UK

Internal documents claim Labour has failed the UK on crime.

Brown is being told to drop his Scots.

That could become a key issue.

Brown's problems right now seem everywhere.

US

The DNC is closing its meetings on the delegates from Florida and Michigan with half votes for each (overall favours Obama). Democrats have quite rightly been contesting the whole deal.

Hillary's reserving her right to protest.

Some Clinton supports still say they would vote for McCain if Obama gets the nomination... Matthew Yglesias discusses the flaws in this foolish plan.

I mean, let's just consider his views on abortion and planned policies regarding the issue.

Should Hillary be considering her problems in Puerto Rico.

Then, there is a fair bit of anger on her treatment in this campaign.

Maybe it's sexism that's beaten Hillary, not Obama.

Lanny Davis still thinks there is an argument for her nomination.

Lincoln Mitchell writes in praise of her campaign.

Obama has quit Jeremiah Wright's church.

What message does this send?

He's been having a few problems over his comments on Iran.

But forget all that Republican attacking, who will his running mate be?

Jeff Goldberg interviews McCain in The Atlantic.

How bigger problem will McClellan be for him.

MoveOn is campaigning for him to drop Charlie Black, his chief adviser.

Obama says McCain should apologise over his surge comments.

Why is no one talking about the military budget.

World

David Cameron suggests what actions should be taken on the military junta in Myanmar preventing aid.

The Junta is defending its actions, claiming it issued warnings about the cyclone and is providing aid.

But aid workers still can't reach the hard-hit delta.

The death of a senior Al Qaeda leader could be the writing on the wall for the group.

Robert Fisk though, isn't so sure on that.

Lawrence Wright has an extensive piece on the internal troubles plaguing the organisation.

Another day, another outrage, another reason for war.

From the BBC on May 30, 2008, there are reports from Myanmar indicating:

Burma's military government had begun to evict homeless families from some government-run emergency camps.

It has given them bamboo poles and tarpaulins and told them to go and rebuild their lives, say reports.

An estimated 2.4m people remain homeless and hungry following Cyclone Nargis, which struck on 2 May.

From the Guardian on May 30, 2008:

The UN says only 41% of the 2.4 million people affected by the cyclone have had any help, partly because of the Burmese regime's exclusion of international aid workers.

From YouTube, "The Prime Directive debate"

update:  From MSNBC on June 1, 2008:

"Due to the prompt work" of the military government, food, water and medicine was provided to all victims, [Deputy Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Aye Myint] said.

"I believe the resettlement and rehabilitation process will be speedy," he added.

He spoke a day after human rights and aid groups criticized Myanmar for kicking cyclone survivors out of shelters and sending them back to their devastated villages.

... Aye Myint reiterated the junta's official stance of welcoming international aid.

"We would warmly welcome any assistance and aid which are provided with genuine goodwill from any country or organizations provided there are no strings attached," he said.

Shortly after the cyclone struck, the U.S., France and Britain sent warships loaded with relief supplies, but the Myanmar regime has refused to let them land, apparently fearing a foreign invasion.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday in Singapore he will make a decision within "a matter of days" to withdraw the U.S. Navy ships from the coast of Myanmar, because "it's becoming pretty clear the regime is not going to let us help."

As a result, he said many more people will die, particularly those in areas that can only be reached by helicopters.

Gates on Saturday called Myanmar's rulers "deaf and dumb" over their refusal to accept outside help. He said Myanmar's rulers "have kept their hands in their pockets" while other countries sought to help cyclone victims.

Previous Posts:

The Invasion of Burma

The Battle for Burma

Going to War with Burma

can begin now. From the BBC on May 20, 2008:

The UK National Health Service emergency medicine consultant says 5,000 sq km (1,900 sq miles) of land in the region remain under water.

but via M&C, by way of Slog on May 22, 2008:

Bangkok - Myanmar's junta claims the relief phase of an emergency programme for Cyclone Nargis is over...

... While international aid agencies claim to have only reached 25 per cent of the affected population, Myanmar's junta is already claiming that the 'rescue and relief' stage of the operation is completed ...

From the BBC on May 23, 2008:

... in a meeting earlier with Burma's Prime Minister Thein Sein, [U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon] was told that the relief phase of the aid operation was over and that the government was now focusing on reconstruction, a UN official said.

Mr Ban told the prime minister that the disaster was beyond Burma's ability to handle on its own and that foreign aid experts should be rushed in.

At this point, the Burma junta won't even pretend to respond to the ongoing disaster and has apparently given up on trying to appease the international community with fake photo-ops and staged distributions of limited and insufficient aid. They have announced that they are leaving a large segment of their population without clean drinking water, without shelter, without food and without medical attention. They are ending relief efforts while the country remains in crisis and still has huge areas under water.

There is something terribly wrong with our international community if it cannot take decisive action to stop this government-engineered genocide of what could ultimately be hundreds of thousands of people. The BBC has previously reported that up to 2.5 million people remain at risk due to the cyclone, so a fear of hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths may be an exercise in optimism.

From the Associated Press on May 22, 2008:

In some areas, the flooding stretched as far as the eye could see, with people living in damaged homes that looked completely cut off.

So far, no one at the U.N. has ventured an estimate of how long the delta is expected to remain submerged. But on Thursday, [U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon] said he expected the relief operations to be needed for at least six months.

... "Don't just talk, you must take action," said Eain Daw Bar Tha, abbot of a Buddhist monastery on Yangon's outskirts. "The U.N. must directly help the people with helicopters to bring food, clothes and clean water to the really damaged places."

update: From the International Herald Tribune on May 25, 2008:

In village after village of the Irrawaddy Delta in southern Myanmar, people line the roads.

... When an occasional car carrying donations approaches, children swarm toward it holding out their hands. Mothers hugging babies, too ashamed or shocked to ask for help, just stare into the eyes of any visitors. Fathers and grandmothers stand by, watching the scene with eyes filled with humiliation.

... Of the nearly two dozen people interviewed this past weekend along the roads, all said they got little, if any, relief from their government. All said they did not expect any because they are not used to that kind of help from the junta. Few have heard about foreign aid flowing in. None have seen any.

... With the government offering little help, private citizens from big cities like Yangon ply the roads with urgently needed supplies.

... The storm survivors on the roads, not used to begging, simply accepted donations with a faint smile or no display of emotion. No looting or rioting was seen or reported. The most aggressive behavior displayed came from children, who stuck their hands into the windows of passing cars. Most just silently waited for any help to come their way.

[emphasis added]

Previous Posts:

The Battle for Burma

Going to War with Burma

While the current scope of government-facilitated death and destruction fails to move the world to further action than what the Burma junta permits, the situation is predicted as about to change dramatically for the worse.

From the Guardian on May 14, 2008:

Weather experts said there was a good chance the tropical depression in the Bay of Bengal could develop into a "significant" cyclone within the next 24 hours.

There is no doubt at this point that Burma is contributing the scope of the crisis:

Gordon Brown today described the crisis as having touched "the whole conscience of the world".

He said that, while more relief planes had been allowed into the country, the situation was still "not good enough".

"A natural disaster in Burma, by the actions of a despicable regime, has been turned into a ... manmade catastrophe," he said.

China is currently responding to its own natural disaster, demonstrating what a military can do to reach survivors in devastated areas.

From the Associated Press on May 13, 2008:

Soldiers hiking over landslide-blocked roads reached the epicenter of China's devastating earthquake Tuesday, pulling bodies and a few survivors from collapsed buildings.

China has been a major responder to the Burma crisis, but now it sounds like it can hardly handle the destruction caused by its recent earthquake.

From The Telegraph on May 14, 2008:

Today China poured 50,000 troops into Sichuan in an attempt to find any remaining survivors of the earthquake among the mud, rubble and tangled buildings.

But they had to battle to get through landslides which had cut off Wenchuan county, and poor weather conditions continued to hamper aid efforts.

The situation in China makes it clear that military involvement in humanitarian assistance for disasters of this magnitude is necessary:

Trucks were beginning to travel up the main roads carrying boxes of noodles and biscuits, only to be stormed by desperate crowds. “They had better set up a distribution system, or we will be stealing what we can,” said one man.

Reports from the ground in Burma suggest the situation is far worse than it may appear in the news. Via Slog, this is part of an email from a witness in the area:

[A co-worker] decided to go check on the family of a close family friend in one of the villages seriously hit by the cyclone. His own supplies were limited, but he wanted to take things to share with the victims of the storm. He gathered together some bottled water, a bag of rice and an old quilt that his family was no longer using.

When he reached his destination he started looking for his friend. He came upon an old woman shivering. He reached the quilt and offered it to her. She shook her head and said, “No, thank you.”

Quite perplexed the man pushed the quilt toward her and said, “Auntie (a local term of endearment), you are shivering. You need this blanket more than I do, please take it.” Again, the old woman shook her head refusing his offer.

Totally confused the man asked her why. She said, “Two days after the storm the men in uniforms came to our village with blankets, food and water. We accepted their gifts and posed for their cameras. When they were done taking pictures they took back the food, the water, and the blankets and drove away. I do not think that I can face such disappointment again.”

update: Wonkette offers a concise summary of recent events:

Chinese officials respond swiftly to the earthquake that has killed at least 15,000 people. International aid is flowing in; they have scaled back a domestic leg of the Olympic torch relay; and in general they are not acting like complete buffoons. [Washington Post]

In contrast, every day in Burma brings a fresh outrage. Military rulers have allowed in 160 international aid workers from neighboring countries to address a calamity that displaced 1.5 million people and left 100,000 dead or missing. [Washington Post]

update: From the BBC on May 14, 2008:

The UN has sharply increased its estimate of those severely affected by Burma's cyclone to 2.5m people.

The figure was revised up from the 1.5m previously thought to be in need, following the storm 12 days ago.

update: From the BBC on May 15, 2008:

The [Burma] regime is stopping most foreign aid workers already there from leaving Rangoon to go to affected areas.

More than 10 days after Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta, the BBC's Natalia Antelava, who reached the area, says it is still completely cut off from the outside world and there is little evidence of things getting better.

She says soldiers were blocking the roads but fishermen took her to affected areas by boat. One said he wanted the world to know what was happening.

... Burma insisted again on Thursday it was capable of coping with the crisis.

The state media New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the people "will not rely too much on international assistance and will reconstruct the nation on a self-reliance basis".

update: from the BBC on May 16, 2008:

On a trip to the Delta this week, the BBC's Natalia Antelava saw muddy river banks lined with white, swollen bodies, and found survivors with barely enough rice to live on.

A Reuters team travelling to Kunyangon, around 100km (60 miles) south-west of Rangoon, found rows of beggars stretching for miles on either side of a road.

Men, women and children stood in the mud and rain, hands clasped together in supplication at the occasional passing aid vehicle.

update: from the Associated Press on May 17, 2008:

... a French navy ship that arrived Saturday off Myanmar's shores loaded with food, medication and fresh water was given the now familiar red light, a response that France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called "nonsense."

"We have small boats which could allow us to go through the delta to most of the regions where no one has accessed yet," he said a day earlier at U.N. headquarters. "We have small helicopters to drop food, and we have doctors."

The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and its battle group have been waiting to join in the relief effort as well. U.S. Marine flights from their makeshift headquarters in Utapao, Thailand, continued Saturday - bringing the total to 500,000 pounds of aid delivered - but negotiations to allow helicopters to fly directly to the disaster zone were stalled.

... Britain's Ministry of Defense said it had dispatched a Royal Navy frigate to the area "as a contingency." The HMS Westminster broke away from an exercise with the French and Indian navies, a ministry spokesman said, speaking anonymously in line with military policy.

from the BBC on May 19, 2008:

Security has been stepped up around the Rangoon [area] in recent days - the aim to keep foreigners away from the Irrawaddy Delta, devastated by the cyclone.

... News had reached the city of the foreign warships just off the coast, packed with aid supplies, waiting for permission from Burma's rulers to come in.

"They want to help me but our government tells them to keep out," said the man.

"I am so sorry to hear that. I think they must come to our country by international law, by force."

... roadblocks and checkpoints cannot stop information getting out of the delta to Burma's people.

We bought a DVD on a street corner in Rangoon, footage filmed on camcorders by ordinary citizens.

update: from the Associated Press on May 20, 2008:

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar slowly relented to international pressure to accept more outside help, but state media said Wednesday that the government will not allow U.S. warships and helicopters poised off its shores to deliver aid to cyclone victims.

... Myanmar's xenophobic leaders have long feared an invasion by the United States, moving their capital to a remote area of central Myanmar equipped with bunkers.

update: from the BBC on May 20, 2008:

The UK National Health Service emergency medicine consultant says 5,000 sq km (1,900 sq miles) of land in the region remain under water.

updates continue at:

The Invasion of Burma

It is a heady consequence of the Bush doctrine of preemptive warfare that it even feels tangible to think about invading a country like Burma, so I proceed with caution here. Ultimately, my point is similar to what lestro said, after finding the satellite images of the original coastline and the new shape of the country:

Why can't we use the military to deliver aid the same way we do death?

Why is it we only need to be allowed in to help but it’s ok to just go in when we want to destroy something?

Click on the picture to toggle between the two images, via the Washington Post:

Is this not a weapon of mass destruction? Is this not genocide?

The BBC reports:

The UN says planes carrying vital food supplies cannot enter because they still do not have permission to land.

... the Burmese government has spurned some offers of aid, such as one from the US to deploy navy ships, and many foreign aid workers are being held in a queue for visas.

... it is clear that the resources of the Burmese government are nowhere near adequate to address a disaster of this magnitude.

This Associate Press article from May 8, 2008 stirs a notion that the country needs to be invaded by air to drop supplies in places that need them:

Someone had written on a black asphalt road in Kongyangon village: "We are all in trouble. Please come help us." A few feet away, the desperate plea, "We're hungry."

But Britain and France are apparently already arguing the subject, according to the BBC:

Threatening to air-drop aid into Burma without permission is “incendiary”, UK International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander has said.

“The danger of going down this route … is you could have military action happening which would stop help getting to people,” he said.

Victims would also be put in a difficult position when accepting foreign aid when their own government had not permitted it, he added.

Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said air drops were a “possibility” because of the scale of the disaster, but were not the most efficient way of distributing supplies.

“I don’t think we have any legal right to impose it - we might have a moral obligation.

“But I don’t believe we could give effect to that moral obligation for this reason - Burma is essentially a state run by the generals with an extremely powerful army.

“Any effort to impose humanitarian aid might well be the subject of resistance which would have the effect of damaging yet more of the people of that blighted country.”

… France argues air drops without permission could be allowed under a UN “responsibility to protect” mandate and it wants to raise the crisis in Burma at the UN Security Council.

In the meantime, while we wait to decide what to do:

THE death toll in cyclone-ravaged Burma could hit 500,000 – more than TWICE the total killed by the Boxing Day Tsunami.

Last night’s warning came as it emerged that 17 Britons, including ex-pats and backpackers, were still missing.

Sources said 200,000 people were already dead or dying.

But the figure could rise to HALF A MILLION through disease and hunger if the nation’s hardline army rulers continue to block aid for the devastated lowlands of the Irrawaddy Delta.

update: Via MSNBC on May 8, 2008, the position of the United States:

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday the U.S. military was moving forward with plans to mount a relief mission in Myanmar, but he said he could not imagine air dropping aid without permission from the Asian nation's government.

His comments followed those earlier Thursday by Ky Luu, the director of the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, that an air drop was one of the options being considered with the delay by Myanmar's junta in accepting assistance from the United States.

... "I cannot image us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government," Gates said at a Pentagon news conference with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, the top ranking U.S. military officer.

Asked if it would not be helpful to victims for the U.S. to drop supplies, Mullen said: "We could. Typically, though, it's sovereign airspace and you'd need their permission to fly in that airspace."

"It's all tied to sovereignty, which we respect whether it's on the ground or in the air," Mullen said.

... Officials said there were several problems with air drops into an unpermissive environment, especially if there are no experts on the ground to monitor the distribution of aid. Desperate people could riot over the assistance and there is the possibility that security forces might confiscate it and keep it out of the hands of the needy, they said.

update: Fox News reports on May 9, 2008:

"All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said. "For the time being, we have no choice but to end further efforts to bring critical needed food aid into Myanmar at this time."

... Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesman said the military junta that governs Myanmar has agreed to allow a single U.S. cargo aircraft to bring in relief supplies for victims of a cyclone.

... Three Red Cross aid flights loaded with shelter kits and other emergency supplies landed in Myanmar Friday without incident."We are not experiencing any problems getting in (unlike) the United Nations," Danish Red Cross spokesman Hans Beck Gregersen said.

It is not clear how much of the aid has been delivered to the victims in the Irrawaddy delta.

"Believe me, the government will not allow outsiders to go into the devastated area," said Yangon food shop owner Joseph Kyaw.

"The government only cares about its own stability. They don't care about the plight of the people," he said.

One relief flight was sent back after landing in Yangon on Thursday because it carried a search-and-rescue team and media representatives who had not received permission to enter the country, the junta said. It did not give details, but said the plane had flown in from Qatar.

... France was sending a navy ship loaded with 1,500 tons of humanitarian aid to Myanmar, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said Friday.Private donations also were flowing to aid organizations, including a luxury river cruise liner donated by a British travel company to transport relief and 25,000 shoes sent by a U.S.-based group.

But Myanmar has snubbed a U.S. offer to help, refusing to take advantage of Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

update: via the BBC on May 10, 2008:

A constitutional referendum has been held in Burma despite calls from the outside world for a postponement after last week's devastating cyclone.

... Groups involved in last year's pro-democracy protests accused the junta of concentrating on a "sham constitutional referendum" instead of "putting all resources toward saving the lives" of cyclone victims.

... On Friday [U.N.] Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned of "catastrophic" consequences if Burma continues to ban most foreign aid workers from its cyclone relief work.

Mr Ban also says he has not been able to get through to Burma's leaders to speak to them directly.

... Two BBC correspondents who have travelled to the Irrawaddy delta say tens of thousands of bodies are strewn across the landscape, with houses toppled and trees uprooted.

They say diseases like dysentery are already starting to take hold, and although some aid has arrived there is still no relief effort to match the size of the catastrophe.

update: from The Independent on May 11, 2008:

... Burma is an entire nation crying for help.

... yesterday, despite more than 100,000 deaths from the cyclone, despite the warnings of aid agencies that disease has already broken out among the survivors, the brutal, deluded generals who run the country insisted on holding a meaningless referendum on a constitution that will entrench their power.

... one aid worker told the Associated Press: "The government wants total control of the situation, although they can't provide much and they have no experience in relief efforts. We have to report to them every step of the way, every decision we make. Their eyes are everywhere, monitoring what we do, who we talk to, what we bring in and how much."

... Supplies of water, food and sanitation equipment were hopelessly inadequate, others added. "This is the second disaster," said Greg Beck of the International Rescue Committee. "First was the cyclone and the surge of water, the second will come if there is no access to food, water and shelter. They will start dying." The WFP said it had never seen such delays in dealing with a modern humanitarian crisis, and described the official response as "unprecedented".

Oxfam warned yesterday that 1.5 million people could die needlessly unless the military junta allowed immediate access to those stranded without food, clean water or medicines.

update: Time reports in an article entitled "Is it time to invade Burma?" on May 10, 2008:

"We're in 2008, not 1908," says Jan Egeland, the former U.N. emergency relief coordinator. "A lot is at stake here. If we let them get away with murder we may set a very dangerous precedent."

and that we've imposed humanitarian assistance in the past:

the U.S. has facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid without the host government's consent in places like Bosnia and Sudan.

yet:

The cold truth is that states rarely undertake military action unless their national interests are at stake; and the world has yet to reach a consensus about when, and under what circumstances, coercive interventions in the name of averting humanitarian disasters are permissible.

--------------

Related Posts:

The Battle for Burma

Photos of the Day: Red for Burma

"Photos of the Day: Red for Burma." Photographs supporting the Burma Monk demonstrations, and which document the Burma Junta violent attacks upon the demonstrators. High-resolution photographs, video and a video photo-gallery are presented here for you.

[tags: Photos of the Day, Red for Burma, photographs, Burma Monk demonstrations, gallery, videeo]

Photo of the Day: Chickies

"Photo of the Day: Chickies." Chicks, babes, hot babes, hot chicks? Well, you'll just have to take a look and find out. This is a beautiful photograph, presented here for you in stunning high-resolution.

[tags: Photo of the Day, Photograph of the Day, Chickies, chicks, photograph, photography, New York City]

See the Rest of My Articles at Blue Dot

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[video 1803 w=500]

Images of Religious Life in Burma

[video 1741 w=500]

Video Photo-Gallery: Burma Monk Demonstrations

Burma Junta Kills Japanese Reporter (Video from Japan)

(Caution: Disturbing Video Footage)

The Burma Junta: Ethnic Cleansing in East Burma

For interested readers, Andrew Sullivan has made a number of posts about recent events in Burma in The Atlantic Magazine.

And The Associated Press has filed recent reports about developments regarding the demonstrations.

The Guardian (U.K.) is also reporting on the Burma demonstrations.

One exiled blogger in particular, Ko Htike, said to be a student in London, has attracted intense interest and received many photographs and eye-witness accounts that he posts on his site, www.ko-htike.blogspot.com.

Recent reporting from the BBC.

Technorati: Photo of the Day, Photos of the Day, Photograph of the Day, Photographs of the Day, Red for Burma, Burma, Burma Monks, Burma Monk Dmonstrations, Burma Junta, Burma Junta attacks monks, Japanese reporter killed, culture, cultural, social, society, politics, political, war, wars, holocaust, picture, pictures, image, images, photograph, photographs, photography, gallery, slideshow, photo-gallery, video, video photo-gallery, news, world, world news, blog, blogger, blogging, photo-blog

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