NYMHM: Burma Backstory -- How the Junta Stays in Business

Wed Sep 26 15:20:04 PDT 2007

Dear readers:

In light of the ongoing protests in Burma/Myanmar, we bring you a special edition of News You Might Have Missed this week.

Instead of several shorter roundups of world news, we're focusing on Newsdesk's previous coverage of the oil industry and the money that keeps the Myanmar junta in power. This special feature also brings together the latest coverage of oil and gas development there, which promises billions more in profits for the junta.

It's all the context and depth you're not getting from mainstream media -- a hallmark of Newsdesk.org's journalistic mission.

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Josh Wilson
Editor * Newsdesk.org * 415/861-5302

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 NEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED * September 20, 2007 * Vol. 6, No. 38

 Important but overlooked news from around the world.
 NYMHM is a free service of Newsdesk.org.

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QUOTED: 

   "Where do you think that the money is going to go? It's not going
   to education or health programs -- it's going to the military to 
   build a better command-and-control center to repress 
   the population."

   -- Activist David Mathieson, on a pipeline that would earn
   $17 billion for the Myanmar junta (see "Burma Backstory," below).  

CONTENTS:

   *Top Stories*
      Day labor site divides in Texas
      Agribusiness gets another record harvest -- of subsidies
      Billboards no more for Brazil's megalopolis

   *Burma Backstory*
      Myanmar: How oil funding keeps the junta in business

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 TOP STORIES
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 > Agribusiness Gets Another Record Harvest -- of Subsidies

   The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the latest federal
   farm bill would spend $280 billion on traditional subsidies 
   for corn, cotton and wheat, but virtually ignores burgeoning
   organic and alternative farming centered in Northern California. 
   The newspaper notes that California's Fresno County produces
   more food than the entire state of South ... 

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004407.html

 > Billboards No More for Brazil's Megalopolis

   Seventy percent of the residents of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest
   city and the nation's economic powerhouse, remain fully 
   committed to a near-total ban on outdoor urban advertising there. 
   Adbusters reports that the city's conservative mayor, Gilberto 
   Kassab, pushed through the new ...

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004408.html

 > Day Labor Camp Divides in Texas

   A Christian church in Houston is part of an interfaith coalition
   that has drawn the ire of anti-immigration activists by planning
   a new center for day laborers, the Houston Chronicle reports. 
   U.S. Border Watch, a civilian group, brought 200 people to a rally
   opposed to the plan, saying it would undermine ...

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004409.html

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 THE BURMA BACKSTORY
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 > Myanmar: How Oil Funding Keeps the Junta in Business
   Newsdesk.org, Sept. 26, 2007
   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004405.html

   Although most of the world's political powers, including 
   the United States, have condemned the Myanmar junta's 
   crackdown on reformist protestors, the military regime's 
   persistent grip on power there has only been strengthened 
   by decades of economic cooperation with the West.

   Here's a roundup of Newsdesk.org's coverage of the issue, 
   as well as the latest articles from other regional and 
   international news sources.

   In 2002, Newsdesk.org reporter Jennifer Huang broke ground 
   with an exclusive investigative article on a series of human 
   rights lawsuits filed against international energy 
   corporations working in developing nations with 
   abusive regimes.

   The lawsuits -- which targeted a number of American oil 
   companies, including California's Unocal -- were filed in 
   federal court under the Alien Tort Claims Act, an 18th 
   century law that gives U.S. courts jurisdiction over some 
   offenses committed overseas.

   Unocal was sued for its partnership with the French oil 
   giant Total in the construction of the Yadana Pipeline, 
   which carries millions of cubic feet of natural gas every 
   day along a 63-kilometer route through Burma's southern 
   Tenasserim region.

   Rich with natural resources and dense rainforest, Tenasserim 
   is also home to ongoing ethnic strife, and the construction 
   of the pipeline brought with it ongoing reports of forced 
   labor, rape and murder of local minorities by government ... 

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004405.html

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Editor: Josh Wilson
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