“Jazeera” means island. According to International Herald Tribune’s article titled “How Al Jazeera can go up a gear”, Al Jazeera is a Qatar-based TV which is owned by the royal family of Qatar. It launched its English Service, Al Jazeera International, on 15 November 2006 and has obtained TV rights in several countries and regions such as United States and the Latin America. United States President George Bush and his administrative leaders have called the station’s coverage inflammatory and misleading for its journalistic style biased in favour of Arab causes. Al Jazeera has also attracted numerous criticisms and controversies with regard to the war on terrorism: The most famous controversy would have to be the false allegation over the telecast of videos of masked terrorists beheading western hostages in Iraq. Other controversies include the broadcasting of Osama bin Laden’s videos. In those videos, Osama defended and justified the New York’s World Trade Centre attacks on September 11, 2001. US accused Al Jazeera of engaging in propaganda for the terrorists. Shocking enough? It seems Al Jazeera is not going to be another ordinary TV station seeking to increase its viewership base worldwide and their coming to Singapore is going to make a big difference to the already well-controlled mainstream media. Al Jazeera is certainly going to influence the way we see the world with more war news and gory scenes, and with more controversial issues such as the Singapore-Burma ties which has recently caused an embarassment to our Singapore government. Tony Birtley of Al Jazeera reported in the following video which includes interviews with Chee Siok Chin of SDP and Alex Au of yawningbread.org: The Arab broadcaster's English news service will be available to subscribers of Singapore Telecommunications' (SingTel) pay-TV service, the Media Development Authority (MDA) said in a statement. 'MDA has approved SingTel's application to offer the Al-Jazeera English channel on MioTV - its IPTV (Internet Protocol television) service,' Amy Chua, MDA's director for media content division, said in the statement. Officials did not say when Al-Jazeera would go on the air. Qatar-based Al-Jazeera has said it will provide an alternative perspective to international news channels based in Europe and the United States. Al-Jazeera's Arabic service, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in November 2006, has revolutionised news media in the Arab world, but it has also stirred controversy. It gained worldwide recognition mainly due to its broadcast of videotapes issued by Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. -- AFP
It was reported in Straits Times yesterday that Al Jazeera has received permission to be broadcast in Singapore on Singtel’s pay-TV service, MioTV. A few questions may come to our mind:
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Al Jazeera on Singapore’s Singtel MioTV
Monday, November 12, 2007
Movie Review – Tom Cruise’s Lions for Lambs
I watched the movie last weekend. “Lions for Lambs” is a 90-minute movie of intense and rather intellectual dialogues between the different characters – Senator Irving (Tom Cruise) and a journalist named Janine (Meryl Streep), the same actor in the movie “The Devil Wears Prada”.
“Lions For Lambs” is really a movie of more talk than action. It attempts to expose the truth that is nothing new to many people: The politicians who defend their ideals with plastic faces, the media companies that work with the government on the war of propaganda, the soldiers (lions) who fight for the country that does not even take care of them in the first place and also activists who try to motivate the politically apathetic citizens(lambs) like the “ace” student Todd.
In my opinion, it’s not that the scripts are so poorly-written but dialogues are too loaded. It tries to explain the US foreign policy on war on terrorism but too much conversations are presented at one go in such a short period of time without allowing the audience to absorb and internalise them. I suspect a good portion of the audience probably found the movie quite boring and they were probably stunned by the abrupt ending. I would grade it a 2.5 stars out of 5. Watch the trailer below to decide if you want to watch it this weekend.
Update: One of the six US presidential candidates, Democrat Mr Barack Obama mentioned that the Iraq war "should have never been authorised and should have never been waged", contrary to this US foreign policy which the Republicans are in support of.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
My Gun was as Tall as Me
There are so many poor people in a country where the unemployment rate is 10.2% and a GDP per capita of only $1,800. Naturally, it is good that any government would take the task of taking care of their children, providing them with food and jobs when they grow up. But in Burma hell no, as Jo Becker, Advocacy Director of Children’s Rights at Human Rights Watch has mentioned:
Burma's army preys on children, using threats, intimidation and often violence to force young boys to become soldiers. To be a boy in Burma today means facing the constant risk of being picked up off the street, forced to commit atrocities against villagers, and never seeing your family again.
Some testimonials depicting the lives of former child soldiers
About their recruitment into the Burma Army:
"All of us told the soldiers we didn't want to join the army and some said they were students, and the soldiers punched us. They asked me, 'Do you want to join the army?' I refused and they punched me. Then they asked again, 'Do you want to join the army?' I refused again and they punched me again. They did this seven times and I still refused. They punched my face, my chest, my forehead, and they cut open my eyebrow and it bled. I was bleeding from the eyebrow and the mouth. I hadn't agreed, but then they sent me to the clinic. . . . Then the second boy was punched and kicked, and he was sent to the clinic too. Then they said to the other five, 'You see your friends? You see my boot? Now would you like to join the army?' Then the others were afraid and agreed to join the army."
-Soe Naing, recruited at age twelve (all names of former soldiers have been changed)
About their detention in the Burma Army's recruit holding centers:
"When we arrived the soldiers asked us, 'Would you like to join the army or would you like to go home?' Many of us said we'd like to go home. Then they took the thirty or forty of us who'd said that, stripped us naked, put us in the lockup and gave us just a tiny bit of rice. . . . There were about sixty of us in a room the same size as this one. . . . I don't think any were over eighteen. There were ten children who were just thirteen years old. The youngest was my friend who was eleven. He often cried because he didn't get enough food, and then he was beaten by the guards. I also cried often because I didn't want to join the army. I was beaten twice a day for crying. . . . We couldn't sleep. There were also rats and ants in the room. . . . For a toilet they'd dug a hole in the ground and it had a wooden cover over it. . . . There was a terrible smell. . . . Some of my friends were crying. . . . Two or three boys got sick and died."
-Than Aung, recruited at age fourteen
About the Burma Army's military training:
"The youngest were about twelve. There were five of them. They couldn't carry a weapon because it was too heavy for them. . . . They beat them. There were often beatings, then they ordered them to carry two weapons. I dropped my weapon one time, and the trainer said 'You are a soldier. Can't you carry a weapon?' Then he whipped me on the neck with the rope of his whistle."
-Thein Oo, who was trained at age fourteen
About a trainee who was caught trying to escape:
"He was sixteen or seventeen. They ordered him to kneel down. Then three or four NCOs beat him on the head and back with sticks for about half an hour. When he fell the NCOs pulled him back up to his knees. He was unconscious. There was blood all over his face. . . . Then they put him in the leg stocks, and he regained consciousness. They left him in the leg stocks for a week. I saw him there about three times. He looked like he was getting worse. He couldn't eat rice, just a little rice soup. Then he couldn't eat anything and they sent him to hospital. He died in the hospital."
-Salaing Toe Aung, trained at age sixteen in 2001
About their time with Burma Army battalions in the field:
"When I first heard the gunshots I was very afraid. I stayed in a hole and cried. I'd never heard that noise before. I was fifteen. That first time I didn't shoot at all. The battle lasted two hours. Three of ours were killed. I saw it, and it made me afraid."
- Moe Shwe, recruited at age thirteen
"We captured about fifteen women and children. . . three babies and four others who were under eighteen. They took the babies away from their mothers. We gathered them in one place and sent a report to headquarters by radio. . . . The order that came over the radio was to kill them all. . . . Then six of the corporals loaded their guns and shot them. They fired on auto. The women had no time to shout. I saw it. I felt very bad because there were all these people in front of me, and they killed them all. Their bodies were left there. The soldiers were holding the babies and the babies were crying. Two of them were less than a year old, maybe nine or ten months. One was maybe fourteen or fifteen months old. After the mothers were killed they killed the babies. Three of the privates killed them. They swung them by their legs and smashed them against a rock. I saw it."
-Khin Maung Than, age thirteen at the time
According to the Human Rights Watch, the children as young as 12 years old are abducted, trained as soldiers and are used to engage in combat against opposition groups, and are forced to commit human rights abuses against civilians, including rounding up villagers for forced labor, burning villages, and carrying out executions. Goodness, it is so hard to believe that children are trained to commit such atrocities on their fellow Burmeses.
The Burmese army has also doubled its size since the eventful pro-democracy protest in 1988 which took away some 3,000 civilian lives. The army is now the largest army in Southeast Asian with around 350,000 soldiers and as much as 20% of them are below the age of 18. And with a check on the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, the organisation recognises the recruitment of children in armed forces under the age of fifteen as illegal and it is considered as a war crime under the statute for the International Criminal Court.
So what are the various governments in ASEAN going to do about this? They have already made a fatal mistake ten years ago in admitting Burma into ASEAN. The junta has killed its citizens, and has committed uncountable human rights abuses, many of which may not be even known to people outside Burma. How much more bloodbath is needed to make the ASEAN leaders work to force the junta to honour its undertaking to work towards national reconciliation and democratisation in the country? And for goodness sake, dear leaders, save the poor children!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Bush: Threat of World War III if Iran goes nuclear
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush warned on Wednesday a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to World War III as he tried to shore up international opposition to Tehran amid Russian skepticism over its nuclear ambitions.
Bush was speaking a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has resisted Western pressure to toughen his stance over Iran's nuclear program, made clear on a visit to Tehran that Russia would not accept any military action against Iran. At a White House news conference, Bush expressed hope Putin would brief him on his talks in Tehran and said he would ask him to clarify recent remarks on Iran's nuclear activities.
Putin said last week that Russia, which is building Iran's first atomic power plant, would "proceed from the position" that Tehran had no plans to develop nuclear weapons but he shared international concerns that its nuclear programs "should be as transparent as possible."
"The thing I'm interested in is whether or not he continues to harbor the same concerns that I do," Bush said. "When we were in Australia (in September), he reconfirmed to me that he recognizes it's not in the world's interest for Iran to have the capacity to make a nuclear weapon." Bush, who has insisted he wants a diplomatic solution to the Iranian issue, is pushing for a third round of U.N. sanctions against Iran.
Russia, a veto-holding member of the Security Council, backed two sets of limited U.N. sanctions against Iran but has resisted any tough new measures.
Stepping up his rhetoric, Bush said a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a "dangerous threat to world peace." "We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel," he said. "So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
PUTIN'S "SPECIAL MESSAGE"
Iran rejects accusations it is seeking to develop a nuclear bomb, saying it wants nuclear technology for peaceful civilian purposes such as power generation, and has refused to heed U.N. Security Council demands to halt sensitive uranium enrichment.
Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani was quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency on Wednesday as saying that Putin had delivered a "special message" on its atomic program and other issues. No other details were given.
Putin's visit on Tuesday was watched closely because of Moscow's possible leverage in the Islamic Republic's nuclear standoff with the West. It was the first time a Kremlin chief went to Iran since Josef Stalin in 1943. Asked about Putin's "special message," U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he was not aware of any deal or offer put forward by Moscow to Tehran over the nuclear program.
On Russian opposition to Caspian Sea states being used to launch attacks against Iran, Casey reiterated that Bush kept all his options on the table but that the United States was committed to the diplomatic path with Tehran.
(Additional reporting by Frederick Dahl in Tehran and Sue Pleming in Washington)
