Burma: Information window closing, basic survival harder. Read while you can!

[uppityperson]

We may soon be hearing less about Burma and its people are suffering more. 3 cheers for the brave people who have been getting information out to the world during this incredible time, 3 cheers to all who have stood up and said "enough is enough, time to change".


http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSDEL27498620070927
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A "window of information" is closing in Myanmar as the military junta battles networks of disaffected citizens by restricting mobile phones and Internet access, a leading dissident journalist said on Thursday.

The biggest anti-junta protests in two decades in one of the world's most closed states has been broadcast around the world thanks to exiled journalists in countries such as Thailand and India and their clandestine contacts on the inside. So far, citizen reporters have managed to send information and photos across the Internet, even using the social networking site Facebook or hiding news within e-greetings cards to outwit the military government.

Pictures of marches of monks and civilians and the response by security forces is on TV screens around the world in hours. It all contrasts with Myanmar's last major uprising, in 1988, when as many as 3,000 people were killed by soldiers firing on crowds but it took days for the news to emerge.

It could soon change....(more)



http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP20860520070927?pageNumber=1
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - People in Myanmar were already living on the edge before the government doubled fuel prices, raising the cost of just about everything and shoving many over the precipice.

In a country where more than a quarter of the 56 million people live on less than a dollar a day, the sudden announcement of fuel price hikes on August 15 became the tipping point of a crisis that had been building for a long time.

For retired headmaster U Sein, 82, and his wife Daw Nu, 80, the plunge in their quality of life has been nightmarish.

"My monthly pension now buys only two cups of tea although it used to be enough for the monthly subsistence diet for my wife and me when I first retired over 20 years ago," U Sein told Reuters in May, months before fuel prices went up.

The cost of living had soared since the failed uprising of 1988, residents say, but has really rocketed the past year....(more)

[uppityperson]

1. kick for evening crew