Satellite Images Used to Monitor Burmese Junta 231
BurmesePython writes "Human rights groups are using high-resolution satellites images to reveal the activities of Burma's junta as it gets tough with pro-democracy protesters. Apparently 'it should be easy to spot groups of monks because of their distinctive maroon robes'. Like previous efforts to use satellites to monitor the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the hope is it will prod the UN and other international actors into putting pressure on the Burmese rulers."
Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)
What was maroon
Shows as red
In the street
Monks lie dead
- Myanmar Shave
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
We choose to laugh
When people die
It feels better
To laugh than cry
- Burma Shave
Which is the closest thing to a koan that I could fit into the Burma Shave rhyme structure. The words won't fit through the door. (And thus, the Slashdotter was Moderated.)
Re: (Score:2)
When people die
It feels better
To laugh than cry
- Burma Shave
Which is the closest thing to a koan that I could fit into the Burma Shave rhyme structure. The words won't fit through the door. (And thus, the Slashdotter was Moderated.)
This is the ice cream koan.
Don't you just live it when.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't you just love it when technology developed for governments for their "reasons", whatever they may be, are then used to make the World a better place?
Where's the pictures? (Score:5, Insightful)
But so far all the articles I've seen on this either have no pictures or other pictures (such as the smuggled cellphone images of the marching monks).
Re:Where's the pictures? (Score:5, Informative)
somebody please think of the governments (Score:5, Funny)
It's just not right that governments should be under such scrutiny by citizens. It's like they can't do anything without being monitored anymore. Imagine you just were trying to do your job of restoring order and punishing disruptive monks, with Little Brother looking over your shoulder. This slide into an accountable society is terrifying.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If they haven't done anything wrong, surely they shouldn't mind being monitored. After all, turnabout is fair play, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Military Junta speaks at Columbia University (Score:3, Funny)
prod the UN (Score:3, Informative)
sure we all want the Burmese leaders to be accountable, we want everyone to be accountable, unless it US
like when nicaragua brought charges against the us to the UN security comission
and SOMEHOW the US was able to veto their own charges
the UN is nothing but a bandaid, that keeps falling off
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not as bad as raiding Monks at their sanctuaries shooting and beating them and taking them away in trucks. They're probably in a big death pit right now being covered with soil to hide the evidence, one can only guess.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's notable that you didn't actually condemn the military butchers in Burma, but rather turned this in to an anti-American rant.
Re: (Score:2)
what im complaining about is two fold
first that going to the UN for anything seems laughable
and secondly
everyone gets up in arms against any atrocity committed by someone other than the us, but if the Us does something , NO ONE clammers to the UN to stop it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
all hail ollie north
In related news... (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt I am alone in hoping for a revolution that reinstates the proper, democratically elected government in Burma.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Last I heard, amateur radio was either illegal or very tightly restricted in Burma.
rj
Re: (Score:2)
rj
Re: (Score:2)
protest transitions to civil war (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ah. Remember that old phrase that goes, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." [toad.com]? I guess now we get to see if that's really true. Hopefully it is.
I hate the fact that the government over there has tried to cut Internet access, but I love the fact that it was a powerful enough tool for the people that they felt threatene
Re: (Score:2)
Bah. There are plenty of 'democratically elected' governments/leaders around the world that are still totally illegitimate and fuck their population. Check out Zimbabwe and Egypt.
Re: (Score:2)
Fair enough. But I remain hopeful. As horrible as the situation is, the Burmese are doing it right. IMHO, it is up the citizens of a country to stand up to their oppressors and take their freedom back, by force if necessary. I would hope that most US Citizens would agree. :)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Burma? (Score:3, Funny)
Using "Myanmar" legitimizes the military junta. (Score:5, Informative)
You can read more about it here. [wikipedia.org] Personally, I use Burma. Let a legitimate regime change the English name one ever comes around.
The Empire Strikes Back? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sorry... (Score:4, Funny)
Sincerely,
UN
Re: (Score:2)
Put Pressure? (Score:2)
Sanctions won't hurt the Burmese government, they will still sell their natural gas and buy weapons on the black market. It won't be the government that suffers, it will be the ordinary people on the street who are already suffering.
The Burmese government is not above forcing people to work for free, or allowing people to starve
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's ironic that the "UN is useless" meme is strongest in USA, which stops the UN (Security Council) from doing anything that would interfere with US economic interests when those interests involve murderous rulers friendly to those US economic interests.
Or ignores the UN when USA wants to take part in an illegal invasion. Then whines that the UN isn't doing enough to clean up the mess that USA has made of Iraq.
Kinda like USA sitting out years of WWI and also sitting on its collective hands for > 2 years of WWII. Hitler not a murderous enough bastard for Americans?
Excuse me whilst I gag on "Yer with us our yer with the terrrrrrrsts" as I think back on that.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I feel sorry for anyone who thought that was a reasonable analogy.
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if the guys with the big guns mess with the little countries. Or the little countries mess with each other. As long the big guns don't get used on each other all is well. Of course as with all bureaucracies it does a whole lot more, but that's all unimportant side issues.
The world hasn't been turned into a nuclear wasteland so so far so good for the UN.
"WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind..." the rest is minor nuisance stuff (stuff like genocide in Africa, human rights abuses by everyone, etc) that simply doesn't matter in comparison with turning the planet into radioactive frozen ball.
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Funny)
I feel sorry for anyone who thought that was a reasonable analogy.
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again why should we care right? They're not Muslim so it's ok.
Look at Thailand's ex prime minister there is an arrest warrant out on him for stealing hundreds of millions of tax payers money and he is suspected of funding multiple bombings in Bangkok. He is a terrorist but the UK welcomes him with open arms and lets him buy a football club with Thailand's tax payers money. DOUBLE STANDARDS.
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's time that Americans started boning up on their history of 4th century Rome. There's some lessons there about overextension and debased currency that some might find educational.
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:4, Insightful)
We should send all Burma's diplomats packing as they have no respect for human life.
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's where you're spot on though. All these fools who don't see how overextending ourselves in two expensive and unwinnable (militarily) conflicts isn't eroding our national security need to get off fox news and go read some history. Islamofascism (whatever that is) might be a threat, but hardly on the scale of cold-war USSR, modern-day china, north korea... or more importantly our domestic education, health-care, social security, and sundry economic problems, to say nothing of global climate change, which threatens to be a bigger threat than all of the above.
I think that too many people want to see us recapture our WW2 era success, but without any of the domestic sacrifice that that conflict required of the average citizen.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They could simply peg the Yuan against the Euro and call it a day. It would hurt them badly, but they've been through worse in a recent era and they have a system in place to control the situation if an economic crisis did occur (Remember the Cultural
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
People get a little confused with the China thing (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Most of those funds are in the form for treasury securities (T-Bills/T-notes/T-bonds). Those are promissory notes issued by the US government. Basically it says "We agree to pay you this much money by this date." Fair enough, but the value is only because the government honours that agreement. So far, US securities are one of the safest things you can buy. They have always made good and have plenty of systems in place to make sure that keeps happening. However, they could if they wanted just not honour the notes issued to China. All of a sudden that wealth is gone. China can't sell the notes if the US has made it clear they are worthless, they can't redeem them, the wealth just goes away. This would, of course, have severe consequences to the US government in terms of the ability to issue more note sin the future since people wouldn't trust them as much, but it can be done.
2) China's economy is very dependant on it continuing to grow and the money continuing to come in. A big part of that is that America continues to be willing to buy their goods. Well, if America's economy got fucked up, and if it was well known that the cause was the Chinese, that would all go away. Not only does a depression put people in to a mode where they spend little money especially on non-essentials (which is largely what China produces) but there would be extensive boycotts, and perhaps even governmental sanction, against Chinese products. That happens, all of a sudden China has factories without work, people without jobs, an upcoming middle class facing the return to what is quite literally peasantry. Revolutions have started over that, and they know it.
3) China's dollar is pegged to the US dollar. For the US dollar to rapidly change is for their dollar to rapidly change, unless they un peg it, in which case it will also rapidly change. Strong and weak currencies are relative things and there is no one that is better than the other, each has advantages and disadvantages. However rapid change is problematic as your economy isn't ready for the new dynamic. Rapidly changing the US dollar would not do them well, regardless of how they chose to manage the yuan.
The problem is you cannot look at international economies in the same way you look at something like a personal economy. China and the US dont' have a worker - boss relationship. It is a customer - distributor relationship at the closest, but still different since each controls their own currency, each has real military force such that nobody else can come in and force them to do something different and so on. It's not a case of them holding the stick and the US being in trouble, it is a case of something like economic mutually assured destruction. Yes, they have the theoretical potential to hurt the US economy, however doing so would have severe consequences to them and as such isn't a real possibility.
It is difficult to understand fully since the globalized economy we have today is very new, and since on that scale things don't follow the same rules as the small scales we personally work on. Many people fail to understand this and thus misunderstand the intricacies of the situation.
1) you've got to be kidding me (Score:2)
If the USA decided to stop honouring ANY of it's securities it would be a greater economic disaster than if China decided to dump all it's USD assets. You're talking about effectively telling the world economic markets that every USD asset is worthless and 100% untrustworthy, trading in US
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Look at Thailand's ex prime minister there is an arrest warrant out on him for stealing hundreds of millions of tax payers money and he is suspected of funding multiple bombings in Bangkok. He is a terrorist but the UK welcomes him with open arms and lets him buy a football club with Thailand's tax payers money. DOUBLE STANDARDS.
Speaking of junta... guess who's making those claims? That's right, the junta that staged a coup d'etat against Thailand's ex-PM. There's no actual evidence that he's done any of that stuff though. He made his huge fortune as a telecom tycoon--before he became PM. Right place at the right time, and all that.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sorry, but you just seem to be someone who has completely swallowed the propaganda of anti-democrats. If you want to live like that, fine, I don't care. I just want you to know that fr
Airdrop (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The monks are engaged in a non-violent civil disobedience act. As Ghandi and Martin Luther King demonstrated, these can be much more effective than armed conflict. The monks know this and have the discipline to carry it through. The first time I read about this I knew the Junta's days were numbered. The last thing you would want to do is pull a U.S.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not necessarily. The problem is that you don't usually hear about the less successful attempts as they are drowned in blood. Besides, Ghandi, for example, was dealing with the British democracy, and he could win by winning the sympathy of the British citizens. It does not work this way against the real bloody tyrants.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The UN to murdering governments, "Stop, or we'll stay 'stop' again."
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:5, Insightful)
"We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should ever apply that economic, political, or military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there! None of our allies supported us; not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
Robert McNamara, United States Secretary of Defense, 1961-1968.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, FINALLY, a Slashdot topic to which I can bluntly state (some of) my political stance:
Basically, the maritime police force *I* envision would "deprecate all power-projecting nations' flag-waving navies into nothing more than
Arrr! (Score:2)
>Suppose Chinas growing wealth is diverted to funding the construction of STATELESS (read: non-nation-owned) policing ships
It's pirates you mean then is it Matey? We's not needin' no stinking Letters of Marque, we's the Free Company. ARRRR!!
Of course according to FSM Church doctrine, this would take care of global warming.
Re: (Score:2)
And, to clarify, it's not that CHINA would "rule the world", threaten Japan, and send the USA into tail-spin by or after kicking it out of Korea (by aiding a reunification along a MUCH faster time
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.blogger.com/profile/25828027 [blogger.com]
http://community.webshots.com/user/daetaku [webshots.com]
http://community.webshots.com/user/daetaku/profile [webshots.com]
www.dreadyacht.com
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, nations big and small, regional powers to global superpowers, have long established that they can and will do whatever they please within their sphere of influence, regardless of what transpires at the UN.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, given what's going on in Iraq, USA is not exactly in a position to say who should be on what commission. How about a "Commission for not illegally invading countries who do not present even a slightest threat to you and turning them into waste
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you could detail some of its accomplishments. Other, I mean, then giving rights-abusing monsters yet another platform to spout anti-Western crapola.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here are the alternatives for ya, feel free to add your own:
1. A nation state is supreme, there are no meaningful international bodies: this creates a "might is right" situation that existed for most of the history, resulting in hell of a lot of killing. A situation tha
I wouldn't mind the UN (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My answer is that it is not enough to criticize something, you have to provide an alternative. What is your alternative?
Or let me put it in even simpler terms: (Why is it that I can never get a clear answer to this simple question from UN bash
Re:Pressure the UN? (Score:4, Informative)
It fails on many counts, and most importantly on its basic structural arrangement which has, for the most part, allowed dominant states to render it completely useless. The Soviets and the Americans pretty much paralyzed it during the Cold War, and now China and Russia are doing it.
Because it's a substitute for actual action? (Score:5, Insightful)
But if the only real power involved is the power of member nations, why don't the member nations just act and cut out the UN "middleman"? This is, after all, historically the way international action has been carried out. European governments trying to cope with Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler or (going further back) the Mongol or Ottoman invaders didn't feel a need to create a standing bureaucracy to validate by inscribing (in five official languages) on parchment what they'd already collectively decided to do. They just acted, forming governing councils and agreements as and where they were needed -- and not otherwise.
So why don't we do that nowadays? If Darfur (or Burma) is an international outrage, and most every reasonable person agrees on what should be done, what's to stop the four or five biggest countries from just forming an ad hoc Stop The Burma Slaughter task force, assigning it 25,000 troops and a naval task force, and punching the Go button?
Nothing, really. Except that this silly imaginary "world government" called the UN exists, and because it exists the major countries are off the hook. If you ask why doesn't somebody DO something, everyone can point to the UN as the agency that should be doing the doing.
In short, the UN pretty clearly now exists as a substitute for coordinated, effective international action. It's like how, in Congress or a university, if you want to just quietly kill a proposal for action, you refer it to a committee for a report. The UN exists so that big nations can ignore sticky problems by referring them to the UN for a report...or a vote on "sanctions"...whatever. You can look like you're doing something with actually, well, doing something.
Since Americans have always tended to favor action over talk, they tend to take a dim view of an institution which effectively and efficiently functions to replace action with talk. That's not what the UN is supposed to do, of course, but that's what it actually does. Yet another illustration of the Law of Unintended Consequences: there'd be much more effective international humanitarian action if the UN did not exist.
Re: (Score:2)
That would explain Wilsonian diplomacy until 1917 and the US sitting out until 1941.
Re:Because it's a substitute for actual action? (Score:4, Interesting)
The rationale goes back to preventing another World War I. At the turn of the century, most nations in Europe made alliances with each other that if one of them were attacked, their ally would step in to defend them. They grouped themselves into the Entente Powers and the Central Powers. Now, if governments were the only actors, and if these alliances were public knowledge, this might have resulted in a tense, but stable environment. What actually happened was a terrorist group from Serbia (the Black Hand Society) assassinated the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Both sides reacted disproportionately, Austria-Hungary declared war, most of Europe honored their treaty obligations, and millions died.
The League of Nations, the predecessor to the UN (and ineffective even in comparison to the UN) was the response to the perceived causes of World War I.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like NATO [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They are claiming that Jimmy Carter is making things worse in the middle east by at least trying to find a peaceful solution. Most may agree that the true failure here is created by the Bush family.
Re:Real help still illegal! (Score:4, Insightful)
The real solution to this is for Beijing to get off its ass and threaten to pull its support for the Junta and to publicly announce that it will abstain from all Security Council votes regarding the country.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
For the moment a total blockade against Burma, appropriation of all assets belonging to the Burmese leaders combined with a boycott of the coming Olympic games in China to prove a point is probably
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Non-Burmese citizens need not apply.
Re: (Score:2)
It's o
Re: (Score:2)
I guess there's still one active feed into Burma.
Stamps & tea. (Score:2)
People are protesting against drastic increase in petrol prices - from 28 cents per litre to 38.
Nothing more.
You know, the same thing could've been said about the Boston Tea Party over the price of stamps. Sometimes it's just the straw that breaks that camel's back that turns discontent over economic matters into full-blown revolution.
Re: (Score:2)
*Cough* Well, that's one way to spin it, I suppose. What bothered the colonists was that it lowered the price of tea from only the East India Trading Company by removing all taxes and tariffs from the trade it alone did -- in other words harming the businesses of its competitors who participated in the act of rebellion / corporate sabotage.
That's all right there in the Wikiped
Re: (Score:2)
One should realize that the Tea Act, against which the colonists ultimately protested, actually *lowered* the price of British Tea. The rest of all these supposedly unjust taxes had been completely or nearly repealed by that time. Wikilink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Act/ [wikipedia.org]
As another reply points out, yes, but done in an anti-competitive manner.
Another serious dividing issue is that the British taxes were not high compared to existing Colonial (local) taxes, but they were (much) more effectively collected and always paid in hard coin. Since there was a general shortage of specie (gold and silver coin), especially in the Colonies, this was capable of devastating farms and businesses. Local taxes could often be paid in kind or in service, and, since the dividing line betwee
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
most of the heroin that comes into Australia is Burmese origin. The Karen rebels try to interrupt the supply, so as to weaken the Juntas trade, but the Junta retalliate by kidnapping Karen children and have them walk in front of the soldiers as human minesweepers.
Re: (Score:2)
To get a decent image spy satellites must be in relatively low orbit. Since the velocity of a satellite depends on its altitude this means they can't stay stationary over a fixed point. To stay focused on a fixed point a satellite would have to be geo-stationary, meaning they orbit the earth at the same [angular] speed as the earth's rotation. This occurs at such a high altitude that you can't get any decen