Word: burma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Burma's state media quoted a government official saying the situation in the country was "returning to normal." This as the death toll from last week's cyclone is estimated, by some, to be as high as 100,000, as bodies float in waterways, as shortages of water, rice, medicine and fuel, as well as fear of disease, grip the populace and people swarm shops and and dash toward any location where they think they can find supplies to help them make it through the crisis...
...never been easy to divine what Burma's military rulers consider "normal." Last September, the government sent out hundreds of thousands of soldiers to throttle pro-democracy demonstrations initiated by the country's Buddhist monks. But amid this week's devastation, relatively few of those soldiers have shown up to offer assistance. Meanwhile, the monks have reportedly been warned not to open their monasteries to the homeless for sanctuary. Government bureaucrats, meanwhile, are said to be charging a fee for building materials they are in charge of "distributing...
...Burma has been selective about accepting foreign aid. It has allowed help in from allies like India and China and from neighboring Thailand to enter. After some hesitation over a number of days, the junta okayed a large shipment from the United Nations. It has yet to arrive. Aid workers from numerous organizations and personnel from numerous nations are mobilized and ready to assist, but the regime has been slow to process visas, fearing infiltration by journalists, who are banned, and more generally, Western, pro-democratic influence, which is not to be trusted. "They want the foreign...
...Burmese government radio station announced that the constitutional referendum would not be held until May 24 in the hardest-hit townships, reversing an earlier edict that voting would take place on schedule. Initially a state-run newspaper said there would be no delay "because the people of Burma are eagerly looking forward to the chance to vote," says Aung Zaw, a Burmese in exile who edits the Thailand-based newsmagazine, The Irrawaddy. "But what the people in Burma are eagerly looking forward to is the military government bringing them food and water and shelter...
...place that the cyclone spared was Burma's new administrative capital, Naypyidaw, which was carved out of the jungle by the ruling junta in 2005. Even Burmese civil servants who had to move north to the new capital were given no explanation for the shift. But some local journalists in Rangoon speculated that junta leader Than Shwe had been swayed by soothsayers who predicted that civil unrest and a natural disaster would soon strike the city of 5 million. In September, the monk-led protests made the first part of the prophecy come true; the cyclone fulfilled the second half...