On Twitter, Friday, I admitted: I’ve been shamefully, intentionally, avoiding news about the cyclone in *Burma/Myanmar. It’s much worse than I’d imagined.
- @digitalmaverick yeah. pop 53 million. 1.5 million affected/endangered. 60,000 “officially” dead. Junta seizing supplies/barring aid workers
- Wall Street Journal article about the hope that at least this disaster could begin the end of the oppressive Junta regime.
- Will there be calls for an invasion?
- some social media context: Myanmar crackdown on bloggers
THE best idea I heard in 2007 was from Hans Rosling:approach international strife by connecting, one-to-one, with individual people outside our own cultures. Seek to better understand complexities behind the problems.
So I asked: Has anyone been able to find bloggers or other individuals in Myanmar who are getting word out from the ground?
Please subscribe to at least one of the information sources below and share them widely. (Twitter replies, Google and comments on this draft post turned up the following:)
- FEEDS/TWITTER:
- @mmblogs is twittering links to Myanmar bloggers’ posts. (thanks @admore)
- @marshallk scraped this feed of Myanmar bloggers’ voices and also posted a widget (and code) in this post
- BLOGGERS & DIRECTORIES:
- Rule of Law (tip: @stales)
- Rule of Law on Cyclone Nargis (LOTS of resources and a detailed map here)
- Global Voices Online
- Read this blogger who will be headed into the region shortly. She blogs on the Our World Community Ning group (tip: @jefdee)
- Myanmar Blog Directory
- Sharbar: Myanmar Blog Directory
- NEWS SITES:
- Mizzima
- Irrawady
- Democratic Voice of Burma
- Here is an update from the Doctors without Borders Website
What can be done?
Not much. The junta government is seizing aid supplies and turning back relief workers at the borders. That government is itself extremely wealthy from Natural Gas sales to Thailand.