Happy Chinese New Year 2009

Disturbing-A society in decay

Inside the abandoned Roosevelt Warehouse in Detroit, a body lies frozen in a block of ice. (Photo by Max Ortiz / The Detroit News)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Charlie LeDuff on Detroit

Frozen in indifference: Life goes on around body found in vacant warehouse

Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- This city has not always been a gentle place, but a series of events over the past few, frigid days causes one to wonder how cold the collective heart has grown.

It starts with a phone call made by a man who said his friend found a dead body in the elevator shaft of an abandoned building on the city's west side.

"He's encased in ice, except his legs, which are sticking out like Popsicle sticks," the caller phoned to tell this reporter.

"Why didn't your friend call the police?"

"He was trespassing and didn't want to get in trouble," the caller replied. As it happens, the caller's friend is an urban explorer who gets thrills rummaging through and photographing the ruins of Detroit. It turns out that this explorer last week was playing hockey with a group of other explorers on the frozen waters that had collected in the basement of the building. None of the men called the police, the explorer said. They, in fact, continued their hockey game.

Before calling the police, this reporter went to check on the tip, skeptical of a hoax. Sure enough, in the well of the cargo elevator, two feet jutted out above the ice. Closer inspection revealed that the rest of the body was encased in 2-3 feet of ice, the body prostrate, suspended into the ice like a porpoising walrus.

The hem of a beige jacket could be made out, as could the cuffs of blue jeans. The socks were relatively clean and white. The left shoe was worn at the heel but carried fresh laces. Adding to the macabre and incongruous scene was a pillow that gently propped up the left foot of the corpse. It looked almost peaceful.

What happened to this person, one wonders? Murder in Motown is a definite possibility. Perhaps it was death by alcoholic stupor. Perhaps the person was crawling around in the elevator shaft trying to retrieve some metal that he could sell at a scrap yard. In any event, there the person was. Stone-cold dead.

A symbol of decay

The building is known as the Roosevelt Warehouse, once belonging to the Detroit Public Schools as a book repository. Located near 14th Street and Michigan Avenue, the warehouse burned in 1987 and caused something of a scandal as thousands of books, scissors, footballs and crayons were left to rot while Detroit schoolchildren -- some of the poorest children in the country -- went without supplies.

The building was eventually sold to Matty Moroun, the trucking and real estate mogul who is worth billions of dollars and is the largest private property owner in the state of Michigan. Among other properties, Moroun owns the decrepit Michigan Central Rail Depot that squats directly next to the warehouse. The train station has become the symbol of Detroit's decay. Like much of his property in southwestern Detroit, Moroun's warehouse and the train station are gaping sores.

The warehouse is so easily accessible, a person in a wheelchair could get in with little effort. There are holes in the fence and in the side entrance. The elevator shaft is wide open. It appears no one has ever tried to close the bay doors.

A colony of homeless men live in the warehouse. Wednesday morning a few fires were burning inside oil drums. Scott Ruben, 38, huddled under filthy blankets not 20 paces from the elevator shaft.

"Yeah, I seen him," Ruben said. The snow outside howled. The heat from the can warped the landscape of rotting buildings and razor wire.

Did he know who the dead person was?

"I don't recognize him from his shoes."

Did he call the police?

"No, I figured someone else did," he said.

"There's lots of people coming through here with cameras and cell phones. I don't got no phone. I don't got no quarter. Things is tight around here."

His shack mate, Kenneth Williams, 47, returned at that point with an armload of wood.

"Yeah, he's been down there since last month at least."

He was asked if he called the police.

"No, I thought it was a dummy myself," he said unconvincingly. Besides, Williams said, there were more pressing issues like keeping warm and finding something to eat.

"You got a couple bucks?" he asked.

Waiting for a response

There are at least 19,000 homeless people in Detroit, by some estimates. Put another way, more than 1 in 50 people here are homeless.

The human problem is so bad, and the beds so few, that some shelters in the city provide only a chair. The chair is yours as long as you sit in it. Once you leave, the chair is reassigned.

Thousands of down-on-their-luck adults do nothing more with their day than clutch onto a chair. This passes for normal in some quarters of the city.

"I hate that musical chair game," Ruben said. He said he'd rather live next to a corpse.

Convinced that it was indeed a body, this reporter made a discreet call to a police officer.

"Aw, just give 911 a call," the cop said. "We'll be called eventually."

A call was placed to 911. A woman answered. She was told it was a reporter calling. The operator tried to follow, but seemed confused. "Where is this building?"

She promised to contact the appropriate authorities.

Twenty minutes or so went by when 911 called the newsroom. This time it was a man.

"Where's this building?"

It was explained to him, as was the elevator shaft and the tomb of ice.

"Bring a jack-hammer," this reporter suggested.

"That's what we do," he said.

Nearly 24 hours went by. The elevator shaft was still a gaping wound. There was no crime scene tape. The homeless continued to burn their fires. City schoolchildren still do not have the necessary books to learn. The train station continues to crumble. Too many homicides still go unsolved.

After another two calls to 911 on Wednesday afternoon (one of which was disconnected), the Detroit Fire Department called and agreed to meet nearby.

Capt. Emma McDonald was on the scene.

"Every time I think I've seen it all, I see this," she said.

And with that they went about the work of recovering a person who might otherwise be waiting for the warm winds of spring.

You can reach Charlie LeDuff at (313) 222-2620 or charlie@detnews.com.

Workers urged: Go home and multiply

By CNN's Kyung Lah

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Even before one reaches the front door of Canon's headquarters in Tokyo, one can sense the virtual stampede of employees pouring out of the building exactly at 5:30 p.m.

Japan's birth rate of 1.34 is below the level needed to maintain the country's population.

In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.

"Canon has a very strong birth planning program," says the company's spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. "Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it."

Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country's low birthrate.

At 1.34, the birthrate is well below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan's population, according to the country's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Keidanren, Japan's largest business group, with 1,300 major international corporations as members, has issued a plea to its members to let workers go home early to spend time with their families and help Japan with its pressing social problem.

One reason for the low birth rate is the 12-hour workday. But there are several other factors compounding the problem -- among them, the high cost of living, and social rigidity toward women and parenting.

In addition, Japan's population is aging at a faster pace than any other country in the world.

Analysts say the world's second-largest economy faces its greatest threat from its own social problems, rather than outside forces. And the country desperately needs to make some fixes to its current social and work structures, sociologists say.

Canon says its 5:30 p.m. lights-out program is one simple step toward helping address the population problem. It also has an added benefit: Amid the global economic downturn the company can slash overtime across the board twice a week.

"It's great that we can go home early and not feel ashamed," said employee Miwa Iwasaki.

Farang 'squad' a force to be reckoned with

 

They're expats helping local police help tourists in Pattaya, but not all visitors are happy with their public presence on the streets
Amid the neon kitsch, thumping disco music and caged go-go girls of Pattaya's notorious Walking Street they're hard to miss. In the real world they are journalists, businessmen and retirees from around the world. But when the sun goes down they don the military-style black uniforms of Foreign Tourist Police Assistants (FTPA) and patrol the streets with local police offering help to foreign visitors.

FIRST AID: Foreign Tourist Police Assistants Lewis Hurst, left, and Freddy Meekers help revive a drunken woman near the Pattaya Tourist police mobile unit on Walking street (Bangkok Post article photo)

The job is unpaid volunteer work, and they pay for their own uniforms and equipment.
''We have to report every incident we deal with. Even our meeting here, I will write in a report tonight,'' Briton Howard Miller, 36, the FTPA's group leader, tells Spectrum. ''We all love Thailand and that's why we're here _ to serve the tourists.''
Police Captain Suprapan Phothiphirom from the Tourist Police station in Pattaya said the FTPA's job is to ensure the safety and security of foreign tourists and give them information and assistance.
''We have always faced a shortage of Tourist Police personnel, especially ones who can speak different languages,'' he said.
On a recent Friday night, Spectrum went on patrol with the tourist police and their foreign assistants along Walking Street, which stretches 750 metres and is closed to traffic from 7pm to 3am.
At about 8:30pm the foreign assistants and Thai volunteers began to set up, as they do every night, their mobile unit. Desks and chairs were placed in the middle of the street with bottles of drinking water and a box for donations.
Shortly after, a white Tourist Police van arrived and was parked across the street. A large TV monitor to show public relations videos was then placed on the vehicle.
By 9pm, about 30 people which included assistants, local volunteers and two policemen were in place, sitting or standing around and waiting for something to happen.
The scene drew a lot of attention from the many foreigners and Thais alike who were streaming past. They were surprised to see such a large group of people in full ''battle-dress'' in the middle of a tourist resort. Many stared, especially at the assistants, wondering who they were and what they are up to.
A group of Russian women with their families appeared confused and even frightened, asking their male companions: ''Look at this. What is going on here. Is there a problem? Let's get out of here.''
Tourists from other countries questioned the purpose of the mobile unit, whether it was really necessary, and whether it could be done with less visibility.
The presence of the foreign assistants sporting handcuffs, batons, radios and other gadgets on their belts made some people feel uneasy.
Some local volunteers wearing army boots and berets appeared totally out of place in the middle of an entertainment area crammed with bar girls offering their services.
Paradoxically, two Thai policemen who have the authority to arrest and to carry weapons were wearing jackets to cover their uniforms and were walking around unobtrusively.
The only incident occured at about 10:30pm, when a woman was found lying intoxicated on Walking Street. She was brought to the mobile unit on a tourist police golf car equipped with police lights and received first-aid from the volunteers and a tattooed foreign assistant who poured water on her head.
THE BEGINNING
With thousands of foreign tourists flocking to Pattaya every year, the Thai Tourist Police _ which has about 40 officers _ relies a great deal on the foreign assistants.
''We started the project in 1994, first with the Thai Tourist Police Volunteers, which now numbers 369, and later we added the FTPA component to it,'' said Capt Suprapan. ''Now we have about 30 assistants, which is not enough. We would like to recruit more people, particularly the ones who can speak Italian, Korean and Russian. We need also women, something very hard to find.''
But the ''farang police'', despite their good intentions, have been subject to criticism, particularly over what people see as their intimidating black uniforms, their imposing appearance and the carrying of handcuffs and batons. Questions have also been raised about whether proper background checks are conducted on applicants.
Capt Suprapan said that foreigners who want to join the FTPA must come to his office with a passport and fill out an application form. Applicants with a non-immigrant visa are preferred because they can be granted a one-year extension. A tourist visa is not acceptable.
''We will send the information to immigration to conduct a background check. After that, we will investigate what the person has been doing in Pattaya and in Thailand. We don't check the person's history from his native country, but in some cases, we will do so with the embassy,'' the captain explained.
''As for qualifications, the most important thing is that the person really wants to help the Tourist Police and has enough time to work. If accepted, we will send the new recruit to our Tourist Police mobile unit on Walking Street positioned there every night for training with our assistants. This will last about three months, which is also the probation period. If the trainee performs well then he will become an assistant and receive an identification card.''
Capt Suprapan said qualified assistants carry a baton, gloves, handcuffs, a torch and a radio. He stressed that they can only assist Thai police to help subdue suspects when an arrest is made.
Mr Miller, who has lived in Thailand for seven years and joined the FTPA six years ago, says they are very careful about who they will accept and said everyone has a long-stay or retirement visa. The youngest foreign assistant is Anthony, 32, from Ireland, and the oldest, Ciro, 72, from Italy.
''I'm actually a journalist who did an interview for a local TV station with a police officer on Walking Street and I joined afterwards because I thought it would be a good idea,'' said Mr Miller, who has extensive media interests in Pattaya, including a radio station and an online news service.
British retiree Paul Harrison, 49, has been with the FTPA for about three years and is one of the group's two team leaders. ''I joined the FTPA because I want to help people,'' he said. ''We're not spies. We follow very strict rules to select who will be admitted into the FTPA.''
Mr Miller says new recruits undergo three days of training before the three-month pro bation period and are from countries as diverse as China, India, Norway and Pakistan. Some undergo further training to qualify as parachutists and undergo a practical pistol shooting course, said Mr Miller, although these skills are not necessary for the job. A few of them even sported badges showing they had qualified in these areas on their uniforms.
''We are foreigners in a foreign land and that's why we have to be very careful of who we let in our group,'' Mr Miller said. ''We don't want to cause any problems for the Thai police because they are ultimately responsible for our unit. We have very strict admission procedures.''
Capt Suprapan said the working relationship between the Tourist Police, the volunteers and the assistants was excellent. ''We're like a family.
''The assistants and the volunteers receive no salary and have to buy uniforms and equipment with their own money,'' he added.
WORKING STIFFS
The nightly patrols usually comprise 10 foreign assistants, 14 Thai volunteers and four policemen who cover Walking Street from 9pm until 3am.
Mr Miller concedes that sometimes they had to deal with uncooperative foreigners. ''This is mainly because they don't really understand what we do. They might look at foreigners in uniform in a foreign country and say: 'Look at that ...'''
Mr Miller said they were not authorised to conduct investigations. ''If we receive information about some serious cases, we will forward the matter to the police,'' he said.
''As for arrests, which actually happen very rarely, we have a strict rule of engagement. The Tourist Police officers must know what we are doing. We are foreigners here so we have to be very careful.''
The assistants are trained to deal with different situations, such as a drunk causing a disturbance, and also have to learn first aid and basic fire-fighting skills.
''We have dealt with thousands of cases over the years,'' Mr Miller said. ''The one I will never forget was when we were called to a hotel in central Pattaya after an Englishman who stabbed his wife to death in a bar barricaded himself in a corridor of the hotel and was trying to slash his arm. We managed to overpower him before he could harm himself,'' he said.
Mr Miller said the foreign assistants had been involved in only one undercover operation which involved prostitutes from Uzbekistan. But he said it was difficult for them to go undercover as their faces were well-known on Walking Street.
Mr Harrison said his most unforgettable experience was a fire at the Marine Plaza Hotel in 2006.
''We got there before the fire brigade did. A few of us went inside and found a Thai girl stuck in the smoke on the stairway. I dragged her out, otherwise she would most probably have died from smoke inhalation. We rescued several more people as well,'' he said.
But the day-to-day work can be a bit more routine. ''On January 15, a bar called us because two foreign customers refused to pay 3,065 baht for 21 lady drinks and three of their own,'' he said. ''We were able to reduce the amount considerably. As for the two foreigners, it was their first day in Pattaya, so they didn't understand what was going on here.''
Capt Suprapan said the volunteers had been useful during last year's closure of Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports, helping a lot of tourists diverted to nearby U-Tapao airport. ''Many wondered who they were as they wore uniforms with logos, but were grateful for their assistance anyhow.''
MEN IN BLACK
While some might see the black uniform worn by the foreign assistants and the military boots and berets of their Thai counterparts as intimidating, Mr Miller argues they are practical. ''Because the climate in Pattaya is very hot, it is not practical for us to wear a white or light-coloured shirt as they will show sweat and stains,'' he said. ''Black shirts look smart and they do show a little bit of authority.''
Mr Harrison said they were selected after careful consideration. ''We did some trials with different colours considering the heat, the dirt, etc.'' he said. ''We found that the black shirt is more durable, lightweight and it lets the body breath. It is easy to wash and iron. We wanted a shirt that will give us some respect as well.'' Mr Miller said he had only drawn his baton two or three times in self defence.

 

Source: bahtsold.com

Thailand sentences writer for insults

Australian writer Harry Nicolaides was sentenced to three years in prison Monday, for defaming Thailand's crown prince. (Sukree Sukplang/Reuters)

 By Seth Mydans and Mark McDonald

BANGKOK: An Australian writer was sentenced to three years in prison Monday for insulting the Thai monarchy in a self-published novel.

Harry Nicolaides, 41, originally received a six-year sentence, which the court said it reduced because he had pleaded guilty. The book, "Verisimilitude," was published in 2005 and reportedly sold fewer than a dozen copies.

The case was brought under the country's strict lèse-majesté laws, which call for a jail term of up to 15 years for anyone who "defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the Regent."

The presiding judge said Monday that parts of the book "suggested that there was abuse of royal power."

The boundaries of the law are unclear, and cases can be brought by any citizen, involving a variety of alleged offenses. Dozens of cases are now pending. In addition, the government has closed down more than 2,000 Web sites that it says include material insulting to the monarchy.

Speaking to reporters before the verdict was announced, Nicolaides said he had endured "unspeakable suffering" during five months of detention. "I would like to apologize," he added. "This can't be real. It feels like a bad dream."

Nicolaides, who had been an English teacher in Thailand, was detained Aug. 31 as he was about to board a plane home, apparently unaware that an arrest warrant had been issued against him.

"At nighttime he's in a cell with at least 50 other people," Nicolaides's attorney, Mark Dean, said in an interview last month with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "The sanitary conditions, to put it mildly, are basic. People suffer from TB and HIV. There is violence within the cell."

A news release about the novel, posted on a blog called Costa del Gangster, called the book "an uncompromising assault on the patrician values of the monarchy." It said the book was "savage, ruthless and unforgiving" in revealing a society "obsessed with Western affluence and materialism."

Nicolaides reportedly printed only 50 copies of the book - a paperback, with a bright blue butterfly on the cover - and sold just 10. Long out of print, it is not listed onor other booksellers' Web sites.

"I think it's reasonable to say that just writing a simple paragraph in a novel, to expect that would land you in such serious legal trouble, must have come as a surprise for Harry," Andrew Walker, a fellow in the Asia-Pacific Program at Australian National University, said on ABC.

"I think Thailand is trying to send a message to international media, to writers, to bloggers, to people who are putting material on the Internet that the royal family is out of bounds."

The lèse-majesté cases come at a time of growing concern about the eventual succession of the highly revered king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is 81. He has no official political role but is a unifying force and peacemaker in a nation that has become increasingly factionalized and acrimonious.

Last week the new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, said that the monarchy must be protected because it offers "immense benefits to the country as a stabilizing force." But he said he would try to ensure that the law was not abused.

Most cases involve Thai citizens, although foreigners are sometimes also accused.

In 2006 a Swiss man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for spray-painting over images of the king. He was pardoned by the king and released after serving about a month.

A reporter for the BBC, Jonathan Head, was accused of lèse-majesté late last year in a complaint that cited reports he and others had written for the company. The company denies the allegations and says it is cooperating with the authorities.

One of the most prominent current cases involves a leading Thai academic and writer, Ji Ungpakorn, who has been called to a hearing Tuesday. He said the charge involves a book he wrote about the military coup in September 2006 that ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

At a news conference last week, he said the law "restricts freedom of speech and expression and does not allow for public accountability and transparency of the institution of the monarchy."

In November, a prominent social critic and Buddhist intellectual, Sulak Sivaraksa, was charged with lèse-majesté for questioning the need for lavish celebrations of the king's reign.

Last April, an activist named Chotisak Onsoong, was summoned by the police after refusing to stand up during the playing of the royal anthem before a movie. And a former government minister under Thaksin, Jakrapob Penkair, has been charged in connection with remarks he made at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

The police are obliged to investigate any charge of lèse-majesté, and Jakrapob said an accusation could be used as a political weapon. Accusations of disrespect for the monarchy were stated as one reason for the coup that removed Thaksin.

Mark McDonald reported from Hong Kong.

Aspartame poisoning from chewing gum

News report from tv3 NZ about a girl being poisoned by the deadly chemical aspartame.

Thai political analyst charged with insulting king

Police filed formal charges against Thailand's leading leftist political commentator on Tuesday, accusing him of insulting the king in a 2007 book criticising the previous year's military coup.

Australian writer Harry Nicolaides waits inside a detention cell of the Bangkok's

Giles Ungpakorn of Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University denied all charges, and said the army and Democrat Party-led government were merely using Thailand's draconian lese majeste laws to crush dissent and political opposition.

"Lese majeste is being used to destroy free speech," Ungpakorn told reporters outside the central Bangkok police station where he heard the charges.

"The lese majeste laws are there to protect the military and to protect governments that come to power through military action. They're not really about protecting the monarchy," he said.

Insulting the monarchy is taken extremely seriously in Thailand, where many people regard King Bhumibol Adulyadej as semi-divine.

It carries up to 15 years in jail although critics say the law is frequently abused by politicians since a complaint can be filed by anybody against anybody else, no matter how trivial or tangential the alleged disrespect to the crown.

An Australian author was sentenced to three years in jail Monday for defaming the crown prince in a 2005 novel that only sold seven copies.

Earlier this month, Justice Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga vowed to toughen the laws, although Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said last week he was trying to "strike the balance between upholding the law and allowing freedom of expression."

Abhisit came to power in December after the courts dissolved a government sympathetic to former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in the 2006 coup.

Others to have fallen foul of the lese majeste law in the last year include a pro-Thaksin minister, a British correspondent for the BBC and a democracy activist who refused to stand up for the king's anthem at the start of a movie screening.

(Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Sanjeev Miglani)

Aspley man missing in Thailand

A NOTTS man has gone missing while on holiday in Thailand with his wife

The family of builder Stuart Coombes are appealing for help after he disappeared from Nungpo on December 30.

His case has been reported to the Foreign Office as well as police in Thailand and Nottingham.

The 53-year-old lives in Aspley but regularly goes back to Thailand with wife Tabtin.

His family – including eight sisters and one brother in the UK – say they are mystified about his disappearance.

His sister Marian said: "His wife phoned up to say he was missing. We just can't understand it.

"The last few days haven't been very good at all; as the days go on it has got worse."

Mr Coombes and his wife met 10 years ago and have been married for seven years.

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed a report of a missing person was made on January 2 and that Thai police were investigating.


Missing Aspley man's bank account cleared

THE family of an Aspley man missing in Thailand say all the money has been taken from his bank account.

Builder Stuart Coombes, 53, disappeared from the town of Nungpo last month.

The case has been reported to the Foreign Office and to police in Thailand and Nottingham.

Mr Coombes has eight sisters and a brother among family living in Britain. Marian, one of his sisters, said the family had still heard nothing from him.

"It is getting really bad," she said. "All we know is that his bank account has been cleared of all his money.

"We really do think something has happened to him now. We just don't know what to do next."

Mr Coombes often travels to Thailand with his wife Tabtin. They met ten years ago and have been married for seven years.
_________________

Original article with comments below appears here:
www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/homenews/Missing-Aspley-man-s-bank-account-cleared/article-592383-detail/article.html

www.BahtSold.com

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The Tank Man 1/8

Documentary:The Tank Man
about Tiananmen square protests of 1989 in Beijing China.

Boozy Britain's bloody New Year:

A 999 call every seven seconds in alcohol-induced mayhem

By Neil Sears

Violence scarred celebrations and led to a bloody New Year across the country as emergency services endured a chaotic end to 2008.

Ambulance control centres reported receiving 999 calls as often as once every seven seconds  -  the second highest volume of calls since the Millennium  -  as binge drinkers turned nasty in the freezing temperatures.

Many of the calls related either to alcohol-fuelled assaults or excessive drunkenness.

Bloodbath: A victim of a bottle attack at a club in North London

Booze contributed to time-wasting calls to 999 operators too, with one man calling to ask if New York was in America, and what time it was there.

Elsewhere, while large numbers were ferried to hospitals, in some areas injuries were treated by paramedics in 'booze buses' to leave ambulances free for more serious emergencies.

In Essex, so many drunk people were arrested that all 200 of the constabulary's cells were filled, and overflow revellers had to be shipped to neighbouring Kent to be held for the night.

A huge brawl at a social club in Loughton, Essex, meant 600 rowdy revellers had to be dispersed, with two arrested for attempted murder after a 47-year-old man was stabbed in the eye and back.

Officers stop and question a drunken male about his facial injuries in Newcastle

In Wales, a 999 call led to tragedy when an ambulance speeding its way to an emergency ran over and killed reveller Jason Hawkes, 23, as he stood in the road outside a pub in Beddau-near Cardiff.

In one of the most disturbing incidents an ambulance was wrecked by callous thugs while parked outside the home of a sick baby boy in Tilehurst, Reading.

He eventually had to be sped to hospital in his family's own car.

Mother-of-two Jemma Dromgoole, 22, had found her son Ryan, 19 months, screaming in pain with a limp arm at teatime on New Year's Eve.

Miss Dromgoole said: 'We thought that he had dislocated his shoulder or something even worse. He was so distressed I had to call 999.

Sick and sorry: The binge catches up with this girl

This sequence of pictures shows a reveller having a rest on the pavement in Newcastle city centre

With her shoes off, she at one point places her hand in her mouth

A bystander chats to the woman before, cigarette in hand, she contemplates the evening

'The ambulance was here within five minutes and they quickly decided to take him to hospital because he would not let them near him.

'When we got outside one of the paramedics made a dash for the ambulance. He said he saw a kid on a bike and then told us the ambulance had been put out of action by vandals.

'He asked if we could go in my partner's car to the hospital. What kind of person does that to an ambulance? It's sickening.'

Partygoers stumble as they make their way in Newcastle city centre

Dressed up for the night, two women pass through a scanner to enter an area in Broad Street, Birmingham

The attackers had smashed the windows, ripped out wiring and stolen the navigation and communication system as the vehicle was parked with its blue lights flashing.

Ryan was later sent home without the need for surgery. It was believed he might have twisted his arm while playing.

The reports of a 999 call every seven seconds came from the London Ambulance Service.

A Newcastle reveller shows his facial wounds to a PC

In the early hours of this morning, officers arrest this reveller in Norwich

Last year the problem was even worse but then it was nowhere near as cold, with far more revellers out on the streets.

Spokesman Alistair Drummond said: 'The high volume of calls on New Year's Eve put the service under increased pressure.

'It made it harder for us to ensure we respond quickly to other patients with potentially life-threatening emergencies.

'People should not be drinking so much that they wake up in hospital.

'We would urge them to think more carefully about the consequences of drinking so that they can enjoy the start of 2009 safely and responsibly.'

Violent incidents in the capital included a bloody fight at the Gilgamesh Party in Chalk Farm, where a man was left drenched in blood after allegedly being hit with a bottle.

His injuries were not life threatening. .

The hangover starts here: A partygoer collapses in the street

British Transport Police spokesman Superintendent Brian Pearce  -  whose colleagues helped control the huge crowds gathered for fireworks by the Thames, said: 'The nature of New Year's Eve in central London has changed. What used to be a relatively low-key, spontaneous night is now a world-class event that attracts thousands and thousands of people.

'Such large crowds create a challenging policing environment. In the main the crowds were good humoured.'

There were 13 'booze buses' or field hospitals specially set up around the capital to deal with minor injuries on the spot.

The West Midlands Ambulance Service received a call once every 12 seconds in the first five hours of 2009  -  most alcohol related, and dozens of them inappropriate, including the man asking whether New York was in America.

Fighting in Newcastle upon Tyne left police and paramedics dealing with a number of bloodied young men.

The aftermath of the excessive night of celebrations is likely to add to the huge numbers of workers expected to phone in sick today.

An young woman helps a friend who has almost certainly had too much to drink

According to the Federation of Small Businesses, it will be 'No Show Friday' because many employees will seek to extend their festive break into the weekend rather than bother turning up for work.

Spokesman Stephen Alambritis said: 'It's bleak and freezing, and after the celebrations for New Year's Eve run into New Year's Day, we believe there will be record absences from work.

A stunning image of Big Ben as fireworks light up the London skyline

 • Two thirds of us planned to stay at home on New Year's Eve, to save money in the credit crunch. A survey of more than 2,000 adults by Post Office home insurance found only one in eight planned to go to a pub or club. How many changed their mind at the last minute is not known.

 • An estimated 700,000 revellers braved freezing temperatures to see in 2009 on the streets of central London. Some 3,300 police officers were on duty to control the crowds. They made 103 arrests including 20 for assault, ten for drunkenness and five each for drugs and robbery.

A street cleaner starts to remove the rubbish in Central London

Bangkok nightclub Santika club fire kills 58 New Year revellers

Bangkok nightclub fire kills 59, injures 130

AP – Firefighter sprays water on the remains of a night club Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009, in Bangkok, Thailand. …

BANGKOK, Thailand – A fire swept through a high-class nightclub jammed with several hundred New Year's revelers early Thursday, killing at least 59 people and injuring about 130, officials said. A number of foreigners were among the casualties from the blaze that erupted shortly after midnight at the Santika Club in Bangkok's entertainment district.

Victims died from burns, smoke inhalation and injuries during the stampede to escape from the club, which had only one door for the public, police Maj. Gen. Chokchai Deeprasertwit said. Firefighters said a door at the rear was known only to the staff.

Video footage of the disaster showed bloodied, bruised and burned victims being dragged out of the burning club or managing to run through the door or shattered windows. The video — provided to AP Television News by rescue workers — showed flames racing through the entire building even as the rescue operation was going on.

Police Gen. Jongrak Jutanont put the death toll at 59, which included an undetermined number of foreigners. He said that among the injured were nationals of Australia, Nepal, Japan and the Netherlands.

Most of the victims were confirmed dead at the club but at least one person died at a hospital. Workers counting bodies told The Associated Press that about 130 others were injured. Rescue said they believed other bodies were still inside the blaze-gutted building, which has two stories and a basement.

Chokchai said that the fire may have been caused by firecrackers brought into the Santika Club by guests or sparks flying from a New Year's countdown display on the nightclub stage.

The club was packed with about 1,000 celebrants, according to police officers who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Most of the bodies were found in the basement of the club, which attracts a well-heeled crowd of Thais and foreigners, rescuers said. The corpses, placed in white body bags, were laid out in rows in the parking lot in front of the club.

The emergency workers said the rescue operation was delayed because of heavy New Year's traffic in the Ekamai entertainment district and the large number of cars parked at the club.

Firefighter Watcharapong Sri-saard said that in addition to a lack of exits, a number of staircases inside the club as well as bars across the second-floor windows made escape difficult.

An AP reporters who peered inside the still burning building said everything in sight had been burned.

One local Web site about the entertainment scene in Bangkok described the club as attracting "an affluent Thai student crowd, with Euro models and Westerners also popping in" with a "whisky-sipping crowd all focused on a large stage."

Another site says that the high ceiling and a cross in the main room makes one feel "like walking into a church."

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Blake contributed to this report

Billie Holiday - Travelin' Light

Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit

Whistleblowers sent to mental ward, Chinese paper says

By Andrew Jacobs

 

BEIJING: Local officials in Shandong Province have apparently found a cost-effective way to deal with gadflies, whistleblowers and all manner of muckraking citizens who dare to challenge the authorities: dispatch them to the local psychiatric hospital.

According to an investigative report published Monday by a state-owned newspaper, public security officials in Xintai city have been institutionalizing residents who persist in their personal campaigns to expose corruption or to protest the unfair seizure of their property. Some people said they were committed up to two years, and several of those interviewed said they had been forced to consume psychiatric medication.

The article, in The Beijing News, said most inmates had been released after they agreed to give up their causes.

Sun Fawu, 57, a farmer seeking compensation for land spoiled by a coal mining operation, said he was seized by the local authorities on his way to petition the central government in Beijing and brought to the Xintai Mental Health Center in October.

During a 20-day stay, he said he was tied to a bed, forced to take pills and given injections that made him numb and woozy. When he told the doctor he was a petitioner, not mentally ill, the doctor reportedly said, "I don't care if you're sick or not. As long as you are sent by the township government, I'll treat you as a mental patient."

In an interview with the paper, the hospital's director, Wu Yuzhu, acknowledged that some of the 18 patients brought there by the police in recent years were not deranged, but he had no choice but to take them in. "The hospital also had its misgivings," he said.

Although China is not known for the kind of systematic abuse of psychiatry that occurred in the Soviet Union, human rights advocates say forced institutionalizations are not uncommon in smaller cities. Robin Munro, the research director of China Labour Bulletin, a rights organization in Hong Kong, said such "an kang" wards - Chinese for peace and health - are a convenient and effective means of dealing with pesky dissidents.

In recent years practitioners of Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement, have complained of coerced hospitalizations and one of China's best-known dissidents, Wang Wanxing, spent 13 years in a police-run psychiatric facility under conditions he later described as abusive.

In one recent, well-publicized case, Wang Jingmei , the mother of a man convicted of killing six policemen in Shanghai, was held incommunicado at a mental hospital for five months and only released last Sunday, the day before her son was executed.

The Beijing News story about the hospitalizations in Xintai was notable for the traction it gained in China's constrained state-run media. Such Communist Party stalwarts as People's Daily and the Xinhua news agency republished the story, and it was picked up by scores of Web sites. At the country's most popular portal, Sina.com, it ranked the fifth most-viewed news headline and readers posted more than 20,000 comments by evening. The indignation expressed was universal, with many clamoring for the dismissal of those involved. "They're no different than animals," read one post. "No, they're worse."

Reached by phone on Monday, a hospital employee said Wu, the hospital director who voiced his misgivings to The Beijing News, was unavailable. The employee, Hu Peng, said local government officials had taken him away for "a meeting" earlier in the day and had also looked through patient records.

Although Hu said the hospital was not authorized to diagnose patients, he nonetheless defended the hospitalizations, saying that all the patients delivered by the Public Security Bureau were certifiably ill. "We definitely would not accept those without mental problems," he said.

Taiwan to lift ban on civil servants' China travel

Taiwan will soon lift a ban on military personnel, civil servants and educators visiting China, local media reported on Saturday, the latest sign of warming relations between the political rivals.

The ban will remain in place for a small number of intelligence and national security officials, the China Times reported, citing remarks made on Friday by Premier Liu Chao-Shiuan.

"Even I myself will be able to go," Liu said, adding the ban would be lifted very soon.

Those previously affected will be able to travel to China for personal or work-related matters without needing official permission, he said.

China has claimed self-ruled Taiwan as its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and pledged to bring the island under its rule, by force if necessary.

But cross-strait relations have improved dramatically this year under the new China-friendly administration of President Ma Ying-jeou, who took office in May.

Earlier this week, the two sides launched direct daily passenger flights, as well as air and sea cargo links between Taiwan and China for the first time in six decades.

Next week, a pair of giant pandas -- a gift from China -- is also set to arrive in Taiwan, in the latest sign of improving ties.

(Reporting by Doug Young; Editing by David Fox)

"This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog"

 

In final visit to Iraq, Bush dodges a shoe!

 

 

By Steven Lee Myers and Alissa J. Rubin

 

BAGHDAD: President George W. Bush flew to Iraq on Sunday, his fourth and final trip to highlight the recently completed security agreement between the United States and the country that has occupied the bulk of his presidency and will to a large extent define his legacy.

But his appearance at a news conference here was interrupted by an Iraqi journalist who shouted in Arabic — "This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog" — and threw one of his shoes at the president, who ducked and narrowly avoided being struck.

As chaos ensued, he threw his other shoe, shouting, "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." The second shoe also narrowly missed Bush as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki stuck out a hand in front of the president's face to help shield him.

A scrum of security agents descended on the man, who was about 12 feet from the lectern, and wrestled him to the floor and then out of the ornate room where the news conference was taking place. The president was uninjured and brushed off the incident. "All I can report is it is a size 10," he said jokingly before continuing his news conference and noting the apologies of Iraqi journalists in the front row.

Shortly before 10 p.m., Bush departed the Green Zone by helicopter to Camp Victory, where he was greeted with cheers and whoops from hundreds of troops inside the enormous rotunda of the Al Faw palace. Speaking at a lectern beneath an enormous American flag that nearly reached the domed ceiling, he praised this generation of soldiers and reflected on the sacrifice of those who had died.

 

 

He called the surge "one of the greatest successes in the history of the United States military."

"Thanks to you," he told the soldiers, "the Iraq we're standing in today is dramatically freer, dramatically safer and dramatically better than the Iraq we found eight years ago."

Bush's arrival here during daylight hours had been one measure of progress; his first visit on Thanksgiving Day 2003 took place entirely at night.

As with previous visits — in November 2003, June 2006 and September 2007 — preparations for the visit were secretive and carried out with ruse. The White House schedule for Sunday had Bush attending the "Christmas in Washington" performance at the National Building Museum in downtown Washington. Instead, he left the White House by car on Saturday night, arriving at Andrews at 9 p.m. Air Force One remained inside its immaculate hangar until moments before taking off. A dozen journalists accompanying him were only told of the trip on Friday and allowed to tell only a superior and a spouse — and only in person.

Air Force One arrived in Baghdad at 4 p.m. after a 10-and-a-half-hour overnight flight from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. It was Bush's fourth visit to IraqOn arriving here, he met the two senior American officials, Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General Ray Odierno, on the tarmac. He met with Iraqi leaders and was expected to meet with American troops.

The president and his aides have touted the security agreement as a landmark in Iraq's troubled history, one made possible by the dramatic drop in violence over the last year. They credit the large increase in American troops Bush ordered in 2007 for creating enough security to allow political progress to take root.

The new security agreements, which take effect on Jan. 1, replace the United Nations Security Council resolutions that authorized the presence of foreign troops in Iraq. Iraqi officials extracted significant concessions from the Bush administration over several months of hard bargaining, including a commitment to withdrawal all American forces by the end of 2011.

Bush's national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, said the situation in Iraq today was "a pretty optimistic place," a phrase that few would have credibly used even a year ago. He described the security agreement that will govern American military operations after the new year "a remarkable document."

Referring to the Iraqi parliament's contentious and lively debate leading up to a vote last month, Hadley added that the agreement was a public one: "I think the only one there is in the Arab world, and publicly debated and discussed in an elected parliament."

There was an unmistakeable hint of triumphalism in Hadley's remarks, as in Bush's valedictory visit, even though the president is leaving office with the war very much unfinished.

"If you've been through 2005 and 2006," Hadley said en route to Baghdad, when asked whether the president was "feeling pretty good" about the situation here now, "it's hard not to feel awfully good about 2008 and into 2009."

After arriving at the airport, Mr Bush quickly flew into Baghdad itself aboard a military helicopter, under extraordinary security. The flight passed uneventfully, swooping low over neighborhoods along the once notorious airport road. He landed at Salam Palace, boarded a civilian SUV and drove a short distance to an honor guard with Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani.

The president made brief remarks at the end of his meeting with Talabani and Iraq's two vice presidents, Adil Abd al-Mahdi and Tariq al-Hashimi. The three comprise Iraq's Presidency Council. The two leaders sat in arm chairs before their respective flags. Talabani spoke first, praising the president: "Thanks to him and his courageous leadership we are here now in this building."

Bush then spoke, calling the security agreements "a reminder of our friendship and as a way forward to help the Iraqis realize the blessings of a free society."

"The work hasn't been easy," he said, "but it's been necessary."

Peter Hitchens: Inside Burma

One of the world's most beautiful and ugliest countries and the last ghost of the British Empire

The Mail on Sunday columnist infiltrates this sinister state and uncovers the Generals' secret new capital

Golden past: Peter Hitchens at the beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda

In Burma the people are afraid of their rulers - and the rulers are so afraid of the people that they hide from them in a crazy capital city hundreds of miles from anywhere. The only open opposition comes from a lonely woman in a besieged villa and a troupe of comedians in a tiny back-street theatre, who are forbidden to tell jokes in their native language.

In the strange league of pariah states, where Cuba jostles with North Korea and Belarus for the title of most fear-ridden nation on Earth, Burma is certainly the oddest of all.

You step off the edge of the known world when you go there. The last part of the journey, from Bangkok to Rangoon, takes less than two hours. But it hauls you roughly out of the smooth, the globalised and the familiar into a dark, disturbing place.

Bangkok's gargantuan airport is a bloated celebration of everything we have come to accept as normal. It is a colossal shopping mall with some serviceable runways attached, so immense that the traveller can easily get lost in its hallways, throbbing with the urgent pulse of consumer culture, adorned with every brand name, sparkling and garish at every hour of day or night.

Rangoon, by contrast, is dingy at all hours. It is decrepit and secretive, and perhaps the last city on Earth where the ghost of the British Empire still walks.The great globalist tidal wave of concrete, money and credit, advertising and electronics, which has made the whole world bland, faltered and flopped before it got to Burma.

In Rangoon your mobile phone sits dead in your pocket and your credit card is useless. The internet is busily censored. There are a dozen monasteries and not a single Starbucks or McDonald's. The traffic is reasonable rather than frantic, and often actually sparse. The billboards mostly advertise local products you have never heard of.

It is profoundly poor. Child labour is common and blatant, with small boys toiling on road gangs. There are dreadful, fetid slums within a mile of the heart of Rangoon.

The airport road passes close to the well-named Insein prison, a giant circular fortress of repression which was once the largest jail in our Empire. It is now the hopeless home of many protesters and dissenters who wrongly thought last year that they had a chance of overthrowing the Burmese military regime. Some have just begun truly insane sentences of as long as 65 years.

At the great seaport's heart, tremendous decayed structures of dark brick or heavy stone, like vast Yorkshire town halls or broken-off chunks of Whitehall, rear above the cratered streets and ruined pavements. Several of these relics even have trees growing out of their upper storeys, much as you used to see in Communist East Berlin. In an odd way, Rangoon is a sort of tropical East Berlin, its derelict decay made worse by the sweaty heat.

Hitchens makes a telephone call by candlelight in Mandalay

Slovenly police officers loaf about their sinister headquarters, offering incorrect directions to travellers. Clerks can be seen filling in forms with typewriters, a technology vanished everywhere else but still employed by this unhurried police state.

Gaggles of suspicious soldiers skulk - especially on or near bridges, though they are plainly under orders to stay in the background for now.

The spires of Gothic cathedrals, in cold white stone and livid pink brick, stand out from a skyline that is still only slightly disfigured by concrete tower blocks.

Lovely ornate apartment houses, some dating from before the First World War, crumble gently above narrow, pungent streets laid out long ago by colonial planners who believed British rule would last for ever. You are walking through the ruins of a collapsed civilisation.

When twilight comes, the sensation of being in a lost world grows stronger. Electricity dribbles unreliably and weakly to homes and businesses even here in the richest and most bustling part of the country. Tiny shop fronts and tea shops are lit with candles.

Even where there is power, it is feeble. The windows of the big buildings have a North Korean look, giving off the same greyish, sad light that you see after dark in Pyongyang.

The unbelievable, floodlit golden tower that is the Shwedagon Pagoda, supreme shrine of Burmese Buddhism and the country's single most precious possession, broods over the twilit former capital, reminding you time and again that this is still a profoundly pious country, and one that has - for better and for worse - missed the economic revolution that has transformed the rest of the Far East.

In any other major Asian city, 80-storey hotels and office blocks would long ago have eclipsed it, reducing it to a tourist toy, but here it springs into view from a thousand places, often glimpsed at the far end of squalid lanes, half-obscured by webs of knotted power cables and phone lines.

If you walk slowly enough down such lanes, you will find yourself being gently approached by ordinary Burmese, anxious for contact with the outside world. Some crave tourist business - one money-changer even asked me how many people had come in on my flight, so anxious was he for trade. Others begin boldly but clam up when questioned about conditions.

When I asked one man, with excellent English, why he didn't work abroad, he suddenly changed his tone of voice and said: 'This country is so wonderful that nobody could possibly want to leave it,' which I took to mean that he didn't think it safe to discuss such matters.

Many do leave. A whole street seemed to be given over to the offices of agencies offering jobs abroad. Exile of this kind is one of the many curses of Burma, where an educated and intelligent people are held back by a superstitious, ignorant and small-minded state.

In private, people told me how they often have to live for months by pawning their most precious possessions, including the jewels that are a favourite form of saving, working extra hard when the chance comes so as to redeem their goods ready for the next hard time.

When they felt really safe they spat out scornful remarks about General Than Shwe, the psychological warfare expert who heads the Junta. One man pronounced the tyrant's name, paused for five eloquent seconds and then pronounced the word 'Stupid!' with such force that we both collapsed into laughter. Several people complained in low voices that the army stole much of what they earned in oppressive taxes.

One man spoke of the near-impossible hardship of trying to bring up a family on an income of £10 a month, with a 90-minute daily commute from his village, hanging on to the bars of a truck as it bumped among the potholes. Monks revealed that their state rice rations had been withdrawn in revenge for their support of last year's anti-regime protests.

But I tried to make sure that all these encounters were completely untraceable, entirely private and in places where nobody could possibly have overheard. Nobody who spoke to me knew I was a journalist. I was safe enough. If detected by the authorities, I would be expelled, perhaps after a little rough handling. But for them to be caught speaking to me would mean terror and ruin. I was determined not to put any Burmese person at risk if I could help it.

Hitchens on the Mandalay to Rangoon train in his efforts to see the new capital, Nay Pyi Taw

There is open opposition here. Its heart is a forlorn, mildewed house, once lovely but now as attractive as a tomb, which lies next to a great lake in the north of the city.

I managed to get close enough to see the jauntily-painted red and yellow gate, the only place in Burma that can now display the symbols of the once-powerful National League for Democracy. But busloads of armed men lurk down a side-road ready to squash any hint of protest or support.

And I had to view this from the far side of the road. Barbed-wire barricades and inquisitive steel-helmeted police prevent anyone getting near the front door, and the whole road is closed to traffic at night to prevent visitors slipping in under cover of darkness. This, No 54 University Avenue, is the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, the hauntingly beautiful and tragic leader of the resistance.

Hers is a series of sad stories. Her long-dead father, Aung San, is even now the official hero of the state, a fact that has probably saved her life. He was the acknowledged leader of the independence movement which took Burma out of British control in 1947.

The General, as he is universally known, was a complicated figure who collaborated energetically with the Japanese when it looked as if they were winning, and then developed objections to their methods when they began to lose the war.

He also wears a martyr's crown since he was assassinated before he could take power and so has the blemish-free reputation reserved for politicians who were murdered before they had a chance to make a mess.

His daughter did much of her growing up in India, where she fell under the influence of Gandhi and his rejection of violence. Her refusal to support bloody revolt is now causing hotter heads in Burma's opposition to whisper that she should make way for them.

Child labour: A boy carries a basket of rocks in Mandalay

They will not find it easy to push her aside. Suu Kyi is terrifyingly determined. She amazed and disturbed many of her own supporters when she refused to go to the bedside of her dying husband, the Oxford academic Michael Aris.

She feared, probably rightly, that if she went she would never be allowed back to Burma. Even so, it is a sacrifice that no normal person would have made. Now she must hope that elections promised for 2010 will take place, and that they will at least free her from her house arrest.

But as things stand, she and the Generals must sit and wait in a permanent state of frozen war. They dare not kill her, and she cannot destroy them, but they are the ones in power and she is the one confined to a crumbling suburban house where nobody can go.

Anyway, the Generals have left town, hoping to put themselves beyond the reach of Suu Kyi and the people of Rangoon. In one of the oddest political decisions in human history, they have shifted the capital to the remote, undeveloped middle of the country. It is as if Gordon Brown, sick of being criticised in London, relocated Westminster and Whitehall to the North York Moors.

I tried three times to go to Nay Pyi Taw, the Royal Abode of Kings as this place is called. I couldn't reach it by air, as I couldn't get permission to go on the plane. I couldn't reach it by road, as cars containing foreigners are diverted round it. But I finally succeeded in getting there by taking the Mandalay-Rangoon express, whose tracks run right through it.

It is a bizarre mixture of Milton Keynes, Pyongyang and a Costa del Sol retirement community. You come out of the forest, where pigs roam the dusty streets of tiny villages, and the houses are made of split bamboo and roofed with palm leaves. And all at once it is as if a giant hand has reached down from space and planted a modern metropolis among the sugar cane and the paddy fields. There are vast six-lane highways on which cattle can roam in perfect safety since there is no traffic.

Hidden in low, wooded hills to the west are the secret villas of the Junta. All around the tawny earth has been turned over to prepare the land for ministries, barracks and perhaps another of Burma's enormous jails.

Just to the east, a misty blue ridge of mountains marks the beginning of Shan State, one of Burma's many half-tamed and unsettled tribal provinces.

There is a super-modern railway station, in keen contrast to the ancient train with its wooden seats, careering wildly over buckled tracks so that luggage often tumbles from the racks on to the heads of travellers, who are visibly bouncing up and down as we snort and rattle on our way.

The train does not stop at Nay Pyi Taw, since we have no Generals aboard, but clatters on past streets of kitsch villas and curlicued hotels, propaganda billboards, grandiose office blocks and a majestic but unfinished pagoda, plainly intended to rival the mighty Shwedagon in size if not in grace.

Perhaps it was the great cranes clustered round it but it reminded me oddly of the enormous mosque begun by Saddam Hussein in Baghdad when he was trying to prove he was really a devout Muslim.

Do the Generals fear that they, like Saddam, will be the victims of a Western invasion?

This could explain why they have sited their new metropolis far from the coast, to keep themselves safe from attack or kidnap. They worry too much. Like Iraq, they possess oil and gas but they also have the kindly protection of next-door China, always a ready customer for such things. This puts them in the Mugabe class of dictatorship - subject to frequent rude remarks and critical missions by eminent persons but ultimately safe from invasion.

A more likely explanation is that they are afraid of their own people. Just north of Rangoon's railway station is unsettling evidence of the mistrust between rulers and ruled. A huge barracks sits there, plainly sited so that troops can flood into the city centre in minutes if there is trouble. But look at its walls and you will see that they are full of relatively new loopholes in the brickwork, as if a siege is expected.

Children carry stones onto a barge on the outskirts of Mandalay. They get 15 Kyat, approx 1.5 US cents for each basket

The same techniques can be seen on the outer walls of almost every military establishment in Burma. This is not an army to defend the country against its enemies but an army designed to defend the state against the people.

Do they have much to fear? Apart from Aung San Suu Kyi and the monks, whose mild pacifism makes them horribly easy to crush if they rise in revolt, the only flickering trace of opposition is to be found in a rubble-heaped side street on the wrong side of the tracks in Mandalay.

Here each night at 8.30, a small and incredibly brave group of people keep a light of free speech burning in the surrounding darkness. And it is very dark. For Mandalay at night makes Rangoon look like Manhattan.

Night falls here like a thick blanket. You must fumble your way along unlit streets, hoping that you will not fall down one of the many yawning holes in the pavement, down into the stinking drains beneath. Even the state telephone bureau functions by candlelight. And in the few tourist hotels, so empty that the bar staff volunteer to play pool with lonely customers, the air-conditioning and lights frequently fail before the generators kick in.

But do not be put off, for without tourists the symbolic, heroic resistance of the Moustache Brothers would come to an end. They are comedians who dared to mock the regime. For this crime - for tyranny is terrified of laughter - two of them were imprisoned and set to work on chain gangs.

Now released, they perform their act in English, laboriously learned, to tiny foreign audiences on a miniature stage. In truth, the performance is not very funny. But it is utterly magnificent.

It is a heartbreaking and touching thing to see these men and their families daring to say the unsayable, to laugh at the deadly serious, especially in the menacing blackness from which - at any time - vengeance might suddenly emerge.

A place in the country: The junta have built a new capital, Nay Pyi Taw, left, among paddy fields in a remote part of Burma

The brothers, who had no idea that I was a reporter the night they entertained me, joke about the KGB and openly praise Aung San Suu Kyi. By the time I saw this performance I was so used to the air of oppression that I was lowering my own voice before saying anything remotely controversial. Yet these courageous people say such things out loud.

All that protects them is the interest of the outside world. If the tourists stop coming, how long can their brave demonstration go on? The night I watched them, there were four of us in the audience. If the level falls much below this, will the regime feel it is safe to shut them down and throw them in a dungeon? It is an alarming thought and raises the strange question of the international boycott of Burma.

The only guidebook to the country - the teeth-gnashingly politically-correct Lonely Planet - agonises for pages about whether anyone should go there at all. If they didn't, they presumably wouldn't buy the guidebook.

But what strange selective concern this is. I was struck, the whole time I was there, by how similar Burma is to Cuba, right down to the ancient cars, the picturesque decay of the cities, the astonishing, dreamlike natural beauty of the landscape and the uncorrupted charm and humbling honesty of the people.

And that is not to mention the murderous military dictatorship sustained by jittery and guilty old men who hide from sight, and the ever-present surveillance. There is even a heroic dissident leader living under miserable conditions in the heart of the capital - the noble Oswaldo Paya - though because he challenges a dictatorship of the Left, nobody has heard of him.

Yet Lonely Planet does not agonise over whether anyone should go on holiday in Cuba, currently one of the world's most fashionable destinations. It refers gushingly to that unhappy island's tyrant as Fidel and makes lame excuses for his regime, asking for its repression to be viewed 'in a relative context'.

Richard Branson, whose Virgin planes fly to Havana, would no doubt rather have his beard waxed than open a service to Rangoon.

Every night comics mock the tyrants. The heroic Moustache Brothers have been imprisoned and set to work in chain gangs in the past

And the PC obsessives of the BBC, who cringingly call Bombay Mumbai and Peking Beijing, still refuse to rename Rangoon Yangon and Burma Myanmar, though the logic of doing so is the same.

The strange selective outrage of those who decided which countries are unacceptable and which are not has a mysterious logic, but I suspect that in this case the Burmese generals have somehow managed to get themselves classified as 'Right-wing', which means that Guardian readers cannot go on holiday there.

I long ago gave up lecturing other countries on how they should run themselves. My duty is to stop my own nation going down the plughole of tyranny, which has in my lifetime become a real and pressing possibility.

Burma sears the brain and the conscience. It is one of the most heart stoppingly beautiful countries I have ever seen, and also one of the ugliest.

On the shores of the majestic Irrawaddy River, children bend their small bodies under heavy baskets of stones in brassy, stunning heat, carrying them on to barges for piece-rate wages of less than a penny a load.

By the serene lake at Amarapura, amputees beg with their crude artificial limbs lying next to their sore stumps. One of the loveliest prospects, the misty, magical view from the top of Mandalay Hill as the sun starts to sink, is crudely spoiled by a sprawling, pale yellow prison in the foreground.

Should we long for a violent uprising, for gunfire in Rangoon, the corpses of monks and splashes of blood around the Shwedagon Pagoda? Should we hope for a Western invasion, British soldiers once again on the Road to Mandalay (where enough of them have already left their bones)?

You may wish for these things if you like. I cannot. I can only say that this is what it is like and hope that in time Burma finds its own kindly, peaceful salvation suited to its immensely gentle people.

In the meantime, if you can, go to see the Moustache Brothers. They may not make you laugh but by heaven they will show you what courage looks like.