3 days ago, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jXMo_SkQTRBhVVzvIp5UrsyiYoeQ

YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar's ruling junta denied Tuesday that detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi had gone on hunger strike, but rumours persisted after she apparently refused to receive food deliveries.

Exiled Myanmar dissidents in India and Thailand reported that the Nobel Peace Prize winner last accepted fresh food supplies on August 15.

"It is just rumours, it is not true," said a Myanmar government official who refused to be named. "We have not got any (political) demands from her."

Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), said they were unable to confirm or deny the report as they were not allowed to keep in regular touch with their leader, who is under house arrest in Yangon.

"We haven't heard anything about it. So we cannot confirm these rumours as we have no contact with her at all," said NLD spokesman Win Naing.

The rumours were persistent enough to spread to Western diplomatic circles, with one diplomat who refused to be named telling AFP: "We are trying to know more. The only person who has seen her is the doctor."

Aung San Suu Kyi's doctor and lawyer were permitted to visit her on August 17 when she was given a medical checkup, her first since February.

One exiled opposition party based on the Thai-Myanmar border said it had heard Aung San Suu Kyi's weekly food supplies were last accepted on August 15, but were turned away on August 22.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 19 years confined to her lakeside Yangon home.

Her latest detention began more than five years ago, and she has been allowed little contact with the outside world.

She met her lawyer, Kyi Win, twice in August but that was their first meeting since 2004.

Last week the junta said Aung San Suu Kyi refused to meet visiting UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, and state television aired images of his two aides standing in vain outside her compound waiting for a response.

Gambari also failed to meet junta head Than Shwe, and left the country on Saturday with few results.

In a bid to soothe international outrage after a violent crackdown on anti-junta protests last September, the generals appointed a liaison, labour minister Aung Kyi, to negotiate with Aung San Suu Kyi.

But the pair have not met since January, when the opposition leader complained about the slow pace of their talks.

Aung San Suu Kyi is known as "The Lady" throughout Myanmar, where she remains a potent symbol of the struggle to end military rule despite being largely silenced by the ruling generals.

The NLD won national elections in 1990 but the junta, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, never allowed it to assume power.

Myanmar protestors display a portrait of Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi

#3 Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman, chief executive, PepsiCo, U.S.: Nooyi continues to grow PepsiCo, the $39 billion food and beverage giant, through new product offerings and acquisitions

#21 Sonia Gandhi, President, Indian National Congress Party, India:Gandhi, the Italian-born leader of India's most powerful political party, the Indian National Congress Party, has by now assumed the role of elder stateswoman.

#38 Aung San Suu Kyi, Deposed prime minister; Nobel peace laureate, Myanmar: Since the democratic elections in 1990, when she was elected prime minister, Suu Kyi, 63, has been kept from power and is now in the sixth consecutive year of house arrest.

#59 Mayawati Kumari, Chief minister, Uttar Pradesh, India: In the running to be prime minister, from her perch as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.

#99 Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman and managing director, Biocon, India: Trained in Australia as a brewer, she founded Biocon in 1978 to make industrial enzymes with a small Irish company, Biocon Biochemicals.

Click here for the complete Forbes list and the profiles:

Once again, the news from Burma rings with echoes of despair.

The latest mission from the international community has ended in embarrassment -- not for the despotic generals who rule Burma (renamed Myanmar by its illegitimate regime) -- but for the United Nations and its ineffectual efforts. It seems no one who matters wants to waste any more time meeting with the U.N. envoy. Now, unconfirmed reports say the iconic leader of the pro-democracy opposition, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, may have started a hunger strike. Once again, Burma stands like a conscience-searing mirage on the Asian horizon, reminding us of our failure to help the most desperate.

The Nigerian diplomat chosen by the United Nations to conduct negotiations, Ibrahim Gambari, has left Burma without having met Gen. Than Shwe, the head of the ruling junta, or Suu Kyi, the woman who led the country's National League for Democracy to victorious elections 18 years ago, and has spent most of the time since then under house arrest.

Opposition leaders in exile and inside the country are fed up with Gambari, who served as his country's U.N. ambassador during Nigeria's military dictatorship. Burmese activists say his work has proven ''worthless,'' a ''failure.'' The United Nations defends him, calling for patience, saying that he is engaged in a ``process.''

But how much patience? Military rulers have governed Burma since 1962. In August 1988 -- on the supposedly lucky date of 8-8-88 -- street demonstrators demanded democracy. Soldiers massacred protesters, and a new junta took over. Reform was supposed to come after the 1990 elections, called by the junta in a miscalculation. Suu Kyi's NLD won by a landslide. The winners landed in prison, and the junta continued to grind its heel on the population. By then, Burma had suffered not only from widespread human rights abuses, but had been transformed from one of the more affluent countries in Asia to one of the poorest in the world. The Burmese, one would think, have good reason to resent appeals to patience.

Calls for democracy don't just rise out of ideological passion for the rule of the people. No, Burma needs change because the generals have destroyed their country and their people's lives. According to the European Union, Burma spends less on healthcare than any country on Earth. It spends lavishly on one of the biggest military forces in the world, looting the country's vast natural resources to enrich top officers. Meanwhile, combined spending on health, education -- and on helping those who lost everything after a catastrophic cyclone -- reaches a few dollars a year per person.

The Beijing-backed generals are not completely immune to international pressure. After Cyclone Nargis killed 138,000 and left 800,000 homeless last May, the junta blocked international aid. With thousands facing death, the generals wouldn't budge. But then, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner uttered the magic words: The Responsibility to Protect.

The RTP doctrine says that governments have the duty to protect their people from crimes against humanity. When they become the perpetrators, the responsibility falls on the international community. That hinted at foreign intervention. The generals relented only enough to avert a major catastrophe. Witnesses say minimal aid has reached the victims, but not enough to rebuild their lives.

NLD officials say Suu Kyi has turned back food deliveries since mid-August and say they are extremely worried about the health of a woman revered by millions throughout Burma. Suu Kyi may want to scare the generals and shake the international community back into action. She has already made unimaginable sacrifices. No one knows how far she will go now.

History has shown that the junta responds only to extreme pressure, especially when it comes from its Asian neighbors -- particularly China. Then it ignores earlier promises when the world looks away.

Reports in the region say the day after the Beijing Olympics ended, China's defense minister told his Burmese counterpart that he wants to strengthen bilateral ties. China and Burma, it seems, have short memories. After the cyclone and a year earlier, after brutal repression of an uprising by Buddhist monks, they seemed briefly ready to negotiate. Then the world looked away, soothing its conscience with a useless envoy.

Helping the Burmese people's nonviolent struggle requires outspoken, vigorous and relentless diplomacy. Beijing must hear that its post-Olympic international standing requires that it, too, pressure the junta to negotiate a transition of power.

Enough despair. It's past time that we had some good news from Burma.

The Country
So, the basics on Myanmar. It's the largest country in southeast Asia, and though officially (since June 18th, 1989) it's called the Union of Myanmar, the inhabitants are called Burmese and still call it Burma. It was renamed after the current government group, the Myanma Naingngandaw, which is little more than a violent military regime. The persistence of it's inhabitants to call the nation Burma is a protest to that regime. Oh, and in the Milton-Bradley board-game Risk, it's called Siam. Still can't figure that one out...

The Bad
In 1948 Burma became a republic, and the Union of Burma was one of the fastest growing nations in Asia. They were actually the world's largest exporter of rice at one point. However, in 1962 General Ne Win led a military coup d'etat (pronounced: koo-da-ta) and in 1974 established the Burma Socialist Programme Party. Since then the nation has been in steady decline in every area imaginable, and in 1987 the UN designated Burma as a fourth-world country.

The Ugly
Protests of any kind, or any attempt to speak out for freedom in Burma, is almost always immediately stamped out by the military/government. There is not a lot of media coverage on Burma, because the military tries not to use lethal force on protesters, preferring to make thousands of arrests instead. And the average prison sentence in Burma is 16,616 years.

Burma is one of the biggest human trafficking and child-prostitution hubs in the world, and the government is not making it a priority to do much about it. For example, in 2006 the government arrested a Burmese woman for selling two girls into prostitution, and she was sentenced to only 12 years in prison. From 2002 to 2007 the government arrested 1484 people for human trafficking and child prostitution; only 748 were given prison sentences (I couldn't find anywhere that said how long the sentences were).

And So...
Recently, there has been an increasing number of "raids" by humanitarians going into Burma to rescue girls forced into prostitution. We can continue to pray that God will guide and protect those who are going to help, and that He will bring healing to those involved in the human trafficking industry.

-J

The latest tourism forecast published by the London-based World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has made optimistic predictions for tourism industry of Myanmar. The Irrawaddy newspaper has reported that the WTTC forecasts a 4.1% rise in tourism to the cyclone-devastated country this year, with the industry providing jobs for 1,297,000 people, or 5.8% of national employment. The rose-tinted view comes in spite of political demonstrations and the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis in May this year, killing an estimated 145,000 people. In fact the report makes no reference to Nargis or last September’s mass street protests and the subsequent military crackdown.The WTTC’s view, which continues to suggest that by 2018 tourism will be contributing US$1.61 billion to Myanmar’s GDP, is not shared by many. The country’s Tourism Entrepreneurs Association believes that tourist arrivals this year have slumped 90%. Meanwhile Burma Economics Watch compiler Sean Turnell has questioned the WTTC figures, especially the conversion rate between local currency and the US dollar.“The exchange rates used are all over the place,” Turnell, Professor of Economics and Burma specialist at Sydney’s Macquarie University in Sydney, told The Irrawaddy. “Overall, I’d have to say the report is pretty worthless,” he concluded.

Supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi believe the imprisoned Burmese democracy leader may have launched a hunger strike over the military regime's refusal to hold talks about democratic reforms.

Members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) said the 63-year-old had last accepted a weekly delivery of food on 15 August and told the young party members who delivered it not to bring any more. An NLD spokesman in Burma said he could not confirm whether she had stopped eating but that bags of food delivered to a checkpoint outside her house in Rangoon had not been picked up.

“If Aung San Suu Kyi continues to refuse food from her comrades, her health will be of serious concern,” the NLD's office in neighbouring Thailand, said in a statement. “Two people living with [her] are also refusing food. The international community's immediate action is necessary.”

The Nobel Laureate has spent 13 of the last 19 years either in prison or under house arrest. Since May 2003 she has been detained at her lakeside home where she lives with her assistant and another female party member. She was last seen in public when she briefly appeared at the gate of her heavily guarded house as a crowd of Buddhist monks gathered outside during last September's democracy demonstrations.

Her party colleagues said Ms Suu Kyi recently told the regime she wished to renew negotiations in order to help bring about national reconciliation. She also said she wanted a satellite dish installed at her home and for her assistant, Khin Win, to be able to leave whenever she wants.

At the same time, she last week cancelled a series of meetings with the UN's special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, during his six day visit to Burma. The Nigerian diplomat was criticised by Burma's political opposition and accused of trying to appease the country's military regime rather than push it towards making democratic reforms

The junta that has ruled Burma for two decades is determined to ensure Ms Suu Kyi remains in detention. It knows that if she were set free she would be the only person around which the public might rally in sufficient numbers to challenge the military authorities.

To those ends, in May the regime extended her current detention term by another year. They have also severely restricted the number of people allowed to see her. While her doctor and lawyer were permitted to visit her last week, that was her first medical check-up since February and the first meeting with her legal representative since 2004.

The military junta yesterday claimed that the detained politician had not started a hunger strike. “It is just rumours, it is not true,” a government official told the Agence France-Presse. “We have not got any political demands from her.”

But campaigners in the West said it was possible that Ms Suu Kyi had decided to turn to such drastic measures. “There have been rumours like this before which have turned out not to be true, but given the way Gambari seems to favour the regime one could imagine that she is feeling very frustrated,” said Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK. “Gambari does not have the respect of the [military regime] and is seen as biased by the democracy movement. It is hard to see how he can carry on as UN envoy.”

In 1990 Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD won an overwhelming victory in national elections. But the military authorities ignored the result and began rounding up political opponents. Human rights groups believe that up to 200 people may have been killed by the authorities when they crushed last year's demonstrations. Hundreds of political prisoners and Buddhist monks remain in jail.

There are basically two types of meditation and they are diametrically opposed to each other.

One is passive and the other dynamic. One attempts to still the mind while the other follows the vagaries of the mind and the thoughts that go with it.

Most people are familiar with passive meditation. However, the concept of dynamic meditation -- called "image streaming" by researcher and educator, Win Wenger, is less well known.

As discussed last week, this is a type of medication that Einstein may have used. Except that he described it as "vague play" with "signs", "images", and other elements, both "visual" and "muscular".

"This combinatory play," he wrote, "seems to be the essential feature in productive thought".

Win Wenger's project of the last 25 years has been to develop techniques and mental exercises, based in part on Einstein's methods. These work in the short term and seem to develop the mind's permanent powers.

Read the full text

Nyan Win delivered strongly-worded criticism of the UN mission

Burma's main opposition party has dismissed the latest visit by UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari as a waste of time.

Nyan Win, of the National League for Democracy (NLD), said Mr Gambari had not established any dialogue between the military rulers and the opposition.

He was also annoyed that the envoy appeared to have given tacit backing to the junta's planned election in 2010.

Detained NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi refused to meet Mr Gambari, fuelling speculation she is unhappy with the UN.

And Mr Gambari was not invited to the remote capital of Nay Pyi Taw to meet the junta's top leader, Senior General Than Shwe.

The BBC's South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, says Mr Gambari now seems to have used up all the credibility he had.

After more than two years of failure his statements remain relentlessly upbeat - yet he seems to put no pressure on the generals, our correspondent says.

Consolidated power

Nyan Win expressed particular annoyance with Mr Gambari for negotiating with the generals over their "roadmap" to democracy, which plans for elections in 2010.

"We have made very clear to the UN envoy that the mission should not discuss the upcoming 2010 elections, as the NLD does not recognise the military-backed constitution," he said.

Mr Gambari's latest visit to Burma has attracted little praise

"The UN envoy was wasting his time on matters that he was not supposed to deal with."

He added that Mr Gambari had also failed to make any progress on the other major theme of his mission - to secure the release of political prisoners including Ms Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest.

During his six-day visit, Mr Gambari did hold talks with the NLD and meet Prime Minister Thein Sein - a figurehead who holds little real power.

But diplomats conceded that nothing concrete had come of his visit.

The NLD won a general election in 1990 but the junta refused to allow the party to assume power.

In recent months, the generals have further consolidated their grip on power, pushing through a constitution which reserves 25% of the seats in any future parliament for the military.

They have also extended Ms Suu Kyi's house arrest for another year. She has spent more than half of the past 20 years in detention. ]]>