Cyclone hits Myanmar (Burma) thousands dead

[Coldwolf]

Myanmar cyclone death toll nears 4,000, almost 3,000 others missing, state radio says

Staff
AP News

May 05, 2008 07:42 EST

Almost 4,000 people were killed and nearly 3,000 others are unaccounted for in a single town after a devastating cyclone in Myanmar, a state radio station said Monday.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph. The cyclone blew roofs off hospitals and schools and cut electricity in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon.

The government had previously put the death toll countrywide at 351 before increasing it Monday to 3,939.

The radio station broadcasting from the country's capital, Naypyitaw, said that 2,879 more people are unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country's low-lying Irrawaddy River delta area where the storm wreaked the most havoc.

The situation in the countryside remained unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the storm.

"It's clear that we're dealing with a very serious situation. The full extent of the impact and needs will require an extensive on-the-ground assessment," said Richard Horsey, a spokesman in Bangkok, Thailand for United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"What is clear at this point is that there are several hundred thousands of people in dire need of shelter and clean drinking water," Horsey said.

At a meeting with foreign diplomats and representatives of U.N. and international aid agencies, Myanmar's foreign ministry officials said they welcomed international humanitarian assistance and urgently need roofing materials, plastic sheets and temporary tents, medicine, water purifying tablets, blankets and mosquito nets..

Neighboring Thailand announced that it would fly some aid in Tuesday.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MYANMAR_CYCLONE?SITE=RIPRJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Coldwolf]

(05-06) 06:38 PDT YANGON, Myanmar (AP) --

The cyclone death toll soared above 22,000 on Tuesday and more than 41,000 others were missing as foreign countries mobilized to rush in aid after the country's deadliest storm on record, state radio reported.

Up to 1 million people may be homeless after Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian nation, also known as Burma, early Saturday. Some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out, the World Food Program said.

Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and roofless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.

"From the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened and the final death toll may be huge," Mac Pieczowski, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Yangon, said in a statement.

President Bush called on Myanmar's military junta to allow the United States to help with disaster assistance, saying the U.S. already has provided some assistance but wants to do more.

"We're prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," he said.


Full Story:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/05/06/international/i012845D90.DTL&tsp=1

[BGW]

Until just a few minutes ago no entry visas were being given out to any of the aid agencies or other countries lining up to help---finally they have all been given the green light and will be receiving their visas shortly

[BGW]

Myanmar still will not accept US aid workers <!-- END HEADLINE -->
<!-- BEGIN STORY BODY -->27 minutes ago


The top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar says the junta is not ready to accept American aid workers to help cyclone survivors.
Shari Villarosa, the U.S. charge d'affairs in Yangon, said she met with Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu on Friday to discuss American relief operations.
Myanmar says it will accept aid from all countries, but prohibits the entry of foreign workers who would deliver and manage the operations.
Villarosa said she was told the junta is "not ready" to change that position.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080509/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_cyclone

[Coldwolf]

<br />What's occurring right now in Myanmar, post-cyclone, is nothing short of the slow-creep beginning of a genocide. When a nation's leaders willfully <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/13/myanmar.aid/index.html">keep </a>aid provided by humanitarian and relief agencies, governmental and non-governmental, from the desperate, starving, dying people who need it, then that nation's leaders want large numbers of people to die.<br /><br />Right now, in addition to the complete dam abomination that is the junta's <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7397617.stm">refusal</a> to allow the wave of aid workers needed for the devastated nation, there are credible <a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iy-MfhLN9Q7MwtQ1VlrvexLjr2dAD90KMDT00">allegations</a> that the regime is hoarding high quality food from relief shipments for itself and the military while giving the citizens poor quality or spoiled food. 'Cause, you see, if you run a country with the military, then you better f'n' feed the military first, or revolution is gonna happen. That's 400,000 <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JE14Ae01.html">members</a> of the military and roughly a couple of million family members. Yeah, the people of the Irrawaddy Delta are screwed.<br /><br />We're at a likely 100,000 or more dead, at least a million homeless. Bodies are polluting the rivers, bloated corpses bumping into sewage and debris. If there's an uprising by people who are watching their kids starve to death, the well-fed military will take care of that. Otherwise, it's just kick back in the bunkers of Naypyidaw and wait for those bastards who dared to defy the junta to get their fill of <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Disease_may_up_toll_in_Myanmar_15-fold/articleshow/3034340.cms">cholera</a>. You can ******* well bet there's gonna be a paucity of monks in Burma come summer.<br /><br />Over at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Asia Times</span>, Shawn W. Crispin, no rabid interventionist, <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JE10Ae01.html">makes</a> the case for invading Myanmar. Prodding the United Nations to take action beyond a shaking finger and a strongly worded letter, Crispin says, "In the wake of the cyclone, the criminality of the junta's callous policies has taken on new human proportions in full view of the global community. Without a perceived strong UN-led response to the natural disaster, hard new questions will fast arise about the UN's own relevance and ability to manage global calamities."<br /><br />However, the UN has "limited powers of projection," and Crispin states that the United State would need to lead any armed intervention into Myanmar against the paranoid savages that run the country. And he gives a reacharound to the Bush administration, saying, basically, "You wanna raise the American standing in the world? Kicking the bejesus out of the junta in Yangon in the name of saving the people would go a long way to rebuilding the broken dam of American foreign policy." What, he asks, as well he should, is the price of doing nothing?<br /><br />Indeed, if it is possible, this might be a modified use of the <a href="http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine">shock</a> doctrine to do good - get aid to a population that is being murdered by its own government and getting rid of a thuggish, repressive government in the wake of a massive disaster. Junta are already so nutzoid panicked over possible outsider invasion that the leaders are in hiding. Now, we could say, let's make their worst nightmares come true to prevent genocide. (Update: Anne Applebaum at <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2191196/">Slate</a> also makes the case for intervention.)<br /><br />Except...we can't. "We" being the United States. In the wake of Iraq, we have so lost all moral authority that, even in a situation where the murky rivers of fluid morality clarify, we cannot plausibly say that we have the interests of the people of Myanmar at stake (even if one possible outcome is a Myanmar that might open to U.S. interests). Because we used it all up on the Iraq war, all the chits we had. America can no longer make predictions about what might happen after an invasion because we screwed it all up so very badly by even invading Iraq in the first place. We don't know if it'd be a Bosnia or a Somalia. Bush invaded out of trumped-up fear and weakness. Now, when we're at a situation that's potentially an inexorable Sudan-like death march, we are simply floating bereft on that river of morality, hoping someday we can dock.<br /><br />Also, George Bush has so degraded this nation that we no longer have any leverage with China and Russia, who have gotten the backs of the junta at least in the U.N. and whose approval would be needed for any U.N. effort. In other words, if we piss it off, China ' owns us. And Russia doesn't give a dam about relations with us except in how it can exert more and more power inverse to our degradation. (That's a vast oversimplification of stuff, yes, but it's close enough.)<br /><br />To bottom line it: we can't be trusted. And no one's got our back.<br /><br />And thank gods for the China earthquake so we can move on to talking about another country's dead.<br /><br />How often do we have to stand by and abide madness? In Bush's America, we have reached the point where we have no choice but to smile and wave as parts of the world claw themselves to pieces.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">

Stolen and cleansed, from the rude one

[mary oleary]

How often do we have to stand by and abide madness? In Bush's America, we have reached the point where we have no choice but to smile and wave as parts of the world claw themselves to pieces.

It's astounding that you propose the US invade and usurp a Govt based on a REPORTERS recommendation and in the same breathe castigate Bush for invading Iraq!

I suppose these other countries that "claw themselves to pieces" should blame Bush too?

Myanmar doesn't just hate "bush's america"-the government had also rebuffed teams from China, Bangladesh, Singapore, Thailand and other countries.

[Coldwolf]

It's astounding that you propose the US invade and usurp a Govt based on a REPORTERS recommendation and in the same breathe castigate Bush for invading Iraq!

I suppose these other countries that "claw themselves to pieces" should blame Bush too?

Myanmar doesn't just hate "bush's america"-the government had also rebuffed teams from China, Bangladesh, Singapore, Thailand and other countries.

From [bold] A REPORTER?? [bold] how about the United Nations???

BAN KI-MOON INVITES MEMBER STATES TO MEETING ON HOW TO ADDRESS SITUATION IN MYANMAR

*

The Secretary-General this morning was asked about his recent conversation with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown about Myanmar, and he noted that he has been talking with many leaders on various ideas about the situation in that country following Cyclone Nargis.
*

He said that this afternoon, he has invited representatives of key Member States, including donors and members of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), to a meeting to discuss what kind of concrete measures can be taken to deal with the situation in Myanmar.
*

Even though the Myanmar Government has shown some sense of flexibility, he said, it has been far too short. The magnitude of this situation requires much more mobilization of resources and aid workers.
*

Asked about the Secretary-General’s contacts with the Myanmar leadership, Haq said that the Secretary-General has not been able to contact Senior General Than Shwe by telephone, although he has tried to do so repeatedly. He noted that the Secretary-General on Monday sent a second letter to Than Shwe.

GREATER QUANTITIES OF HUMANITARIAN AID REACHING MYANMAR, BUT MUCH MORE NEEDED

*

On the humanitarian front in Myanmar, Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, who briefed as the guest at today’s noon briefing, said that greater quantities of food and water are arriving in Myanmar, but there is still a long way to ago. He noted that as many as 2.5 million people may be “severely affected” by the cyclone and its aftermath.
*

Local logistic hubs are being set up, Holmes said, but it is difficult to determine how much relief assistance is reaching affected areas. U.N. international staff are not being allowed to travel to the delta, and the hundreds of national staff in that area are “increasingly overstretched”.
*

There are now approximately 100 U.N. international staff in the country, up from 75, and close to 40 new visas have been issued. The U.N., non-governmental organizations, and international donors have succeeded in getting roughly 25 to 30 flights into Yangon, including several earlier today.
*

The World Food Programme (WFP) has now dispatched a total of more than 700 tons of rice, high-energy biscuits and beans -- enough to feed 100,000 people. Today, WFP delivered enough biscuits to feed 82,500 people for a day, as well as enough rice to feed 16,000 people for two weeks, by far the largest daily dispatch to date.
*

Meanwhile, WFP is also trying to get a helicopter into the country so that it can reach people who are inaccessible due to flooded roads. Each helicopter flight would be able to deliver enough biscuits to feed 6,000 people. WFP is also planning to bring in 15 tons of ready-to-eat meals – mostly rice and beans purchased in India – enough to provide 7,000 people with a day’s supply of food.
*

The World Health Organization and UNICEF are resupplying local clinics and distributing tens of thousands of tarpaulins, as well as fresh water and supplies for water treatment.
*

Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization is warning that time is running out to plant rice seeds in June for the main 2008 harvest. FAO notes that each dollar spent on agriculture between now and the end of the year would represent a savings of ten dollars in food aid during 2009. FAO is procuring rice seeds from inside Myanmar, and fertilizers from outside of the country.

[Coldwolf]

So do you see the problem??? there are millions affected, yet the Junta is allowing 100 workers in, and food is arriving for mere thousands. Starvation is around the corner, isn't it?

Thats how to subdue a population that isn't in agreement with the government.