Growing Pressure on European Union for a United Nations Investigation of Burmese Regime.

From the U.S. Campaign for Burma:

Pressure on the European Union (EU) to support an UN investigation into crimes against humanity in Burma is growing. This week three prominent dissident groups in Burma, the All Burma Monks Alliance, the 88 Generation Students and the All Burma Federation of Student Union sent an open letter to the EU asking for their support. The pressure is working--just this week Hungary announced it supports the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity in Burma!

Right now, the EU is drafting a resolution on Burma that it will introduce at the UN General Assembly meeting (UNGA) which will begin on the 3rd week of September. We need your help to make sure this resolution calls for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into Crimes Against Humanity in Burma. We need you to call the ambassadors again as soon as possible.

This is long over due. There have already been 19 UN General Assembly resolutions on Burma since 1991, but none have mentioned the Commission of Inquiry and none have taken serious action. Following UN Special Rapporteur Tomas Quintana's call for the investigation this March, some of the UN's most powerful players, including the US and UK, have endorsed his recommendation. Support for the Commission of Inquiry is the highest it has even been. But this is not enough, we need the EU, a major sponsor of the draft resolution on Burma, to include the call for the Commission of Inquiry in this UNGA resolution.

Below, we have included instructions on how to call or email.

Myra Dahgaypaw

Read More

The Tricycle Meditation Challenge 2009.

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

~Jiddu Krisnamurti

I'm out of shape and not physically--o.k., well I do need to lose some weight but I'm talking about meditation. Other than today I haven't meditated in a long, long time (blushing) but I have decided to make it a new year resolution to meditate more in 2009. Today I received the most recent newsletter from Tricycle magazine and they are proposing what they call a 90-day meditation challenge.

So to begin my resolution and the new year I have decided to take that challenge. I am going to get back into the groove by meditating every day for 90 days--even if for only 5-10 minutes. They say that they'll have some additional information regarding the challenge in the February issue.

It's always easier to maintain a resolution with the help of friends and their encouragement and even participation. So if anyone wants to do this with me I think that'd be great and we could all motivate each other during the challenge. My goal is to not stop after the 90 day period but to take that good habit energy and roll it into a 401k, er wait that's not it. My goal is to take that good habit energy and roll it into a strong year of meditation. I'm going to also keep a daily log of how things are going along the way--some of which I might include as updates at the bottom of my posts.

~Peace to all beings~

Read More