After nearly two decades in power, Burma’s ruling junta should be showing signs of wear and tear. Indeed, observers are constantly on the lookout for evidence of a split within the ranks of the regime’s top leadership.

Not surprisingly, they often find what they’re looking for. But rarely, if ever, do these internal strains signal the sort of real weakness that could undermine the junta’s hold on power.

Kyaw Zwa Moe (VS ‘06), comments in the Thailand-based English language news magazine The Irrawaddy.

Read the article.

Photography by Taro Taylor via Flickr.

The Internet is wildly popular in Iran, and blogging has become a vital source of information and analysis due to the systematic rollbacks of press freedoms (such as they were) during the last few years. Censorship and self-censorship takes its toll, as does intimidation and imprisonment of bloggers. But how-to-blog sites are among the most visited by Iranians, I reckon an indication that huge numbers of Iranians feel they have something to say and are doing their best to say it.

That brings me to Omid Memarian, one of Iran’s most courageous bloggers. TIME magazine’s Scott MacLeod writes on Omid Memarian (’08).

Read the article.

Over half of Mumbai’s 13 million live in slums. Dharavi has the dubious distinction of being the biggest slum of all. But a plan to raze and rebuild this area – populatd by over 500,000 is underway. In September 2007 twenty six of the world’s largest developers put in bids for the chance to undertake
this massive project.

The redevelopment plan’s mastermind, Mukesh Mehta, says that he’s taken all the factors into consideration; rehousing slumdwellers, providing employment, upgrading utilities as well as ensuring that top-level developers will be in charge of the massive undertaking.

But over half a million people live and work in this bustling beehive of a slum, and many aren’t happy about a plan that will radically change their world. Charlotte Buchen (’07) produced this video for CurrentTV.

“Hunting is good. It’s good for the body,” says Baiyaertu, 83, his hazel eyes twinkling as he smokes a cigarette from a long plastic holder. “After you come back with something, you feel really happy.” A member of the Oroqen, an ethnic group from China’s northeast, he first pursued game in the wilderness as a child with his parents. It has been decades since he last hunted, but his memories are strong. Austin Ramzy (’03) writes for TIME.

Read the article.

Photo by Michael Mooney via Flickr.

There’s no shortage of crises facing Pakistan’s new leaders as their parliament convenes its first regular session on Thursday: an economic downturn, a crippling shortage of electricity, skyrocketing inflation — the price of bread has nearly doubled — and a rampant crime surge. Clashes between pro-government lawyers and supporters of President Pervez Musharraf in Karachi Wednesday left seven people dead. And moves to reinstate the independent judiciary sacked by Musharraf last November could bring new turmoil — Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry could push for Musharraf’s ouster on the grounds that his reelection was unconstitutional. And if he overturns the blanket amnesty granted to politicians charged with corruption, at least one key leader of the new ruling coalition, Benazir Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari, could face renewed investigation. Aryn Baker (’01) reports for TIME.

Read the story.

Lisa Pickoff-White (’09) and Rhyen Coombs (’09) covered the Olympic torch rally and protests in San Francisco with a video for the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Read the story.

It’s the night before the highly anticipated Olympic torch relay in San Francisco, and I am watching a training session for protesters led by Students for a Free Tibet, the group who scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl two banners the day before. A stream of young Tibetans files into the back of a Berkeley church until the room is filled. Lhadon Tethong, the executive director of the organization, arrives with a caravan of weary protesters who had attended a candlelight vigil in San Francisco. Alison Satake (’09) and Charlotte Buchen (’07) write and produce two video dispatches for PBS FRONTLINE/World on the Beijing Olympic torch relay in San Francisco and the new Tibetan youth movement.

Watch the videos, read the posts.

The Olympics torch had to take a detour and cut short its originally planned journey under a veil of secrecy as a large crowd of protesters waited along its waterfront route and passions ran high with Tibetan supporters and local Chinese groups coming face-to-face and shouting at each other at many places in Golden Gate City. Umesh Raghuvanshi (VS ‘08) writes from San Francisco for the Hindustan Times.

Read the article.

For the generals who rule Burma, it is a step closer to the coveted goal of permanent military control of the country’s politics. For its detractors, it is a potential lightning rod for decades of pent-up discontent. But for most, it is still a mystery, as they wonder if this is really a distant light at the end of the tunnel or the headlights of an impending disaster.

As analysts and activists debate how to respond to the regime’s draft constitution, others ask if it will cement the generals’ hold on power or trigger a popular uprising. Kyaw Zwa Moe (VS ‘06), comments in the Thailand-based English language news magazine The Irrawaddy.

Read the article.

On a hazy afternoon in the city of Urumqi, northwest China, Song Yujiang steps into the cramped outdoor equipment shop he runs on South Youhao Road, and gently wrests control of the store’s computer from his two-year-old son. He clicks through a folder of photos from his trips leading moneyed weekend warriors into western China’s rugged mountains, and stops at a photo of several hikers standing on a field of grey mountain shale, dwarfed by dozens of eerily beautiful towers of white ice.

China’s far northwest occupies a precarious position on the map of potential climate catastrophe. Josh Chin (’07) and Zachary Slobig (’07) report for China Dialogue from Xinjiang, where water security is a key question for residents.

Read the article.