Burma asks for aid as cyclone death toll tops 10,000

CBC News April 12

Extra U.S. aid conditional

The Burmese government was in talks with international agencies to discuss aid requirements and how to get help to the worst-affected areas, Horsey said. The UN has been invited to send aid and expert help, news agency reports from Rangoon say.

Speaking in Washington, Laura Bush, President George W. Bush’s wife and the White House’s chief voice on human rights and political conditions in Burma, said the U.S. embassy in the Southeast Asian nation is providing an immediate $250,000 US in aid from an existing emergency fund to humanitarian organizations working on the ground.

Cyclone Nargis hits Burma at the Irrawaddy River delta around Rangoon. Cyclone Nargis hits Burma at the Irrawaddy River delta around Rangoon. (NASA/Modis)

The U.S. is prepared to send additional aid, but that is conditional on Burma allowing a U.S. disaster response team into the country to assess the needs, she said. The State Department said permission was denied.

Bush also criticized the ruling junta for deciding to go ahead with a May 10 constitutional referendum, describing it as a sham, and questioned why leaders didn’t warn citizens earlier about the storm.

“We know already that they are very inept,” she said.

HOPE…

“A broad, interspiritual American culture is being born and is becoming increasingly conscious, aware of a horizon of meaning and spiritual life that can overpower the predominant culture of entertainment, consumerism, and an essentially heartless capitalism. Under the surface of this society, with the intense meditative discipline being observed by several millions of spiritual seekers, a torrent of consciousness is rising in American humanity and other nations as well that will have its effect in time.”

-Wayne Teasdale, Roman Catholic monk

Taken from an essay included in “Spiritual perspectives on America’s role as Superpower”… a fantastic  book containing 16 essays written by profound religious and spiritual teachers of multiple faiths (Catholic, Muslim,Jewish, Buddhist, Vedantist, Protestant, interfaith traditions). More quotes to come as I read more and more…

PS. Great insights on ‘security’ a few posts ago! Reminds me of Pearl Jam lyrics in “I’m Open”:

A man lies in his bed in a room with no door
He waits, hoping for a presence, something, anything to enter
After spending half his life searching
He still felt as blank as the ceiling at which he stared
He is alive, but feels absolutely nothing, so is he?

When he was six, he believed that the moon overhead followed him
By nine, he deciphered the illusion, trading magic for fact, no trade-backs
So this is what it’s like to be an adult?
If he only knew now what he knew then