I feel as I'm sure most people do the thought provoking pictures and videos seen both on the net and TV on how protesters are dealt with by the junta there. Personally I think China has a big part to play in this and I think the only muscle we have against them besides sanctions is to Boycott the next Olympic games. It is very frustrating towatch this and be,individually, powerless to act to help the plight of the Burmese people. Politicians should act more effectively as it is their profession, I think they just adopt a selfishly, out of site out of mind policy. weblink

Perhaps its not only politicians who have the out of sight out of mind thought here. I think people in general dont seem to care it seems

No oil involved, nothing else that Europe/the US wants. No surprise.

We're just as self-interested as every other nation, we (1) just spend more time rationalising it and (2) have the technological muscle to exert ourselves when we want to, albeit under the pretext of "world policing".

Indeed, sounding so outraged about Burma is probably a bit hypocritical (on us as a nation, not you personally), since we've done nothing about the same sorts of things in Zimbabwe beyond make a few noises politically now and then. Nor have we demanded active intervention in Tibet...oh, we can't, the Chinese are a bit too strong there. So let's pick and choose the cool battles, where we might win.

As I find myself saying rather a lot these days, it's a tricky one. China differ from America in that they don't step in and act like the world's police and with all the problems China have internally you cannot blame them. The UN is better placed to act as world guardian, though it doesn't seem to have the power to do so. The UN always seems to be the little voice from the side lines.

I don't think anyone will disagree that what is going on in Burma looks awful. But who's job is it to step in? If a country is not run democratically then which country has the job of stopping any abuse of power? Most nations these days will only get involved through self interest.

Personally I think the UN should be much stronger and take control in situations like this. Obviously our leaders should condem what is happening, but I for one would be (am!) annoyed if we spent all our tax money on policing the world. The USA is due to spend $150bn in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008. I wonder what the UK are spending?

Back to Burma, I hope the reports that are coming in this morning that the bloodshed has been far worse than reported as unfounded.

Like with most things, it's all shades of grey rather than the simple black and white scenario in which our political leaders would have us believe. China, to continue extending the thread off-topic from Burma, is not run at all democratically - Tiananmen Square and all bearing constant witness to that - but you rarely hear talk of countries "stepping in" to prevent abuse of power, whereas George W. Bush's rhetoric about Iraq implied we should all be doing that in every case. Only the Chinese are a bit too strong and it's easier to "police" the lickle countries, so most of the time we pretend China's OK really. And we avoid thorny subjects like Tibet, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba...etc etc.

You have to make a (difficult) choice between trying to be the world's police in all circumstances - Darfur, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Israeli/Syria mess, N/S Korea, Tibet, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba - or shrugging your shoulders and standing back so long as the conflict(s) don't come near your borders. Otherwise you just end up looking like George W. and Tony Blair did/do; hypocritical and self-interested.

How did China get to stage the next Olympics??? The mind boggles :blink: :blink:

Going back to the crisis in Burma, just seen on CWU website that there is to be a march and rally in London on Saturday 6th October starting at Tate Britain at 11 o'clock. A number of charities, trade unions and religeous organizations are taking part.

One might make the same observation about the Moscow Olympics last century. I believe the usual reason is something along the lines of "it's sport, which is apolitical and shouldn't recognise all these national quarrels". The same reason was given when the England cricketers toured apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

All well and good in theory, but lots of folk usually turn round and accuse the organisers / players of condoning whatever it is the Bad Nation's been up to. Like in this instance.

Repression continues in China, less than one year before the Olympic Games

When the International Olympic Committee assigned the 2008 summer Olympic Games to Beijing on 13 July 2001, the Chinese police were intensifying a crackdown on subversive elements, including Internet users and journalists. Six years later, nothing has changed. But despite the absence of any significant progress in free speech and human rights in China, the IOC’s members continue to turn a deaf ear to repeated appeals from international organisations that condemn the scale of the repression.

Chinese authorities promised the IOC and international community concrete improvements in human rights in order to win the 2008 Olympics for Beijing. But they changed their tone after getting what they wanted. For example, then deputy Prime Minister Li Lanqing said, four days after the IOC vote in 2001, that “China’s Olympic victory” should encourage the country to maintain its “healthy life” by combatting such problems as the Falungong spiritual movement, which had “stirred up violent crime.” Several thousands of Falungong followers have been jailed since the movement was banned and at least 100 have died in detention.

It would be logical for China to get its house in order, locally There is no doubt it has muscle regarding the Burma protests to put pressure on the junta and stop them killing innocent civilians in this case

With regards the UN's security council it's going to be weak because there's permanent members of the council can use their vetos to block resolutions. The permanent members are US, UK, France, China and Russia. That's why they don't have any resolutions about Tibet, Burma etc because China can just veto it. If you look at the resolutions passed in the last few years it's mostly about African countries presumably because the permanent member states don't have any interest in them (by that I mean strong diplomatic, financial ties etc.).

Maybe the best way to get a strong UN is to stop countries veto-ing resolutions, instead having a way of noting their disaproval of it etc. And/or having no permanent members but having more countries on their to try and include a wider spectrum of opinion.

I'm glad that protesters made their point today in London and should make chinese authority stand up and realise the world can see their efforts in censuring protest in Tibet cannot and it seems will not go away. Not the first chink in the ceremony but i'm sure protests will continue as the torch is displayed around the world. Incidentally, I thought our police were very heavy handed today more like a rugby match than a ceremony :lol:

Until I had watched the procession, I hadn't realised that we had so many policemen in this country. Are they normally kept in frozen storage somewhere? It would explain where our taxes are going.

Well TW when the world are watching how 'good' our boys in all colours including chinese blue who surrounded the torch bearer and seemed to have heavy handed police powers also were today it seemed rehearsing for the next youve been tango'd commercial You have to have a special force at hand especially when someone is carrying a torch. From now on everyone should carry torches if police protection is that good :blink: