"Biofuel by Decree: Unmasking Burma's bio-energy fiasco"

I haven't posted much about Burma - except the border runs - because what I did hear from people working with Burmese organizations in Thailand wasn't sharable. Thai officials can look away if nothing is explicitly out in the open, but if it is in their face they have to take action. That doesn't mean the new government isn't making nice to the Burmese government, but they also aren't fanatic about dealing with Burmese refugees in Thailand. Though I did hear stories about police having quotas for how many illegal Burmese they had to round up per day in one town. All this is word of mouth from people I don't know all that well. But I heard similar stories from different people.

But this was emailed to me and so it is a little more official, though I note that the location will be announced at the last minute. I don't think it's because they haven't found a place. I don't know if I'm being overly cautious, but I left out the name, phone numbers, and email as well.


INVITATION

Date: April 29, 2008

Dear Sir or Madam,

A warm greeting from ECDF

Ethnic Community Development Forum is cordially invite you to join us on the special event of launching our report "Biofuel by Decree: Unmasking Burma's bio-energy fiasco" on May 1 at (10:00) am to (12:00) am. For the conference place we will informing you on (30 April 2008).

Why we are launching the report on Labor Day, May first because in the implementation of SPDC Jet Suu plantation project is using forced labor, land confiscation and other human rights abuses,

During launching the report we will have some VIDEO show about SPDC forced to the people and including the video clips of interviewing from who are refugees by SPDC Jet Suu project.

However ECDF would like you to join our press conference and if you have any question, you can contact with the spokesperson as below address please.

XXXXXXXXXX

Phone: XXXXXXXX (Thailand call)

+XXXXXXX (International call)

Email:XXXXXXXXXXXX

Note: we will send the press release as soon as

With best regards,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ethnic Community Development Forum of Burma

Visit to NUS

Monday, April 28, 2008 almost midnight: J gave me great instructions how to get to the National University of Singapore. J's exam wasn't 2pm and he needed to stay home so he could walk the dog before going to the exam. So I walked down the street to the bus stop.



So far, all the neighborhoods I've seen - and mostly I've been in the private housing areas apparently - have been lush and garden like.



This sign at the bus stop was a little disturbing. No, the need to be on top and the promotion of that way of thinking is a big problem for people. On the other hand, hierarchy is found all over the animal kingdom, so I suspect it is a genetic inheritance and fighting the notion can sound quixotic. I wonder how many of the those who believe in life being about getting to the top don't believe in evolution...


On the other side of the sign were these girls in their student uniforms, or so I assumed.
You get on the bus and touch your card to the pad and move on to your seat. The bus stops are all numbered and I knew the University stop was 21. All very easy. The man sitting next to me was reading a newspaper in a script that looked a lot like what was on the sign yesterday for Sir Thomas Raffles, so I asked him what language it was. Tamil, one of the southern Indian languages.

I got out at 21 and there was the entrance to the University. Actually, this is not the main campus.



WX and I had lunch with another faculty member I knew - JJ. I asked JJ, who had been with the Asian Development Bank when I first met him, about good sources on land reform in Thailand. Which got WX to think about another faculty member he introduced me to after lunch. Dr. O, a Thai with a PhD from Syracuse. We ended up talking a long time and I never got to walk through the botanical gardens and the orchid garden as planned. J showed up after his exam and took me around to meet other professors and classmates. The students above were in a little lounge called the Thinking Corner.

And chocolate is the international thinking fuel of choice.

I met a whole group of students from all over - Burma, India, Thailand, Italy, Pakistan, Singapore, Philippines, Japan, China - and we went for dinner together at the same Indian resstaurant just off campus. So the pictures I forgot to take at lunch, I could take now.

The Singaporean in the orange shirt below went home with us. We picked up Kona and then walked down to this building to pick up his girlfriend. He works for HDB, Singapore's public housing department, so I learned a little more about the issues raised in the article I linked to earlier today.




The Public Utilities Board is in an environmentally prize winning building.

Sentosa Island Songs of the Sea and Vivo

What can I say about Sentosa Island? It's a "tourist attraction." Here's me along with all the other video cameras. We're sitting on benches looking at toward the beach. There are live performers singing and dancing on the beach. Out across the water a short ways is a mock fishing village up on stilts.



Then we took the train one stop to Vivo City and had a snack.



Vivo City is one of the giant shopping malls with all the expensive international brand names. The food court was cutesy new, but made to look old food stalls. I tried Laksa, a Malay coconut curry with noodles dish.






I learned a little more about taxis. On the top of the cabs it says "For Hire," "On Call," or "Hired." If the queue is long, as it was here, and there aren't many taxis, you can call one. You pay an extra S$2.50 to $4. You get the taxi number. It shows up with "On Call" in the little taxi sign on the roof, and the taxi number flsshing. So when it arrives people know you aren't jumping ahead of them in the line and you know which cab is yours. They dropped me off and went home.

Meeting WX's Parents and Sons

Monday morning, April 28, 2008 Singapore.

After lunch yesterday, WX and I got a cab to his flat at the National University of Singapore where he's a professor. We originally met in 1990 in Beijing (I think) where he was a lecturer at People's University and I was visiting with a group of students from Hong Kong where I was teaching for a year. Eventually, he made it to Anchorage to get his MPA at UAA and then he went on to the University of North Carolina to get his PhD. Then he got a job in Singapore.


He and his wife XR, who also studied in Anchorage, now have two sons. Most exciting was finally getting to meet WX's parents who are living with them here in Singapore.




He and his wife XR, who also studied in Anchorage, now have two sons. Most exciting was finally getting to meet WX's parents who are living with them here in Singapore. We took a group picture, but I think all the squirming and fussing before hand makes for a better picture.
Then XR and WX and I went to Sentosa Island, an artificial island that is now a tourist attraction, with beaches, a water and light show, cable cars, golf courses, private residential plots, etc. We had a snack at one of the beach restaurants and then went to the water and light show. Kind of touristy, but it was nice to sit and talk in the evening along the water.


I got to swim this morning before breakfast and now I'm headed for lunch with WX and some other faculty at the University. J has his exam at 2, then later we'll have dinner with some of his classmates.

Sending Death Certificates to the Election Commission

I noted recently that it appeared there were more registered voters than voting age people in Anchorage. Here's a short piece in today's Straits Times from the The Star/Asia News Network:

Kuala Lumpur: The Election Commission has appealed to family members of registered voters who have died to submit death certificates of their deceased kin to help in the "clean up" of the electoral roll.
The commission said that the updating of the roll was a continuous and ongoing exercise, which required assistance from the public.

This is also an issue in Alaska. Given that everything is electronic these days, and much of it online, it would seem the computer folks at the State of Alaska should be able to figure a way to check the death certificates against the voter roles and purge them without asking people to notify them.

Also in the paper was a piece on how people try to get public housing in areas they most desire in Singapore. You have to register with the Straits Times to read it, but you can also read it here.

I realize that in these days of the geographically challenged, not everyone knows where Kuala Lumpur is. So, if you know what country KL is the capital of, please post it in a comment. Your prize will be knowing that you helped others gain knowledge. (The Straits Times is a Singapore Newspaper)

Busy Day in Singapore

Sunday, April 27, 2008, almost midnight. Up today early to beat the heat. Yeah, right. We were up early, but we didn't beat the heat.

View from J's apartment.

We left about 8am for what turned out to be about a 3 hour walk. J. lives in an affluent section of town. Although most of Singapore lives in public housing, there is also private housing. Since J was going to school, but had a dog with him, he had to live in private housing which is considerably more expensive. He's in a building scheduled to be demolished and replaced with more high end stuff. So the three bedroom apartment has been divided into three different apartments. He and his roommate are still spending 10 times what we paid for our much smaller and less fancy apartment in Chiang Mai.

It was Sunday morning early, so not many people out yet.

I could hear some church sounding music up ahead and sure enough, there in the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd set up in 1849 or so were people at Sunday morning service.

This is old Raffles Hotel, one of the few things I really remember from my last trip to Singapore (in 1968 or 69), but this is now an arcade and not what it used to look like.

Cricket practice was going on not far away.

Singapore has become a very phallic city since I was here last.

The statue of Sir Thomas Raffles reminded me a lot of Anchorage's Captain Cook statue. But there were four signs - one in English, one in Chinese, one in Malay, and one in an Indian subcontinent language.

The Singapore River, a center for tourists. These boats ply the river in the tourist trade.

Kona entertaining a Chinese tourist.

Despite the spiritual dominance of money here, there are still people who hedge their bets with offerings to other gods.



I stepped into a super market to see how much more the mangoes were than in Thailand. I couldn't quite figure it out.
Then we had breakfast in an old little coffee shop that had various kinds of foods. We chose the Indian Roti Prahtas.
All the cars coming into the downtown section of Singapore, if I got this right, have to have one of these meters in their cars because driving into downtown is restricted.
The ERP sign has readers on it, as you can see in the picture below, to record in the car meters every time the enter and exit the city,






When we got back to the apartment there were phone messages from WX, a former student of mine, who now teaches here in Singapore. So we met him for lunch in a giant mall and then he and I got in line for a taxi here while J went back to study for tomorrow's, (well, it's now today's ) final exam.