*Don't Forget Burma* Myanmar faces fresh cyclone threat

*DON'T FORGET BURMA* Myanmar faces fresh cyclone threat

english.aljazeera.net

Eleven days after Cyclone Nargis left tens of thousands dead in Myanmar, the United Nations has warned that another major storm could be heading for the devastated Irrawaddy delta region.

The UN weather centre is tracking the tropical storm off the coast of Thailand, and has said it could become "a significant tropical cyclone within the next 24 hours".

The warning comes after a major aid group told Al Jazeera that hundreds of thousands of survivors from Cyclone Nargis are facing a potentially "apocalyptic" threat from water-borne diseases.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
metocph.nmci.navy.mil

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Myanmar Cyclone [UPDATE] 15000+ Killed!!

edit: all caps in title

[edit on 5/16/2008 by Gools]

There's no end to how bad it can get. To the hard-tried people of Burma I'm afraid this rings true.

The natural disasters may be the lesser malady of what they are facing. The inapt rulership of their country will definately be far the biggest impact of cyclone Nargis. The moral bankrupcy, the lack of compassion they show towards their own people is not only inhumane. It is cruel and nefarious, guided by a backwardness deep seated in superstition and greed, all enforced by the constant paranoia they must be living under. It is a national disaster that is beyond politics, but from their point of view the efforts goes on damage control, not damage of the cyclone, but on what the eyes of the world shall see. If they are allowed to look. To just try to get a glimpse, is connected with severe danger for the media workers trying.

The military is ceaselessly carrying out raids at hotels to check for foreigners, that and setting up roadblocks are more important to them than helping their people. Here's the personal experience of a BBC reporter being chased.

The world community must intervene, which they could on grounds of a UN acknowledgement from 2005 stating collective "responsibility to protect" people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Not allowing expertice and only hopeless inadequate supplies to reach the victims, they sure are guilty of crimes against humanity. That would be a job for the powerful war machine of USA, and for a change to them it would be a 'cake-walk' to topple the true evil regime and take controll of the country. Not even China would object as long they kept their status and investments in the country, and the naval forces are already there.

A British Royal Navy frigate has been ordered to stand by off Burma with emergency aid for the survivors of cyclone Nargis. The 4,900-ton HMS Westminster will join US and French warships waiting in international waters off the Burmese coast, ready to rush relief supplies to the Irrawaddy delta if instructed by the UN or invited by the Burmese regime.

Wish they would use them as intended, for war for once in awhile against truely evil. There's no doubt with the junta, hardly going public on the disaster, not showing any will to promote relief, that this will turn out to became hundredfold worse in suffering and final deathtoll than it needed be. Not even Ban Ki-moon, or anyother from the world community, have been able to get to talk to Than Shwe. The only one from the leadership who have been in public view has been Prime Minister Thein Sein, and it is said the interest he shows for the worst struck areas of the Irrawaddy Delta is due to his two sons who runs an rice export business there.

As the facts are now, more than 10 days after the Cyclone Nargis struck, only a handfull of international aid workers have been granted permission to the hardest hit region. The Burmese military should be the first to bring help, and they are there, but are busy sertting up their roadblocks rather than to bring relief. They confiscate any private aid and make sure that no media comes in. Cameras and mobile phones are not allowed, because that's what the junta really fears, the eyes of the world to see the apocalypse.

I'm at loss of words to express my feelings but I'm afraid apocalypse are no overstatement. Diseases are already flourishing, and the hardest hit areas hasn't even been attended yet. Epidemics will invitable rage, and if full forced efforts are not implemented within the next few days a humanitarian catastrophy with possible millions to perish will be a reallity.

That the rain keeps pounding down and that a new cyclone is building doesn't make it better. It makes it mercyless.

Not forgetting the other obstinacles mother earth lately have forced upon us, Burma is just breaking my heart because 90% of the suffering could have been avoided by obligingness, simple human decency and cooperation. Unfortunately not qualities the hoodlums of the junta posses.

May they be reborn a million times under conditions worse than those that their victim have endured.

A few more articles.

World fears for plight of Myanmar cyclone victims
Burma Exports Rice as Cyclone Victims Starve
More Words, or Positive Action?


[edit on 14/5/2008 by khunmoon]

Between this and the quake in China, it really pains me to think about what people there and elsewhere are going through. I feel powerless to make even a tiny dent in something as massive as these catastrophes, or the Tsunami in 2004. It's so frustrating and saddening to know that so many people are suffering, and that I can barely even manage to help myself let alone other people half a world away. I want to so badly, though. I guess the best thing I can do is to improve my own situation so that I'm eventually empowered to help others. That's my goal. Everything just takes so long though, and I want to help now. *sigh*

Sorry - just venting my frustrations.

FROM A DUPLICATE NOW TRASHED OF THIS THREAD AN ANONYMOUS POST


why cant usa a and other developed countries use their satellites to get the real pictures of whats happening in this poor country,
their satellites are capable of looking the nuclear development and activities in korea and syria,
so they should be able to expose the worthless and tranny government of burma to world , how they are preventing the aid and bringing disaster to their own peoples.
if america wants to promote humanity and democracy then this is their chance to help burmese throw this ruthless government and and help themselves to maek thier future and government.
i wonder why would west do so unless they(burma) have oil??
god help them!!


signature
General account for replies from anonymous readers of ATS.

What is wrong with us? We can invade countries and search for hidden weapons, but we can't invade a country to save peoples lives??????

Don't blame nature for man's madness...

I pray that government and leaders there overcome their pride and greed so that more innocent people do not have to suffer. I also pray that nature has mercy on them.

Originally posted by worldwatcher
What is wrong with us? We can invade countries and search for hidden weapons, but we can't invade a country to save peoples lives??????

Nice,
You negelected to mention the fact that we invaded to get rid of a leader who had ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Isn't that what is basically going on in Burma with the Junta blocking aid?

Will you join up if we invade Burma for humantarian reasons?

[edit on 14/5/08 by COOL HAND]

reply to post by COOL HAND


umm we didn't invade him when he was actually gassing the kurds... no we waited till everybody died first and then claimed "humanitarian" reasons.. oh please. Same thing here... hundreds of thousands will have to die first before the UN or any other nation will get involved with any sort of force.

Oh please, no bickering on pity ideologies here.

Let me make it clear: There is oil and some of the biggest known gas reserves in Burma. The French, the Chinese, the Thais profit from it, as do Chevron. But unlike Iraq you can be sure they don't want any regime change, because from a corporate view point they are operating under conditions that is the most favourable on this planet, like slave labour and a rudeless military to protect their investments.

Contrary to Saddam, Than Shwe is a man of the corporations, easily bribed and unscrupulouss.

That's the real reason why there is no true will to go in to topple anything because the corporations don't find conditions anywhere better than this.

Meanwhile BBC is reporting still more tightened access for aid and media.

Burma's military rulers have tightened access to areas hit by Cyclone Nargis, in spite of international pleas to allow foreign aid workers in.

A UN official in Rangoon says the military has erected more checkpoints to make sure foreigners cannot get to the worst-affected areas.

Thai leader Samak Sundaravej held talks with the junta, but failed to broker a deal on access for foreigners.

Meanwhile forecasters say another cyclone is forming off Burma's coast.

reply to post by worldwatcher


You didn't answer my question.

Time to put up or shut up.

People are suffering and dying, and already the thread is at risk of being derailed (no offense - I know that passions are running high and that you guys are just expressing your opinions; I don't want to step on any toes.) Couldn't the other conversation be conducted via U2U or in another thread? (Again this isn't to judge your desire to converse on the Iraq matter - I just thought it might detract from this thread's topic, however related it might seem.)

On topic: According to the navy warning site linked in the initial post, the warning has now been cancelled. Hopefully that at least bodes well for those suffering there. Any good news is better than bad news, at least.

THE AREA OF CONVECTION PREVIOUSLY LOCATED NEAR
16.7N 95.7E, IS NOW LOCATED NEAR 18.0N 94.4E, APPROXIMATELY 125 NM
NORTHWEST OF YANGON, MYANMAR. RECENT ANIMATED INFRARED AND VISIBLE
SATELLITE IMAGERY INDICATES SIGNIFICANT WEAKENING OF THE LOW LEVEL
CIRCULATION CENTER (LLCC) WITH ISOLATED AND DISORGANIZED CONVECTION
FLARING DUE TO OROGRAPHIC LIFT. THE 141320Z SSMIS MICROWAVE IMAGE
DEPICTS WEAK CONVECTIVE BANDING AND A POORLY DEFINED LLCC. RECENT
SURFACE OBSERVATIONS WITHIN 60 NM OF THE CENTER INDICATED SLP
OF 1002 MB AND LIGHT SURFACE WINDS. THE SYSTEM IS CURRENTLY
TRACKING SLOWLY NORTH-NORTHWESTWARD ALONG THE COAST AND IS FORE-
CAST TO CONTINUE INTERACTING WITH THE COASTAL MOUNTAIN RANGE,
WHICH WILL CONTINUE TO HINDER FURTHER DEVELOPMENT. MAXIMUM
SUSTAINED SURFACE WINDS ARE ESTIMATED AT 20 TO 25 KNOTS. MINIMUM
SEA LEVEL PRESSURE IS ESTIMATED TO BE NEAR 1002 MB. DUE TO THE
WEAKENED LLCC AND LAND INTERACTION, THE POTENTIAL FOR THE
DEVELOPMENT OF A SIGNIFICANT TROPICAL CYCLONE WITHIN THE NEXT 24
HOURS IS DOWNGRADED TO POOR.//

Source: metocph.nmci.navy.mil...

Slowly but surely....everything is going to... Yet we cannot do anything for we have no control, because we are all mostly sheep. Hopefully we can change this soon. As for all this crazy weather, for all we know, more man (or not) made controlling weather ..tools.

I live in neigbouring country to Burma, less than a thousand miles from where the tragedy is unfolding, and yes it has been raining a lot this year, like it also did this night. It was hammering down for hours and it woke me up.

Don't know if I had the dream before I woke up or after when I fell back to sleep. I saw hundreds of bodies floating in water backs up and faces down and their arms hanging loose towards the bottom.

Now, human lives ain't exactly the thing they worry most about in SE Asia, so this disaster is not a big thing here. Their corrupted Buddhist teachings of Theravada tells them whatever happens no one but the victims themselves are to blame. Compassion is not included in their distorted views. Alike the notion of mercy seldom is. IOW, they don't care but about themselves.

Excactly that was the agenda, when yesterday the PM of this country --a rude uneducated bully like most of the leaders of the region-- went to Burma on behalf of ASEAN to negociate aid. What he came back with was a permission for a team of 30 Thai medical workers to go to the delta. They'll be the first official international team allowed. Of course it is better than nothing but far, far, far too inadequate to be significant.

Personally I suspect it was the least possible price for the junta to keep it operating undisclosed and from the PM's side, for the business relations to remain as they now are for the stake holders. And believe me, they are very lucrative.

Today's Bangkok Post has an OP on the subject matter. They call it Govt has blood on its hands, too

Our government allows the junta to continue killing its people because top politicians and businessmen do not want to lose big-time concessions to exploit Burma's timber, natural gas, gems and hydro-electric dams.

When the villagers fled wars to save their lives and sought refuge within our borders, we pushed them back to face death. When they cross the border to work here so they can send remittances to families back home, we use them as slave labour. We allow our police to routinely extort migrant workers and arrest them when they meet to celebrate their cultural traditions. We even prohibit them from using cell phones and from leaving their shelters.

To tell the story about Thai-Burmese relations would require another place of posting than the one I have now.

About the situation in Burma: Only viable option is an international intervention. After the genocides of Rwanda and Bosnia the UN has provided the legal ground for such.


Here is an OP from Irrawaddy Mag.

Humanitarian Intervention—It’s Now or Never

The R2P doctrine was prepared by a UN commission and proposed by then Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the UN in New York in 2005. Examples of how the doctrine may have been applied effectively were cited as Bosnia, Rwanda and, more recently, the Darfur region of Sudan.

The paradigm was endorsed by 191 signatory nations.

The R2P would appear to offer licenses to countries such as France, Britain and the US to airlift humanitarian supplies into Burma, although China and Russia would undoubtedly oppose the move.

Britain's foreign secretary David Miliband, speaking to the BBC on May 11, said the Burmese regime is “perpetrating a policy of malign neglect” and that the possibility of intervention was “on the table.”

Then, on May 13, Miliband added a cutting edge to his comments, saying “military action on humanitarian grounds is an option,” while pointing out that the British warship HMS Westminster was being deployed near Burmese waters, alongside French and US military and naval vessels.

Reports suggest that Burmese survivors in cyclone-hit areas are constantly looking up to the skies for the delivery of supplies as they have heard the news about possible airdrops from foreign-based radio stations.

----

Now the leaders of the so-called “free world” must decide what to do; the ball is in their court. They can react and save the lives of countless survivors or they can dilly-dally until a second cyclone strikes or epidemics of water-borne and air-borne diseases break out.

The Western allies should be under no illusion—the Burmese junta will mobilize an air defense against them. They must expect a hostile reception if they move ahead with humanitarian intervention without the explicit approval of the regime.

Naypyidaw may be relying on their purchases of MiG-29 jet fighters from Russia and missiles from North Korea to thwart the West; however, some observers claim that the Burmese regime could be dismantled within a few hours.

That's all I can do, to write to get others to act.

Bush, Brown, Merckel, Putin et al, if you don't use your powers of force NOW, you too will have blood on your hands.

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

From a Thai blog in today's The Nation:

If this scale of disaster happen in Africa or Latin America, we should have been saved by now.

UN and international community, PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME TO INTERVENE TO SAVE US NO MATTER WHAT CONSEQUENCES IT WOULD BE IN BURMA RIGHT NOW.

We just only wish water, food, some medicine and temporary shelter and nothing else right now.
We do not really care about democracy, freedom nor human right at this time. We just want to live.

Finally God, please do not let evil plan to take over you.
The only thing we have now is faith upon you and our hope upon the people who have faith on you that they have plan to save us before all of us (over 1 million people) die.

Khakaborazi

reply to post by COOL HAND


apologies for derailing, but since you insist on a answer. Yes, I would support immediate military action to gain control in order to provide the aid to the people who need it right now... not in a few months or years but right now.

Originally posted by khunmoon


From a Thai blog in today's The Nation:

If this scale of disaster happen in Africa or Latin America, we should have been saved by now.

UN and international community, PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME TO INTERVENE TO SAVE US NO MATTER WHAT CONSEQUENCES IT WOULD BE IN BURMA RIGHT NOW.

We just only wish water, food, some medicine and temporary shelter and nothing else right now.
We do not really care about democracy, freedom nor human right at this time. We just want to live.

That really says it all in my opinion, and is truly heartbreaking. I know that there are many, many differing views with regard to what nations can and should do for one another and in terms of international intervention in crises. I respect all of those views, but I can't help being extremely saddened to think that I am powerless to help the people suffering there, and that those who do have the power to help (whether one chooses to blame the international community, the government there, both, or some other entity/entities) are, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to do so. In my opinion there is no good reason that they should not somehow, some way, be able to do more. Again though, that is only my personal opinion. I believe that life is the most basic human right.

[edit on 5/14/2008 by AceWombat04]

Originally posted by worldwatcher
apologies for derailing, but since you insist on a answer. Yes, I would support immediate military action to gain control in order to provide the aid to the people who need it right now... not in a few months or years but right now.

That is not what I asked.

I asked if you (personally) would join up if we sent military forces into Burma.

Intervention NOW

Death toll in China keeps rising and news from Burma has for the last few days been superseded. Don't let it happen!

The China disaster is bad enough, but at least they are getting attended in the most professional way. If I was a wacko conspiracy nut I would say the junta somehow caused the China quake to draw attention away from themselves. There might something to HAARP and underground activities of man to trigger earthquakes, but I'm afraid in this case it is pure coincidental ..though I'm sure the hoodlums in Naypyidaw see it as an act of their black gods and demons being on their side. They couldn't be more happy about what goes on in China.

On MSM sites you have to go a page or several back to find anything on Burma, you won't find it among today's headlines, 13 days after it happened. For the victims however the sufferings only increase with every day going by. Only true evil can find any joy in that.

You can find the reports on alternative and dissent sites like The Irrawaddy. From today's issue:

A Trickle of Aid Reaches Survivors

Aye Kyu said rice and diesel fuel donated by international aid groups are being sold by local authorities in some areas.

“The authorities are demanding between 13,000 and 15,000 kyat (US $11.25 and $12.99) for one bag of rice and 10,000 kyat (US $8.66) for one gallon of diesel fuel,” said Aye Kyu.

Officials of Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) said members purchased 1,000 towels on Wednesday to donate to survivors, but later discovered a World Food Programme stamp on the bags the towels were placed in.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win said the towels were bought at Rangoon’s Mingalar market. “When I arrived home, I found the letters WFP (World Food Program) stamped on the bags, together with the flag of Japan and a message in English and Burmese (donated by the Japanese people).”

“I’m not sure that the towels are from the WFP, but those bags are now found in Mingalar Market,” he said.

A worker at Rangoon airport told a Rangoon-based Irrawaddy correspondent that generators and water-treatment equipment unloaded from a foreign aircraft had been sent to Naypyidaw, seat of the Burmese military regime.

What angers me most is still that the world community shows no will to do what it takes to get help to the suffering people.

At least 4 western democratic nations claiming to be humanitarian have the ability and special forces to go in and 'neutralize' the leadership, even bring they out alive to stand trial at an international court.

What can make me dispair is I very well know it won't happen, because it has already been decided in the boardrooms of Unical, Petronas, Chevron et al, that "You don't do that."

The masters of the puppets have spoken.

reply to post by COOL HAND



Oh jeez, yeah sure... I would once I can arrange for someone to watch my kids, handle all my other responsibilities and get a doctor to clear me medically, oh yeah and of course all the formalties of enlisting into whatever organization is going to do the work...

I don't know where you're trying to go with this line of questioning, but please don't try to paint me into a box. I support immediate intervention now, we and the rest of the civilized world have the ways and means currently without me having to go volunteer personally to do something about this now.

And btw.. Since I cannot physically do anything for these people, I've done the only thing else that a person in my situation can do and that was to donate to my favorite international aid charity.



[edit on 5-16-2008 by worldwatcher]

IMHO these cyclones are strategicly created by weather control to take out burma and get a strategic position on China, I could be wrong though...

Interestingly, i occasionally watch a news programme in England which focuses on news for kids - it's called newsround btw.

I like to check up now and again on what they're telling the kids nowadays.

Apparently people are well aware of the fact that the Burmese Junta are not giving us the full picture, and human rights groups worldwide are condemning their actions.

From this, i have deduced that Actions will be taken against the Junta if they do not comply - as after all, we don't want the kids to think that we aren't doing everything in our power to help people.

reply to post by Anti-Tyrant


I don't blame the junta for not letting the aid workers in. That's how spies and dissent get introduced. Red cross can go on any side of a war or dispute, infiltrating, spying and spreading dissent. It's not unlikely that this is the reasoning.

Burma's too good of a location given it's proximity to china and india and all nuclear places. I smell the stirring of dissent...