Myanmar, Oct 1

Despite its prevelance in the news, the country of Myanmar is for all intents and purposes, fails to appear on the mental maps of most Americans. To serve as background information, one need look no farther than Myanmar's Wikipedia entry(and in Chinese, notice the distinct difference in amount of content) and Myanmar's CIA Factbook Entry. For Al-Jazeera, Veronica Pederosa writes about potential conflicts among Myanmar's ruling generals. Jeff Hodson, writing for the Seattle Times, posits that Myanmar was a tinderbox waiting for a spark.

Despite notions in the mainstream media to the contrary, no country, even "the Hermit Kingdom," is ever entirely removed from the world around it. Described as one of the main battlefields between the world's two new emerging superpowers, the recent unrest in Myanmar was of particular concern to the Chinese elite and the Indian military establishment. The Guardian reports on the benefits of Beijing's policy toward the SPDC. The junta has been supported for years by foreign corporations, and, consequently, the French Corporation Total is again coming under investigation in Belgium. Writers in the Jakarta Post advocate that Indonesia, seeking to become a leading power among the ASEAN states, should support the protesters. Despite the death of Japanese photographer Kenji Nagai (video is in Burmese), the Japanese Government is approaching its response to the military crackdown delicately, unwilling to cut off Myanmar's largest source of foreign aid. The BBC rounds off the list, with responses from other countries' governments. Also, Gerald Warner opines in the Scotsman that paying attention to the situation in Myanmar is the latest hypocritical Liberal craze, and, on a related note, that the Chinese Government should also be overthrown. In the United States, notable foreign policy figures, such as John McCain and Laura Bush, have announced that they denounce the crackdown. As of this printing, the Support the Monks' protest in Burma group on Facebook has 238,630 members, with 'contextual coverage' from Jill Lawless for the Associated Press.

On a brighter note, there is a stream of good news coming out of Myanmar as the crackdown is apparently lifted. Humanitarian aid organizations are beginning to resume operations, the army is relaxing its grip slightly, and teh Internets were briefly available. On an interesting sidenote, "unknown hackers" did the work of Myanmar's military government and shut down irrawaddy.org, which publishes information from within the insular country.

Reflections on lessons learned from the affair, by Paul Reynolds for the BBC, layout a series of steps usually necessary for regime change.

For a fuller multimedia experience, here are segments of a video directly from the monks' protest in Yangon. One of the most interesting parts is the response to the girl's smile.