Word: rangoons
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...refugee camps set up in monasteries and schools. In Laputta, 58 refugee camps have been set up for tens of thousands of dazed villagers who have nowhere else to go; the local hospital reports that one-quarter of new patients have diarrhea, a potential harbinger of killer epidemics. A Rangoon doctor says his hospital has run out of fully trained medical staff and is now sending interns to the disaster scene. International health officials warn that as many people could perish in the aftermath of the storm as from the cyclone itself. "I've had long experience of emergencies...
...political activists, students and Buddhist monks believes that the world can't wait. "We urge the U.N. and foreign governments to intervene in Burma immediately to provide assistance directly to the people of Burma without waiting for the permission of the military junta," the underground group, based in Rangoon, pleaded in a public statement. "Just come now." When I floated the idea of unilateral intervention with a democracy activist in Rangoon, he brightened up. "People would be so happy if they got foreign food from the sky," he said. Then, he whispered to me that Than Shwe's compound...
...Local opposition groups and Burmese in exile are now wondering whether disgust with the junta's disaster response could lead to a coup by younger, reformist officers. One source at the Rangoon airport described how rank-and-file soldiers were exhausted from unloading relief supplies. Officers, he says, are angry at the lack of planning by their superiors. But it's far from certain whether such frustration will turn into a groundswell against the junta. Similar hopes of reform surfaced during pro-democracy demonstrations last September, only to be dashed when soldiers gunned down dozens of innocent protestors. Thousands...
...seedlings because of salt-water inundation. Future shortages could spell dissent: at least five protest movements in Burma's recent history happened in the months when grain prices were at their highest. In a startling indication of dissatisfaction, an official counting referendum votes in Rakhine state told a Rangoon journalist that in 15 townships, the "no" vote ranged from 56% to 98%. (In Burma, it is unlikely that official results will reflect such inconvenient public sentiment...
...close. Even the sight of U.S. military cargo planes landing in Rangoon failed to quell the frustration. The U.S.'s top commander in the Pacific offered to "put Burmese officials on our planes and ships" if they allowed U.S. forces to bring relief supplies into the country. But there's little chance a regime this insular and paranoid will let that happen. The trouble is, the Burmese lack the kinds of assets needed to deal with a calamity of this scale--and the longer Burma resists offers of help, the more likely it is that the disaster will degenerate beyond...