A couple of news items emerged this week about Burma, a subject that is close to my heart.   The US have announced further sanctions, some of which are aimed at limiting the Junta's families from accessing their vast wealth.  To put the Junta's wealth in context, it recently emerged that General Shwe's (leader of the junta) daughter's wedding is purported to have cost three times the countries entire annual health budget!   Most of her countrymen exist on about $20 a month.

It is good that the US are still thinking of ways to exert pressure on the country's leaders.  But unfortunately laudable tho' some of these new sanctions are, it is going to have no effect whatsoever on their intended aim of forcing meaningful elections. 

For change to take place, the US and EU need to put harder pressure on China to limit trade and hit the generals flow of income, particularly from oil and gas.  Is this likely to happen?  Do Roman Catholics make good babysitters?  Er, no.  In fact thrice no.  For one the Chinese don't give a shit about human rights - look at their own shoddy record.  Two, the US and EU are dependent upon the Chinese market for future growth, especially now their domestic markets are facing a downturn.  And thirdly, the Chinese have just invested billions with Burma in developing a pipeline to pump gas from Burma's southern gas fields, to provide energy for China's almost insatiable need for energy, especially in it's South West region.  If you add to this the $2bill of Burmese energy sales with Thailand, then the Junta have little reason to do anything than maintain the status quo. 

Although the situation looks bleak for the Burmese, there are things the ordinary person can do, one of which is to boycott Total oil and it's subsidiaries, who have extensive exploration and refining businesses in the country.  In the UK there is a excellent and active movement encouraging just this - click here for details

One other thing I learnt this week from the BBC's From our Own Correspondent, is that the latest Rambo movie, has a plot line about the eponymous hero saving the Burmese from their evil oppressors.  Apparently the film is of course much sought after in Burma (even tho' the DVD counterfeiters face certain imprisonment for selling it).  Although it's tempting to say, haven't they suffered enough, the film's strapline "live for something, die for nothing" has been taken up as a rallying cry amongst some dissidents. 

I caught the latest, and probably the last, film about my favourite band tonight.  It affected me more than Control, and of course it's not the most up-lifting of tales in the first place. Oddly, it has much more of a sense of Ian being a real character than Control, but he retains a strong sense of being not entirely of this world and a channel for something extraordinary but deeply unsettling.  For die hard fans it is pretty much the definitive story, with a fair bit of unseen archive footage, all very well edited and put together.  All the usual characters are there - a jovial but gruff Hooky, Tony Wilson on his last legs sadly, Peter Saville cool as ever, a thoughtful Bernard and Stephen - even John Peel gets a look in.  One of the most illuminating participants, and central to the whole story is Anik, who comes over as a thoughtful and serene person, especially when she talks movingly about "Love Will Tear Us Apart" - you get a sense of why he fell for her, and the depth of feeling that she has for him even to this day, thirty years later. 

Not really a surprise, it's been rumoured for at least 18months, and as soon as Y! announced their disappointing results last week, with a dip in their share price, it looks like a bid could be coming.  Just wish I had followed my gut last week and had a punt on Y! shares.  

I can't see that this deal is ever going to be good value for MS shareholders though - Y! products are largely crap, their search is as poor as Microsoft's (at least in terms of share, if not relevancy), and their social networking site is shite.  I guess Flickr is good though I have never used it.  $46bil is a heck of alot of money to lay down, and it's hard to see how that is going to be re-couped just through lay off's in both businesses, economies of scale and product portfolio rationalisation.  Steve B was very late in making a decision in the on-line space.  Most of the assets Y! has (e.g. Flickr, Overture, Delicious)  could have been bought for a song if senior MS management had had more of a vision and strategy for this space 5 years ago.

As Anonymous on minimsft puts it "Two ugly parents getting together make ugly children. Two losers in search do not make a winner" .  The Microsoft/Live/MSN on-line offering is already very confusing - just look at the MSN UK homepage for evidence of that - and it's hard to see how this is going to help

Mini Microsoft blog