Politics

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 13 (IPS) - Images of the dead keep trickling out of Burma. The most moving are those of children who died when Cyclone Nargis tore through their world in the populous Irrawaddy delta.

By Nalaka Gunawardene

As the United Nations and aid agencies struggle with the incredibly uncaring Burmese bureaucracy to get much needed emergency relief for the affected Burmese people, the media outside Burma are having great difficulty accessing authentic information and images.

By Shailendra Singh

SUVA, May 5 (IPS) - Fiji’s interim government has come under withering criticism both nationally and internationally for the deportation on Friday of the Australian publisher of the leading ‘Fiji Times’ daily, Evan Hannah.

By Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Apr 17 (IPS) - With the Olympic torch passing safely through India, home of the government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, China got what it wanted. But then so did the large community of Tibetan expatriates in this country: publicity for their cause.

By Shailendra Singh

SUVA, Feb 29 (IPS) - Amid fears of a new clampdown on media, following the expulsion of Australian expatriate newspaper publisher Russell Hunter, journalists in this Pacific Island country are being urged by activists not to succumb to intimidation by the interim government.

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Feb 28 (IPS) - Somewhere in the dilapidated city of Rangoon is a man on the run since August last year. He has sheltered in over 10 homes so far. But he expects to continue avoiding arrest by Burma’s dreaded military or intelligence forces.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, Feb 14 (IPS) – Clichés and stereotypes, blood and gore, and an attempt to throw in a progressive cause like Burma is the mix that viewers will see in the latest Rambo movie, where Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone saves the day with his trademark grunt and his well-honed guerrilla tactics.

In the fourth installment of the Rambo films, Stallone resurrects the (still) lean, mean, sharp as ever killing machine that is John Rambo, the former Vietnam veteran who captured the hearts of action fans worldwide in 'First Blood' a generation ago.

Before coming to Burma, Rambo had forays into Vietnam and Afghanistan – problem countries for the U.S. government at some point. Now, he takes on a whole battalion of Burmese soldiers and saves the innocent from annihilation – although the jury is out on whether the film works as an effective tool for drumming up awareness about Burmese junta’s atrocities.

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Feb 14 (IPS) - For image-conscious China, the public snub by Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg, withdrawing involvement with the Beijing Olympics to protest the country’s indifference to the Darfur crisis, is seen as a setback to painstaking efforts to stage the perfect ‘coming-of-age’ party.