A Decade of Dialogue: Reaffirming Our Commitment to Interfaith Harmony in the Asia-Pacific Region

Ten years ago, Perth, Australia, hosted a pivotal gathering of religious leaders and representatives from across the Asia-Pacific region. The 5th Regional Interfaith Dialogue of 2009, themed "Future Faith Leaders: Regional Challenges and Cooperation," brought together individuals of diverse faiths to engage in critical discussions about building a more peaceful future. This landmark event culminated in the Perth Declaration, a powerful document outlining concrete steps toward fostering interfaith harmony, cooperation, and peacebuilding.

As we mark the tenth anniversary of this significant dialogue, it's crucial to reflect on the progress made and the work that still lies ahead. The Perth Declaration serves as a roadmap for this journey, and its core principles remain as relevant today as they were a decade ago.

The Enduring Principles of the Perth Declaration

At its heart, the Perth Declaration champions interfaith dialogue as a vital tool for cultivating understanding, respect, and cooperation between diverse religious communities. It highlights the essential role of future faith leaders in proactively addressing regional challenges and fostering a culture of peace. Furthermore, it calls for enhanced collaboration between governments, faith communities, and civil society organizations to effectively promote interfaith harmony and peacebuilding initiatives.

Progress, Challenges, and the Path Forward

The past decade has witnessed notable progress in advancing the recommendations of the Perth Declaration. Numerous interfaith initiatives have been launched, fostering dialogue, understanding, and collaborative action among people of different faiths. However, significant challenges persist, particularly in addressing the deep-seated roots of religious intolerance and conflict.

A Renewed Call to Action

Commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 5th Regional Interfaith Dialogue is not just about looking back; it's about looking forward. Let us, therefore, seize this moment to reaffirm our dedication to the principles enshrined in the Perth Declaration. We must redouble our efforts to create a more inclusive, harmonious, and peaceful society where diversity is not just tolerated, but celebrated and respected.

Building a Future of Peace Together

The 5th Regional Interfaith Dialogue laid a strong foundation for future interfaith cooperation and peacebuilding in the Asia-Pacific region. Now, it is our responsibility to build upon that foundation, to learn from the past, and to work collaboratively toward a future where peace, understanding, and justice prevail for all. Let us embrace this challenge with renewed vigor and a shared commitment to building a better world, together. Changes Made:

• Stronger Title: More engaging and informative.
• Improved Flow: Transitions between paragraphs are smoother.
• Concise Language: Removed redundancies and strengthened phrasing.
• Emphasis on Action: The "Call to Action" section is more impactful and forward-looking.
• Stronger Conclusion: More inspiring and leaves a lasting impression.
• More Engaging Tone: Overall, the tone is more dynamic and engaging, encouraging the reader to participate in the vision.
• "Reaffirming our commitment to..." is used instead of simply using a "call to action" at the start and then again later. This makes the "call to action" more powerful.
  
  
  

Early Days of Protest: Myanmar's Military Coup and I

 "I remember the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in Los Angeles. Although the outbreak actually began in late 2019 and reached the U.S. in early 2020, the gravity of the situation truly hit me as I watched the death toll rise daily in New York City. I had to mentally prepare myself to face the possibility of death calmly. I hope you can understand the fear and uncertainty I felt during that time.

Following government instructions, I isolated myself for 15 days. Within those 15 days, I was sick for 5 days, and thankfully I get a chance to buy a ventilator from Amazon. I was lucky because after five days of illness, my health mostly returned to normal, though I still experienced some difficulty breathing at times. To combat the loneliness and anxiety of isolation, I spent a lot of time online.

Just after my 15 days of isolation ended, I received a phone call from my brother. He told me a military coup was happening at that very moment in Myanmar. Army officials were right in front of him, and he had to hand over his phone. That was the last I heard from him. My brother, Ko Mya Aye, is one of the leaders in Myanmar."

Confused and concerned, I called 911 to inquire about the proper procedures and regulations for protesting in Los Angeles. I learned that I needed to submit a proposal seven days in advance. As someone who had been in the US for less than six months, I was completely unfamiliar with the process. I didn't even know where the Myanmar Embassy or Consulate was located, nor was I connected with the Myanmar community in LA.

Despite this, I decided to stage a solitary protest in front of the Myanmar Consulate. I was prepared to face whatever consequences might arise. My son and daughter-in-law, worried for my safety, insisted on joining me.

Upon arriving at the Consulate, I called the police. We encountered a minor issue with the Consulate security and the LAPD, which resulted in a conversation lasting about an hour. Eventually, two men approached me, identifying themselves as FBI agents. They instructed me to move outside the Consulate's property and assured me that I could protest freely and peacefully on the public sidewalk.

Following this, my family and I were able to protest peacefully. After I shared a live video of our protest, other members of the Myanmar community began to join us. On that first day, we had a total of seven protesters. Day by day, our numbers grew. Eventually, when we protested in front of the Federal Building, we gathered a total of 745 protesters, as documented by the signature record."

That Fire Won't Be Die Out

The hills above Los Angeles glowed an eerie orange. It was a scene all too familiar: another wildfire, another wave of evacuations, another season of living under a haze of smoke and dread. The recent memory of the devastating Woolsey Fire, which had burned so much of the neighboring Ventura County, as well as the Bobcat Fire still fresh in many minds, these events are no longer anomalies; they are the grim harbingers of a new normal. The LA fire crisis is not just a series of isolated incidents; it's a systemic problem, a chronic condition that, without drastic change, will continue to worsen. That fire, the one that threatens homes, livelihoods, and the very air we breathe, won't be die out on its own. These fires are among the most destructive in US history in terms of property damage, often occurring dangerously close to one of the nation's largest population centers, and the frequency and intensity of these events in the LA area are undeniably on the rise.

The numbers paint a stark picture. In recent years, wildfires in the LA region have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of structures, and resulted in billions of dollars in economic losses. While the heroism of the LAFD and other fire agencies is undeniable, battling these infernos once they ignite is increasingly a losing proposition. We can't simply fight fire with fire anymore; the scale of the problem has outgrown this approach.

Several factors contribute to LA's unique vulnerability. Climate change is a primary driver, fueling hotter, drier conditions, extending drought periods, and intensifying heat waves that turn the landscape into a tinderbox. The expansion of urban development into wildland areas, known as the wildland-urban interface, puts more people and property directly in harm's way. Furthermore, the presence of non-native, highly flammable plant species exacerbates the problem, allowing fires to spread rapidly and intensely. Ironically, decades of well-intentioned fire suppression efforts have also played a role. By extinguishing every small fire, we've allowed a massive buildup of fuel in forests and wildlands. This means that when fires do occur, they burn hotter and are far more difficult to control.

The current approach, focused primarily on fire suppression, is akin to treating the symptoms of a disease without addressing the underlying cause. While firefighters are essential and their work is invaluable, we need a fundamental shift in strategy. "Never happen again" might be an overly optimistic goal when it comes to wildfires in this region, but we can significantly reduce the risk and mitigate the devastating impacts.

This shift requires a multi-pronged approach focused on proactive prevention and long-term resilience. Land management practices are crucial. Prescribed burns, conducted under carefully controlled conditions, can reduce the buildup of flammable vegetation. Vegetation management programs, involving clearing brush and creating defensible space around homes, are equally important. In some areas, strategic forest thinning – selectively removing trees to reduce forest density – can help create healthier, more fire-resistant ecosystems.

Community preparedness is another essential element. Strengthening building codes to require fire-resistant materials and construction techniques can significantly reduce the vulnerability of homes. Improving evacuation routes and implementing robust community alert systems are also vital for ensuring public safety during fire emergencies. Moreover, a sustained public education campaign is needed to raise awareness about fire safety practices and individual responsibility in preventing ignitions.

Addressing the LA fire crisis also demands a commitment to policy changes and increased investment. Funding for fire prevention programs needs to be prioritized, not just for fire suppression. This includes supporting research into innovative fire detection and management technologies, such as early warning systems using sensors and AI, as well as improved fire behavior modeling to aid in strategic decision-making. On a broader scale, tackling climate change at local, state, and national levels is critical to mitigating the long-term risks associated with hotter, drier conditions. Implementing stricter water conservation policies will also be necessary to address ongoing drought conditions that contribute to the fire danger.

The LA fire crisis is a complex challenge with no easy solutions. But one thing is clear: the current trajectory is unsustainable. The fire won't simply die out. We must move beyond a reactive approach and embrace a proactive strategy that prioritizes prevention, preparedness, and long-term resilience. This requires a collective effort, involving individuals, communities, policymakers, and scientists, all working together to create a future where the threat of devastating wildfires is minimized, and where the beauty and vitality of the Los Angeles region are preserved for generations to come. The time to act is now, before the next fire season ignites another chapter in this unfolding crisis.

Hollywood Hills Breathe Sigh of Relief as Sunset Fire Contained, Statewide Response Highlights Coordinated Effort

 

Los Angeles, CA - January 10, 2025 - After a tense 24 hours, residents of the Hollywood Hills are returning to their homes following the successful containment of the Sunset Fire.1 The blaze, which erupted Wednesday evening near Wattles Park, quickly consumed over 60 acres of brush, fueled by strong Santa Ana winds. This incident, while harrowing, highlights the effectiveness of California's coordinated response to the ongoing wildfire crisis.

The fire sparked widespread evacuations and sent a wave of anxiety through the community, already on edge due to the regional fire crisis.2 The dramatic scenes of flames licking the iconic Hollywood sign were broadcast across the nation, a stark reminder of the increasing threat of wildfires in Southern California.

"It was terrifying," recounted one resident who had to evacuate. "The sky was orange, and the wind was howling. It felt like the whole neighborhood was going to go up in flames."

The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) responded swiftly, deploying ground crews and aerial support to combat the blaze. Helicopters could be seen throughout the night, dropping water on the flames as firefighters worked tirelessly to establish containment lines. This rapid response was part of a larger, statewide mobilization effort.

By the numbers: All-in state response

California’s emergency response to wildfire impacts has involved nearly every part of the state government.3 Assistance on the ground includes:

• Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES): Coordinating the state’s response through the activation of the State Operations Center, including the deployment of 1,040 firefighters and 260 fire engines through the state’s Fire and Rescue Mutual Aid System.4 Cal OES also prepositioned resources in advance of the wind event, including fire engines, water tenders, helicopters, and dozers in high-risk counties.

• Neighbor helping neighbor: California has requested and received commitments for fire engines from Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Utah, and Idaho through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, bringing in hundreds of additional firefighters.5

• California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE): Over 4,700 firefighting personnel deployed, including local and federal partners, supported by air tankers, helicopters, engines, handcrews, dozers, and water tenders.6

• California Department of Transportation (Caltrans): 600 personnel mobilized to clear debris, handle traffic equipment power outages, and replenish batteries for traffic signals affected by power outages.7

• California Highway Patrol (CHP): CHP officials deployed to embed with incident command.8

• California National Guard (Cal Guard): Over 600 Cal Guard service members and equipment deployed to support firefighting and law enforcement operations, including hand crews, aircraft, and C-130 airplanes.9

• California Department of Social Services (CDSS): Working with Los Angeles County to ensure residents have access to critical safety net benefits, including food and shelter. CDSS is also distributing disaster assistance guides for all Californians, regardless of immigration status.

"The quick and aggressive response was crucial in preventing this fire from becoming another disaster," stated LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley. "The coordinated efforts of our firefighters, along with the assistance of other agencies, allowed us to protect lives and property."

By Thursday morning, the LAFD reported that the fire's advance had been halted. Crews remained on scene throughout the day, extinguishing hot spots and securing the perimeter. By afternoon, the fire was declared fully contained, and evacuation orders were lifted.

While the Sunset Fire is contained, the incident serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing fire danger in the region. The Palisades Fire, burning to the west, continues to rage, having consumed thousands of acres and forcing mass evacuations.10 Authorities are urging residents to remain vigilant and prepared as the Santa Ana winds persist.

The cause of the Sunset Fire is currently under investigation.

Dr Tun Min Latt and Min Aung Hlaing

 မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးတွေနဲ့ ထိုင်းက ဖမ်းလိုက်တဲ့ ဒေါက်တာထွန်းမင်းလက်ကိစ္စ စစ်အုပ်စု ခွေးမီဒီယာများက ဘယ်လိုများရှင်းလင်းကြသည်ကို မှတ်တမ်းယူထားပါ။ ဒီကိစ္စက နိုင်ငံတကာ Interpol ပါဝင်တဲ့အတွက် မင်းအောင်လှိုင်နှင့်အပေါင်းအပါတွေအတွက် ဒုတိယ Manuel Antonio Noriegaကဲ့သို့ သေအချာအထိနာစေနိုင်ပါတယ်။ တခါတလေ စစ်ပွဲတစ်ခုကို နိုင်ဖို့ လက်နှက်တွေ စစ်သေားတွေတောင်မလိုအပ်လိုက်တာရှိပါတယ်။

သတင်းတွေမှာတော့ လက်ရှိဖမ်းမိသော ဒေါက်တာထွန်မင်းလက်၏ ထွက်ဆိုချက်များ အချိန်ယူစောင့်ကြည့် အချက်အလက်ရယူထားသည့် မတူညီတော့ Interpol အဖွဲ့ဝင်နိုင်ငံအသီးသီးမှ ပေးပို့လာသော အချက်အလက်များအပေါ်အခြခံပြီး ၎င်းနှင့် ဆက်စပ်ကုမ္ပဏီများတွင် လက်ရှိ နှင့် ယခင် ဒါရိုက်တာများနှင့် အစုရှယ်ယာရှင်များ မှာ

ဟိုတယ်နှင့် ခရီးသွားလာရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန ညွန်ကြားရေးမှူးချုပ်အဖြစ်လည်း တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့သည့် မြန်မာ့လေတပ်မှ ဒုဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးဟောင်း ခင်မောင်လတ်၏သား ဒေါက်တာ ထွန်းမင်းလတ် ၊ သားအဖနှစ်ဦးစလုံးကို ယခင်က ဥရောပသမဂ္ဂက ပိတ်ဆို့အရေးယူခဲ့သည် ။

ဒေါက်တာ ဝင်းမင်းစိုး – ဒေါက်တာထွန်းမင်းလတ်၏ဇနီး။

တပ်မတော် ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ် ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး မင်းအောင်လှိုင်ရဲ့ သမီး ခင် သီရိသက်မွန် ။

ယခင်က စစ်ဦးစီးချုပ်(လေ)၊ မြန်မာ့စီးပွားရေးဦးပိုင် အများပိုင်ကုမ္ပဏီလီမိတက် (MEHL) ၏ ဒါရိုက်တာဖြစ်ခဲ့သူ ဗိုလ်မှူးချုပ် ဇင်ယော်၏သား ဒေါက်တာ ထက်အောင် ။ သားအဖနှစ်ဦးစလုံးကို ယခင်က ဥရောပသမဂ္ဂက ပိတ်ဆို့အရေးယူခဲ့သည် ။

Upakit Pachariyangkun - ထိုင်းအထက်လွှတ်တော်အမတ်နှင့် တားမြစ် ခံထားရသော Ratchaburi လွှတ်တော်အမတ် Pareena Kraikupt ၏ခင်ပွန်းဟောင်း ။

အချက်အလက်အတော်များများအားကျယ်ပြန့်စွာ စနစ်တကျရယူထားပုံရပါတယ် ဥပမာအားဖြင့် ပေါက်ကြားလာသည့် စာရွက်စာတမ်းများသည် အစ္စရေး လူ့အခွင့်ရေးရှေ့နေ Eitay Mack မှ ရှေ့နေချုပ် Gali Baharav-Miara ထံ ပေးပို့သော စာတစ်စောင်ဖြစ်ပြီး အစ္စရေး အာကာသ စက်မှုလုပ်ငန်း၊ Elbit နှင့် အစ္စရေး သင်္ဘောကျင်းများအား လူသားမျိုးနွယ်အပေါ် ကျူးလွန်သည့် ရာဇဝတ်မှုများနှင့် လူမျိုးတုံးသတ်ဖြတ်မှုဆိုင်ရာ ရာဇဝတ်မှုများအတွက် အထောက်အကူဖြစ်စေရန်အတွက် စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးမှု စတင်ရန် တောင်းဆိုခဲ့သည့်စာအပြင် ၁၉၅၀ ခုနှစ်မှစတင်၍ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသို့ လက်နှက်ရောင်းချခဲ့သော အချက်အလက်များ၊ မြန်မာ့စစ်အုပ်စု၏ စိတ်ဓာတ်စစ်ဆင်ရေးနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ဆက်ဆံရေးဌာနအား အစ္စရေးနိုင်ငံမှ Gilat Satellite Networks သည် နည်းပညာအထောက်အကူများပေးလျက်ရှိကြောင်း Gilat Satellite Networks နှင့်ပတ်သက်ဆက်နွယ်သည့် အခြားလုပ်ငန်းကိုတော့ ဒီမှာ မဖေါ်ပြချင်လို့ မဖေါ်ပြလိုတော့ပါ ရန်ကုန်သက္ကသိုလ်မှသူတို့လင်မယား သင်္ချာဘာသာနဲ့ဘွဲ့ရခဲ့ကြတာပါ။

(ကူးယူဖေါ်ပြသည်)

23 နာရီ ၅၅မိနစ္

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