Check out this photosynth I made!

An amazing organ designed by the organist Jean Guillou in 1978. Images from this blog.

More after the jump…

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I have determined that there are literally too many classical music download blogs to keep up with. And my HDD has been getting filled up way too quickly as a result of it! And since I keep all my music in lossless FLAC format, space gets filled rather fast.

I recommend the following music blogs with downloads to music:
BOXSET.RU – Updated CONSTANTLY.
AvaxHome
Música Medieval y Renacentista – all early music.
SonusAntiqva – you need to register, but there’s some neat stuff on here.
XVIII Century Music

There’s a lot more classical music blogs linked to these ones, so I’m sure you won’t run out of places to find interesting things

I’ve always had an interest in the Khmer Rouge, and this new movie that just came out looks really interesting – I wonder when I’ll get the chance to see it though. It’s called Enemies of the People. A synopsis:

The Khmer Rouge ran what is regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most brutal regimes. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain unexplained. Until now.

In ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE the men and women who perpetrated the massacres – from the foot-soldiers who slit throats to the party’s ideological leader, Nuon Chea aka Brother Number Two – break a 30-year silence to give testimony never before heard or seen.

Unprecedented access from top to bottom of the Khmer Rouge has been achieved through a decade of work by one of Cambodia’s best investigative journalists, Thet Sambath.

Sambath is on a personal quest: he lost his own family in the Killing Fields. The film is his journey to discover not how but why they died. In doing so, he hears and understands for the first time the real story of his country’s tragedy.

After years of visits and trust-building, Sambath finally persuades Brother Number Two to admit (again, for the first time) in detail how he and Pol Pot (the two supreme powers in the Khmer Rouge state) decided to kill party members whom they considered ‘Enemies of the People’.

Sambath’s remarkable work goes even one stage further: over the years he befriends a network of killers in the provinces who implemented the kill policy. For the first time, we see how orders created on an abstract political level translate into foul murder in the rice fields and forests of the Cambodian plain.

We have repeatedly used the expression ‘for the first time’. This is because Sambath’s work represents a watershed both in Cambodian historiography and in the country’s quest for closure on one of the world’s darkest episodes.

The United Nations and the Cambodian government have set up a tribunal to try the senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge for international crimes. Brother Number Two’s trial is expected to start in 2010.

The trials are widely expected to deliver a form of justice but fewer expect the truth finally to come out through this process.

Sambath says: “Some may say no good can come from talking to killers and dwelling on past horror, but I say these people have sacrificed a lot to tell the truth. In daring to confess they have done good, perhaps the only good thing left. They and all the killers like them must be part of the process of reconciliation if my country is to move forward.”

A really interesting video from the Democratic Voice of Burma…

Burma’s Nuclear Ambitions from DVBTV English on Vimeo.

I’ve been recently reading through a lot of the WikiLeaks cables (see Cablegate) and of course, paying special attention to anything about North Korea. I came across one interesting one in particular, that refers to the possibility of a North Korean team working in Burma with the Burmese government to manufacture SAM missiles. The full cable can be found here.

To summarize the relevant parts from the cable:

SUMMARY: North Korean workers are reportedly assembling “SAM missiles” and constructing an underground facility at a Burmese military site in Magway Division, about 315 miles NNW of Rangoon, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX . This unsolicited account should not be taken as authoritative, but it tracks with other information garnered and reported via XXXXXXXXXXXX.

This is very interesting. The site in question is even given a geographical location, as seen in the next paragraph of the cable:

XXXXXXXXXXXX some 300 North Koreans are working at a secret construction site west of Mimbu, Magway Division, in the foothills of the Arakan Yoma mountains. (Comment: the number of North Koreans supposedly working at this site strikes us as improbably high. End comment.) The XXXXXXXXXXXX claims he has personally seen some of them, although he also reported they are forbidden from leaving the construction site and that he and other “outsiders” are prohibited from entering. The XXXXXXXXXXXX was confident that XXXXXXXXXXXX had the ability to distinguish North Koreans from others, such as Chinese, who might be working in the area. The exact coordinates of the camouflaged site are not known, but it is reportedly in the vicinity of 20,00 N, 94,25 E.
4. (S) The North Koreans are said to be assembling “SAM missiles” of unknown origin. XXXXXXXXXXXX the North Koreans, aided by Burmese workers, are constructing a concrete-reinforced underground facility that is “500 feet from the top of the cave to the top of the hill above.” He added that the North Koreans are “blowing concrete” into the excavated underground facility.
5. (S) The XXXXXXXXXXXX is supposedly engaged in constructing buildings for 20 Burmese army battalions that will be posted near the site. Of these, two battalions are to be infantry; the other 18 will be “artillery,” according to this account.

I decided to find the location on Google Maps, which is here. Apparently, this is a Burmese military site. I’m no expert so I won’t even attempt to start to identify what the complexes may or may not be, but I thought I’d post this information along with some screenshots to see if anybody *can* tell me anything about it.

The first image, taken from Google Earth may be of more significance since the image date is from 2004, close to the date of the cable, which is August 27 2004.

From The Guardian:

Wikileaks cables reveal China ‘ready to abandon North Korea’

Leaked dispatches show Beijing is frustrated with military actions of ‘spoiled child’ and increasingly favours reunified Korea

South Korean war veterans protest after North Korea attacked Yeonpyeong Island. The WikiLeaks cables reveal Beijing believes such actions are those of a ‘spoiled child’. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

China has signalled its readiness to accept Korean reunification and is privately distancing itself from the North Korean regime, according to leaked US embassy cables that reveal senior Beijing figures regard their official ally as a “spoiled child”.

News of the Chinese shift comes at a crucial juncture after the North’s artillery bombardment of a South Korean island last week that killed four people and led both sides to threaten war. China has refused to condemn the North Korean action. But today Beijing appeared to bow to US pressure to help bring about a diplomatic solution, calling for “emergency consultations” and inviting a senior North Korean official to Beijing.

China is sharply critical of US pressure tactics towards North Korea and wants a resumption of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks. But the Guardian can reveal Beijing’s frustration with Pyongyang has grown since its missile and nuclear tests last year, worries about the economic impact of regional instability, and fears that the death of the dictator, Kim Jong-il, could spark a succession struggle.

China’s moves to distance itself from Kim are revealed in the latest tranche of leaked US embassy cables published by the Guardian and four international newspapers. Tonight, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said the US “deeply regrets” the release of the material by WikiLeaks. They were an “attack on the international community”, she said. “It puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems,” she told reporters at the state department.

The leaked North Korea dispatches detail how:

• South Korea‘s vice-foreign minister said he was told by two named senior Chinese officials that they believed Korea should be reunified under Seoul’s control, and that this view was gaining ground with the leadership in Beijing.

• China’s vice-foreign minister told US officials that Pyongyang was behaving like a “spoiled child” to get Washington’s attention in April 2009 by carrying out missile tests.

• A Chinese ambassador warned that North Korean nuclear activity was “a threat to the whole world’s security”.

• Chinese officials assessed that it could cope with an influx of 300,000 North Koreans in the event of serious instability, according to a representative of an international agency, but might need to use the military to seal the border.

In highly sensitive discussions in February this year, the-then South Korean vice-foreign minister, Chun Yung-woo, told a US ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, that younger generation Chinese Communist party leaders no longer regarded North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk renewed armed conflict on the peninsula, according to a secret cable to Washington.

Chun, who has since been appointed national security adviser to South Korea’s president, said North Korea had already collapsed economically.

Political collapse would ensue once Kim Jong-il died, despite the dictator’s efforts to obtain Chinese help and to secure the succession for his son, Kim Jong-un.

“Citing private conversations during previous sessions of the six-party talks , Chun claimed [the two high-level officials] believed Korea should be unified under ROK [South Korea] control,” Stephens reported.

“The two officials, Chun said, were ready to ‘face the new reality’ that the DPRK [North Korea] now had little value to China as a buffer state – a view that, since North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, had reportedly gained traction among senior PRC [People's Republic of China] leaders. Chun argued that in the event of a North Korean collapse, China would clearly ‘not welcome’ any US military presence north of the DMZ [demilitarised zone]. Again citing his conversations with [the officials], Chun said the PRC would be comfortable with a reunified Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the US in a ‘benign alliance’ – as long as Korea was not hostile towards China. Tremendous trade and labour-export opportunities for Chinese companies, Chun said, would also help ‘salve’ PRC concerns about … a reunified Korea.

“Chun dismissed the prospect of a possible PRC military intervention in the event of a DPRK collapse, noting that China’s strategic economic interests now lie with the United States, Japan and South Korea – not North Korea.”

Chun told Stephens China was unable to persuade Pyongyang to change its self-defeating policies – Beijing had “much less influence than most people believe” – and lacked the will to enforce its views.

A senior Chinese official, speaking off the record, also said China’s influence with the North was frequently overestimated. But Chinese public opinion was increasingly critical of the North’s behaviour, the official said, and that was reflected in changed government thinking.

Previously hidden tensions between Pyongyang and its only ally were also exposed by China’s then vice-foreign minister in a meeting in April 2009 with a US embassy official after North Korea blasted a three-stage rocket over Japan into the Pacific. Pyongyang said its purpose was to send a satellite into orbit but the US, South Korea and Japan saw the launch as a test of long-range missile technology.

Discussing how to tackle the issue with the charge d’affaires at the Beijing embassy, He Yafei observed that “North Korea wanted to engage directly with the United States and was therefore acting like a ‘spoiled child’ in order to get the attention of the ‘adult’. China encouraged the United States, ‘after some time’, to start to re-engage the DPRK,” according to the diplomatic cable sent to Washington.

A second dispatch from September last year described He downplaying the Chinese premier’s trip to Pyongyang, telling the US deputy secretary of state, James Steinberg: “We may not like them … [but] they [the DPRK] are a neighbour.”

He said the premier, Wen Jiabao, would push for denuclearisation and a return to the six-party talks. The official also complained that North Korea “often tried to play China off [against] the United States, refusing to convey information about US-DPRK bilateral conversations”.

Further evidence of China’s increasing dismay with Pyongyang comes in a cable in June 2009 from the US ambassador to Kazakhstan, Richard Hoagland. He reported that his Chinese counterpart, Cheng Guoping. was “genuinely concerned by North Korea’s recent nuclear missile tests. ‘We need to solve this problem. It is very troublesome,’ he said, calling Korea’s nuclear activity a ‘threat to the whole world’s security’.”

Cheng said Beijing “hopes for peaceful reunification in the long term, but he expects the two countries to remain separate in the short term”, Hoagland reported. China’s objectives were “to ensure they [North Korean leaders] honour their commitments on non-proliferation, maintain stability, and ‘don’t drive [Kim Jong-il] mad’.”

While some Chinese officials are reported to have dismissed suggestions that North Korea would implode after Kim’s death, another cable offers evidence that Beijing has considered the risk of instability.

It quoted a representative from an international agency saying Chinese officials believed they could absorb 300,000 North Koreans without outside help. If they arrived “all at once” it might use the military to seal the border, create a holding area and meet humanitarian needs. It might also ask other countries for help.

The context of the discussions was not made explicit, although an influx of that scale would only be likely in the event of regime failure. The representative said he was not aware of any contingency planning to deal with large numbers of refugees.

A Seoul embassy cable from January 2009 said China’s leader, Hu Jintao, deliberately ducked the issue when the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, raised it at a summit.

“We understand Lee asked Hu what China thought about the North Korean domestic political situation and whether Beijing had any contingency plans. This time, Hu apparently pretended not to hear Lee,” it said. The cable does not indicate the source of the reports, although elsewhere it talks about contacts at the presidential “blue house” in South Korea.

Big Iron is a really cool song!!

From the AFP:

World leaders hail Suu Kyi’s release

(AFP) – 3 hours ago

PARIS — World leaders hailed the release of Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from years of house arrest Saturday but warned the country’s junta not to restrict her, even as a senior government official insisted she was “completely free”.

US President Barack Obama said that “while the Burmese regime has gone to extraordinary lengths to isolate and silence Aung San Suu Kyi, she has continued her brave fight for democracy, peace, and change in Burma.”

“She is a hero of mine and a source of inspiration for all who work to advance basic human rights in Burma and around the world,” said Obama in a statement, using the country’s former name.

While the United States welcomed Suu Kyi’s release, it was “time for the Burmese regime to release all political prisoners,” added Obama, in Japan for a regional summit, echoing sentiments aired by other world figures.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, “an inspiration” to the world, a UN spokesman said.

“The secretary general expects that no further restrictions will be placed on her, and he urges the Myanmar authorities to build on today?s action by releasing all remaining political prisoners,” said the spokesman.

“France will be extremely attentive to the conditions in which Madame Aung San Suu Kyi enjoys her refound liberty,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement issued by the Elysee Palace.

Any “restrictions on her freedom of movement and expression would constitute a new unacceptable denial of her rights,” he said.

But a senior Myanmar official said no conditions were tied to Suu Kyi’s release. “She is completely free — there are no conditions at all,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

British Prime Minister David Cameron called her release “long overdue”, branding her detention for 15 of the last 21 years a “travesty, designed only to silence the voice of the Burmese people.”

“Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration for all of us who believe in freedom of speech, democracy and human rights,” he said. “Freedom is Aung San Suu Kyi’s right. The Burmese regime must now uphold it.”

Britain is the former colonial power in Myanmar, which achieved its independence as Burma in 1948, and Suu Kyi’s late husband was British.

Desmond Tutu, chair of the group of retired senior statesmen known as The Elders, called Suu Kyi “a global symbol of moral courage” and said her release “offers hope to the people of Burma.”

For his part, Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which includes Myanmar, told AFP he was “very, very relieved” at the news.

Pitsuwan said he hoped Suu Kyi would be able to play a role in bringing national reconciliation, while the Japanese government urged Myanmar to take “further positive measures.”

In Brussels European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso called for Suu Kyi to be granted “unrestricted freedom of movement and speech” so she could “participate fully in her country’s political process.” He echoed the call for the release of political prisoners.

Similar reactions came from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the governments of Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Austria, Bulgaria and South Africa.

In Geneva UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay called Suu Kyi’s release “a positive signal” by Myanmar authorities and said she could “make a major contribution” in the transition to democracy and national reconciliation.

“I urge the authorities of Myanmar to now release the other 2,200 political prisoners as a clear sign that the new government intends to respect human rights and forge a new future for the country,” Pillay said.

China, one of Myanmar’s closest allies and a mainstay for the junta through trade ties, arms sales, and using its veto on the UN Security Council against sanctions, had no immediate reaction.

But the official Xinhua news agency, reporting her release, did describe Suu Kyi as “a noted political figure.”

Rights group Amnesty International said Suu Kyi’s release was not a “concession” by the regime and should not take attention away from other prisoners of conscience being held in “deplorable conditions”.

Meanwhile, New York-based Human Rights Watch called the junta’s move a “cynical ploy” to deflect criticism of its recent election.

“If the military government is serious about increasing political space after the elections then it will release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally,” said HRW official Elaine Pearson.