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YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar announced Thursday that a constitution won massive support in a referendum -- a claim slammed by a leading rights group as an insult to the country's people. The document, which critics say will cement nearly four decades of military rule, was approved by 92.4 percent of the 22 million eligible voters last Saturday, said Aung Toe, head of the Referendum Holding Committee on state radio. He put voter turnout at more than 99 percent. The vote has also come under fire for being held while the country responds to a massive cyclone that has killed...

THERE is a certain familiarity to the concomitant series of actions and reactions when disaster strikes in the world. The US stands ready, willing and able to offer assistance. It is often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster. Then, just as swift and with equal predictability, those wedded to the Great Satan view of the US begin to carp, drawing on a potent mixture of cynicism and conspiracy theories to criticise the last remaining...

Whenever Burma faces a political or humanitarian crisis, Burmese and foreign observers monitor the reclusive military leaders from a distance, trying to gauge their reactions, guessing what shapes their decisions and where possible conflicts within the leadership lie. The question Burma watchers are quietly asking this time is: has the cyclone managed to instil fear in strongman Senior General Than Shwe and his hard-core military cronies? Are they trembling or are they standing firm? It is easy to imagine the pampered generals running from the storm, boarding themselves in their collective bunker and curling up in terror as the cyclone...

Surprise, surprise. The first relief planes which flew into Burma, or Myanmar, as its military junta, much cared for by our Department of Foreign Affairs, calls that godforsaken place, were American military planes carrying precious bottled water, food, medicines and mosquito nets, all paid for by American taxpayers and given willingly with no strings attached. As is well known, Burma has been ruled by a brutal and murderous military junta since 1988, and is now suffering not only the yoke of collectivist brutality but also the fierce lash of nature, which renders puny all of man’s works. Aren’t they irritating,...

Burma's rogue ruling military junta's actions in preventing international humanitarian assistance in the wake of Cyclone Nargis is criminal. There are at least 100,000 dead in the Irrawaddy Delta. More than 1.5 million people are in desperate need of aid. With each day passing, denying international aid and rescue to their own people is nothing short of self-inflicted genocide. There is only a short window to provide aid, else there are sure to be thousands of more deaths due to the break out of diseases such as cholera. The lack of food will cause many more deaths by starvation. With...

Burma cyclone: Burmese officials selling emergency aid supplies in local markets By Alan Brown in Yangonpauk Last Updated: 7:24PM BST 12/05/2008 Officials in Burma's cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta area are appropriating emergency aid supplies and selling them in local markets, it was claimed on Monday. Burmese officials have been accused of selling aid supplies Burmese volunteers who are operating their own private aid missions to the area have said that they are having to hide from local apparatchiks in order to prevent them commandeering their aid and selling it on at markets. The Daily Telegraph learned of the alleged scam from...

A sermon preached by the Rt Revd Dr Alan Smith, Bishop of Shrewsbury at a confirmation at Christ Church, Shelton and Oxon on 11th May 2008 As Delivered Scripture: Acts 2 1 - 21 There are inevitably two focuses to our worship today. Gathered here are the candidates for confirmation with families and friends. It’s a joyful occasion as we come to celebrate with them this stage in their spiritual life. But we’d be kidding ourselves if we don’t face the fact that the other factor behind our worship today is the plight of those people in Myanmar (the place...

UN says 102,000 dead in Burma Thailand offers to be a base for relief supplies Thailand will act as a mediator to help with the movement of international relief supplies to Burma, which are being held up by the military junta and are stuck in Thailand, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said yesterday. The move comes as the UN says up to 102,000 people could have been killed by Cyclone Nargis and about 220,000 are reported missing. Mr Noppadon said he planned to leave for Burma tomorrow to push for additional assistance and ask the Burmese generals to provide wider access...

A Red Cross boat delivering supplies to help 1,000 victims of last weekend's cyclone sank Sunday when it hit debris in the Irrawaddy Delta region, as the U.S. prepared to deliver relief supplies to Myanmar. "The crew managed to get to the safety of an island, along with four Red Cross staff who were on the boat," Red Cross official Joe Lowry said. "But we've lost most of the cargo."

Teams of aid experts allowed into the cyclone-ravaged Irrawady delta have returned to Thailand with the bleakest of warnings: Burma is on the brink of a “devastating public health crisis” compounded by an emerging refugee disaster. But for the hundreds of aid workers who have flown into Bangkok from around the world, the chances of a sudden glut of the precious entry visas appeared slimmer by the hour. Rumours have begun circulating between international aid organisations that the Burmese regime is preparing to close its doors altogether: a decision, warned UN-affiliated aid workers, that will cost the lives of thousands.

It became the "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" on 4 January 1974,

PR executive Doug Goodyear voluntarily steps down after past ties to Burma are revealed.

Around noon today, the powers-that-be at NEWSWEEK posted "A Convention Quandary" on our website. In the story, investigative ace Michael Isikoff reported that the man chosen by John McCain's presidential campaign to run this summer's GOP convention--Arizonan Doug Goodyear--was causing some headaches within the ranks. The problem? Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients--not the most convenient association for a candidate who's already struggling to reconcile his reputation as an anti-special interests crusader with the sizable number of lobbyists on his senior staff. Further...

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 Republican National Convention resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used to represent the military regime in Myanmar. Doug Goodyear resigned as convention coordinator and issued a two sentence statement: "Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign. I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign." Goodyear, chief executive of lobbying firm DCI Group, resigned a few hours after Newsweek posted a...

The government of Myanmar hasn't shown the ability or willingness to deploy the kind of assets needed to deal with the calamity caused by last week's cyclone. That is why, according to time.com, it's time to consider a more serious option: invading the country also known as Burma.

That's why it's time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says. The Bush Administration has so far rejected the idea — "I can't imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday — but it's not without precedent: as Natsios pointed out to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid without the host government's consent in places...

"People have just one set of clothes; some are even wearing jute bags. There is not enough drinking water. There are no sanitation facilities whatsoever. Many people have wounds that are not being attended. The estimated number of people in these 26 camps is 100,000." Sheri Villarosa, the senior US diplomat in Burma, said she feared the death toll could reach 100,000. But despite the obvious suffering, massive devastation and pressing need for urgent action, the Burmese authorities were continuing to insist yesterday that everything was under control. On the front page of the New Light of Myanmar – a...

The United Nations this week said the refusal of Burma's government to allow workers into the country's devastated agricultural region was unprecedented in the history of humanitarian relief. The human catastrophe produced by Burma's refusal to permit aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis has stunned the senses of a world that has watched this spectacle for a week. There are uncounted numbers of persons dead, homeless and orphaned. Bodies still float in water. The World Health Organization has warned there could be outbreaks of cholera and especially malaria. U.N. member-state India warned the junta the deadly cyclone was headed...

NEW YORK (AP) - A CNN reporter who left Myanmar on Friday was chased by authorities as he reported on the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis but escaped primarily because of the incompetence of the people after him. Dan Rivers hid under a blanket at one police checkpoint and casually covered up his name on a passport to avoid detection another time. He may ultimately have gotten out of the country due to a stewardess' impatience. "I was amazed at the lengths they apparently went just to catch me," Rivers told The Associated Press by telephone from Thailand on Saturday. Rivers'...

Cyclone survivors may have to grow their own food 18:15 09 May 2008 Debora MacKenzie The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is calling for $10 million in emergency farming equipment and seeds for parts of southern Burma devastated by Cyclone Nargis, to help plant the next rice crop. Meanwhile the UN's World Food Programme has stopped emergency food shipments to the disaster zone after the country's military dictators impounded the first shipment on arrival. Cyclone Nargis, which hit southern Burma last Saturday, devastated the delta of the Irawaddy River, the country's main rice growing region. Up to 100,000 may have...

With United States warships and air force planes at the ready, and over 1 million of Myanmar's citizens left bedraggled, homeless and susceptible to water-borne diseases by Cyclone Nagris, the natural disaster presents an opportunity in crisis for the US. A unilateral - and potentially United Nations-approved - US military intervention in the name of humanitarianism could easily turn the tide against the impoverished country's unpopular military leaders, and simultaneously rehabilitate the legacy of lame-duck US President George W Bush's controversial pre-emptive military policies. Myanmar's ruling junta has responded woefully to the cyclone disaster, costing more human lives than would...

The World Food Programme says it will resume aid flights to Burma on Saturday, despite a row over the local authorities impounding deliveries. The government said it had taken control of the aid to distribute it.

Foreign Aid: Burma's regime signals that allowing aid to its cyclone-stricken people isn't an obligation. As thousands die, why does the U.N. coddle this junta when the only humane response is to throw it out?

On the Burmese side of the Moei River, the reality of the Burma Army attack was there for all to see. Where just a few weeks before had stood a thriving community with a church, school, houses, and clinic, there was now little more than ashes. The pastor came and sat next to me as we looked at the burned-out ruins of his church: a few charred bamboo pillars and some pews. A beam that once held up the roof now formed a cross, symbol of the people's suffering. In an operation that plays out regularly in eastern Burma, the...

YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- Authorities in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar have seized United Nations aid intended for victims of the disaster, a move that "shuts down" future flights from the organization, according to a U.N. World Food Program official. A child sleeps on the floor as cyclone-affected families shelter in a school in western Yangon. 1 of 3more photos » The organization, which insists on distributing its own relief supplies, said the seizure of two aircraft-loads of food, medcine and equipment, has already hit out at Myanmar's refusal to all access to foreign eis workers. "This is another example of them actively...

BACKGROUNDER Dictators' priority BACKGROUNDER Dictators' priority Bank denial Parachute drops possible Sutha quits Left in the lurch ANALYSIS Burma storm clouds Hillary to junta: Aid trickle begins Burma agony Aid blockade By Christiane Oelrich, dpa While bloated corpses still litter Irrawaddy delta fields, the controlled media promote the referendum. While a million Burmese in deep shock fight for their survival, government ministers give speeches on the "flourishing discipline democracy." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mae Sot - The ruling military junta of Burma has imposed a vacation ban for all officials - but not so every last person can be available to assist survivors...

Burma denies US access Relief supplies from UN starting to get through AP AND BANGKOK POST RANGOON - Relief supplies from the United Nations began arriving in Burma yesterday, but US military planes loaded with aid were still denied access by the country's isolationist regime five days after a devastating cyclone. The military junta also continued to stall on visas for UN teams seeking entry to ensure the aid is delivered to the victims, amid fears that a lack of safe food and drinking water could push the death toll above 100,000. Two planes carrying high-energy biscuits, medicine and other...

Junk Science: Al Gore blames the Burma tragedy on global warming despite growing evidence to the contrary. Could the hype be related to his financial interests?Gore's reaction to the death and destruction caused by a cyclone ravaging Burma was to utter an emphatic "I told you so" Tuesday on National Public Radio. In an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" broadcast, the jolly green giant made the charge while talking about the paperback release of his ironically named book, "The Assault on Reason." Ignoring the fact that the rising death toll is due in part to an incompetent, isolationist and authoritarian...

Why the Cyclone in Myanmar Was So DeadlyMichael Casey in Bangkok, Thailand Associated PressMay 8, 2008 It was Asia's answer to Hurricane Katrina—though with a reported 100,000 killed, it was many times more deadly. Packing winds upward of 120 miles an hour (193 kilometers an hour), Cyclone Nargis became one of Asia's deadliest storms by hitting land at one of the lowest points in Myanmar (also called Burma) and setting off a storm surge that reached 25 miles (40 kilometers) inland. "When we saw the [storm] track, I said, 'Uh oh, this is not going to be good,'" said Mark...

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. That would dwarf the 230,000 deaths across South East Asia in the 2004 catastrophe. Nyo Ohn Myint, of exiled opposition party The...

But what's worse this time is that Gore's blundering attempts to blame global warming for Burma's agony distracts attention from the real causes of this catastrophe - despicable causes we may at least hope to do something about. If Cyclone Nargis had struck not Rangoon, but Melbourne or Tokyo, it is unlikely more than a few dozen people, if that, would have died. And that's because we are free, and rich - as free people tend to be with capitalism. Even Bangkok would have survived this far, far easier. But in Burma as many as 100,000 are now feared dead...

Thirty days after Steve McIntyre caught NASA cooking climate history again - this time in a feeble attempt to somehow conceal the alarmist-embarrassing  downward trend since 1998 -- Al Gore shamelessly portrayed Saturday's Myanmar cyclone catastrophe as a ‘consequence' of global warming.  A mere 16 days after NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation's cool phase shift would likely bring colder temperatures for as many as the next 20-30 years, Gore told NPR that the "trend toward stronger and more destructive storms appears to be linked to global warming and specifically to the impact of global...

YANGON, Myanmar - A U.S. diplomat said Wednesday that it's possible the death toll from the Myanmar cyclone could top 100,000. Aid continued to trickle into the military-ruled Myanmar for the estimated one million survivors of Cyclone Nargis on Wednesday. With the inundated Irrawaddy delta virtually cut off and frustration growing among aid agencies and governments to deliver supplies, France suggested invoking a U.N. "responsibility to protect" clause without waiting for military approval. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters on Wednesday the idea was being discussed at the United Nations. The storm is Asia's most devastating cyclone since a...

Myanmar: It's feared that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis will hit 50,000. This is a tragedy that did not have to happen. A more-competent, less-venal government would have limited the damage.Burma, as the nation of 47.8 million is known in official Washington, is bedeviled by a junta that has isolated this small Southeast Asian country for decades. Though rich in resources and once prosperous, the nation is wracked by indigence, with a third of the people living below the poverty line. On some level, the catastrophe hit Burma long before the storm struck on Saturday. Beyond the capital of...

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY Burmese are angry at the junta's slow response to the cyclone, writes Achara Ashayagachat in Rangoon As if Burmese people have not suffered enough from military dictatorship and political disarray, Cyclone Nargis, which hit Burma early on Saturday morning, ravaged the country's largest city of Rangoon as it devastated many other areas. Since the storm, people in many parts of the former capital have had to live without tap water, electricity and telephone connections. Four riot control battalions stationed in the capital to control any political unrest arising from the referendum on a new constitution scheduled...

World food prices may worsen Burmese disaster 14:49 06 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie As the scale of the disaster in Burma caused by Cyclone Nargis starts to emerge, relief agencies and rich countries are lining up to provide emergency aid. But with agencies already hit hard by soaring food prices, and Burma's own rice crop devastated, it is not clear where the relief will come from. Nargis hit Burma on Saturday, bringing with it a reported oceanic storm surge more than 3 metres high, which is said to have destroyed some low-lying towns. The storm wreaked havoc...

Myanmar cyclone death toll soars past 22,000: state radio 48 minutes ago YANGON, Myanmar - 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...

Foreign aid workers in Burma have concluded that as many as 50,000 people died in Saturday’s cyclone, and two to three million are homeless, in a disaster whose scale invites comparison with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

via translation - ALERT - New record of hurricane Nargis Official: more than 15,000 dead RANGOUN - The Burmese authorities have revised upwards the death toll of the devastating cyclone that Nargis was Tuesday to more than 15,000 dead, including about 10,000 in the town of Bogalay (south-west), reported the official media.

Fight to aid cyclone victims frustrated by junta By Graeme Jenkins in Rangoon Last Updated: 2:31AM BST 06/05/2008 Burma said last night that it feared that more than 10,000 people had been killed when a cyclone struck the country at the weekend. Desperate Burmese queue for water in Rangoon At least a further 3,000 villagers in the Irrawaddy Delta are reported to be missing, while hundreds of thousands have been left homeless and without drinking water since Cyclone Nargis crashed into the coast on Saturday at 120mph, destroying entire villages and battering Rangoon. As United Nations agencies warned of an...

Cyclone death toll nears 4,000 in Myanmar, state radio says 11 minutes ago YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — 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...

Excerpt - YANGON, Myanmar - A powerful cyclone killed more than 350 people and destroyed thousands of homes, state-run media said Sunday. Some dissident groups worried that the military junta running Myanmar would be reluctant to ask for international help. Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit at a delicate time for the junta, less than a week ahead of a crucial referendum on a new constitution. Should the junta be seen as failing disaster victims, voters who already blame the regime for ruining the economy and squashing democracy could take out their frustrations at the ballot box. Some in Yangon complained the...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

Dear God: If you can't stop Mark Morford, please teach him to use the internet Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 02:20:20 PM by Benjamin Wachs I try not to call Chron columnist Mark Morford out on his stylistic problem as a writer, because who has that kind of time? But as a fellow journalist I feel that research – knowing at least a little about what we’re writing about – is the very least we owe the public. The very, very least. So a few months ago I called him out on the sheer ignorance of his attacks against Christianity....

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

Get your popcorn boys and girls this is going to be good. China has lined up 1000's of supporters, while protestors range from Tibetan monks and their supporters, Burmese Monks, other critics of China, and your usual rabble rousers. Google Route with Incidents Live Video Here

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - In honour of the crouching, naked blonde painted on its nose, its pilot had named his bomber the "Hot as Hell". But it was a freezing and stormy day as the American B-24 Liberator made its way across the Himalayas on Jan 25, 1944, flying what was known as "the Hump", perhaps the most dangerous route in air transport history. It was one of nine American planes that went down that day as they tried to resupply China's besieged army in the city of Kunming, desperately trying to hold out against the invading Japanese during World...

Sometimes to understand one’s own era you have to immerse yourself in another. I pick up my copy of Paul Edmonds’ Peacocks and Pagodas as an example. This — though you’ve probably never heard of it — seems the best-regarded book ever written on the people and society of Burma. You may know it as Myanmar. What could be more esoteric, and yet profoundly revealing, about much broader issues? My copy is a first edition from 1924 and in its long life and travels it once belonged to T.N. Jayavelu, Antiquarian Bookseller of Choolai, Madras, India. But now it resides...

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

The pictures shown on television in August and September '07 were clear, despite the efforts of the Burmese police to restrict coverage: Hundreds of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marched in front of an even larger number of mostly young men. Repeatedly they were challenged by security forces and dispersed, first with batons, then tear gas and rubber bullets, and finally gunfire. -- snip -- As it turns out, George Soros and his Open Society Institute contracted with professional trainers to instruct Burmese dissidents. -- snip -- According to the Soros mentality and political theory, the invasion of Iraq to depose the...