Total and Chevron, the giant international oil corporations, pump hundreds of millions of dollars every year into the the Burmese junta through their operations in Burma. This money helps arm the brutal Burmese regime and maintain their oppressive rule. As consumers we have both power and responsibility — let’s use our purchasing power to end this terrible cycle.
So we are launching a call for a global boycott of Total Oil and Chevron and all their subsidiaries. By hitting them straight in their bottom line, we can press these corporations to either push Burma to democratic reform, or to leave the country entirely. It’s time for the power of transnational corporations to face the power of global democracy!

Here at Avaaz you can read more about it, and you also can sign the pledge there. Please, do it all. It’ necessary to help.

Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan’s opposition leader, has finally been freed from house arrest now, but she rejected General Musharraf’s new interim government, deeming it „not acceptable“. Well, no wonder, if you take a look at this „new government“. They are all allies and old friends of Musharraf. But what did Musharraf said: An old cabinet is gone and a new one(an interim) has been sworn in. It sounds like a joke to me, a bad joke. But the protests are going  on, some are small ones like this one yesterday at the embassy in Berlin, which started on Tuesday, and some are big. I think tomorrow there will be a big one.

Update: At Saturday morning they where gone. A very short strike.

Update 2: On Monday at about 11:00 hrs they started again until 19:00 hrs. And so they do it every day. But who can call this a "Hunger Strike"? In my eyes this is a joke, but not a strike.

It seems that it gives some news from Burma, at least if you trust the newspapers and the U.N. The New York Times online wrote today:

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — A U.N. human rights envoy entered Myanmar for the first time in four years Sunday on a mission to uncover how many people were killed and detained since September’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro(who had been barred from the country since November 2003), the U.N.’s independent rights investigator for Myanmar, has said he is determined to gain access to the country’s prisons and detention centers as part of an investigation into wide-ranging allegations of abuse committed by the military regime.

I wish him luck, because he will need a lot of it. The junta will do everything to cover up. And he knows that because:

Pinheiro has a history of prickly relations with the ruling generals. He abruptly cut short a visit in March 2003 after finding a listening device in a room at a prison where he was interviewing political detainees. Later that year, he accused the junta of making ”absurd” excuses to keep political opponents in prison.

And he will have a lot of work to do there, because according to human rights groups at least 700 political prisoners still remain in custody. So he definitely knows, what kind of people he’s dealing with. That the junta is a bunch of damn layers. Oh, by the way, what I said about the junta in Burma applies to every dictatorship, no matter whether militarily or religiously, they are all the same.

The last two weeks where a bit tough for me. To many problems to solve here, and also to many nights out to party. And I have to recognize that I’m getting older too. A few years ago I only needed a few hours of sleep and now…? I even was to tired one eve when there was Swing time at "Die kleine Philharmonie"

But the other evenings it was okay. The big 3 years party of the "Bier Academy" was great, but don’t ask me when I was home, I don’t know it. But I remember when Tina was dancing on top of the bar and Peter wanted to join her. Beate was able to stop him in the last moment.

But the Halloween party there was not so good, maybe because she held it on Tuesday, one day before Halloween. Peter and I where the only persons in costumes there. Well, it didn’t bother us, we had our fun, maybe because we smoked something at my home before we went there.

And next day there was the Halloween party of "Die kleine Philharmonie", and this one was really great, this was fun. Fantastic decoration, all staff members costumed, and many guests too. By the way: I updated my slide show so that you can see some pictures there. If I will get some pictures from Jurij(he made a lot there), then I will post them there too.

Well, I don’t know how I managed it, but Thursday eve for our Dart competition I was at least able to win once, and that is sad enough. And at Friday they had their annual pork hock(knuckle of pork)eating. Delicious!