Coming Your Way This Week, America

Got this on Facebook today. Probably Good Advice.

Dear friend

On Friday 19th June, it will be Aung San Suu Kyi’s 64th birthday. She will spend her birthday detained in the notorious Insein Prison.

On May 18th Aung San Suu Kyi was put on trial, charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest after an American man, John Yettaw, swam to her house and refused to leave. The dictatorship are using the visit as an opportunity to extend her detention.

Her trial has now been adjourned until 26 June. Aung San Suu Kyi has already spent more than 13 years in detention and faces another 5 years in prison.

DEMONSTRATION
Please show your solidarity and join us outside the Burmese Embassy in London from 1-2pm on Friday 19th June.
19A Charles Street
London, W1J 5DX
Nearest tube: Green Park

Solidarity events will be held worldwide. To find out details of events taking place near you, visit: http://www.64forsuu.org/events.php

SEND HER A BIRTHDAY MESSAGE
You can leave a message of support at http://www.64forsuu.org

More than 9000 people have now left a message, video or tweet calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, and all of Burma’s political prisoners.

Celebrities from around the world have sent messages, including George Clooney, Yoko Ono, David Beckham, Julia Roberts, Daniel Craig, and Richard Branson. Stephen Fry, Eddie Izzard, Kevin Spacey and Sarah Brown have been “tweeting” about the campaign.

As well as celebrities, the website has received political support featuring video messages to Aung San Suu Kyi from heads of state including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mohamed Nasheed, President of the Maldives and President Jose Ramos Horta, President of Timor-Leste.

Post your message now http://www.64forsuu.org

Thank you for your support

Johnny Chatterton
Campaigns Officer
Burma Campaign UK

PS. If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, we’re asking everyone to put Aung San Suu Kyi as their profile picture until her birthday. You can download the image here: http://www.facebook.com/aungsansuukyi

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Support our work: Donate to the Burma Campaign UK and make a difference today. You can be sure your donation will make a difference. Supporting the Burma Campaign UK is one of the most effective ways of supporting the struggle to free Burma. Donate now: http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/donate.html

The Burma Campaign UK
Registered Company No. 3804730
Registered office address
28 Charles Square
London N1 6HT

They Radio Returns On The Torture Cover-Up - June 20, 7 p.m. MySpace.com/TheyRadio

Listen out for the return of Tyler Bass and Ashnfara Judy this Saturday, June 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. EDT as we discuss the recent attempts in Congress to cover-up evidence of torture and detainee abuse. Special guests include ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Brigadier General Janis Karpinski (ret.). You'll be able to listen at myspace.com/theyradio or at blogtalkradio.com/they.

Supporters of Ahmadinejad in Tehran

Auto-Tune the News #3: cuba. afghan friendship. 2-party woes.

Longtime State Department Reporter Dies, 63, To Domestic Media Silence

Photo Courtesy of Macedonian International News Agency

Lambros Papantoniou, correspondent for the Elettheros Typos, a Greek daily in Athens, dies the night of Wednesday, May 27, and the blogs were silent. Maybe there was something deeper about the way that Mr. Papantoniou, a man who had been asking questions in press briefings in the Department of State for a very long time, was not the talk of numerous political blogs that had so often mentioned his name. His remarks had inherently influenced the dynamic in some of the most regular discussions directing the tone of press comprehension of American foreign policy. What I'm really trying to say here is that the condition in any given press briefing, whether with Robert Wood or Ian Kelly, is a fairly hazardous. Ask an unusual question, and you may be seen, unfairly or not, as wasting other peoples' time. On a few occasions, unfairly or no, Mr. Papantoniou was viewed as wasting others' time by questioning whether there was really a solid link between HIV and AIDS.

To follow up, I contacted the president of the Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society, David Crowe, based on information from this press release. In an interview by phone, I asked Mr. Crowe why Mr. Papantoniou was so hung up on this issue about the relationship between HIV and AIDS.

Mr. Crowe: "The best understanding that we can make is that HIV has never been purified. There are no claims that it has ever been purified. There are claims that it has been isolated, but when you look at what it means to isolate the virus, it doesn't mean that you've proven that any virus is present let alone a specific virus. So because of the purification in – in – in a sense that's comparable to what we normally think of as purification, which would be separating the virus from all other organic materials. And that's essentially what Lambros was asking: Where is the evidence that it's been purified? And, secondly, have you ever seen the purified virus -- (inaudible) -- from a human as opposed to from some artificial lab culture?

"So even if you could pull out a virus out of a culture that was derived from, human blood for example, there's so many other things that go into that culture, that's still not proof that the virus came from a person. But given that nobody's purified HIV even from a laboratory culture, that kind of a secondary question."

Crowe believes that SARS was an epidemic caused by a drug therapy based on a fear that there was a new pneumonia out there.

David Crowe describes Mr. Papantoniou as "a mystery wrapped up in an enigma." He told me that a close friend of Mr. Papantoniou, a Harvard-trained pathologist named Dr. Andrew Maniotis, had told Crowe that Papantoniou had been treated with AIDS drugs. He said, "I believe that, when he was in the hospital, they were treating him with AIDS drugs. But I also understand he had other health problems." But, as this was hearsay, he hesitated to tell me this because he didn't "want to report something that was inaccurate." He got me in touch with Dr. Maniotis.

Dr. Maniotis described Papatoniou as a close friend who had been "fighting for weeks" for his life. The impact of the loss weighed heavy on the tone of his voice. Dr. Maniotis described Papantoniou as "one of the most dynamic human beings that has ever, you know, pushed human rights and freedom in the world." The pathologist denied that he had told Crowe that Papantoniou had been treated with AIDS drugs or that the doctor was HIV positive.

"Nobody really knows why he's gone," said Dr. Maniotis, who said that Mr. Papantoniou was "like a brother" to him. "He had a very stressful time," he added. "Now he's dead." He continued to say that, as a pathologist by some training, it's easier to figure out why someone "just died, but it's rare to find why they did die." He said he wasn't certain if we'll really ever know why the reporter died.

He described him as a "humanitarian" that "the world will miss."