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The real disaster in Burma
Ricky Gervais features in this video showing why "The Real Disaster In Burma is The Government".
In the wake of the devastating Cyclone Nargis that hit Burma on 2 May, more than one million people are homeless, up to 128,000 killed. This natural disaster was turned into a man-made catastrophe by Burma's brutal regime. They blocked international aid and left thousands without food, shelter or medicine. The real disaster in Burma is the government. Ricky Gervais features in this video showing why "The Real Disaster In Burma is The Government". ... more -
A Clip from today's Myanmar Newspaper
My wife is coordinating the relief efforts in Myanmar and her team there just scanned this page from today's newspaper. It's sobering to see how the government is still trying to manipulate its people after they've been through so much. My wife is coordinating the relief efforts in Myanmar and her team there just scanned this page from today's newspaper. It's... more
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May 28: more than half of 2.4 million Myanmar survivors await relief: ADRA expands...
In the Labutta Township, where thousands of displaced families initially sought refuge from low-lying areas after the storm, ADRA is distributing water filtration systems, shelter kits, and has recently begun a project that will provide three water filtration units for 120,000 beneficiaries and shelter tool kits for 1,675. This two-month project, which was funded by OFDA and commenced on May 21, is valued at $400,000.
In partnership with Muslim Aid, ADRA also set up and tested water purification units and provided a water storage bladder for a small displaced persons camp in Myaungmya, providing water for 478 survivors. Muslim Aid has also agreed to donate another eight small water purifications systems for use by ADRA Myanmar. In addition, Mercy Corps Singapore has committed to donating a saltwater purification system and five other purification systems. ADRA has completed an assessment of wells in the Labutta Township. In the Labutta Township, where thousands of displaced families initially sought refuge from low-lying areas after the storm, ADRA is d... more -
Pupils donate money for Burma Crisis
Year 11 pupils from Nelson's Pendle Vale College have helped raise £100 to donate to the needy people of Burma.
The group had initially organised a non-uniform day to raise money to buy equipment to offer a car wash service as part of an enterprise project.Instead, the students decided to donate the money to the Burma Crisis via Muslim Global Relief.
Imran Iqbal, Student Support Co-ordinator at Pendle Vale, said the group worked hard to organise the day and thanked everybody involved. The UN estimates the death toll in the cyclone disaster to be as high as 200,000 while an estimated 2.5 million survivors need immediate aid.
Muslim Global Relief's partners on the ground are providing food parcels as well as clean drinking water. To donate, call MGR on 604055 or go online at www.muslimglobalrelief.com Year 11 pupils from Nelson's Pendle Vale College have helped raise £100 to donate to the needy people of Burma. ... more -
Open up if you want more cyclone aid, Myanmar told
Myanmar was promised millions of dollars in cyclone aid on Sunday, but some Western donor countries said the cash was contingent on the junta keeping its word on letting in foreign aid workers.
"The Myanmar authorities must turn promises into action. The eyes of the world are watching," British development minister Douglas Alexander said after a landmark aid conference in the former Burma, under army rule for the last 46 years.
The United States, which deems the country an "outpost of tyranny", said it was ready to offer more than the $20.5 million of aid sent after the May 2 cyclone that left 134,000 people dead or missing and another 2.4 million destitute.
"However, in order to do so, the government must allow international disaster assistance experts to conduct thorough assessments of the situation," U.S. envoy to southeast Asia Scot Marciel said.
Three weeks after Nargis pounded the Irrawaddy delta, the United Nations says three in four of those most in need have yet to receive any help -- and that hunger and disease could send the death toll soaring if the situation does not change.
The junta, by contrast, says the relief phase of the disaster is already over.
Prime Minister Thein Sein thanked the 500 delegates from 50 countries for the help so far given, and said more would be welcome as long as it came from "genuine goodwill" and "provided that there are no strings attached nor politicization involved".
China and some other Asian countries said it was important to keep aid and politics separate in dealing with a regime that has defied all pressure to loosen its vice-like grip on power. Myanmar was promised millions of dollars in cyclone aid on Sunday, but some Western donor countries said the cash was contingent on th... more -
Myanmar cyclone: Burma 'to let in all foreign aid workers'
Burma's top leader has agreed to let all foreign aid workers into the country for relief work in cyclone-hit areas. UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon made the announcement after meeting with Gen Than Shwe and 10 other junta officials in Burma's capital. Ban was there for what was called "a last-chance effort" to persuade them to accept much-needed aid and relief experts.
About 78,000 people died and 56,000 are missing after the 2 May cyclone. Ban called Gen Than's decision "a breakthrough."
Yesterday, Burma's junta told Ban that the first phase of relief effort is over. Ban took a "carefully managed tour" of the Irrawaddy delta yesterday to see for himself the damage caused by Cyclone Nargis. It was reported that Ban was taken to a well-managed relief camp, known by locals as a "happy camp." The visit was filmed by state run media, depicting scenes that sharply contrasted the reports from international aid agencies on the ground in Burma that the majority of the 2.4 million affected had yet to receive aid.
The international community remains skeptical about the junta's optimism about relief progress in Burma. Ban Ki-moon said he was "very upset" by what he saw during his tour, and encouraged Burmese not to lose their hope and courage. Burma's top leader has agreed to let all foreign aid workers into the country for relief work in cyclone-hit areas. UN secretary ... more -
UN chief pins hope for cyclone victims on day of reckoning with junta
The stakes could not be higher today as Ban Ki Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, flies to South-East Asia in the hope of resolving the crisis over aid to Burma.
Success will open up aid routes to 2.4 million needy victims of Cyclone Nargis, and secure from the Burmese junta the biggest concession that it has made in years of fraught relations with the outside world. Failure will result in personal embarrassment, continuing misery in the Irrawaddy delta and even greater isolation for one of the world’s most isolated countries.
Only a day before his arrival tomorrow in Burma’s former capital, Rangoon, it was still not certain whether he would meet the man with the ultimate decision-making power: Than Shwe, the country’s senior general.
Even if he does, he faces the task of not merely negotiating over a few knotty details, but of reconciling two contradictory views of reality.
On the one hand, foreign aid agencies, including the UN World Food Programme and the International Committee of the Red Cross, regard the Irrawaddy delta as a disaster zone on the verge of a second catastrophe. They believe that about 2.4 million people have lost their homes or livelihoods; many are at the risk of epidemics in unsanitary refugee camps, and the country as a whole faces months of food shortages and destabilising price rises.
To read the state media and utterances of the generals, though, the problems caused by the cyclone are all but overcome. According to the junta’s mouthpiece, the newspaper New Light of Myanmar, the delta region has already sailed through the choppy waters of relief and entered the calm zone of rehabilitation. “Now I have breathed a sigh of relief for the victims,” a commentary in the New Light said yesterday. “All in all we have undertaken a historic task successfully.”
To succeed in his mission Mr Ban must attempt to save the face of the generals while getting into Burma international aid experts capable of seeing the cyclone stricken regions through at least six months of hardship and dependency. He must also contend with a notoriously opaque and stubborn leadership with a history of snubbing the UN, for which it has an ill-disguised contempt.
Since Cyclone Nargis struck on May 2, Mr Ban has made many attempts to speak to Than Shwe by telephone; the general has never been available. Mr Ban’s proposal has been developed over the past few days during visits by ministers and senior officials from Britain, the EU, Japan and the UN, and at a regional meeting on Monday.
According to the plan, the Association of South-East Nations (Asean), of which Burma is a member, will provide a framework for an aid mission, together with the UN. Led by fellow Asians, with whom the junta feels more comfortable, it will allow Western experts access to the stricken region which they are presently denied.
Optimists have several reasons for believing that the regime is making an effort to show a more acceptable face to the world and that there is hope of a compromise.
After two weeks of silence and invisibility, General Than Shwe has begun visiting the disaster zone, apparently in emulation of China’s President, Hu Jintao, after the Chinese earthquake.
Foreign governments, including Britain, are making an effort to curb their angrier sentiments about the junta’s indifference to its people: Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, who visited Rangoon at the weekend, was far more measured in his judgments than Gordon Brown had been the day before. The stakes could not be higher today as Ban Ki Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, flies to South-East Asia in the hope of res... more -
Official: No World Bank aid for Myanmar
As Myanmar began a three-day mourning period Tuesday, the World Bank reiterated that it cannot provide financial assistance or loans to the cyclone-ravaged country because of unpaid debts.
"Basically the situation is the same as for the past decade," said spokesman Peter Stephens. "Myanmar has been in arrears since 1998 and legally we cannot lend to a country in arrears."
The news came as farmers and aid groups warned of a future food crisis after the cyclone destroyed swathes of fertile rice-growing land.
Farmer U Han Nyunt told CNN shortages were likely because productive land and seeds had been ruined.
"We are all going to die here," Nyunt said. "But not because of the cyclone. We will die because we have no food."
However, there was cause for fresh hope Monday after the military junta which rules Myanmar decided to accept aid from its neighboring countries. It followed an emergency meeting in Singapore of the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
In addition, the World Bank said while it could not provide financial assistance, it had promised to assist ASEAN with disaster assessment and relief work in the country.
Stephens said the World Bank would assist ASEAN by teaming up with officials who had experience in reconstruction efforts from the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia's Banda Aceh.
"The World Bank's role normally only comes in later, during reconstruction anyway," Stephens said. "At this stage, the relief coordination is very much in the hands of the U.N.," led by ASEAN. As Myanmar began a three-day mourning period Tuesday, the World Bank reiterated that it cannot provide financial assistance or loans t... more -
What a Disaster
A cyclone wallops Myanmar or Burma or whatever the hell else they're calling themselves these days and close on its heels, an earthquake rattles the fillings from a quintillion Chinese teeth. Both are totalitarian regimes, neither has a long history of doing much for their people as they float away of get crushed under rubble. A cyclone wallops Myanmar or Burma or whatever the hell else they're calling themselves these days and close on its heels, an ear... more
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U.N. Chief to Visit Cyclone-Devastated Burma
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will fly to Burma this week and visit the areas hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis, a U.N. spokeswoman said Sunday.
Burma's military government has given permission for the U.N. chief to travel to the Irrawaddy delta, where U.N. officials fear tens of thousands of cyclone survivors are not getting adequate aid, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said.
Ban sent U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes to Burma, as called Burma over the weekend to assess the needs of the survivors and urge the isolationist junta to open its doors to more international aid.
The military junta has not allowed most international relief workers into the devastated region.
Burma's military leader, Senior General Than Shwe, has refused to take the secretary-general's phone calls or answer two letters sent urging that international relief teams be allowed in quickly to provide relief.
At least 78,000 people were killed in the May 2-3 storm and another 56,000 are missing.
Ban will leave New York on Tuesday and is scheduled to arrive in Burma's commercial capital, Rangoon, on Wednesday, Montas said.
"He will go to the areas most affected by the cyclone," she said.
The secretary-general will leave Burma on May 23 and stop in Bangkok, Thailand, on his way back to New York, she said. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will fly to Burma this week and visit the areas hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis, a U.N. spokeswoman said S... more -
Burma to allow in foreign medics
Foreign medical workers are to be allowed into cyclone-stricken Burma to help bring aid to millions of victims.
At a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo confirmed agreement had been reached, saying: "Myanmar will accept international assistance".
The development comes ahead of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon's visit to the country later this week to discuss aid for the millions displaced by Cyclone Nargis.
Mr Ban's trip is expected to culminate in a rare meeting with junta supremo Than Shwe, who has refused to answer phone calls from the UN since Nargis struck two weeks ago, leaving 134,000 dead and missing and up to 2.5 million destitute.
The UN also wants a conference in Bangkok on May 24 to talk about funds for the relief effort in Burma, also known as Myanmar, where the military government has so far refused to admit large-scale foreign aid for fear it will loosen its 46-year grip on power.
Humanitarian agencies say the death toll from Nargis, already one of the most devastating cyclones to hit Asia, could soar without a massive increase of emergency food, shelter and medicine to the worst-hit region, the Irrawaddy Delta.
Save the Children said research found "30,000 children under the age of five in the cyclone-affected Irrawaddy Delta were already acutely malnourished before the cyclone hit".
It said: "Of those, Save the Children believes that several thousand are at risk of death in the next two to three weeks because of a lack of food." Foreign medical workers are to be allowed into cyclone-stricken Burma to help bring aid to millions of victims. ... more -
ASEAN to coordinate Myanmar aid effort
Southeast Asian nations will take the lead in an international aid effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, but the military junta will not give Western relief workers unfettered access to disaster areas, Singapore said on Monday.
"We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all over the world can flow into Myanmar," Foreign Minister George Yeo said.
He was speaking after hosting a regional meeting to prod the generals to accept large-scale foreign aid and expertise for up to 2.4 million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis.
The details were to be worked out with the United Nations, which announced later on Monday that a donor conference would be held in the cyclone-hit former capital, Yangon, on May 25.
Myanmar agreed to accept nearly 300 medical personnel from its neighbors in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the foreign ministers said in a statement.
A few have already sent teams two weeks after the disaster which left 134,000 dead or missing. But aid workers from outside ASEAN will only be granted visas on a case-by-case basis.
"We have to look at specific needs -- there will not be uncontrolled access," Yeo said after the meeting which named ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan to work with the United Nations on aid delivery.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will visit Myanmar on Wednesday, when he plans to visit the country's Irrawaddy delta area which was hit hardest by Nargis, his spokeswoman Michele Montas told reporters. Southeast Asian nations will take the lead in an international aid effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, but the military junta will not giv... more -
Myanmar praises Muslim Aid efforts
The country which is reluctant in accepting foreign aid has praised Muslim aid for its relief in the cyclon-hit country. Myanmar Ambassador U Tin Oo thanked Pakistan and its people for their help.
Wahidi briefed the ambassador on relief activities of Muslim Aid. He said 250 families had been provided food by his organisation and they were imparting training to people for water purification.
Earlier this week Islam channel (sky ch 813) appealed for money to help relif efforts in Myanmar, using presenters such as Yusuf Chambers who regularly appears on the Islamic channel Peace Tv (sky ch 823). The country which is reluctant in accepting foreign aid has praised Muslim aid for its relief in the cyclon-hit country. Myanmar Ambas... more -
'No access' to Burma cyclone zone
Burma's junta has tightened access to areas hit by Cyclone Nargis, despite pleas to allow in foreign aid workers.
A UN official says the regime has erected more checkpoints to ensure foreigners cannot reach affected areas.
The latest official figures put the death toll at almost 38,500 with 27,838 more missing, state radio said.
The UN says up to 2.5m people need urgent aid and has called a meeting of regional and donor nations to discuss "all options" on aid.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday's meeting of donors and the Association of South-East Asian Nations would discuss the "mobilisation of resources and aid workers".
He "regretted" the UN had spent much of its time arranging rather than delivering help.
"Even though the [Burmese] government has shown some sense of flexibility, at this time it's far, far too short," he said.
Meanwhile, forecasters say another cyclone is forming off Burma's coast.
The Hawaii-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center said on its website that "a significant tropical cyclone" could develop in the next 24 hours.
Dire warnings
Aid agencies are warning that the ruling generals' refusal to sanction a major international relief effort will cause more deaths.
Chris Kaye, the Burma director for the UN's World Food Programme, said the generals were trying to ensure no foreigners were allowed into the affected areas by beefing up security on checkpoints.
"There is absolutely no progress in getting foreign experts out into the field," he said.
Aid agencies fear the death toll could be far higher than official estimates.
The Red Cross said it had studied figures from 22 organisations and warned the toll could be as high as 128,000.
UN humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes said the organisation had revised up its estimate of 1.5m people "severely affected" by the cyclone to between 1.6m and 2.5m.
Thai leader Samak Sundaravej held talks with the junta, but failed to broker a deal on access for foreigners.
Mr Samak flew to Rangoon for talks with Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein, aimed at persuading the junta to allow more foreign aid workers access. Burma's junta has tightened access to areas hit by Cyclone Nargis, despite pleas to allow in foreign aid workers. ... more -
Aid Groups Say Myanmar Food Stolen by Military
The directors of several relief organizations in Myanmar said Wednesday that some of the international aid arriving into the country for the victims of Cyclone Nargis was being stolen, diverted or warehoused by the country’s army.
The United States military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there was a possibility that “a significant tropical cyclone” — a second big storm — would form within the next 24 hours and head across the Irrawaddy Delta, the region that suffered most from the first storm that struck on May 3.
In Yangon, the main commercial city, winds were already beginning to whip up Wednesday evening, but it was unclear how strong the storm would become.
Thailand’s prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, flew to Yangon on Wednesday to persuade Myanmar’s leaders to allow more foreign aid workers into the country. The members of the military junta told him they were in control of the relief operations and had no need for foreign experts, he told reporters after returning to Bangkok, The Associated Press reported.
The government said there were no outbreaks of disease or starvation among the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the cyclone. In Yangon, Mr. Sundaravej met the prime minister, Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, The A.P. said.
The aid directors in Myanmar declined to be quoted directly on their concerns about the stolen relief supplies for fear of angering the ruling junta and jeopardizing their operations, although Marcel Wagner, country director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, confirmed that aid was being diverted by the army. He said the issue would become an increasing problem, although he declined to give further details because of the sensitivity of the situation.
International aid shipments continued to arrive Wednesday, including five new air deliveries of relief supplies from the United States. Western diplomats said their representatives at the airport were making sure the cargo was unloaded efficiently and then trucked to staging areas.
The fate of the supplies after that, however, remained unknown, because the junta has barred all foreigners, including credentialed diplomats and aid workers, from accompanying any donated aid, tracking its distribution or following up on its delivery. The directors of several relief organizations in Myanmar said Wednesday that some of the international aid arriving into the country f... more -
UN calls for Burma aid corridor
The United Nations has called for an air or sea corridor to be opened to channel large amounts of aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in Burma.
A spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian agency in Geneva said there was a risk of a second catastrophe unless a massive operation was put in place.
The UN has only been able to reach between a fifth and a quarter of the estimated 1.5 million people in need.
Burma's military leaders oppose the entry of foreign aid workers.
Vice-Admiral Soe Thein, of the country's military leadership, said it was grateful for the aid shipment from the United States which arrived on Monday, but insisted that so far there was no need for aid workers.
The US has said it hopes to send in two more transport aircraft carrying aid later on Tuesday. Two lorries carrying relief supplies overland have also now arrived in Rangoon.
Aid workers have complained that much of the aid delivered over the past week has not reached those who need it, because the Burmese military insists on controlling most of the distribution - despite lacking the equipment and expertise to do it well.
They describe delivering supplies in the Irrawaddy Delta with dugout canoes, and say they are badly overstretched.
'Immense frustration'
The BBC's South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head says that much of the aid which has arrived in the country has sat at the airport for days.
He adds that after more heavy rain, the survivors are living in wretched conditions, and the fear of a further wave of deaths from disease is a real one. The United Nations has called for an air or sea corridor to be opened to channel large amounts of aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis... more -
Agency: Junta holding back best cyclone aid
The United States has sent more aid to cyclone-devastated Myanmar amid allegations that the ruling military junta is keeping the best foreign supplies for itself and doling out rotting food.
Two U.S. military cargo planes flew from Thailand to Myanmar on Tuesday to deliver water, blankets, plastic sheets, mosquito nets and other relief supplies, the military said. Together with a third flight that arrived on Monday, the planes carried 70,000 lbs. of supplies.
The U.S. has offered an additional $13 million in aid to Myanmar, bring its total contribution to $16.25 million, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
However, the United Nations said the World Food Program was getting in only 20 percent of the food needed following the May 3 cyclone because of logistics problems and government restrictions, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
"There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't picked up pace," spokesman Richard Horsey told AP.
The United Nations estimates that between 63,000 and 100,000 people have died as a result of Cyclone Nargis, while 2 million are said to be homeless -- taking refuge in Buddhist monasteries or camping in the open. The United States has sent more aid to cyclone-devastated Myanmar amid allegations that the ruling military junta is keeping the best ... more -
Rain lashes Myanmar cyclone survivors
Heavy rains pelted homeless cyclone survivors in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Tuesday, complicating already slow delivery of aid to more than 1.5 million people facing hunger and disease.
As more foreign aid trickled into the former Burma, critics ratcheted up the pressure on its military rulers to accelerate a relief effort that is only delivering an estimated one-tenth of the supplies needed in the devastated delta.
"The response of the regime in Burma to this crisis has been absolutely callous and those paying the price of this callousness have been the long-suffering Burmese people," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament.
An Australian air force plane landed in Yangon, Myanmar's main city, with 31 tonnes of emergency supplies, a day after the first U.S. military aid flight arrived in a country Washington has described as an "outpost of tyranny."
Two more U.S. flights were due on Tuesday as part of a "confidence building" effort to prod Myanmar's reclusive generals into allowing a larger international relief operation 11 days after the disaster left up to 100,000 dead or missing.
Tens of thousands of people throughout the delta are crammed into monasteries, schools and other buildings after arriving in towns that were on the breadline even before the disaster.
Lacking food, water and sanitation, they face the threat of killer diseases such as cholera. Heavy rains added to the misery of survivors with little shelter.
"Where I am now there's over 10,000 homeless people and it's pouring rain," Bridget Gardener of the International Red Cross said during a rare tour of the delta by a foreign aid official. Heavy rains pelted homeless cyclone survivors in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Tuesday, complicating already slow delivery of aid ... more -
First account from Haing Gyi Island: A 'graveyard' after cyclone
The first visitors arrived after midnight on May 4 by boat and found an empty village with no electricity, destroyed buildings and ships 500 yards from the river.
"It was like a graveyard," one of the witnesses said, according to a man on the boat.
The man, interviewed Monday by telephone in Rangoon, provided the first account to come out yet from the remote island.
Haing Gyi is at the mouth of a branch of the Irrawaddy River in the extreme southwest of the delta. The storm first struck about midnight Friday, according to survivors.
At first, residents weren't scared because they are used to storms that bring wind speeds between 40 and 80 miles an hour. But this storm was different.
"The wind was very strong. People were crawling" because they couldn't stand up, said the man.
Two hours later, the storm surge came, with floods ranging from 3 feet to 3 meters. "After the water came in, they couldn't crawl," the man said.
Some of the elderly and babies were washed away, while others tried to swim to safety, witnesses told the man. Villagers ran up a small hill on the island to escape the water.
The man estimated that 25 percent, or more than 300, of the island's population perished. But there were no bodies – they all washed away.
The military delivered aid, according to the man, including four milk cans of rice for each family and one longyi and one shirt for each family. But no private donations or aid groups had arrived.
About 80 percent of the fishing boats were destroyed, according to one boat owner
and one fish merchant.
Many of the big trees, some of them a century old, fell down. Wells were contaminated with salty water.
"An 80-year-old woman said it was the worst storm she had ever seen," the man said.
About 90 percent of the villagers depend on the fishing industry. "There's no more fishing boats," the man said. "They don't know what to do."
"They need more help," he added. The first visitors arrived after midnight on May 4 by boat and found an empty village with no electricity, destroyed buildings and shi... more
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Burma Crisis
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Burma Crisis
