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Myanmar: Death toll more than 10,000

YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) — The death toll from the Myanmar cyclone is more than 10,000 people, Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Survivors were facing their third night without electricity in the aftermath of the historic cyclone that also clogged roads with thousands of downed trees.

Diplomats were summoned to a government briefing Monday as the reclusive southeast Asian country’s ruling military junta issued a rare appeal for international assistance in the face of an escalating humanitarian crisis.

A state of emergency was declared across much of the country following the 10-hour storm that left swathes of destruction in its wake.

The staggering death toll would make the cyclone the deadliest natural disaster to hit Myanmar in recent history, according to figures compiled by a United Nations-funded disaster database.

The government of neighboring Thailand said Myanmar’s leaders had already requested food, medical supplies and construction equipment, AP reported. The first plane-load of supplies was due to arrive Tuesday, a Thai spokesman said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement he was deeply saddened by the loss of life and the destruction suffered by the people of Myanmar and pledged to mobilize international aid and assistance as needed.

A United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination team is on stand-by to assist the government in responding to humanitarian needs if required, the statement said.

Scenes of the destruction showed extensive flooding, boats on their sides in Yangon harbor, roofs ripped off buildings, uprooted trees and downed power lines after cyclone Nargis battered the Irrawaddy delta with 150 mile (241 km) an hour winds throughout Friday night and Saturday morning, dumping 20 inches of rain. Watch how the cyclone crippled Yangon

Residents of Yangon trudged through knee-deep swirling brown waters Monday as the delta city remained mostly without electricity and phone connections.

The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar has issued a disaster declaration in the country and authorized the release of $250,000 for cyclone relief efforts, Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday.

A disaster relief team is standing by, Casey said, but the Myanmar government had not given permission for the team to enter the country.

U.S. first lady Laura Bush blasted the military government, saying the lack of warning before the deadly cyclone hit was the latest example of the junta’s failure to meet its people’s basic needs.

Hakan Tongkul, with the United Nation’s World Food Programme, said residents in Yangon needed urgent assistance. This has pushed people to the edge. All that they have has been blown away. Watch the cyclone hammer Yangon

Michael Annear, regional disaster manger for the Red Cross, said the group was helping provide safe drinking water.

Relief agencies met at the United Nations’ Bangkok headquarters Monday to coordinate their response to the disaster. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it had released 200,000 Swiss Francs (about $190,000) to help with the aftermath.

A state of emergency was declared Sunday across five regions: the city of Yangon, Irrawaddy, Pegu and the states of Karen and Mon. All flights to Yangon, the former capital, were canceled.

Most Burmese with whom we’ve been in touch report they lost their roofs, although so far everyone we have been able to contact reports that they and their families are safe, said a Yangon-based diplomat who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. See photos of the destruction

Most telephone and cell phone service was down in Yangon, a city of about 6.5 million people, according to Dan Rivers, a CNN correspondent in the country.

In some places, the price of fuel had quadrupled to $10 a gallon. Even with that price lines for gas stretched around the block and some sought to buy gas on the black market.

The main water supply has been cut in many areas and power lines are down, Rivers reported.

Earlier Monday, an editor for an independent Myanmar newspaper based in Thailand told CNN that people in the Southeast Asian nation were angry over the response to the disaster by the ruling military junta.

People are very angry with the slow response coming from the military government, said Aung Zaw of Irrawaddy news magazine. Listen to Irrawaddy journalist discuss the situation in Myanmar

Khin Maung Win, a spokesman for the Democratic Voice of Burma — a broadcast media group run by opposition expatriates — said the whole of the delta region had been affected and entire villages had disappeared.

Pictures from inside the country showed a cyclone-ravaged region with tin huts crushed under trees. Bicyclists navigated around large branches that littered the deserted roads.

A man with his pant legs rolled up waded through knee-deep water and strained to clear massive limbs that were blocking the entrance to a house.

Despite widespread damage, Myanmar’s junta plans to proceed with a referendum on the country’s constitution on May 10 — the fourth step of a seven-step road map to democracy — according to state-run media reports. Learn more about Myanmar

A critic of Myanmar’s government said the referendum must be postponed.

They would be very stupid to go ahead with it, said Khin Maung Win with Democratic Voice of Burma, a broadcast media group run by opposition expatriates. Thousands of people are dying or missing. It is very difficult to get around or get food and water. How can people vote?

Myanmar, formerly called Burma, last held multi-party elections in 1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy handily won. The military junta ignored the results. Suu Kyi, who is currently under house arrest, has been in detention without trial for more than 12 of the past 18 years.
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Commentary: Negative press distracts churches from mission

Editor’s note: Bishop T.D. Jakes is founder and senior pastor of The Potter’s House of Dallas, Texas, a multiracial, nondenominational church with more than 50 outreach ministries.

(CNN) — The blood-washed church for which Jesus died is not relegated to one group or another, nor is it held hostage by politics or ethnicity. It is a breathing, living testament to God’s love and grace. It serves its community where it is located and is aware of the needs and nuances of that community. However, its relevance and vision must go beyond its community and reach the world for which Christ died.

Today as the church moves from its introspective posture to a broader role in politics, business, media and impacting societal ills, it has the dubious and daunting task of doing so without losing its core function. Like all such organizations that cease to be intrinsically focused, it runs the risk of being totally misunderstood and misaligned.

I have listened and watched the events of the last few days with great disappointment as the church and the so-called African-American church, in particular, has been painted rather negatively with a broad, wide-ranging brush. I personally wish the distinctions of the church by ethnicity would one day become an antiquated idea. But this will require more people moving from a segregated worship experience. Until then, the church is becoming increasingly bruised by those who seek to move it from its core principles and make it an instrument of division rather than a catalyst for unity!

To say the current picture in the media of the institution that I have loved all of my life is less than flattering would be an understatement. And because I know that many Americans unfortunately do not venture outside of the comfort of their own groups for worship, the only understanding some will have of who we are is based largely on sound bites and media portrayals. I want to set the record straight!

I am afraid that once again our churches will be victimized by stereotypical ideas and opinions that are based in whole or in part by the extreme and not the norm.

The church I have read about in the media — a church filled with divisiveness, a lack of tolerance for other ethnic groups, a church not focused on helping the downtrodden and less fortunate, a church filled with hostility — does not remotely resemble the churches that I grew up around and have loved for more than 50 years.

Most, if not all, predominantly African-American church doors are open to all, not just to blacks, but to anyone who is seeking a spiritual home, guidance, support, direction, faith and a feeding of the soul in the purest sense. Many of us have worked with other organizations, different cultures and denominations believing that there is more to unite us than there is to divide us.

The African-American church I know is filled with programs designed to address the many ills that inflict our society: HIV/AIDS, homelessness, reducing the rate of recidivism, assisting with employment and job training, economic development and financial management classes, home buying seminars, food banks to feed the hungry, schools to educate and an active plan to guide our youth. Those outreaches have been colorblind, passionate depictions of Christ’s love for all humanity!

The predominantly African-American church may be founded by an African American, it may be led on Sunday by an African American, but as you look through the crowd of these beacons of hope and faith, you will see an increasing audience that is much more reflective of our world than many would have you to believe. White, black, Hispanic, Asian — nationalities from all across the world come together — some to visit our churches, to enjoy our music and ministers and still others are gradually starting to join our churches. Gradually race fades into the fabric of faith and becomes less central to the overarching core of human needs in general. Is it a perfect union? Of course not. Is there work to do? Absolutely! But the core message is not one that enrages, but one that encourages people to change and grow, and any other depiction is distorted and inaccurate.

The Potter’s House, though largely African-American, is composed of 20 different nationalities and growing in diversity. It is designed much the same way Sen. BarackObama has built his campaign: on a strong commitment to reconciliation, the admonition for unity and strong desire for the continuation of diversity instead of exclusion.

While I have not endorsed any candidate, who can ignore the hunger of Americans for change? No matter who your political choice may be, it is hard to remain ambivalent to the tone that Obama sounded, igniting a national response from people of all walks of life, crowding into stadiums openly weeping — like they were in church — at the very idea of a nation that reflects the best of our ideals; not the divisive ranting and bickering that may drive up ratings but threaten the cannibalization of our dreams and the demolition of our hopes.

As a child, I grew up in a neighborhood back in West Virginia where blacks and whites helped each other in times of need and despair. Now that I am in Dallas, Texas, I have seen our city struggle to its feet in times of dire desperation. I was there when the buses came in to the Reunion Arena in Dallas loaded with mostly people of color who were hungry, weak and tired, and needing human dignity. They were unloaded — covered with the stench of the atrocities of the superdome in New Orleans. I saw blacks, whites and Hispanics driving up with bags of clothes and food and crying together, trying to accommodate whomever they could, wherever they could. This is the America I want my grandson to grow up in.

I am wondering who will get the message that our nation’s citizens are by and large looking for a voice that will unite us, clothe our naked, feed the poor and help our diminishing middle class before we self-destruct like many great empires of the past. Who cares what color they are, what banner they fly, what gender they are, or how they pronounce their names? This is a defining moment in our history, and we are about to destroy greatness with petty self- aggrandizing egotism!

I implore you to not take the words of a few and depict the thoughts, hearts and motives of many. At the end of the day, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proved with his nonviolent approach that hate-filled words will not liberate anyone. To be sure, there is still work to do to defeat racism and to attain justice in our country for all. We continue to need someone who will hold us accountable to our best practices and not our worst. But there is no liberation without love, no prosperity without philanthropy and no hope if the church becomes immersed in the quagmire of pettiness.

As an American I plead with you that we are running out of time. It is critical that we dislodge ourselves from political distractions. We must return to the task of looking for the right man or woman who can answer the bloodcurdling cry of a nation that is in search of a leader with a courageous effective plan for the war in Iraq, and the medical, moral, economic and security issues that are being ignored by these distractions. If we do not, we will have done a terrible disservice to our coming generations.

The Bible said that while good men slept, evil ones came and planted tare, a noxious weed, among the wheat! The tare of a hate-filled church image is a tactical distraction planted to divert our attention from choosing our next president. Let’s get back to listening for leadership strategies from our best and brightest before there is no country left to lead. My hope is that the church remains a vibrant part of our process, sounding the alarm that warns: America, please wake up out of our sleep!
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A seat held decades by Republicans goes to a Dem

(CNN) — Democrats on Sunday cheered a weekend special election in Louisiana, where a Democratic congressional candidate won a seat that has been held by Republicans for decades.

Democratic State Rep. Don Cazayoux beat Republican Woody Jenkins in the state’s 6th Congressional District on Saturday, with Cazayoux winning 49 percent of the vote to Jenkins’ 46 percent. Both parties viewed the race as a potential bellwether of November’s congressional races.

The national GOP poured more than $1 million into the contest in an attempt to tie Cazayoux to national Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

Don Cazayoux’s victory this evening proves once again that Americans across our country want real solutions and reject Republicans’ negative attacks, Pelosi said in a written statement hailing the win.

National Democrats spent more than $1 million as well, airing television ads that questioned whether Jenkins — a newspaper publisher, former state legislator and well-known conservative activist — had paid all his taxes on time.

The contest was to replace U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, an 11-term Republican who resigned in February to become a lobbyist. The district, which includes capital city Baton Rouge and its surrounding parishes, has been held by the GOP since 1974.

Democrats viewed a victory there as an indication of just how vulnerable Republicans will be in November, while Republicans viewed the race as an early glimpse of how a possible Obama candidacy could affect races down the ticket.

Cazayoux’s win comes two months after Democrat Bill Foster won a special election in Illinois to replace former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen quickly sought to link the two races.

For the second time this cycle, Republicans were reminded that ‘All politics is local,’ Van Hollen said in a statement. House Republicans tried to nationalize this election, illegally coordinated with Freedom’s Watch; used false and deceptive special interest smears and funneled nearly a million dollars into a district that Republicans held for more than three decades.

Freedom’s Watch, a conservative group formed by former Bush administration officials, got involved in the race by financing anti-Cazayoux television ads — a move Democrats said violated election laws.

But the National Republican Congressional Committee countered that their attempts to link Cazayoux to Pelosi and Obama helped Jenkins make up substantial ground in the race.

When Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi were introduced into this campaign, Don Cazayoux was leading by a large margin in the polls, an NRCC memo stated. Since then, Republicans saturated the Baton Rouge airwaves in an effort to nationalize this contest and make the election about the real-life consequences of a Barack Obama presidency and a continued Pelosi-run Democratic Congress.

Republicans held on to a second House seat up for grabs Saturday in Louisiana as state Sen. Steve Scalise handily defeated Democrat Gilda Reed, 75 percent to 22 percent, in a heavily Republican district in the New Orleans suburbs.

The seat was last held by Bobby Jindal, who became Louisiana’s governor in January. Since Scalise was heavily favored, the race drew little attention from the national parties.
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Shiite Muslims clash with Yemeni troops; more than 20 dead

(CNN) — A third day of fighting between Shiite Muslim militants and government troops in northwestern Yemen killed more than 20 people Sunday, government and rebel officials reported.

The clashes pitted government troops against fighters from the al-Houthi movement, a Shia sect that has launched previous revolts against Yemeni authorities, in the city of Saada.

Abdul Malik al-Houthi, a spokesman for the militants, said 11 soldiers were killed in an attack on a military camp, while the country’s Interior Ministry said more than a dozen rebels were killed in the battle.

More than 65 people have been killed and 150 wounded since a Friday bombing outside a mosque, for which each side blames the other. Yemen’s government dispatched troops and artillery to Saada on Saturday and attempted to impose a media blackout on the city of about 450,000, which is in the country’s mountainous northwest, amid the fighting.

The latest violence erupted as the two sides were on the verge of signing a peace agreement to settle the most recent of the al-Houthi’s five previous uprisings. Yemeni authorities believe the movement includes about 2,000 to 3,000 of Yemen’s Shia population of more than 9 million.

The government released most al-Houthi prisoners as part of a peace agreement that was supposed to have been finalized in April.

In exchange, the al-Houthi were supposed to disarm and surrender, but would not face prison time.

But the government says that the movement has failed to give up its weapons, and that the prisoners it freed have rejoined the fighters.

Saada is about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of the country’s capital, Sanaa.
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Hundreds feared dead in Myanmar cyclone

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) — As many as 350 people were feared dead after a tropical cyclone with winds up to 150 miles per hour slammed into Myanmar over the weekend, according to local media reports.

We believe hundreds of people are dead, said Khin Maung Win with the Democratic Voice of Burma — a broadcast media group run by opposition expatriates. The entire lower Burma is affected. In some areas, entire villages disappeared.

The activist group opposed the military rule in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

The ruling junta declared a state of emergency in five regions: the city of Yangon, Irrawaddy, Pegu and the states of Karen and Mon. All flights to Yangon, the former capital, were canceled. Learn more about Myanmar

Cyclone Nargis tore off roofs, uprooted trees and downed power lines.

The storm ripped through the sprawling river delta city of Yangon for more than 10 hours — from Friday night until Saturday noon, said Burma Democratic Concern. Watch the cyclone hammer Yangon

By Sunday, many parts of the city were without electricity. Phone connections were also down in most areas, making it difficult to assess the extent of the damage.

Most Burmese with whom we’ve been in touch report they lost their roofs, although so far everyone we have been able to contact reports that they and their families are safe, said a Yangon-based diplomat who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Pictures from inside the country showed a cyclone-ravaged region with tin huts crushed under trees. Bicyclists navigated around large branches that littered the deserted roads.

A man with his pant legs rolled up waded through knee-deep water and strained to clear massive limbs that were blocking the entrance to a house.

The cleanup is beginning, but this will take a long time, the diplomat said. The damage around town is intense. See photos of the destruction

Fuel is not easily available. International emergency assistance would be needed within seven days. There is no food for eating, Win said.

Food prices — already on a dramatic rise — climbed further. Long lines could be seen at gas stations in Yangon. Many of the stations were operating on generators. At one gas station more than 100 buses lined up to refill.

International emergency assistance would be needed within seven days, the diplomat said.

The junta has scheduled a May 10 referendum on a new constitution for the country, which came under sharp criticism from many nations for using force to suppress pro-democracy protests last year.
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