Disasters, natural and manmade

A blog has been set up providing news and information on the tsunami disaster in South and Southeast Asia (thanks to Antti Leppänen).

If you need an antidote to the false piety of TV presenters, politicians and commentators, Lenin's Tomb has a good post. There is also a good article in today's Counterpunch which raises some important questions. Particularly worth noting is the fact that the only place that seems to have received an advance warning of the wave from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii was the US military base island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Some cynics have accused the British government of not pledging enough financial aid to help the affected area. At the moment they are promising £15 million, really quite generous when you consider this is at least the cost of a decent house in Chelsea. And anyway, how can anyone accuse the UK government of being stingy when they're spending at least £125 million a month to help the Iraqi people achieve democracy? (Even this pales into insignificance alongside the generosity of the US who have spent almost $150 billion dollars on such important democratic tools as tanks, black hawks, cluster bombs and napalm).