cnn.com – Newley Purnell

Burmese refugee abuse claims: new photos from CNN

CNN has obtained new photos and other information that seem to substantiate claims that the Thai military mistreated Burmese refugees. One image (see the CNN link below) shows what appears to be a Thai navy vessel dragging a boatload of the men out into open water, where their craft was cut adrift.

CNN‘s Dan Rivers: “Probe questions fate of refugees in Thailand”

Bedraggled, hungry and dazed, the refugees arrived on the shores of Thailand after fleeing one of the most repressive governments in the world — the hard-line military regime in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

But a CNN investigation has uncovered evidence that for hundreds of Rohingya refugees — members of a Muslim minority group — abuse and abandonment at sea were what awaited them in Thailand, at the hands of Thai authorities.

Extraordinary photos obtained by CNN from someone directly involved in the Thai operation show refugees on their rickety boats being towed out to sea, cut loose and abandoned.

One photo shows the Thai army towing a boatload of some 190 refugees far out to sea.

For days, accusations have been carried in several regional papers that the Thai army has been systematically towing boat-loads of Rohingya refugees far out to sea and setting them adrift.

The army denied it, and the Thai government has launched an inquiry.

CNN’s investigation — based on accounts from tourists, sources in Thailand and a Rohingya refugee who said he was on a boat towed back out to sea — helps to piece together a picture of survival thwarted by an organized effort not just to repel arriving refugees, but to hold them prisoner on shore, drag them in flimsy boats far out to sea and then abandon them.

Three tourists recently voiced concern to CNN over what they had seen — and in some cases photographed — near Thailand’s tourist areas.

One tourist provided CNN with photos last week of refugees detained by Thai authorities on a beach near a tourist site, with the refugees prone on the sun-bleached sand while guards stood nearby.

“Whenever someone raised their head or moved, they [guards] would strike them with a whip,” said Australian tourist Andrew Catton.

CNN international has also been airing a video package with the photos in question as well as interviews with a Rohingya refugee.

My previous posts on the Rohingya are here and here. And Bangkok Pundit has been blogging about the issue.

“Web news wars” and CNN.com

Brian Stelter has a good story in today’s New York Times about CNN.com and “Web news wars” among top news sites.

Some snippets that caught my eye:

On media ubiquity

CNN now is as close as any news entity is to achieving ubiquity, with an array of television channels, Web sites, a radio network, airport TV sets and magazines. It is even signing up newspapers for a wire service — fed by CNN.com — that will compete with The Associated Press.
The challenge, for Mr. Estenson and others, is to make CNN.com more distinctive. At the end of a long day recently, he showed a visitor screen grabs of four Web pages on his Macbook Air.

“When you look at the top news sites, they often look almost identical,” he says, gesturing to the home pages of CNN, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal and Yahoo News. Down to photo choices and color schemes, the four sites look practically interchangeable and utilitarian, he says — hence his emphasis on the power of “unique signatures.”

On high-traffic times

Tracking audience sweet spots is also a juggling act. CNN’s television arm exerts much of its pull during the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m., when advertising rates and audience levels are highest. But for the Web news desk in Atlanta, prime time is the lunch hour, when users log on during work breaks.
More broadly, Ms. Golden defines “Web prime” as 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. During those hours, the home page will feature six or seven lead stories, on average, so no one headline lingers too long.

On profitability

CNN.com formally achieved profitability eight years ago, the company said; Time Warner doesn’t break out separate revenue figures for the unit. In an era when “monetization” is a buzz word among news organizations migrating to the Web, CNN.com has been able to capitalize on its traffic surge by keeping visitors on the site longer, thus exposing them to more ads.
It’s also trying to make money from more experimental forays. During the inauguration coverage on Tuesday, for the first time, CNN.com Live, the Web site’s video arm, will include TV-style commercial breaks. Until now the only ads on the streaming service have been snippets that play before the main clip, and small sponsorship banners.

Amid a recession, advertising sales are sluggish on television and online, putting a damper on CNN’s growth plans. But CNN.com is expected to remain flush; while Web revenue doesn’t match TV’s, the costs aren’t nearly as high.