High-resolution satellites images may provide valuable evidence of the violent methods used by Burma’s ruling junta to crack down on pro-democracy demonstration in recent days. New Scientist reports.

“By obtaining photographic evidence of the authorities’ activities, human rights groups hope to hold the junta to account before the international community.

“You would not be able to see individual people,” says Lars Bromley , a senior researcher with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC., “but you would be able to see groups of people”. In particular, he says, it should be easy to spot groups of monks because of their distinctive maroon robes, and to gauge military numbers.

Bromley says this evidence will hopefully act as a deterrent to the government. “It will give the authorities a ense that the world is watching,” he told New Scientist.

Human rights organisations have long accused the Burmese regime of human rights abuses against civilians. Yet the authorities have denied these claims and sought to control the flow of information out of the country.

Cellphones and the internet have helped change this and have been used to transmit reports about the current clampdown. But both are still heavily controlled by the authorities. In fact, within the last 24 hours many internet cafes have been shut down in cities like Rangoon and Mandalay.

The US Campaign for Burma plans to take all the evidence to the UN to support their plea for intervention by the Security Council. “Even China and Russia can no longer argue that nothing is happening in Burma,” says Aung Din, policy director for the US Campaign for Burma.”

Picture from the BBC

Via:textually.org

China has more than 600 million mobile phones users by June this year, which means every one in five mobile phone users is Chinese, an senior official said on Sunday.    The number included 80 million personal handy phone (PHS) users, said Xie Feibo, vice director of the Radio Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) at a forum on Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises held in Guangzhou of south China’s Guangdong province.

    Official figures showed that the nation’s cell phone users increased by 40.56 million from the end of last year, 6.76 million a month on average.

    Meanwhile, fixed-phone users had only grown by 4.86 million to 372 million.

    In 1987, when China introduced its first mobile telecommunications equipment, there were little more than 700 users. In 2001, its cell phone users passed the 100-million mark, the largest in the world, and the figure turned to 300 million in May 2004, 400 million in January 2006.

    The trend shows no sign of stopping as China still has a vast rural market to tap and city dwellers’ appetite for more vogue, media-rich and web-accessible handsets continues to boom.