Sometimes I just can't believe what I read in the newspaper. And here in the U.S. we're just worried about the rising price of gas (which, might I add, I am totally in favor of - we need some motivation to start pouring our money into public transportation).
Here are the articles, as printed in today's edition of Express, the Washington Post publication that is handed out at the Metro every weekday:
Hundreds Protest Attack on Teen Who Refused Proposal
Several hundred people marched in silence Sunday to protest violence against women in France's rough suburbs after a teenage girl was set on fire for turning down a man's marriage proposal. Chahrazad Belayni, a French 18-year-old of Moroccan origin, has been hospitalized with burns covering 60 percent of her body since a male acquaintance doused her with gasoline and set her ablaze Nov. 13. Police were searching for her attacker.
Pro-Democracy Leader Remains Held in Myanmar
Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to remain under house arrest following Sunday's expiration of a previous detention order, with police paying her a brief visit and government security around her home tightened.
Officials from the country's secretive military regime could not be reached to confirm the action, and a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party was only willing to say that he had no news of a change in her status.
Suu Kyi has spent 10 of the last 16 years in detention, mostly under house arrest.
She was last taken into custody on May 30, 2003 after her motorcade was attacked by a pro-junta mob as she was making a political tour of northern Myanmar. She was held first by the military, and later transferred to house arrest after undergoing an operation in Yangon.
The ruling junta took power in 1988 after suppressing mass pro-democracy protests. It held a general election in 1990, but refused to recognize the results after a landslide victory by Suu Kyi's party.
I simply can't fathom what it is like to live in either of these environments and my heart goes out to these people.
1 comment:
I'm totally not surprised. We here in America seem to not care about anything outside of our borders unless it has to do with getting us cheap oil or cheap labor. And that's at the govenrment level. Our population at large can care less as can easily be evidenced when you watch the local news. Today I saw a story about a new breed of 'panda dog'. Yea.. like that's fucking important?!?!?!
WTF is wrong with us? What an amazing place this could be if people would just care a tiny bit about others.
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