Severn Suzuki representing ECO, the Environmental Children's Organization addresses the UN regard the environmental issues of great concern, to her generation.
The people who will inherit the global decisions made at Copenhagen, this week ...
President Obama Will Accept Nobel Peace Prize as a Call to Action
"I will accept this award as a call to action --
a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.
. . . we must all do our part to resolve those conflicts
that have caused so much pain and hardship over so many years . . ."
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was personally informed of her continued imprisonment by officials from the Home Ministry who entered her villa prior to the announcement, the official said.
snip
The extension was issued despite a Myanmar law that stipulates no one can be held longer than five years without being released or put on trial.
The junta faced a deadline to extend Suu Kyi's house arrest for another year or release her. Members of her National League for Democracy were marching from the party's headquarters to her home when riot police shoved the group into a truck.
It was not immediately clear where the truck was headed or exactly how many people were detained.
According to this YouTube, "Dust In The Wind" has been adapted as a song of protest by Burmese refugees living along the country's border (it's YouTube, so take it with the appropriate grain of salt):
"I'm quite confident we will be able to overcome this tragedy. I've tried to bring a message of hope to your people," Ban said earlier as he made an offering at the country's holiest Buddhist shrine, the Shwedagon Pagoda.
"At the same time, I hope your people and government can coordinate the flow of aid, so the aid work can be done in a more systematic and organised way," said Ban.
"The United Nations and the whole international community stand ready to help you overcome this tragedy."
Meanwhile pressure is building on the military regime to do far more to help the victims of the cyclone, and not all of the pressure is coming from outside the country:
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is en route to Myanmar today, but already his presence in the region seems to have had an affect:
"We have received government permission to operate nine WFP (World Food Program) helicopters, which will allow us to reach areas that have so far been largely inaccessible," Ban told reporters in New York on Tuesday before departing for Southeast Asia. His announcement was not immediately confirmed by officials in Myanmar.
"I believe further similar moves will follow, including expediting the visas of (foreign) relief workers seeking to enter the country," Ban said, warning that relief efforts to save survivors of the May 2-3 Cyclone Nargis had reached a "critical moment."
"We have a functioning relief program in place but so far have been able to reach only 25 percent of Myanmar's people in need," he said.
"For the vast number of Americans, if they just gave to some disaster far away and then another disaster happens, in their mind that's clumped as 'faraway disaster,'" Strahilevitz says. "So they will feel, 'I just gave to a faraway disaster.'"
It's no secret that Americans are feeling less fortunate than in previous years. Escalating gas and food prices, the mortgage crisis and a recent "economic recovery" that only positively affected the most wealthy among us have left families seeing their household budgets shrink.
But as tough as we have it, it is nothing compared with what millions of people are going through right now in Myanmar:
MSNBC reports that Americans have given $12.1 million to charities for Myanmar relief efforts, far short of the $1.92 billion the US gave to assist the victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami.
Some of the worst of humanity, serial bomb blasts in the Indian city of Jaipur, killing 80, injuring 200:
Asia Times Online attempts to analyze the event, including the possibility that this is state-sponsored terrorism used as a type of cheap negotiation tactic.
First, breaking news this morning. There has been a 7.8 earthquake in China that has left four schoolchildren and one adult dead:
Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for "all-out" efforts to rescue victims of an earthquake measuring 7.8 that has hit south-western China.
The quake struck 92km (57 miles) north-west of Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, at 1428 (0628 GMT).
The children were killed, and more than 100 others injured, when primary school buildings collapsed in the Chongqing area, a large municipality near Sichuan province, Xinhua added.
Another person is reported to have died when a water tower collapsed in the city of Mianyang, in Santai County.
The Bangkok Post gives further details of the magnitude of the quake:
Government and local officials said the quake struck at 2:28pm local time (1:28pm in Thailand) in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province. It was felt in cities hundreds of kilometres away, including Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, in addition to Bangkok.
"Major tremors" were felt by residents of cities closer to the epicentre, including Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, and nearby Chongqing, the official news agency Xinhua said.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Myanmar coverage of the disaster caused by Cyclone Nargis has been driven underground, with journalists ducking the police. If there was a Pulitzer Prize given out for YouTubes, this would be my choice:
YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar said Friday it was not ready to let in foreign aid workers, rejecting international pressure to allow experts into the isolated nation where disease and starvation are stalking cyclone survivors.
One week after the devastating storm killed tens of thousands, Myanmar's ruling generals -- deeply suspicious of the outside world -- said the country needed outside aid for those still alive, but would deliver it themselves.
The foreign ministry announcement came as a top UN official warned time was running out to move in disaster experts and supplies to prevent diseases that could claim even more victims.
Instead, the ministry said some relief workers who arrived on an aid flight from Qatar on Wednesday had been deported.
Al Jazeera has an exemplary in-depth analysis of this tragedy, including an extended round table featuring UN Humanitarian Chief John Holmes, Bo Hla Tint, spokesperson for the Burmese Government in Exile and Marie Lall of the Asia Programme at Chatham House:
And yet the authorities in Burma have put up roadblocks to international assistance, including receiving relief supplies and - more vitally - disaster workers as the situation on the ground deteriorates.
It's time for us, all of us, to start changing the way we do business.
