Burma cyclone - BBC News Myanmar - New York Times Burma Cyclone - BBC NewsGoogle put up a link onto their homepage, encouraging the search engine’s users to donate to UNICEF and Direct Relief International.
http://www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/
-Lam
(via Sree Sreenivasan, Dean of Students, Columbia Journalism School)
Folks: a note from Brandon Roth, Columbia J-school alum, now with Pacific Command HQ.
****************************************************
Hello All,
As you know a U.S. C-130 cargo plane will be delivering supplies to Burma on Monday. I am a reservist currently on active duty assigned to Pacific Command HQ and have been tasked with getting the word out about when and where the plane will land to any stringers who may be on the ground in Burma. As soon as we get clearance (most likely later today or tomorrow) we plan to release the flight information both for Burma and also Thailand. For more information feel free to contact me at brandon.roth@pacom.mil or brandoroth@aol.com or you can call the Pacom Public Affairs office at 808- 477-1341.
Thanks.
SGT Brandon Roth
HQ USPACOM
****************************************************
–Divya
Packages sent in from international aid groups are finally being handed out to people in Burma - but with the names of Burmese generals scribbled on top of them. It seems that the catastrophe in Burma is being turned into an opportunity for pro-junta propaganda, writes the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
In the midst of this natural disaster, the people of Burma were to vote for a referendum that according to opposition leaders is meant to further strengthen the junta’s military rule this Saturday. The elections were postponed only in Yangon and in the Irrawaddy-Delta.
On the day of this election, television stations continuously broadcast footage of military officials handing out aid to victims of the catastrophe, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports. One clip shows a box on which general lieutenant Myint Swe’s name was covering up a smaller label that read “help from the kingdom of Thailand”.
Read the entire article (in German) here.
-Lam
In an editorial in TheStar, the online version of Canada’s leading newspaper, The Toronto Star, columnist Thomas Walkom provides a view that for a dictatorship, the Burmese military junta is not acting unreasonably.
In the editorial titled “Burma’s leaders are not irrational,” Walkon cites an example from Saddam’s Iraq to explain the junta’s stance of not taking up offers by the U.S., Canada and France to offer their troops to deliver aid.
“It is not even being unusually paranoid in its suspicion of the UN. The world used to belittle Saddam Hussein’s claim that some UN weapons inspectors sent into Iraq after the first Gulf War worked for the CIA. But, as former American weapons inspector Scott Ritter revealed in his book, Iraq Confidential, Saddam was correct.”
Walkon offers a fresh, alternate perspective on the cyclone response and concludes that factoring in the constraints, foreign governments should keep an eye on the ball i.e. - preventing further casualties and getting aid and relief to the maximum number of people, as fast as possible.
Read the full editorial here.
–Divya
Two new sites:
Finally, from newsweek.com:
A leading Burmese exile discusses the junta’s slow response to cyclone relief and why many see the cyclone as divine intervention against their despotic leaders. Melinda Liu interviews Aung Zaw, the editor of ‘The Irrawaddy’ news magazine:
Read full interview here
–Karen
Here are links to three telling slideshows from the New York Times which illuminate the situation on the ground in Burma and the havoc wreaked by Cyclone ‘Nargis.’
Myanmar struggles in cyclone aftermath
Myanmar junta allowing little aid after cyclone
–Divya
(via Melanie Mullinax of Project HOPE)
Project HOPE, an international health education and humanitarian assistance organization, is working hard to gather medical supplies for the people of Myanmar devastated by Cyclone Nargis. They say, they will work with other relief-based non-governmental organizations to deliver the aid gathered.
Interested folks should contact them and distribute this information widely.
–Divya
