Cyclone: 50,000 Feared Dead

[butter7]

Is It Time to Invade Burma?



http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...0.html?cnn=yes

I personally really like the title of this article. And I think the following quote is a "Yes" to this question right?

Originally posted by Butterscotch
You know how when somebody doesn't feed their kid or take care of them the welfare comes and takes them away? Can we take these people away from their gov't?

It's amazing that some western people can be so easily fooled. And they have already forgot the pain even their Iraq wounds are still bleeding.

Tell me, when can I see CNN report for "the mass destruction weapon found in Burma"? Don't have to wait too long, I guess.

[sue4u2]

Originally posted by butter7

Tell me, when can I see CNN report for "the mass destruction weapon found in Burma"? Don't have to wait too long, I guess.

Burma's military regime IS! the weapon of mass destruction.
Does that count?

[Butterscotch]

They also remind me of my aunt whose house is so messy she'd rather leave her stuff broken than to have anyone come in to fix it and see what all is wrong inside. Guess they have a lot to hide too!

Whatever happened to that "Walk On" lady can't she help somehow?

[butter7]

Originally posted by Butterscotch
They also remind me of my aunt whose house is so messy she'd rather leave her stuff broken than to have anyone come in to fix it and see what all is wrong inside. Guess they have a lot to hide too!

Whatever happened to that "Walk On" lady can't she help somehow?

You also remind me of the old lady that living in the neighbourhood of my old place. When she saw young boys and girls walking on the street hand in hand, or share a kiss in the nearby bus stop while waiting, she would just stand up and try to fix their behaviour by standing in the middle of the two.

Get a life, I say!

[kafrun]

Originally posted by Butterscotch

Whatever happened to that "Walk On" lady can't she help somehow?

Aung San Suu Kyi. She's currently on house arrest.

[melon]

Originally posted by butter7
It's amazing that some western people can be so easily fooled. And they have already forgot the pain even their Iraq wounds are still bleeding.

Tell me, when can I see CNN report for "the mass destruction weapon found in Burma"? Don't have to wait too long, I guess.

Iraq was the first thing that came to my mind too. I just wasn't in the mood to pick a fight.

Nonetheless, while I'm a bit aghast at how flippantly you're taking this crisis, I think it does highlight a long-running dilemma within Western political philosophy; that is, there's little principle or consistency left in it. It is still far preferable to dictatorship, mind you, but it is an issue that should be addressed philosophically.

When is it okay to "liberate" one nation (Burma/Myanmar) and not okay to liberate another (Iraq)? Is the difference solely based on which political ideology issues the calls for liberation? Or is it 20/20 hindsight; that is, if we did invade Myanmar, would the left then decry it as another callous display of American cultural imperialism, and, if we don't, would we then decry it as how America is too selfish and only cares about itself?

Of course, if China would responsibly manage its sphere of influence, rather than going on its destructive rampage towards modernization and propping up morally reprehensible nations like North Korea and Myanmar, then the West wouldn't ever have to feel the need to get involved.

[vaz02]

Maybe the west should stop interfering imo. If they need our help thats fine but let them ask for it.

If anyone needed liberation its the west. We dont live in a free and fair society and when it comes to a vote the options are few on the ground.

[melon]

Originally posted by vaz02
Maybe the west should stop interfering imo. If they need our help thats fine but let them ask for it.

If anyone needed liberation its the west. We dont live in a free and fair society and when it comes to a vote the options are few on the ground.

So what's your opinion on Darfur then?

[vaz02]

Originally posted by melon


So what's your opinion on Darfur then?

Its an issue for the African community really, they wanted independence so they could govern themselves and the responsibilities that follow. If the west wade in with sharpend steel it would be seen by many African leaders as colonization, when the region is stable and they need assistance in aid then thats when we can help.

[yolland]

The Dangers of the Deltas

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
New York Times, May 11

Deltas are disaster zones in waiting. From the Mekong to the Mississippi, the rich soils and strategic positions of river mouths have long lured farmers, fishers and traders. But the same geography also guarantees they will be periodically inundated.

A case in point was Cyclone Nargis last weekend. As it roared over the sprawling, crowded delta of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar, the sea surged up to seven miles inland like a slow-motion tsunami, as up to two feet of rain fell. Tens of thousands of people died. Still, many experts say it is not nature that largely determines the amount of death and destruction in such circumstances, but investment, governance and policy (or the lack of it). Governments that do not prepare adequately—either through political inertia and underinvestment as in New Orleans, or willful disregard, as critics of the Myanmar junta charge—will continue to see tragic losses.

There is a long list of reasons for countries with low-lying population centers, particularly around rivers, to do more to gird for the worst. Deltas are evanescent landscapes, formed and occasionally violently rearranged by water. They are implicitly lowlands, built of sediment settling where rivers meet the sea. Most are sinking naturally, as recently deposited silt compresses over time. In many cases, the subsidence is accelerated by human activities, including the extraction of groundwater and construction of upriver dams, levees and channels, which cut off the renewing flow of silt. In addition, destruction of coastal vegetation leaves exposed soil open to erosion.

Vulnerability will keep rising as populations in poor countries crest in the next few decades, with much of the increase crowding into coastal cities. Simultaneously, such regions face a faster retreat of coastlines from the rise in sea levels, as climate and oceans warm under the influence of accumulating greenhouse gases, scientists warn. But human vulnerability can be reduced, as shown in Bangladesh. Though hammered regularly by cyclone-driven floods, it has seen declining death counts since it began investing in warning systems, shelters, coastal housing standards and evacuation plans. Cyclones in its deltas killed something like half a million people in 1970, and 140,000 in 1991. Last November, aid organizations estimate, the toll from Cyclone Sidr was about 4000; in that case, more than two million people had taken shelter when the storm struck.

Cyclone Nargis and its aftermath, on the other hand, provide a vivid study in how poverty and insufficient government investment can turn a natural disaster into an outsize human tragedy, said Debarati Guha-Sapir, the director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Research on Disaster Epidemiology, in Brussels. “The villages are in such levels of desperation—housing quality, nutritional status, roads, bridges, dams—that losses were more determined by their condition rather than the force of the cyclone,” she said.

[Nilthoron]

50,000......it's really a tragedy

[A_Wanderer]

150,000 however is comedy.

[U2Fanatic4ever]

has anyone heard anything on whether Aung San Suu Kyi is ok? I am suprised that her whereabouts or whether she survived this hasn't been brought up in the media somewhere..




UPDATE: found an article from yesterday. She is ok... If you call it that...

Paranoid Burmese junta steps up security around Suu Kyi

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent
Friday, 16 May 2008


It used to be you could ask any taxi driver and they would show you her house.

There could be no stopping and no taking photographs, but they would drive you along Rangoon's University Avenue and you could glimpse the property where Aung San Suu Kyi has spent almost 13 years under house arrest.

Now you cannot even do that. The day after Cyclone Nargis struck, the military authorities ordered that the security around her house be increased. So long a prisoner in her own home, she is now even more isolated from the Burmese people.

Given the devastation wrought by Nargis, one might have assumed the authorities had more pressing priorities. But their decision to block off the house of the leader of Burma's political opposition reveals the junta's concern over the power the 62-year-old woman holds.

After hundreds of monks gathered outside her house during September's pro-democracy demonstrations, the junta is apparently keen to ensure she does not again become a rallying point for people angry and frustrated by the regime's ineffective response to the damage caused by the storm.

Suu Kyi lives with two maids. Her meals are brought in every day – checked by guards outside her house. Foreign diplomats were once permitted to call but that was stopped; her doctor is her only regular visitor. But even those visits, every three weeks, have been halted.

"Whenever they are worried about her influencing the current situation they stop her doctor's visits," said a Western diplomat based in Rangoon. "After last September, her doctor was not allowed to visit until December."

Her unique position is partly the result of an absence of alternative political leaders. Almost all of the organisers of several demonstrations held in Rangoon last summer before the larger protests in September have been jailed. Of the remainder, some have left the country while others are in hiding. Suu Kyi remains the only visible opposition figure.

"Burma's half-million-strong army is terrified of her. She has the love and support of the people. She unites Burma's different political and ethnic groups. This makes her their greatest threat – she unites the people against the regime," said Mark Farmaner, of the Burma Campaign UK.

"The generals are trying to keep her completely isolated from her people and from the world. Her phone line is cut, they intercept all her post. No visitors are allowed. Her sons are not even allowed into the country and she has grandchildren that she has never seen."

Suu Kyi was last detained in May 2003. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the Burmese regime, the generals annually renew her imprisonment with a detention order delivered to her house.

"There may be a lot of younger people who do not agree with everything she says," said another Westerner who lives in Rangoon. "But if she was released everybody would rally around her. The regime is paranoid of the West and they are paranoid of her."

The opposition leader reportedly fills her time reading and meditating. It is unclear whether she still has a radio. She used to play the piano in her house but complained many years ago that it had fallen into disrepair.

[sue4u2]

It's good to hear she's ok, considerating all the circumstances.
I was wondering about her, also.

It's just so sad that she has to suffer this isolation.

The rest of the people of this country are in grave danger from not only this regime, and I'm sure the "generals" are not giving a shit.
I just can't imagin.