This is not acceptable. Dogs and cats are living beings and deserve to live a happy and healthy life. Please sign this petition and help end the cat and dog meat trade.

The letter's signatories, who came originally from Southeast Asia, expressed their deep concern about the welfare of the people in ASEAN countries who are facing grave threats to their livelihood caused by the building of dams on the Mekong River; the damage to the natural environment resulting from mining and logging activities; and the unilateral territorial claim by China of most of the "South China Sea" (which should be more correctly called the "Southeast Asian Sea).

We hope you share our concern and earnestly request your support for this petition.

Letter Body:

April 5, 2010

The Honorable Chair of the 2010 ASEAN Summit
Heads of Delegations of ASEAN Member Countries
(c/o embassies of the respective country in Hanoi and Washington, DC)

Your Excellency:

We, the undersigned, are representatives of the above-cited nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and North American citizens with roots in Southeast Asia. As we live in relative peace and economic security, we are very concerned about the welfare of the 600 million fellow ASEAN people who are facing the following imminent threats:

1. The construction of 4 dams and plans for 15 more on the Mekong (Figure 1 and Table 1) will irreversibly alter the hydrology and ecology of this river and affect the 65 million people whose livelihood depends on it. The 4 large hydroelectric dams already built and operated by China have caused adverse impacts along the 2500-km river valley in Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Yet there seems to be little determination as to the causes and how to bring about transnational environmental and economic justice. We urge you to lead and partake in efforts to engage China and riparian countries to arrive at a comprehensive impacts mitigation that is just for the affected people.

2. Extractive activities in ASEAN countries, such as strip-mining of minerals and clear-cutting of natural forests by companies that place profits above long-term national and people’s welfare, have and will further cause great damages to the environment. We urge you to champion a program requiring these companies to publicly prove that their developments improve the livelihood of people now and in the future.

3. The unilateral sovereignty claim by China of the more than 2,000,000 square kilometers of the South China Sea (Figure 2) is a grave threat to the future of ASEAN countries and their people. This vast area of the Pacific Ocean should be more aptly called Southeast Asian Sea because it is bordered by the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. For ages, governments and citizens of these countries sailed this sea and exploited resources there without much similar activities from China or any outside power. We urge you to champion the Southeast Asian name for the sea and seek regional and international cooperation to protect its shipping lanes and ASEAN exploitation of its marine and undersea resources.

While we are aware you are fully abreast of the above issues, we write because we genuinely care for the welfare of ASEAN countries and people vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

Thank you for your attention to our concerns and your efforts to address them.

Sincerely,

Long P. Pham, Chairman, Viet Ecology Foundation, Portland, Oregon; longp@cox.net

Doan L. Phung, President, Center for the Encouragement of Self-Reliance, Oak Ridge, Tennessee;
doanlphung@gmail.com

Le Xuan Khoa, President Emeritus, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Washington, D.C.; le.khoa@cox.net

Three American scholars -Dr. Ngo Vinh Long, Dr. Tai Van Ta and Dr. Vu Quang Viet- have joined together and requested the National Geographic Society to remove the notation that Parace Islands belonging to China on the NGS World Political Map.

Following is the full text of their letter to the NGS:

March 12, 2010

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
1145 17th St, NW
Washington, D.C 20036-4688

Attn: Mr. Chris Johns, Editor in Chief

Dear Mr. Chris Johns,

The new World Political Map (Item 22005C, 2009), published by the National Geographic Society (NGS), shows the Paracel Islands in Southeast Asia (SEA) as belonging to China, in contrary to the 1943 and 1994 maps. This must be an error that puts the NGS as taking side on the disputed status of the archipelago whose legal status has not been arbitrated by any international legal body. In the interest of scholarship and fairness, we ask you to consider corrective actions based on the following facts:

1. Both China and Vietnam have presented historic evidences of their possession of the Paracels dating back to the 15th century. In the 19th and 20th century, the Paracels were identified as part of Vietnam when it was a protectorate of France. It was returned to South Vietnam in 1954 and the South Vietnamese posted garrisons and exploited natural resources there. In 1974, taking advantage of the American withdrawal from South Vietnam, China attacked the South Vietnamese and took the archipelago over by force. Since then Vietnam never ceded rights to the archipelago and international scholars classed it as “disputed”. There are numerous documents regarding these facts. Due to lack of space, we cite only the following:
• DK Digital Maps for 21st Century, published by Oxford University Press, page 179.
• http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908427,00.html
• http://www.seasfoundation.org/library/cat_view/30-tai-liu-ting-anh

2. China has claimed practically the entire SEA waters bordered by Hainan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines as its maritime territory (see map). It uses Paracels and some islands of the Spratly archipelagos, which it also took over by force in a 1988 bloody invasion, as centerpieces of the claim. It is building a nuclear navy base on Hainan and several airfields on the Paracels and Spratlys in order to patrol this vast expanse of international water; claiming all mineral rights; forbidding the fishing activities of Southeast Asian countries; and controlling the vital sea routes between Singapore and Japan. In fact, it has challenged the presence of the United States in the area by harassing U.S. signals surveillance planes and research ships (e.g., April 1, 2000, incident regarding the US Navy 1EP-3 aircraft and the March 8, 2009, incident regarding the US Navy ship Impeccable.)

3. Currently SEA countries and China have submitted papers with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) governing body, outlining competing claims and professing adherence to the convention. While an international effort to mediate and arbitrate the claims appears rational, China insists on dealing with the smaller nations one-on-one, leaving interested parties such as the United States, India, Japan, Russia and other SEA nations out of the talks. The disputed nature of the Paracels and Spratlys is clear and potentially dangerous to world peace.

The NGS publications and maps are widely read and consulted all over the world for references. Your corrective actions for the hopefully inadvertent error will confirm the reputation of the NGS that it does not take side in disputed geopolitical matters.

We request that you return the annotation in National Geographic’s 2006 Atlas of the World, which states that: “Paracels Islands:administered by China, claimed by Vietnam”, which is more accurately representing current situation.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

Ngo Vinh Long, Ph.D., Professor of Asian Studies and US-Asian Relations, University of Maine.

Tai Van Ta, Ph.D., former Saigon Law School Professor and Law Lecturer and Research Associate, Harvard Law School, Attorney at law.

Vu Quang Viet, Ph.D., former Chief of National Accounts Statistics, United Nations. Author of several papers presented at Workshop “South China Sea Disputes in Vietnamese Context” on November 18, 2009 at the Council of Southeast Asian Center, Yale University.

After the crew worked nearly 48 hours non-stop to minimize the spill, the Master (Capt. Jasprit Chawla) and Chief Officer (Syam Chetan) were interrogated for up to 12 hours a day, into the night and ultimately the Korean Prosecutor brought criminal charges against them for basically, not getting out of the way due to lack of proper watch-keeping and not doing enough to minimize the oil spill itself. Omitted were the charges that the C/O was first to notify the coastal authorities that a MS may be in trouble and coming too close to them; not only were the coastal authorities unaware of this situation, but they were unable to contact the MS via the emergency Channel 16 or any other normal maritime communications, except after some 20 minutes through the mobile telephone of one of the tug crew members.

And a trial followed.

On June 23rd, a Korean court found both officers innocent of all charges brought against them – but still the Prosecutor’s Office refused to let the 2 Indian officers leave the country.

Instead, the Prosecutor’s Office and Samsung filed an appeal. The Korean Maritime Safety Tribunal then rushed to finish their investigation (similar in content and points raised, as the Appeal submissions by the Prosecutor’s Office and Samsung), submitted to the Appeals Court as “evidence”, based on hindsight and assumptions, omitting circumstances such as gale force winds (Beaufort scale 6-7) and 3-4 metre waves. (see www.justiceforhebeispirit.blogspot.com for videos and details)

On December 10th, the Korean Appeals Court reversed the earlier verdict of innocent and sentenced the Master to 18 months jail and the Chief Officer to 8 months jail, plus some fines. Both officers were immediately handcuffed in the court and led, directly from the court, to jail.

To add insult to injury, 2 of the crew of the MS who had previously been sentenced at the first trial, had their sentences reduced?

We believe this is utterly disgraceful and a blemish on Korea’s maritime authorities and their maritime legal system. With the Samsung providing a quarter of the country’s GDP, it seems that political expediency rather than actual facts was involved in the KMST’s efforts in producing an investigation very strongly self-serving to Samsung and Korea.

This is legally, morally and ethically wrong and we call upon the industry as a whole to make their voices heard and join this petition to free the innocent Indian Master and Chief Officer and return to their families and normal life.

Kashmir is the most militarized zone in the world. There is one Indian Soldier for every three Kashmiri Civilians.

Kashmir has probably the highest number of Human Rights Violations.

Currently parts of Kashmir are ruled by India, Pakistan & even China.

More than 60 Kashmiri Civilians(most of them in early 20s), were shot dead by Indian Troops during the 2008 uprising.

A few lines on what has been happening to Kashmiris would, perhaps, throw some light on the impact of Indian policy in Kashmir life since India occupied the valley in 1947. Not only India converted Kashmir valley into a well-knit cantonment of New Delhi, it has also unleashed terror on the defenseless Kashmiris and killed thousands and thousands of Kashmiris, including the freedom fighting ones. Now freedom fighters are called the “terrorists”. -- Global Politician

http://www.globalpolitician.com/24599-india-kashmir

Thousands of Unidentified graves were found recently in kahmir.
A report http://www.countercurrents.org/angana130708.htm

Human Rights Report(May Be Old)
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/india0906/