Word: juntas
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...particularly strained after March's bloody demonstrations in Tibet and the chaotic protests that dogged the Olympic Torch relay. But the quake, coming just 10 days after Cyclone Nargis ripped into Burma, has cast the Chinese government in a different light. By blocking foreign aid, Burma's paranoid military junta demonstrated just how impotent and callous to the suffering of its citizens a repressive autocracy can be. But even Beijing's critics expressed admiration for China's swift response to the quake. Some 120,000 soldiers and paramilitary troops were deployed along with thousands of vehicles and aircraft, and China...
...absurd in such a catastrophe that the military junta in Burma has asked people to vote on a constitutional referendum called "discipline-flourishing democracy." It is equally appalling, while people are dying in the wake of the cyclone, to slow the arrival of relief workers. It's too bad Burma has no oil. If it did, I'd bet America and its allies would find a way to solve the problem. John C.M. Lee, Hong Kong...
...aren't any," says the hotelier with an embarrassed laugh when I ask about the best tourist attractions in Burma's new capital. That's no surprise, really. Naypyidaw--the name translates as "Abode of Kings"--was built from scratch just three years ago on orders from the ruling junta. The vast swath of former scrubland didn't even exist when the latest Lonely Planet Burma travel guide was written, and there's not much tourist charm in a dusty bunker town whose sole purpose is the wish fulfillment of paranoid generals...
...civil servants have been forced to abandon Rangoon for Naypyidaw, but the new capital has only two markets catering to their needs. There's no sign of movie theaters or karaoke dens, and no cell-phone coverage--for "security reasons," the locals claim. (That still doesn't explain why junta leader Than Shwe has refused to take calls from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was phoning to urge more government aid for cyclone victims...
...city's only potential tourist attraction is a replica of Rangoon's famous Shwedagon pagoda. It's still under construction. At the building site, child laborers--some appearing no older than 6--lug piles of rocks on woven stretchers. Burma's junta has long been considered one of the world's worst human-rights abusers. But the generals don't have to see these tiny laborers build a golden temple for their Abode of Kings. That's because the top brass is bunkered in another, faraway part of the city, an isolation that could help explain the junta's underwhelming...