Maybe they learned from Katrina....
"Quake recovery will be 'arduous,' Chinese official predicts; Infrastructure, homelessness hamper recovery" by William Foreman, Associated Press | May 29, 2008
CHENGDU, China - Rebuilding the country's devastated earthquake zone will be a long, arduous process, the government warned yesterday in a signal to millions of survivors living in tents that there will be no quick return to normalcy from their upturned lives.
Infrastructure problems, from rehousing entire townships destroyed by the quake to digging channels to divert blocked rivers, are among the most pressing for officials more than two weeks after the disaster.
In addition to trying to house some 5 million people left homeless by the May 12 quake, officials say hard-hit Sichuan Province is still prone to landslides and the conditions are hampering recovery and reconstruction efforts....
The number of confirmed deaths from the earthquake climbed toward an expected toll of more than 80,000 yesterday, with China's Cabinet saying 68,109 people were killed and 19,851 were still missing.
The entrance to Beichuan, which was largely abandoned after the quake, was blocked by soldiers yesterday. A sign erected on the quake-buckled road leading into town said: "Completely restricted area. Absolutely no entry."
Downstream, evacuated villagers were making do. At the riverside village of Tongkou, people have been moved to a camp farther up a hillside but still climb down to the river basin each day to tend rice fields and vegetables.
"If the water comes down from the burst dam, somebody will launch a fireworks signal to give us warning so everybody can run uphill," said villager Wang Hongyun. "Without seeing the warning, we will keep on gathering our crops."
Premier Wen Jiabao told a meeting of China's Cabinet that handling the danger from the swelling lakes was the "most pressing task" in the disaster recovery effort, the official China Daily newspaper said."And then Sharon Stone has to pop off and say something like this?
Actually, maybe not, Hollywood Skank!
Oh, and by the way, the U.S. karma must really suck, too!
The country is either on fire, flooding, freezing, or get blown away by tornadoes, so WTF?!
I guess mass-murdering innocent people over lies doesn't work out to well for anyone, does it?
"Burma junta buries victims of cyclone; Pledges of aid fail to get leaders to release activist" by Aung Hla Tun, Reuters | May 29, 2008
RANGOON, Burma - Burma's military has started to bury cyclone victims in communal graves, villagers said yesterday, as Western nations pledged to keep aid flowing despite anger at the detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Mass graves! Ugh!!!
Burma has been promised millions of dollars in Western help since Cyclone Nargis, but this did not sway the junta regarding the Nobel Peace laureate, who has been under house arrest or in prison for nearly 13 of the last 18 years....
Unfortunately, Ms. Suu Kyi is CIA!!!!
Which explains the amount of attention and praise she gets from the AmeriKan MSM and from Bush.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who just returned to New York from an aid mission in Burma, expressed disappointment but refrained from sharp criticism in light of the disaster, which left 134,000 dead or missing and 2.4 million destitute.
"The sooner restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi and other political figures are lifted, the sooner Myanmar will be able to move toward . . . restoration of democracy and full respect for human rights," he said, using the junta's name for Burma.
Western nations were more forthright in their criticism of Suu Kyi's ongoing detention.
President Bush said he was "deeply troubled" by the extension and called for the more than 1,000 political prisoners in Burma to be freed....
Now I'm convinced she and the movement she leads is CIA.
And Bush is troubled by detentions, huh? Gimme that salt shaker, quick!!!
France demanded Suu Kyi's immediate release.
"France calls on the Burmese authorities to free without delay Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the leaders of the opposition, and political prisoners, notably those who have been arrested in recent days," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani told reporters.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a 1990 poll by a landslide only to be denied power by the military, which has ruled the impoverished country for 46 years.
Few had expected Suu Kyi to be released, but the extension was a reminder of the junta's refusal to make any concessions on the domestic political front despite its grudging acceptance of foreign help after the May 2 cyclone.
The amount of coverage and print she is afforded also makes me wonder, readers.
Not like the AmeriKan MSM would PUSH an AGENDA or anything though, right?
:-(
Witnesses say many villages have received no outside help, and the waterways of Burma's "rice bowl" remain littered with bloated and rotting animal carcasses and corpses.
There has been no official word on plans to dispose of bodies, but villagers said soldiers brought about a dozen corpses to two sites for burial in Khaw Mhu, 25 miles southwest of Rangoon.
"The soldiers told everyone to shoo, to go away," one local woman said, adding that bodies were covered with "white powder" and then concreted over.
In Dedaye, also in the delta, a boatman said there were about 40 or 50 bodies in one waterway.
"We did the burial ourselves. If I know the dead person, I'll bury his body."
Three weeks after the cyclone's 120-mile-per-hour winds and sea surge devastated the delta, the United Nations said it had raised about 60 percent of its initial $200 million target for aid and relief workers were getting more access...."
U.N hasn't even raised all the aid yet and they are complaining about access!
Going to need a lot more than $200 million, too!!!
And maybe Burma is worried about the U.N. sex abusers?
