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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Troops have opened fire on protesting monks in Burma. Good pictures of the protests here. Not a good sign, but not unexpected.

This article on the causes of the unrest was better than anything else I've seen:

• Burma’s generals do not seem to learn from history. In September 1987, Burma’s abrupt announcement that large banknotes were no longer valid currency wiped out the population’s savings, igniting a nationwide revolt against the regime and its economic bungling.
  
  Last month, the withdrawal without warning of fuel subsidies kicked off another flurry of small protests that have snowballed into the largest demonstrations since that uprising.
  
  The price of natural gas went up five-times. Prices of petrol and diesel doubled. The regime claimed ending fuel subsidies was necessary to eliminate an unsustainable fiscal burden but the subsequent doubling of bus fares meant many Burmese – who already spend nearly all their daily income on food – had to choose between eating and travelling to work.
  
  Yet the ruling generals made no attempt to cushion ordinary people from their brute version of economic reality, despite warnings that the fuel price rise could push many struggling families over the edge. “The generals make economic decisions as if they were commanding military operations,” said Zaw Oo, a Burmese economic analyst.
  
  Burma is one of the richest countries in Asia in terms of natural resources. In the 1950s, high society Thais flew to Rangoon, Burma’s capital at the time, for luxury shopping. Today, Burma’s population is deeply impoverished after decades under the thumb of soldiers with greater faith in astrologers than in economists and market forces. Western economic sanctions have bitten, too.
  
  About a third of Burma’s people live below the poverty line and 10 per cent of the population is unable to secure sufficient daily food, the United Nations says.