Burma 'guilty of inhuman action'

That's what big Gordy says.

Money shot:

Mr Brown told the BBC that a natural disaster had been turned into a "man-made catastrophe" because of the negligence of the ruling generals.

That would be scanned.

The self interest and self preservation of the ruling elite of Burma/Myanmar[*] is causing unecessary pain, suffering and death to hundreds of thousands of people - a crime of enormous size.

But, wait:

Ten years later, the number of undernourished people in the world remains stubbornly high. In 2001–03, FAO estimates there were still 854 million undernourished people worldwide: 820 million in the developing countries, 25 million in the transition countries and 9 million in the industrialized countries.

Sayeth the Food and Agriculture Organisation. EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR **MILLION** undernourished folk in the world. Further:

• Over half a million women still die each year from treatable and preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth. The odds that a woman will die from these causes in sub- Saharan Africa are 1 in 16 over the course of her lifetime, compared to 1 in 3,800 in the developed world.
• If current trends continue, the target of halving the proportion of underweight children will be missed by 30 million children, largely because of slow progress in
Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
• The number of people dying from AIDS worldwide increased to 2.9 million in 2006, and prevention measures are failing to keep pace with the growth of the epidemic. In
2005, more than 15 million children had lost one or both parents to AIDS.
• Half the population of the developing world lack basic sanitation. In order to meet the MDG target, an additional 1.6 billion people will need access to improved sanitation over the period 2005-2015. If trends since 1990 continue, the world is likely to miss the target by almost 600 million people.

According to the Millenium Development Report 2007.Finally, a quote found on Wikipedia

According to Jean Ziegler (the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food for 2000 to March 2008), mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality in 2006: "In the world, approximately 62 millions people, all causes of death combined, die each year. In 2006, more than 36 millions died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients"[9]."

All of which is to say, that there is a preventable catastrophe going on daily - a slow background grind, and that the reason we are not mobilising now to end it entirely, is because of the need to preserve the interests of ruling elites, who are prepared to countenance such inhumanity so liong as they're allright Jack.

[*]note: since 1989 the military authorities in Burma have promoted the name Myanmar as a conventional name for their state; this decision was not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma, and the US Government did not adopt the name, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw (CIA World Fact Book).