10. Myanmars Protest

Myanmar protesters sit outside the Myanmar's embassy during last week's demonstration in Kuala Lumpur - The Star.

About 2,000 Myanmars living in Malaysia held a street protest in front of the Myanmar Embassy in Jalan Ampang Hilir on Thursday ( yesterday) morning.

The banners carried by protesters highlighted their objection to the country’s military junta using violence and killing monks and civilians. The protesters urged the junta to stop killing pro-democracy protesters.

The groups representing National League for Democracy (LA) Malaysia (NLD), Burma-Workers’ Rights Protective Committee (BWRPC) and Democratic People New Society (DPNS) then walked to the Russian and Chinese embassies to hand over memoranda to each of the countries’ representatives.

The four-point memorandum asks for the military to stop the crackdown on monks, the release of NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the release of student leaders from the 1988 demonstrations, and the implementation of national reconciliation and trilateral talks.

Coalition spokesman, Ye Min Tun, who is also BWRPC general-secretary, said that the people of Myanmar had been suffering long enough under the oppression of the military regime.

Cheras OCPD Assist Comm Ahmad Amir Mohd Hashim said the protesters staged an hour-long peaceful demonstration before being allowed to hand over the memoranda - The Star.

9. Junta Chief to Suu Kyi

Myanmar's junta chief has offered to meet detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi if she ends her support for sanctions against the regime, state media said Thursday.

The announcement came as the junta announced that more than 2,000 people were arrested during its deadly crackdown on anti-government protests during the last week, acknowledging that some of the detainees were simply bystanders.

( pic left - face of a Myanmar dissident reflected over a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi )

Myanmar's Senior General Than Shwe made the offer to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi during his talks Tuesday with UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, state television reported.

However, his offer was contingent on the 62-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been held under house arrest for more than a decade, making a series of concessions that made any hope of talks appear a distant possibility.

"Senior General Than Shwe said during his meeting with Mr. Gambari that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been promoting four things -- confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions on Myanmar, and other sanctions," state television said.

"Then he passed his message that he would meet directly with her for dialogue if she announces that she has given up these four things," it added.

Myanmar again accused foreign media of stoking the protests that drew 100,000 people into the streets of Yangon on successive days last week.

"The United Nations had to send Mr. Gambari because of the one-sided reporting of the foreign media," state television said.

( pic right - demonstrators protest outside the Myanmar embassy in downtown Kuala Lumpur)

Myanmar also made its first public account of the arrests in its crackdown that left at least 13 dead as security forces used baton charges, tear gas, and live weapons fire to break up the peaceful protests last week.

A total of 2,093 people were arrested since September 25, but 692 have already been released, state television said.

The protests were the greatest challenge in nearly two decades to the military, which has ruled the country also known as Burma for 45 years.

While a semblance of normality has returned during daytime, long-simmering discontent had been "heightened by anger by what has been done against the demonstrators, the atrocities that have been committed against the monks," she said.

Myanmar on Thursday released a 38-year-old local UN staff member, her two relatives and driver, a day after they were detained, the UN's country chief Charles Petrie said.

China, which has in the past blocked steps to punish Myanmar, praised the UN mediation efforts and called for calm.

"We are pleased with the results achieved by Gambari's visit," said a Chinese government statement without specifying what those results were.

On Saturday, supporters of the pro-democracy movement are set to join a global day of protest called by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups - AFP.

8. First things First

PKR vice-president R Sivarasa and party worker Sim Tze Tzin were both served notices today (by ACA) to reveal the source within seven days.

Sivarasa said he would discuss the matter with party officials and legal advisors before deciding on the next course of action.

“If we have to take the punishment to protect our source, so be it,” he told reporters after receiving the notices at the Federal Territories ACA headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

The notice stated that failure to comply with the demand would be a breach of Section 29 (c) of the Anti-Corruption Act 1997.

Under Section 58 of the same Act, offenders would be liable to a fine of no more than RM10,000 or a two-year jail term.

The video, released by PKR on Sept 19, shows a lawyer having a telephone conversation with a judge about ‘fixing’ judicial appointments.

Following this, Sivarasa lodged a report with the ACA urging them to investigate the details in the video.

The PKR vice-president said today that the ACA appeared to be skewed towards investigating the complainant and the source of the video clip.

Read full news from Malaysiakini, 5.10 2007.


Agreed that the individuals implicated in the tape be probed. But first things first. The authenticity of the tape has to be established first. The Independent Panel has to do this before the real investigation will be done by another Royal Commission later. If no immunity was required for the tape to be revealed in the first instance, what more immunity is required for revealing the source, from a Royal Commission? If the source was unwilling to be revealed, then why release the tape? Let's get on with the job of cleaning the judiciary. Please co-operate with the ACA and the Panel for justice ! We want the truth.

7. Calling for Evidence

BREAKING NEWS: 10.10 am

Datuk Mahadev Shankar:

If any person out there, the public, has got any material information which bears on the authenticity of this tape, feel free to come to us. Please I repeat, feel free to come to us, but make sure the evidence that you are bringing here is reliable, relevant and we would have to decide on its admissibility.

Don’t say ‘Mr X’, ‘Mr Y’ and so on. If you’re coming with a statement, please give your name, identity card number, (and) where that person can be contacted.

Let me put it this way to you - the responsibility of a stable and orderly society is not on the government alone. You know every citizen has got that same duty. As far as the public is concerned, with respect to all of you, a lot of noises being made in the blogs and Internet, anybody can say anything. But what is your responsibility? Somebody out there is holding the original video, has he got a responsibility?

To have the video produced so that we can look at it and see what is contained or whatever it is. Somebody out there took that video, has he got a responsibility? They may have been others there who saw what was happening and so on, have they got a responsibility? It is not just talking and talking. You create a situation and then the whole country is going up and down, worrying and wondering what is going on.

The truth is the best armour, justice is the best protection. You can’t pick that out of the air. The people who has got knowledge must be bold enough to come, if not for anything but for the sake of Malaysia.

We don’t want to force anybody. If you want to come, come, but if you don’t come, don’t complain. At the end of the day, we will write our report based on the materials that (are) made available to us. We will make our mind straight and we will do that.

They, ACA, will decide what is relevant, what is good and whether it helps us. If we are not satisfied, we need more, we can tell them ‘why can’t you give us this, why can’t you give us that...’.

- above from Malaysiakini, transcript of interview with Panel, 3.10.2007.


I say now, based on the above, go to the Independent Panel and give the evidence. The panel, based on the Evidence Act, will decide on its admissibility and call for the evidence. This will establish the authenticity of the tape. Datuk Shankar specifically mentioned the holder of the original video, the person who took the video, and others who saw what was happening to come forward. Come clean now and don't complain later!

6. News in Pictures

1. Indian cricketers pose with turbans, before a one-day international against Australia.

2. A portrait of the late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung is seen at a festival coinciding with the two Koreas summit in Pyongyang.

3. Adults watch children play beneath a display of national flags at a park in Beijing, during the week-long holiday celebrating the 58th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

4. A 70-metre long banner is laid out on Sydney's Bondi Beach by protesters against a proposed pulp mill on Australia's island state of Tasmania - ( All pictures by BBC).