the shout

the shout, originally uploaded by Kris Kros.

the shout

The Shout of all Freedom Loving People Around the World!
FREE BURMA!!!

Time's An Eye in the Sky on Burma

On Friday Burma began to go dark. After days of the largest street protests since 1988, the ruling military junta cracked down, confronting and firing on civilians, reportedly sealing thousands of monks inside their monasteries. Lines of communication into the country were apparently being cut, with Internet cafes closed and web sites shut down, leaving Burmese exile groups and reporters starving for information.

But while the junta can control the street, the monasteries and even the web, they can't control the sky. On Friday the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), working with Burmese groups, released a new analysis of high-resolution satellite images that pinpointed evidence of human rights violations in the eastern Burma. For the first time in Burma, scientists were able to use orbital satellites to confirm on-the-ground reports of burned villages and forced relocations of civilians by the military. The technique has already been used to document human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and Darfur, but in Burma, a closed country that often seems like a modern-day version of Orwell's 1984, it's almost like turning Big Brother against itself. "We are sending a message to the military junta that we are watching from the sky," said Aung Din, policy director for the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

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Uploaded by Kris Kros on 29 Sep 07, 11.29AM PDT.