so you will.

But within, the heart withers,

dying a little each time.

Looking back at the past,

in the garden,

as the pair streaked

with wild abandon.

Looking now,

as it threatens

to blossom again.

Looking on,

what becomes of these flowers,

and those?

Love takes root,

and I stay rooted,

even as the grey

screams for flight.

But the seeds of doubt lie

scattered,

sprawling

like weed,

choking back the roses.

as its brilliance floods

your senses,

robbing you of sanity

and leaving you

a sobbing mess

of nothing.

Around it your world revolves,

and you cease to exist

as the centre

of your own universe.

You are

but another planet,

simmering in space,

forgotten with time,

and void of life.

Oh, how you love the sun!

So far away,

you can only be content

with the scraps of light

it throws your way.

But in these throes of passion,

you hope,

that you never see

the end of day.

As darkness surrounds

and night descends,

you pine for a glimpse

just a glimpse;

Nothing more,

than a fleeting touch,

before it returns to embrace,

but not soon enough.

Would it fly back

as it promised,

rising from the East,

like a phoenix?

Or will the darkness

push you over

as you lie,

consumed by night?

I could shower you with diamonds,
the way I’ve given you my heart,
but the ace of spades can’t save me
from this grave I’ve dug,
for myself,
clubbed over the head like a caveman.

When push comes to shove
and it’s all-in
(get your head out of the gutter),
it doesn’t even matter,
that I’ve tripped up
and flushed it all away.

Don’t fold this hand,
it’s special, it is.
Forget the odds,
I’m going down to the river
with you.

Like many of her fellow villagers, 22-year-old Khampheng Manivone first heard about  community radio when letters were sent to different villages in Khoun – one of the poorest districts in Laos – asking for volunteers to be part of the Khoun Community Radio Development (KCRD) project.

Khampheng jumped at the chance to apply as one of the first few volunteers to join Khoun Radio in July 2006, more than a year before its  first test broadcasts in late October 2007.

The station, which reaches out to community groups through local programming, aims to  improve the people’s access to information and increase residents’ participation in development-related decisions, today broadcasts seven days a week, seven and a half hours a day, in three local languages – Lao Lum, Hmong and Khmu.

“Before I joined the station I was very shy, I couldn’t speak in front of many people, even with people in the village. But now, I can speak in public with confidence. And when I join outreach activities organised by the station, I can speak with people and work with people and I have learnt many things,” said Khampheng, a delegate at the Mekong Media Forum being held in this northern Thai city until Dec. 12.

The volunteer broadcaster now also heads the Khmu programme production group at Khoun Radio, a project put up by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with the support of Laos’ information and culture ministry and the Xiengkhouang Province Department of Information and Culture.

“We are a people who do not like to talk too much, because we don’t want to hurt people,” said Vongsone Oudomsouk, project manager of the Khoun Radio project, of the popular stereotype of the Lao people. “But 50 percent of volunteers are now made up of villagers, who act as representatives of their communities.”

Production of the radio programmes are done in collaboration with the villagers, Vongsone explained, emphasising on the importance of community involvement at Khoun Radio. “Villagers actually take part in decision making processes, what to produce, when to broadcast, in how many languages, and so on.”

And it is this inclusive approach, and the airing of topics relevant to the community, that has resulted in positive change for the people of Khoun district.

Speaking at a satellite session, ‘Empowering Local People Through Community Radio’, held on Dec. 10 at the Forum, Vongsone recounts anecdotal evidence that points to the success of Khoun Radio in assisting development in the district. For example, some doctors he spoke to had previously tried – unsuccessfully – to promote vaccination for babies, because villagers did not understand it and were not receptive to the idea. But after the airing of radio shows discussing this issue, these doctors have reported an increase in vaccination rates.

The Khoun Radio project is part of plans by the Laos government to introduce community radios in all of the 47 poorest districts of the country by providing a platform for the community to discuss issues of local interest, including agriculture, health, and education.

On top of the improvement in information flow and increased community involvement in development issues, delegates at the session here also discussed the importance of community radio as compared to mainstream media.

Cai Yiping, executive director of women’s rights group Isis International, explains that the content in community-based media is often more relevant and useful to the audience. “In community radio, because the audience is also the producer, they are the ones who know what information they need,” she said.

Forum participants also turned the spotlight on another difference between the two media models: unlike mainstream media, non-commercial community radio struggles to stay financially sustainable. For example, Vongsone says, the station had previously turned away advertisers for motorcycles and milk powder because of concerns within the communities over the socio-cultural impacts these products might bring.

To this end, Vongsone hopes for the station to be able to work out some form of “partnership strategy” with organisations that share “the same aim of getting the Khoun area out of poverty”. He is also looking to set up a “volunteers fund” to offer financial assistance to Khoun Radio volunteers, who currently receive only a small allowance for their time and services.

But for some volunteers, like Khampheng, it matters little whether she is paid. More importantly, “it’s something that I like, something I’m interested in, and I want to be part of the development of my community,” she said.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Dec 12 (TerraViva) – “It’s not a matter of ethics, this is survival!” a Laos-based journalist in the audience raved, as he disclosed details of instances where he – and others he knew – had received monetary reward from businesses for writing stories that presented these companies in positive light.

The issue of ethical reporting took centre stage at the ‘Learning and Relearning Journalism’ Talk show session held on Dec. 11, as panellists and participants at the Mekong Media Forum discussed how different histories, political systems and societies have shaped different education systems when it comes to media and journalism in the Mekong region.

The four-day forum, which brought together some 200 participants from across the six-country region, ended Saturday in this northern Thai city.

While formal journalism education is useful as a starting point, panellists agreed that it was not essential.

Jeff Hodson, a journalist and regional media trainer, said it “will have to be incorporated in any form of journalism training programme. How can you report the news fairly and without bias unless you do have ethics?”

But other speakers disagreed. “If ethics is something that you only start learning about in journalism school, and only there, then I would say it’s too late and too isolated,” said Daniel Hirschler, project manager and country coordinator in Laos for DW-AKADEMIE, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s training institute.

“Ethics, you learned when you were a child. You don’t take money from people if you don’t deserve that. You don’t learn this at school, and you don’t learn this in the newsroom also,” said Nguyen Ngoc Tran, a journalism professor at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City.

But Hirschler argues that the ethical dilemma in reporting is not unique to the Mekong region: journalists in developed countries in the West face the same issues. He related an incident where a Swedish journalist exposed a fundamental mechanical flaw while test-driving a new Mercedes Benz motorcar, which the company had tried to cover up.

“The reason why this came out quite late is most of the motor journalists in Europe are usually sent to Arizona with a detour to the Las Vegas casinos to test those cars, with I don’t know what (other incentives),” he said.

“The motor journal that this journalist was working for in Sweden had a clear code of conduct, a clear policy on this. If you don’t have this policy in the university where you study, or the radio station you work for, or in the country you live in, then it would be difficult to establish strong ethics in journalism.”

On top of ethical concerns, the session also surfaced issues surrounding the inadequacy of journalism education – even at top academic institutions around the region – in dealing with real world challenges.

Hodson voiced a worrying trend where fresh journalism graduates were well-versed in the basics of journalism such as proper fact gathering and balance reporting, but were not practising it in the newsroom. “There’s a quota system that motivates reporters to fill their five stories for the week, so why get three sources if they can just get one and meet their quota?” said Hodson.

It is also important, Hodson said, to try to teach journalists that they “own the story” and can “create and shape the news as well instead of just always reacting to it”.

But panellists agreed that the socio-political situation on the ground in many of the countries in the Mekong region makes real-life newsroom experience and on-the-job training more relevant than academic training. Hirschler, for example, said “critical thinking” is more important than “any kind of curriculum that you can have or have not in any communications or mass media department”.

Vannaphone Sitthirath, coordinator of the Mekong Media Forum and a journalist from Laos, lamented the state of the media environment in Laos. ”That’s why I quit,” she said.

She attributed the situation in part to “economic pressure,” saying Lao journalists earn less than 100 U.S. dollars a month. “It’s sad that Lao journalists take money from organisations that invite us to do stories. It’s really sad. But how can I blame them?”

She confessed she had tried to quit her profession. “I asked myself, ‘Am I going to work as a journalist in Laos?’ It’s sad. So I gave up many times,” she said. But she kept coming back, she added, to rousing applause from the audience.

Vannaphone expressed hope the journalism course at the National University of Laos would bring much-needed changes to media ethics in her country while echoing in the same breath the opinions of the panellists at this session. “I don’t believe it will train you 100 percent to be a good journalist … I think a good journalist is in here,” she said, her hand gesturing toward her heart.

Beek is an adventurer, and, being passionate about life, it will take more than a few stitches to stop him from kayaking down the next river he sees.

Since moving to Asia, he has authored 23 books and 42 documentaries on Asian cultural, with particular interest in the beliefs attached to rivers and how they relate to the way these bodies of water are used or abused.

“One of the questions we are asked at this [Mekong Media] forum is how the Mekong region is perceived by the outside world, and the question I would ask is, I don’t think we are,” Beek, who is now based in Thailand, said during the Talk Show session, ‘Our Mekong: Inside and Outside’, held on the opening day of the Forum on Dec. 9.

The event brings together media professionals, comprising mainly of journalists, and a mix of other participants from different parts of the Mekong region and Asia on various media and development issues.

A Fellow of the Explorers’ Club – a multidisciplinary, professional organisation dedicated to field exploration – Beek has paddled the length of the major rivers in Thailand and is currently writing a book on the upper Mekong entitled ‘The Mekong Nobody Knows’.

He speaks to TerraViva about his desire to “infect other people with my love of, and appreciation of, and realisation of the vital importance of water”.

TerraViva: How did you begin your love affair with rivers?

Steve Van Beek: I was fortunate enough to have a house on the Chao Phraya [Thailand], on stilts, opposite the Grand Palace, for 11 years. That house was then torn down later, and it became the Supatra River House restaurant. And that used to be my view every morning.

Every day, I saw something new on the river. I wondered where all the water came from. It seemed to be telling a story, telling its history, of what it had seen in the past. So I asked questions, I looked for books, and I couldn’t find any. I realised, people told me later, that nobody had ever gone down the river.

In late 1997, I went to the headwaters, Dong Nam, up on the Burmese border, and I walked for three days. When the water was deep enough, I said, “Ok, I need a boat”. The only experience I had was with a rowboat, but I had the boat built, took it back up, started paddling, and 58 days later, ended up in the ocean.

I love the fact that in many cases, because nobody would go by boat, you could see people as they were, because once they saw you, it changed. So that appealed to me. I love talking to the old people who understood what I was doing. The young guys would stand by the riverbank sometimes and say, “Why don’t you put an engine on it, stupid ‘farang’ [colloquial Thai term for ‘foreigner’]. You could put an engine on it and be in Bangkok in a day or two.”

But old people grew up with the river and understood that the important days had gone by. For them, they understood and we could talk. I would say that the first trip that I took, I probably learned more about Thailand than I did in the previous 20 years, because books didn’t tell me the same thing.

TerraViva: What is it about rivers that has kept you fascinated all these years?

SVB: I was interested in understanding how the river thinks, what happens when you do things to it: take sand out of it, for example, or build dams across it. I’m still trying to answer a question: What is a river?  Many cultures have ideas about water, but not many of them think about rivers, and I find that interesting because there are so many rivers . . . . Most people look upon the river as an obstacle. I was interested in the belief systems. In other words, do the people who live along the side of it see the river as a beneficent force, or as malevolent?  And how does that affect the way that they use it, or abuse it?

TerraViva: How have rivers dealt with this abuse?

SVB: When people go in and they say, ‘My real estate is disappearing, I’m going to build a wall’, the river is not going to let the wall stand if it’s not strong enough. You’ve done something to the river by channelling it; it’s no longer flowing as it should. Rivers seek their own levels; they understand harmony and balance. If you start taking sand out of the river for construction purposes, the river is going to try to fill in that hole. Where is that sand going to come from? It’s going to come from collapsing farms and riverbanks upstream. There’s no other place for it to come from.

Left to itself, the river will regulate itself. It’s only humans who get in there and say, “Oh, we’ve got to control it.” Well, I’ve seen very seldom that we’ve actually been able to control it, so maybe we should listen to the river. We’ve built dams for flood control purposes — and we still have floods. Eventually the river will assert what it wants to do.

I think the problem is people look upon rivers as an exploitable resource, not as something with its own integrity and should be preserved for itself. I’m not anti-development, but how much electricity do we really need, and for what purpose?

TerraViva: There was heated discussion in the Talk Show session, ‘Our Mekong: Inside and Outside’, during the Forum over China’s dam projects on the Mekong River. What are your views on this?

SVB: I don’t want to go into the politics of it. Zhu Yan (senior editor from China Central Television, one of the discussants) was surprised by how angry people were. I mean, you heard it, people were angry. This tells you something about the reporting about the river in China. They are not hearing – forget about listening, they are not hearing – what their neighbours are thinking about it. At the end of the discussion, I said to him: “I’m sorry you became the target here, and it’s not your fault. But there’s your story! Why are your neighbours so upset and nobody in China knows about it?”

I feel that we have to address these questions because I feel it is water, not energy, that is the issue of the 21st Century. One billion people in the world do not have access to drinkable water. Yes, it is important to come up with alternative energy – solar power, wind power, and so on – and a lot of work is being done, but we’re not pouring nearly the amount of money into water as we are into alternative energy research.

(END/TERRAVIVA/IPS/AP/HD/DV/AE/JC/TBB/09)

CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Dec 12 (TerraViva) – Yasmin Tang, executive director of Probe Media Foundation that co-organised the Mekong Media Forum, promised a “visual treat” to wrap up the proceedings at the end of the forum on Dec. 12. And a visual treat it was, as the Chiang Mai-based performing group Wandering Moon presented a theatrical extravaganza entitled ‘Reborn’.

With ingenious play on colours, lights and shadows, the troupe kept the audience enthralled as the four-day forum was brought to a close.

To be sure, the performance was as abstract as it was fascinating. Weaving lights in a multitude of striking colours; dancing cardboard cut-outs expertly wielded by puppeteers behind a shrouded veil; and a performer springing from her hiding place, an impossibly tiny light-box that lay in the foreground inconspicuously until that moment, midway through the show.

It was a shadow-puppet show with a difference. And it was a perfect, very appropriate, ending to the Mekong Media Forum. While considerably less abstract, the forum was no less fascinating.

Over the past three and a half days, a steady stream of participants – including sponsors, supporters, partners, speakers, delegates, fellows, volunteers, documenters, translators, technical staff and organisers – thronged the rooms and common areas at the conference venue. Comprising people from the six countries in the Mekong region – Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam – as well as a healthy dose of participants from outside the area, the myriad of different cultures and languages guaranteed discussions were often vibrant and colourful.

Behind the scenes, a flurry of activity as organisers scrambled to ensure the sessions ran smoothly. From translators and documenters, to technicians and volunteers, each quietly going unnoticed about their duties, preferring to let the speakers, delegates and issues take centre stage, in front of the spotlight.

The issues laid out during the Mekong Media Forum were important; these are issues that affect us directly. But, like the light-box in the foreground during the performance, these issues are often overlooked, especially by external audiences, but often, even by ourselves, as we get caught up in the more exciting, mainstream activities that demand our attention. And so we forget the marginalised, who lie unnoticed, even though they are right in front of our eyes.

‘Reborn’ speaks of unknown horrors, of bleeding hearts and free-flowing tears, reflecting the challenges faced by Mekong journalists. And as we turn the page, the pain and suffering transforms – with a little help – into joy and the freedom to take flight, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.

Likewise, the Mekong Media Forum has been a step forward, towards creating a desirable media environment at a time of social and economic change. Hopefully, it has inspired us to be “reborn”, as with the closing performance, in our struggles to overcome challenges facing the media in the region.

As the curtain closes on the Mekong Media Forum, we look forward to the birth of a new venue, from within, for Mekong journalists.

SINGAPORE, Dec 21 (IPS) – To activists more accustomed to working against Burma’s military junta than with it, any engagement with the recalcitrant regime will amount to nothing. But to 2001 Nobel Prize winner Josepth Stiglitz, it is a window of opportunity for a country that has known only poverty and repression.

Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz (left) and U.N. ESCAP executive secretary Noeleen Heyzer (right).

At a press conference organised here Monday by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Stiglitz expressed optimism over the prospects for change in Burma’s rural economy. “In general, there is the hope that this is the moment of change for the country,” Stiglitz said.

The former chief economist of the World Bank was in Burma last week to meet with the state’s Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Maj Gen Htay Oo and National Development Minister Soe Tha. He was part of a mission organised by ESCAP aimed at assessing and improving Burma’s rural economy.

ESCAP held a wide-ranging dialogue with the South-east Asian state to boost the country’s agricultural sector and to help it reclaim its status as the rice bowl of Asia. It was a “moment of hope,” said Stiglitz.

“This is the moment of change for the country,” opined the noted economist. “And it would be a mistake to miss this moment.”

But some are sceptical about the changes that Stiglitz and ESCAP expect to bring to a country still ruled by a regime notorious for its oppression and secrecy. “The same as the junta’s sucker bait,” charged one irate member of the audience, as he marched up to Stiglitz after the conference. The colloquial phrase suggests a scheme to deceive the ignorant.

To some observers, however, it is precisely this softer, non-confrontational approach that has seen ESCAP make some headway toward improving the economic conditions of the rural poor in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Some 75 percent of the country’s estimated 57 million people live in rural areas and make up the largest slice of the country’s poor. Malnutrition is rampant and affects over a third of the country’s children.

Burma is still reeling from the effects of Cyclone Nargis, which tore through the rice-growing Irrawaddy Delta in May last year, killing more than 140,000 people.

“The effects of a cyclone last long after the cyclone itself,” said Stiglitz, adding that disaster had devastated the credit system in Burma, affected the supply of fertilisers, and destroyed the livestock.

The long-term impacts of the disaster combined with the effects of the global economic crisis and climate change on Burma have put the country in an even more precarious state. Thus, Stiglitz believes this is an appropriate time for the United Nations regional body, headed by Dr Noeleen Heyzer, to engage with one of Asia’s most oppressive regimes to hasten the country’s development.

“Even a country that is not integrated in the global economy is affected by the global recession,” said Stiglitz. There is increased realisation within the regime that “the world is changing, and you have to change even if nothing else is going on,” he added.

“It is my hope these ideas and analysis will open a new space for policy discussion and a further deepening of our development partnership,” Heyzer said at the event held in Burma’s administrative capital, Naypidaw.

“These development objectives can only be achieved through the successful engagement of local experts and people who know what is happening on the ground. This development partnership, requested by the Government of Myanmar, provides a unique platform for eminent international scholars and local researchers to exchange experiences and ideas with government agencies and civil society,” Heyzer added.

Based on his talks with farmers during his visit to Burma, Stiglitz identified the high cost of credit in the rural areas, with interest rates of at least 10 percent a month, as one of the issues Burma will have to overcome.

“Irrigation has increased the potential for productivity, but because many could not get credit to buy fertiliser and for hydro-electricity, the full potential could not be reached,” he said.

He urged the Burmese government to promote access to appropriate agricultural financing, to boost access to seeds and fertilizers as well as spending on health and education, and create well-paid jobs in rural infrastructure construction in order to stimulate development and raise incomes and spending.

“If you don’t renew your human capital, it depreciates, just as fiscal capital depreciates,” Stiglitz said as he urged the country to do more to bridge the demographic gaps in education in the country.

Stiglitz also noted that well-functioning institutions were critical to success, and that Burma could learn from the mistakes of other resource-rich countries. “Revenues from oil and gas can open up a new era, if used well. If not, then valuable opportunities will be squandered,” he said.

“Economics and politics cannot be separated,” Stiglitz added. “For Myanmar to take a role on the world stage and to achieve true stability and security there must be widespread participation and inclusive processes. This is the only way forward for Myanmar.”

.sg 10th riskiest domain

THE next time you click on an unfamiliar website ending with .sg, think twice.

Spam masters are zeroing in on the .sg domain. Singapore was singled out as the 10th-riskiest domain out of 104 worldwide in a recently released McAfee report – and the rise of such sites, said experts, could cause Internet users worldwide to lose trust in Singapore websites.

The report warned that more .sg domains are being used for phishing and spam activities and to serve up viruses – almost one out of every 20 (4.6 per cent) tested by the security company this year.

The jump is spectacular – from just 0.3 per cent last year to 4.6 per cent this year.

In contrast, Hong Kong and Japan were noted for their ‘aggressive steps to clamp down on scam-related registrations’ and stricter registration requirements for domain names.

McAfee senior research analyst Shane Keats noted that pharmacy sites touting pills were the main route used to send spam.

Source: The Straits Times

Five men have been charged for the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl in Singapore, The New Paper reported today. The men invited the teen to a house party, where they plied her with alcohol and subsequently took turns forcing themselves sexually on her.

The initial reaction is one of intense disgust: with the despicable act of the five men, who in their sad state of sexual depravity sought to ask girls out because they wanted to have sex. Horny? Get a blowup doll. Visit the whore-houses in Geylang. Throw your head under a bucket of ice. Both heads, if you need. But to scroll through your phone book, start calling all the girls, hope that one eventually agrees to meet you, proceed to get her drunk, and then sleep with her against her will? What is wrong with these people shitheads?

Then again, it’s not as uncommon as it seems. Stretch your imagination by a bit, and you realize it could be the magic ingredient that drives the clubbing industry and the brisk trade of alcohol. Think the hordes of men who ask their female friends out “for a drink”. (How innocent.) Or buy a drink for the ladies at clubs. (How generous.) And the girls actually fall for it all the time. (How naïve!)

Here’s a pointer, girls: there are men who scroll through their phone books, start calling you (and all the other girls), hope that you eventually agree to meet them, proceed to get you drunk, and then hope that your judgment is clouded enough to think that you want to sleep with them. Every once in a while, some of these men try to force it on you, and – hopefully – end up on the dock. Or in the great tabloid as tomorrow’s conversation starter.

At some point of the conversation, some self-righteous bigot jumps out from the corner he’s been lurking and bludgeons you with this gem: “The girl deserves it. What self-respecting girl goes to a house with five other guys? She obviously wanted to have sex!”

Yes, in the same way you obviously want me to stick my boot down your throat because you opened your mouth.

Which prehistoric rock have you just crawled out from? A girl is entitled – as men are – to have friends, and go out with them, if she feels like, when she feels like. She can wear short skirts, and plunging necklines. (The more adventurous men can too, though they wouldn’t look nearly as good!) And if you can’t figure out in that bigoted, chauvinist, primitive brain of yours that a girl who does any – or all – of the above is NOT asking to be raped, then you’re not much better than the five rapists.

And until your brain evolves beyond your Neanderthal thinking, it’s the end of this conversation.

One of the five men accused of rape admitted in a police statement that “he wants to have sex” on the night of the alleged rape.

Muhammad Shafie Ahmad Abdullah, a full-time national serviceman, told his friends to invite girls for a drinking session at his home.

Shafie called co-accused Mohd Sadruddin Azman and invited him, saying he’s out from camp and wanted to have sex.

Another of the five co-accused, Lim Boon Tai, eventually brought a teenage girl to Shafie’s flat, where the five men allegedly raped her.

Lim also suggested that Shafie buy drinks “to get the girl drunk so that we can easily get the girl”, according to police statements.

Source: The New Paper