I’ve been silent to date on the unfolding tragedy in Myanmar (which by the UN’s latest estimate will claim several hundred thousand lives), not out of indifference, but for lack of anything pertinent to add to the discussion. Today comes news that a 7.8-magnitude earthquake just hit China’s Sichuan province, with initial estimates of three to five thousand dead. The first reaction to natural disaster should be to think of the victims, with a priority on saving lives and alleviating further suffering. I admit that mine was to wonder how China and the world would respond politically, in terms of [...]
DENPASAR, Indonesia —When he took office one year ago, Irwandi Yusuf knew his job was going to be tough. And a little more than one year later, over a coffee in his office in Banda Aceh, he acknowledged that it is not getting any easier. “I know the job better now, but my support base is getting more and more disobedient,” he said. Irwandi is the first directly elected governor of Aceh, the once war-torn province of Indonesia and the area worst hit by the December 2004 tsunami. He was elected in December 2006 with almost 40 percent of the [...]
During a visit to Burma a few years ago, I decided to avoid the country’s legendarily deadly airlines and instead hire a car to take me along the somewhat less deadly roads. Distances that on the map looked like they should take an hour to cover took entire days. The criminal extent of the country’s neglect was already obvious in Rangoon, where I saw a mother sitting with a large crowd on a downtown sidewalk, despondently holding in her arms a baby so malnourished that I’m sure it died not long after I gave her a small amount of money, [...]
