Foreign aid workers dedicated to delivering emergency telecoms in disaster areas have been prevented from going into cyclone-hit Burma.Like many charity groups, the Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) organisation has so far been denied entry visas by the military-run government.A TSF team has been waiting in Bangkok, Thailand, with its equipment all week.”We’re stuck for the moment; so much time has been wasted,” TSF spokesman Oisin Walton told BBC News.If visas are eventually granted, the team will go in to set up phone and other network links.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7393026.stmEmergency in Burma: Télécoms Sans Frontières Asia still on standby
A Télécoms Sans Frontières team is presently on stand-by and ready to deploy to Burma following the deadly passage of category 3 cyclone Nargis. Initial reports have announced 22,500 deaths and millions of people affected, particularly in the regions of Irrawaddy and Rangoon.Coming from the Bengal Gulf, the cyclone made landfall late Friday night on the Southern West coast, with winds reaching 240 km/h. Nargis followed its path toward the East, causing intensive damage in Rangoon, the major city of the country.Electricity and communications have been cut off and the military-based government has declared a state of emergency in 5 regions: Rangoon, Irrawaddy, Pegu, Mon and Karen states.International organisations are mobilizing to support the victims; TSF and its regional office in Bangkok are closely monitoring the situation, ready to deploy as soon as the government requests international support.This announcement was sourced from the Télécoms Sans Frontières website at tsfi.org/tsfispip/article.php3?id_article=224.Also see:No News Is Bad News
Exactly four years ago this month, a cyclone, the strongest in 30 years, hit Myanmar. A journalist, writing one month later in The Irrawaddy (a news magazine published by Burmese exiles), wondered how the country’s state-controlled news media could fail to make any mention of a typhoon that the United Nations said killed at least 140 people, sunk vessels and made an estimated 18,000 people homeless.
http://nytimes.com/2008/05/10/opinion/10alampay.html