the council along with Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.

The six counties, identified by New York-based Human Rights Watch as unworthy of membership on the new U.N. body, were on Tuesday among the 47 nations that won seats on the council for its first session, due to open on June 19 in Geneva.

Amnesty International has also urged all the newly elected states to fulfill their obligation “to uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”.

It seems that is a bit impossible: They have jailed another blogger for the great crime of …. supporting free elections (HT: Free Thoughts):

CHINA sentenced a veteran dissident writer to 12 years in jail for subversion yesterday, after he posted essays on the internet supporting a movement by exiles to hold free elections.

The sentence on Yang Tianshui, 45, is one of the harshest to be handed down to a political dissident since the trials that came after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on students demanding greater democracy. It underscores the determination of the ruling Communist Party to brook no opposition and to maintain a tight grip on the internet.

Yang is one of several writers and dissidents to be tried over the content of internet postings. He has no plans to appeal because he regards his trial as illegal. Li Jianqiang, his lawyer, said: “He is most dissatisfied but he had expected such a sentence. He refused to answer questions because he does not recognise the legality of the court.”

If that is the way they have to fulfil their obligations and to push Human Rights, errr, well, …

Anyway, there is another truly amazing sign of equality between all the Chinese citizens:

Chinese want cars. Lots of them. More than 1,000 new cars hit the streets of Beijing every day.

A lot of those cars are compact cars - designed with the average Chinese consumer in mind. After all, the average Chinese car buyer is looking for an engine-powered vehicle to replace his bicycle or the tyranny of the crowded bus.

But some people in this country, where many still struggle on the poverty line, have rather bigger budgets.

By the way, in this blog from TimesOnLine there is not a mention to the jailed Chinese bloggers, although it seems to me it is so an important matter to examine. Global Voices On Line is announcing the launching of a page to track current cases from all the world.

There is someone missing though: Alejandro Fariñas. Even if he has ended his hunger strike (HT: “La Ventanita”), it seems to me it’s necessary to who who is and why has been 56 days on a hunger strike. You can read about him in Babalu’s Blog.

Tags: China, dissidents, freedom of expression, Human Rights, Release Hao Wu, Cuba