Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Myanmar — there still are crises in these countries and others around the world requiring a slice of attention. Even as the urgency of Haiti clearly rises to the top of the agenda, as I’ve said before, the world must be able to multitask on humanitarian situations. Look to Thomson Reuters Foundation [...]

I highly recommend watching Wide Angle’s program, on PBS, about what has happened to the children of Myanmar since Cylcone Nargis hit. The people there, especially youngsters, are struggling mightily with little help from the government. This issue, and others involving Myanmar’s treatment of its people, need to stay on the U.S. radar. Granted, sanctions to pressure [...]

Food security in Myanmar improving but challenges persist in south
YANGON - More than a year after Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, food security shows signs of improvement, but huge challenges remain, particularly in the southern areas of the Ayeyarwady Delta. full report

• “We’re not ready to afford food ourselves”
• Nargis one year on – progress amid [...]

Tuesday is the annual commemoration among Jews of those who died in the Holocaust. Although too much looking backward can numb the senses, it is worth remembering what Hitler and the Nazis did to 12 million people whose only crime was to be Jewish, or a gypsy, or disabled or gay. The Nazis erected an [...]

Sen. Judd Gregg had an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe that makes some important points on how the Obama administration should proceed with its policy toward the military regime in Myanmar. He’s exactly right in his point that the US must continue to demand that the National League for Democracy, led by the detained democracy activist Aung San [...]

It only was in May of the year just ended – a mere eight months ago — that Cyclone Nargis pummeled Myanmar. The damage has long since slipped out of the international spotlight, even though so many of the 2.4 million survivors who were affected by the devastation still are reeling. Well, it’s time once again to remind people of [...]

I’ve been watching the Democratic convention, as I will the Republican, for references to developing countries and global humanitarian issues. Finally, tonight, former President Clinton, whose post-presidency has focused on global health, acknowledged those issues. His comments were not simply on humanitarian issues. They were on the topics that frame U.S. humanitarian response. He talked about the power of diplomacy, [...]

Not surprisingly, the estimate of the dead and missing has gone up dramatically since the cyclone hit over the weekend. Here’s an update from Bloomberg news. Also, check out the comment/link left on my previous post by a blogger at Global Voices Online. Here’s Bloomberg.
 May 6 (Bloomberg) — The death toll from the tropical cyclone that [...]

Any cyclone is a tragedy. But here’s betting the impact of the cyclone that struck Myanmar over the weekend will be worsened thanks to the isolation imposed by the repressive military regime that has ruled the Southeast Asian country once known as Burma for 46 years. Myanmar generally only makes the news when the regime further jails opposition [...]

Please excuse me for not having posted an entry in so long. My mother, who has been ill since I was in Uganda last June (I cut that trip short to race to the hospital in Cleveland where she was in intensive care) passed away last week. It all seems so unreal to me, that [...]