NPF Consultant Kashmir Hill is working at the International Herald Tribune in Hong Kong before starting j-school at NYU. Her blog -- with pictures -- chronicles highlights, including a breezy trip to Singapore and the spilled beer incident. Find it here http://kashmirhill.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.
Last year a woman called to say she was coming to our annual awards dinner to hear Tony Snow and his band. Why? I asked her. Because he emailed with me she said. I'm not famous, I just have cancer.
The events of May 2008 have again showed very clearly just how little this power- and security-obsessed military regime really cares for the lives and welfare of millions of its own stricken people, and for democracy.
Than Shwe looked glum and unsmiling as he received Ban Ki-moon yesterday. He should realize all too well the repercussions that his concessions would bring, repercussions that extend beyond humanitarian relief.
INSIDE MYANMAR, MAY 22 -- We will have to wait and see what Ban ki-moon will be able to accomplish, particularly in opening up the cyclone-affected areas to foreign assistance. He is the highest-ranking foreign dignitary to come to post-cyclone Myanmar and he will be adding his voice to convince the SPDC (the State Peace and Development Council, the official name of the military regime) that more cooperation is necessary, especially if the Myanmar government expects to receive the amount of reconstruction assistance that it (and the UN) has asked for.
INSIDE MYANMAR, MAY 18 -- As I was about the leave the cyclone-devastated village, the local authority (village peace and development committee) member, a schoolteacher, appeared and asked me if I was going back. I had met him the day before, when he was busy overseeing a series of donations of food that individual donors had brought in. I replied that I was and that I would try to get much-needed supplies to his wrecked village. Knowing that he did not have much time, he told me in a low voice, "The general in charge has announced that relief operations are going to be wound down, and that only some government-provided goods still need to be brought in. I am worried because if relief is stopped, people won't have enough to eat. Looting and worse could break out. Liquor shops are open and we can't stop them. With no food, and liquor flowing, we won't be able to control the situation".
The military government of Myanmar is trying to control all international access to the country devastated by the recent cyclone. That includes media coverage. The J2J project has a friend inside the country who will file periodic reports .
A number of aid organizations are going to bring in planeloads of relief goods but once these arrive, administrative control is still up in the air. Responsibility for relief in different affected townships has been divided amongst government ministers teamed up with crony businessmen.
One U.S. C-130 plane with supplies, and possibly three, will be allowed in on Monday 12 May. Businesspeople close to the regime are saying that this will be an important trust building step for both sides. They also believe that the supremo, who single-handedly makes all the important decisions in this country of 56 million, does not or would not get a clear picture of the disaster's magnitude. This is partly because he is engrossed in today's referendum and partly due to subordinates being fearful of telling him the bad news. The cronies think this inch-by-painful-inch building of trust is the only way. But it shouldn't be forgotten that while this is going on, people out there are starving and dying.
