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VIDEO: Amazing archeological discoveries rewrite history including the founding of agriculture in formerly Buddhist Iran and the world's greatest (and earliest) cities in currently Buddhist Cambodia, Romans in America 1,000 years before Columbus, artifacts... (Mike Chen/"Beyond Science")
Finally, our wishes are fulfilled! Daw "The Lady" Aung San Suu Kyi will take office! (WQ)
Burmese Theravada Buddhist monks hold Burmese and American flags (telegraph.co.uk).
"The Lady" Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, with more power than Burma's puppet president (essentially installed by the military junta, which is still in power behind the scenes), addresses a crowd of supporters (BBC).
Ecstatic: a few seats have official results, but NLD supporters celebrate in Rangoon (BBC).
Democratic opposition [to military rulers] confident of victory
The BBC's Jonah Fisher reports from an Aung San Suu Kyi party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), rally where supporters say they feel confident of victory.
IN BRIEF: (WQ) Burma's opposition NLD says it is confident of electoral victory in the first openly contested national election in 25 years. Burma is a 95% Theravada Buddhist country in Southeast Asia next to Thailand. It's name was changed to "Myanmar" (which the occupying Colonial British pronounced Burma) by the illegitimate military junta that has ruled with an iron fist for nearly 25 years, which many rightly suspect are still in power from behind the scenes from their new capital Naypidaw).
The NSA's favorite recipe book: 1984
Burma and its military rulers served as the basis of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty Four. A dictatorship led by Big Brother or "Asian Hitler" (as Ellen Page calls him) General Than Shwe pulled off a military coup when Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of beloved Burmese national hero Aung San, won democratic elections.
Ellen Page's photo of Dictator Than Shwe
She was placed under house arrest and never allowed to take office. She was imprisoned from time to time and threatened with being barred if she left the country, although she married and had children with a British citizen. The story of this national catastrophe which had reverberations around the world -- but turned around by Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton for the sake of USA hegemony over neighboring China's influence in the region -- was dramatized in "Beyond Rangoon" with Patricia Arquette:
(JBF Entertainment/Neil Hollander Film) WARNING: Gore and carnage during Saffron Revolution/people's uprising for Aung San Suu Kyi and justice. The right-wing military dictatorship -- which has ruled Burma ever since a coup that wrested power from beloved, democratically-elected Suu Kyi -- reacted with police state violence.
Burma's elections
Democrats love fake democracies over right-wing dictatorships. U.S. Pres. Barry Obama kisses Burmese opposition-leader Aung San Suu Kyi after making a speech at her residence in Rangoon, Nov. 19, 2012 (blogs.ft.com).
Suu Kyi serving in Burmese parliament
"Burma VJ" - a video journalist (VJ) during the Saffron Revolution documents junta's abuse of Buddhist monks who rose up against
illegitimate military leaders.
(BBC) An NLD spokesman said it expected to win about 70% of seats. Party leader Aung San Suu Kyi said: "I think you all have the idea of the results."
Official results have been released for only 54 seats, with 48 won by the NLD.
The military-backed Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP) [formerly known as SLORC, the "State Law and Order Restoration Committee"] has been in power since 2011 [with SLORC holding de facto power much longer.]
The NLD says it has won 44 out of Rangoon's 45 seats in the lower house, and 70% of seats nationally, but this has not been confirmed. [SLORC changed Rangoon to "Yangon."]
More than 6,000 candidates from more than 90 parties were vying for 498 seats in both houses of parliament. [Burma uses a British style parliamentary system when not ruled by iron-fisted military dictators, but of course this is only the velvet glove concealing the iron fist that still characterizes Myanmar's real movers and shakers.]
Aung San Suu Kyi is Burma's Nelson Mandela, the US's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here she is seen at Nat'l League for Democracy HQ in Rangoon in Nov. 2010 (Soe Than Win/Getty Images).
Will Ferrell, Ellen Page, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh, and Mr. Jennifer Aniston (who's a man)
NLD spokesman Win Htein said it had "accumulated proof that there are some deeds by the authorities which are against the election regulations."
The acting chairman of the USDP [in an amazing confession on the BBC's U.S. broadcast] has told BBC Burmese that he has lost his own seat in the constituency of Hinthada to the NLD -- seen as a key indicator of election results.
"We have to find out the reason why we lost," U Htay Oo said. "However, we do accept the results without any reservations. We still don't know the final results for sure."
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi making news in Burma's Parliament after earlier elections (AFP).
Earlier, Ms. Suu Kyi addressed a crowd at the NLD's headquarters in Rangoon, urging them to be patient.
A quarter of the parliamentary seats are reserved for the army, and for the NLD to have the winning majority it will need at least two-thirds of the contested seats.
The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Rangoon says that while this is a very big ask, it is by no means impossible if the party, which is popular in urban areas, manages to win seats in rural areas which tend to be dominated by [non-Burman] ethnic minorities.
But Ms. Suu Kyi cannot [technically] become president because the constitution [which was altered by the dictatorship before officially handing power to its democratic puppets] bars anyone with foreign children from holding the post. Her two sons, with her late husband, are British.
The BBC correspondent says that if the NLD win, it will face difficulties in [restoring] the constitution on its own as the document still gives the military considerable power, and the party [NLD] would most likely nominate someone else to be president. Ms. Suu Kyi [in another shocking admission] has said she would be "above the president."
Burma in the center of Southeast Asia, beneath Tibet, Bhutan, and Himalayas.
For now no one is crying foul over the slow release of results. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party are being patient, confident that they're on the brink of a historic win.
Results have to be verified at both a regional and national level so there's a fair amount of bureaucracy involved. [Former U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter and 10,000 monitors are on hand to insure a clean election.]
That has not stopped them declaring their own results. To the delight of the crowd the NLD announced sweeping victories across Rangoon, Mon State, and the Irrawaddy Delta.
The percentages involved would make even an African despot blush. It mattered little to the crowd that they weren't official figures.
Over the next few days the steady flow of real results is expected to continue. That slow pace may give people time to come to terms with what is looking like being a massive political change.
Tens of thousands of officials and volunteers have been counting the votes, first in each of the 50,000 polling stations, then tallying them in constituency offices of the Election Commission.
In one of the earliest and most significant known results, the ruling party's Shwe Mann, who is speaker of the lower house of parliament, conceded defeat in his constituency to the NLD candidate.
The full results will not be known for at least a few days, and the president will only be chosen in February or possibly later.
International observers say the voting process was generally smooth, with some isolated irregularities. And hundreds of thousands of people -- including [much abused] minority Rohingya Muslims [who were subject to ethnic cleansing by the military-run government] -- were also denied voting rights, raising concerns about the fairness of the poll.
US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the elections as a step towards democracy, but added that they were far from perfect.
Big turnout
About 30 million people were eligible to vote in Sunday's election in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar.
Turnout has been estimated at about 80%, in what were the first national elections since a nominally civilian government took power in 2011.
"I'm really happy because from what I heard the NLD is winning. I couldn't sleep until 11 or 12 because I was looking everywhere for results," San Win, a 40-year-old newspaper vendor, told the AP news agency. Share this story: About sharing
Are you in Burma? How are you affected by the issues raised in this story?Please emailhaveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your experiences. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
UCSB and UCLA students mourn at a candlelight vigil at UCLA for gun violence victims, May 26, 2014. No vigil for punches and intimidation (David McNew/Getty Images/ksdk.com).
DC-area residents will accept the “Rubble Bucket Challenge” from the besieged residents of the Gaza Strip in front of the White House. To
show their support for an end to the illegal eight-year blockade by
Israel, participants will dump buckets of dirt and sand over their
heads, emulating the wildly popular ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that has swept social media around the world. “We started the Rubble Bucket Challenge
to raise awareness about the horrors that families of Gaza experience
when they are bombed inside their houses,” explained Maysam Yusuf, a
Palestinian youth from Gaza who initiated the tongue-in-cheek campaign
during an exchange with friends on her Facebook page. “Anyone who wants
to donate as well should give money to help rebuild Gaza.”More
Create political awareness for the plight of Gaza now. I am the only one, but like me are many. We love you, Palestine, and see what's happening because the CIA/USA/MIC needs an "Israel" to gain full-spectrum dominance over the oil-rich geopolitical Middle East.
Shwedagon Pagoda enshrines the Buddha's hair relics, Rangoon, Burma (airpano.com)
In another sign of political reform and reconciliation in Burma [which the dictatorship renamed Myanmar], the
country's biggest party led by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will
hold its first-ever congress in the country's former capital [of Rangoon now Yangon] this week.
"This will be the NLD's first party congress since the party was formed
more than 24 years ago," National League for Democracy (NLD) senior leader and
parliamentarian Ohn Kyaing said Sunday.
About 900 party members from 260 townships will attend the three-day
conference starting Friday in Yangon to choose the party's new
leadership and to lay down future policies and programs, said Ohn
Kyaing, one of the organizers of the party assembly.
Aung San Suu Kyi (Soe Than Win/AFP)
"Party leader Daw [Lady] Aung San Suu Kyi had said earlier that party central
executive committee members had to be democratically elected but was
unable to do so in the past because of an unfavorable political
environment," Ohn Kyaing told The Associated Press.
Suu Kyi, 67, co-founded the National League for Democracy party amid
massive pro-democracy protests in 1988 and officially registered it on
Sept. 27, 1988, after the demonstrations were violently suppressed by
the then-ruling military junta [of dictator generals, now holed up in their new secretive capital of Naypyidaw].
Billionaire dictator Than Shwe
The party won national elections in 1990 by a landslide, but the results
were not recognized by the military government [led by General Than Shwe, the "Asian Hitler"]. Suu Kyi has been jailed
or under house arrest for more than 15 of the past 21 years and
hundreds of party members imprisoned, and the NLD was unable to hold a
general assembly because of government repression. More
Daw Suu appeared calm as she arrived to take her seat as an elected politician for the first time in the capital. "[I will] try my best for the country" (AFP/Soe Than Win).
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar - Burma's opposition leader [the Lady Daw] Aung San Suu Kyi made her historic parliamentary debut Monday [July 9, 2012], marking a new phase in her near quarter century struggle to bring democracy to her army-dominated homeland.
Suu Kyi, whose unswerving campaigning saw her locked up for years by the former junta and earned her a Nobel Peace Prize, appeared calm as she arrived to take her seat as an elected politician in the [relocated] capital Naypyidaw.
"I will try my best for the country," she told AFP as she embarked on her first day of active public office.
Suu Kyi joined fellow members of her National League for Democracy (NLD), as both the party and its charismatic leader transform from [radical] dissident outsiders to [minor] mainstream political players in the wake of [rigged] landmark April by-elections.
The democracy champion's entrance into the legislature comes at an uncertain time for Burma, after recent communal violence and a series of student arrests cast a shadow over promising [whitewash] changes in the former pariah state. More
TheWorld.org (PRI, Public Radio International); Wisdom Quarterly
This summer, [The Lady] Aung San Suu Kyi will be stepping out onto an
international stage.
She will finally be picking up her 1991 Nobel Peace
Prize and speaking her mind in various European capitals.
It will be
a far cry from the 15 years she spent under house arrest, unable to
participate in elections or speak to her Burmese compatriots.
Suu Kyi, now a member of the Burmese parliament, recently completed
her first trip out of Myanmar [Burma as renamed by its military dictatorships after their coup] in 24 years.
In a speech in Thailand, she
praised President Thein Sein’s efforts to bring democracy to the
country. But she didn’t shy away from criticizing more entrenched [authoritarian] forces
that are less open to change, in particular the military which she
called a “force to be reckoned with.”
Buddhist monastics rose up protesting police state dictators during the Saffron Revolution.
Next, Suu Kyi heads to Paris, Oslo, London, and elsewhere for a series
of high profile appearances.
Her words will be closely analyzed back
home -- by those who love her and those who fear her. It’s clear that the government of Myanmar is giving Suu Kyi freedoms that it previously denied her... More
RANGOON, Burma - Daw (Lady) Aung San Suu Kyi is to be president of Burma. But that will have to wait. For now she has been democratically elected to parliament, winning a landslide even in the new government-created capital of Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) did well as expected. The unexpected seems to be happening: She is being allowed to assume her seat in government. The last time she ran in anything like a fair election, she won by a landslide. But she was arrested for her trouble, and a nightmarish military junta formed a coup and built a brutal authoritarian dictatorship.
They kept the Lady under house arrest for most of those years. So it means a great deal that not only has she been released but allowed to run and now been certified as an official winner. It is a great day for one of the most Buddhist countries in the world.
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