Announcement: Government responds to Canadian concerns on the situation in Burma
Dear friends,
The government of Canada has recently responded to the concerns of many Canadians with respect to Canada’s foreign policy on Burma. In the October Throne Speech, the government announced that it will call on Parliament to confer honorary Canadian citizenship on elected and detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Inter Pares believes this is an important symbolic gesture of solidarity. More importantly, on November 14th the government announced plans to impose “the toughest sanctions in the world” against Burma’s brutal regime. There are further steps that our government can take, but Inter Pares is very pleased with the these recent actions and we would like to thank all of you who have joined with us and many other Canadian organizations in calling for an appropriate foreign policy on Burma.
We would like to encourage you to continue to stay informed, especially as news about Burma fades once again from the mainstream media. Accurate news from Burma can be difficult for Canadians to obtain, due to limited access by foreign media and the junta's control of state media. Independent border-based media organizations such as the ones Inter Pares supports have been invaluable sources during this period, as they are able to collect news inside the country daily, process and edit the news without censorship, and send this news back inside Burma or internationally. Inter Pares counterpart Burma Net International is an alliance of ten independent Burmese media organizations, whose Web site provides a compilation of its members' stories: 
www.bnionline.net. An additional valuable resource is BurmaNet News, which presents articles from Burmese media sources as well as international coverage of Burma: www.burmanet.org. The Canadian Friends of Burma also distribute useful news and activity announcements particularly relevant to Canadians and we recommend signing up for their electronic mailing list at www.cfob.org.
Thank you for your attention to this very important social justice issue, and for your solidarity.
| Reviewed December 14, 2007 |  |
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