Watching the news reports about Burma (now called Myanmar by the military junta) in the last couple of days made me ashamed to be a citizen of a country that voted, six months ago, against a UN Security Council resolution that would have:

…urged the Government of Myanmar to release all political prisoners and make tangible progress towards national reconciliation, leading to genuine democratic transition; It called on the Government of Myanmar to cease military attacks against civilian in ethnic minority regions and in particular to put an end to the associated human rights and humanitarian law violations against persons belonging to ethnic nationalities, including widespread rape and other forms of sexual violence carried out by members of the armed forces.

Why did South Africa do this? Because of some procedural rubbish about which of the damn Useless Natterers committees could “better handle” the matter. Here you go, folks. Here’s how the matter is “better handled”:

Ask this chap, he’ll tell you:

I wonder, sometimes, why on earth South Africans rose up against an oppressive regime. Why they faced ostracism, teargas, bullets or torture in their demand for freedom and democracy. Have we forgotten so soon what it was all about? How can South Africa, of all countries, hide behind procedural technicalities in their craven demurral from even token pressure on the violent oppressors of Burma?

These are stains not on the pavement, but on our national character:

It makes me sick.

(Images courtesy of Ko Htike, a Burmese blogger who deserves a medal.)

There’s a fascinating article over at The American Thinker, by Ray Robison. He analyses and places in context some events that have barely made headlines, but which suggest significant progress in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the fight against the Jihadists. Though the operations have been kept pretty quiet, the location will be familiar: Tora Bora.

Just one quotation from a long piece:

This cannot be overstated: it is the most crucial development since the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Cutting al Qaeda’s support in Pakistan has been a massive coup, of which our media has no clue of (sic) right now. It is the exact sort of thing that the Democrats and their media accomplices always complain that we are not doing and then completely ignore when we do it.

If what Robison writes is true, this has implications for the war in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and on terror in general, as well as for the hunt for Bin Laden himself. The outcome could be momentous.