:
TALIBAN DRUG WARFARE (2#) -

# An Afghani dope kingpin
has been sentenced to over 16 years in prison.

Baz Mohammad, 51, was accused of "smuggling millions of dollars of heroin into America and providing financial support to Taliban," according to a report by the Press Trust of India.

***********************************
# Bestseller in India: Mohsin Hamid's
The Reluctant Fundamentalist continues
as fiction favourite this week in New Delhi.

...

:
Burma:
INTERNET BREAKTHROUGH ? (4#) -

# Dathana writes..."Internet open in Burma: Today the government re-open internet access in curfew time only (10:00 pm to 4:00 am local time). So some of the offices and home users can use internet 6 hr/day. But Blogger and blogspot still banned in Myanmar." ::more::

# IFEX update - timestamp Oct 5th - announces the release of Min Zaw, 56, the Burmese correspondent of the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun. But BOLOs for others.

# IFEX lists links for Saturday Oct 6th.

# "A global day of demonstrations against Myanmar's violent suppression of pro-democracy protests started in Sydney on Saturday, where around 250 people called for a stronger international response." [reuters]

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:
Bookish: UPHEAVALS (5#) -

# Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples -
... a trade pb book by Walt Crawford;

# Librarian Meredith Farkas posts a list
of other librarians' favorite librarian blogs;

# The Mudflap Girl - a promotional outreach
campaign for a library in Wyoming. Shown here
in the form of a bookmark (graphic: jpg). +She
looks a bit like a mermaid, doesn't she? Cute.

# A woman raised in South Darfur
but living in London is to tell her story:

Tears of the Desert by Halima Bashir is a personal account of an idyllic tribal upbringing rendered a nightmare by militia attacks. Her "stunning memoir" was bought by Hodder from Felicity Bryan, to be published next autumn.

#This week's Books Page at
The First Post includes reviews of:

-- There's a Riot Going on by Peter Doggett
about Pop Music in the Sixties and Revolution...
-- The Sinner, a detective novel, bestseller in Germany...
-- a review of Exit Ghost...
-- The Beautiful Fall by Alicia Drake: glitz and glamor
in the Paris fashion world now in pb... and more.

...

:
Bookish: CONTROVERSY WEEK (3#) -

# Have you read any controversial books lately?
..... Celebrate your freedom to read !

It's Banned Books Week again:

:: Forbidden Words at Florida State U;
:: ALA :: marks the occasion, too.

# THE DIGITAL CAMPFIRE: Are Book Blogs
just a compendium of trivial gossip or do they
contribute to the growth of literary culture?

A new guide to Lit Blogs is
making its debut on dead trees.

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:
Burma Update:
THE JUNTA vs THE TECH GEEKS (3#) -

# An American medical student in New Delhi, India, who is adept with computers, manages an open source Internet access program in his spare time which has helped enable existential journalists inside Burma to dispatch their documentary coverage of the uprisings to the outside world despite the junta's efforts to stop the flow. Recommended

# dpa: Talks, no progress in Burma [bangp]

# The Indian NDTV news team goes commando
just inside the Burmese border. [ndtv]

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:
BURMA update -

*Efforts to restrict the flow of information continue. Police are doing house searches and checking local journalists' computers for evidence they may have been sending out pictures of the uprising.

The internet remains blocked, and late on Sunday, the regime began blacking out CNN news reports on the trouble. The BBC is still broadcasting unhindered.*

--Special Correspondents, Rangoon

:: The Age :: Australia ::

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:
BURNOUT -

"After years of night shifts, junk food and abuse from irate callers, the youthful generation that made India the call-centre capital of the world are facing burnout.

Reports of heart attacks, depression, suicides
and diabetes among workers in their twenties..."

:: UK Times ::

...

:
TREKKING WITH THE BEEB -

dpa: The BBC's commercial division has
bought a 75% share of Lonely Planet for
an undisclosed sum from its Australian
founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler.

:: Bangkok Post ::

...

:
BURMA NET TECH - (8#) -

# As the protests reach a critical stage, exiled Burmese journalists are fully aware that the struggle against the junta will be decided not only on the streets but also on television and the internet... Technological progress has turned bulky satellite phones into pocket-sized devices, while new software such as GPass2 can gather an entire suite of programs under a cloak of anonymity... Mizzima set up a new underground unit six months ago using small and mobile equipment. [FT]

# Indian telecom firm TCIL is still operating
in Burma, according to some Australian reports.

# "The website of the
Myanmar Post & Telecommunications, the
government-run telecommunications provider,
appears to be down."

# "Pointing cameras at the charging soldiers is a potentially lethal undertaking... And then there is the job of sending files down laboriously slow internet connections. Free online software [has] helped."

# Burmese Bloggers silenced:
The junta is running two servers ?
Reported from New Delhi.

# Related links:
::Internet in Myanmar::
and ::Myanmar Wide Web::::
::geek discussion::

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