Rev. Danny Fisher

United Nations Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie (whom you may have heard of) has urged Thailand to welcome the Rohingya refugees fleeing Burma. (I’ve previously blogged about the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority in Burma, here, here, and here.) According to a press release from the Office of the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jolie, who on Wednesday visited the Ban Mai Nai Soi refugee camp in Thailand near Burma’s border, said:

I was saddened to meet a 21-year-old woman who was born in a refugee camp, who has never even been out of the camp and is now raising her own child in a camp…

With no foreseeable chance that these refugees will soon be able to return to Burma (Myanmar), we must find some way to help them work and become self reliant…

I hope we can work with the Thai authorities to speed up the government admissions process and that [these refugees] will not be forced to go back to Burma if danger remains…

Visiting Ban Mai Nai Soi and seeing how hospitable Thailand has been to 111,000 mostly Karen and Karenni refugees over the years makes me hope that Thailand will be just as generous to the Rohingya refugees who are now arriving on their shores. I also hope the Rohingya situation stabilizes and their life in Myanmar improves so the people do not feel the desperate need to flee, especially considering how dangerous their journey has become. As with all people, they deserve to have their human rights respected.

[Photo by Kitty McKinsey for UNHCR.]

Tibet House president Robert Thurman and rock icon Patti Smith (raised-hand-in-raised-hand) flanked by musicians at last night’s 19th Annual Tibet House Benefit Concert at Carnegie Hall. Photo by Gothamist.
Also via Rod Meade Sperry at Shambhala Sun Space today: Gothamist has a write-up with pictures about last night’s 19th Annual Tibet House Benefit Concert at Carnegie Hall. Performers included Patti Smith, Steve Earle, Philip Glass, Vampire Weekend, Antibalas, The National, Angelique Kidjo, Keb’ Mo’, and others. Check it out.

Back in December 2008, I posted about a new documentary entitled Burma VJ–Reporting from a Closed Country, “which describes the work of a group of citizen reporters who secretly filmed the uprising against the military dictatorship in Burma in September 2007,” and its winning the top prize at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. (It also won the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival here in the United States.) Over at Shambhala Sun Space, the marvelous Rod Meade Sperry tells us that it looks like the film will appear on HBO later this year. He also points us to the trailer:

This from the Save Darfur Coalition:

One month into the new year and the only news coming out of Darfur is bad. The violence is increasing by the day, and it could get worse still unless there is bold action from Washington.

President Obama must to appoint a high-level official with the stature, mandate and authority to be the U.S. point person on Sudan—and bring an end to the genocide.

Insist that the president name that person immediately.

To send the President a form letter, follow this link.

Sara Wilson at the Fresh Air Fund tells us that the organization is currently accepting applications for counselors for this coming summer of 2009. “We are really looking for college-aged men and women who love to work with children,” she says. For more information, follow this link.