MYANMAR WANTS $11 BILLION?
Myanmar's military government wants more than $11 billion (5.6 billion pounds) in aid for cyclone victims, but international donors need access to verify their needs, a top Southeast Asian diplomat said on Wednesday.
I'm having a hard time with this one folks, so three weeks after the fact the Junta finally steps up with their hand out? No doubt whatever it is they were hiding has been moved or further hidden and I'll bet you a new hunting dog and a box of shotgun shells, the everyday citizen will see maybe a penny of every dollar of any money loaned (given) to the thugs in charge. Not smart.
ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan also said a Myanmar cabinet minister told him that French oil giant Total SA was willing to transfer aid and equipment from French and U.S. Navy ships waiting in waters near the former Burma.
Minister of Planning and Economic Development Soe Tha "told us Total is going to do the transfer" of aid from the ships, Surin said in an interview with Reuters.
Details of how the supplies would be transferred -- by helicopter or other means -- were not discussed, the Secretary-General of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said.
Total could not immediately be reached for comment.
The French firm, one of the biggest foreign investors in Myanmar, operates the offshore Yadana gas field and a pipeline that runs to the shore and overland to neighbouring Thailand.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was due in Yangon on Thursday, said relief workers had so far been able to reach only a quarter of those in need among an estimated 2.4 million people made destitute by the May 2 storm and sea surge that left nearly 134,000 dead or missing.
ASEAN is convening a donor conference jointly with the United Nations on Sunday, amid criticism in the West that too few foreign aid experts have been allowed into the stricken Irrawaddy Delta to establish aid distribution networks.
Surin said the military government is seeking $11 billion in pledged aid from the conference.
"The concern is for the international community to pledge assistance 'How do we know it's $11 billion? How can we be certain?'," said the former Thai foreign minister.
"Accessibility is important to guarantee confidence and verify the damage and needs, otherwise confidence during pledging will be affected," he said.
Sounds to me like someone has a pretty big vested interest in the area (French owned Total SA) so I would think that is this entity that should be most concerned with getting operations back up and running. But. Enter the United Nations to make more speeches, hold their hand out for more money and attempt to justify their existence. Sounds like a few American government agencies I know. But enough about that.
For America to release manpower and resources to something (Junta) that doesn't work is "plain old country dumb." If we had the nads we would tell the suffering citizenry that when they oust the Junta, by force if necessary, life begins again, without the Junta boot on your throat. But we won't do that will we, we'll continue be used like a drunk crackhead at closing time.
If Obama were in charge he'd be shitting his pants attempting to coddle and appease the U.N., the Junta and Al Gore.
Why?
Because, in his Marxist commie mind, American's should have been walking instead of driving to give the Junta and the U.N. more money so this never would have happened, the Junta should have been offered the hand of diplomacy during the Bush administration, that would have "brought them around" and Al Gore to make another Power Point presentation to warn the world of the next shifting of the earth's crust. The global warming nuts could spin a link between plate movement and fossil fuel emissions to the retards, of this I'm sure.
Surin said a rapid assessment team of ASEAN members needed to be on the ground and continue to report to come up with a "credible needs analysis" trusted by the donors before pledging.
The diplomat said the military government, criticised for a slow and inefficient response to the disaster, "realised the magnitude of the damage".
Until this week, the junta's attention appeared to have been on a May 10 referendum on a constitution drafted by the army.
Diplomats said their attitude appeared to change just before an emergency meeting of ASEAN in Singapore on Monday that established an aid framework to accommodate the generals' concerns.
(Original report by Grant McCool; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Valerie Lee)
It's time for someone in our representative government to "man up" and point out bullshit when they see it.
There, I said it.
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