If you think your life sucks, think again

[morningstar]

Folks, the flooding situation in Pakistan is dire and getting worse. This is an emergency and a tragedy that snuck up on people. The media is barely covering it, even though it is now considered a bigger emergency than the Haiti earthquake, the tsunami and the 2005 Kashmir earthquake combined. 14,000,000 people are affected; 6 million of them are children. The threat of cholera and other waterborne diseases is eminent - it is only a matter of time until epidemics begin. The threat of the Taliban is also rising, as the soldiers that had isolated them are now working on emergency relief and the Taliban now have free reign to come down from their mountain hideaways. The areas of Pakistan that are hit are the poorest of the poor; they had little before, now they have nothing. The floods continue to rise and the monsoon rains still have 2 weeks to go. The aid isn't getting there effectively yet, but it will. This is a complex emergency that is not over by any means.

The UN is only asking for $460,000,000 in aid right now, but it will take billions over the long haul. What can you do? I know that the economy sucks; I know that we all feel emotionally and financially tapped out from previous emergency efforts. But we are all doing a thousand times better than these folks on every level. We really can help. Most of us can't be there to help out on the ground, but our money actually has the power to save lives. It really does.

If you can give, please do. At least, please consider it.

UNICEF USA: www.unicefusa.org; to donate: https://secure.unicefusa.org/site/Donation2?df_id=8320&8320.donation=form1

UNICEF Canada: www.unicef.ca; to donate: https://secure.unicef.ca/portal/SmartDefault.aspx?at=1211

American Red Cross: www.redcross.org; to donate: https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?idb=1733645872&df_id=4932&4932.donation=form1

Canadian Red Cross: www.redcross.ca; to donate: https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/donate.aspx?EventID=57138&LangPref=en-CA

 

[toffeedog]

Interesting posting. Bottom line is that if is not in the USA it won't get reported. Usa media reporting organisations do not cover world news like other agencies do.

 

[morningstar]

Interesting posting. Bottom line is that if is not in the USA it won't get reported. Usa media reporting organisations do not cover world news like other agencies do.

Unfortunately, it's not being reported much in other countries either, with the exception of the BBC.

 

[mom418]

i've heard coverage often on npr, they do a through job of reporting world news, i think. they have a show called the world, focusing on world news only, playing daily weekdays. along with some world news during the other news programs. i think they are very objective. late at night on the same station they play bbc news. also very informative, but not just headlines.
maybe they are part of same company idk.
i cant imagine losing everything the way they have...

 

[garance]

This story was all over the Sunday morning news shows, with a lot of footage and discussion of whether the diversion of our troops to delivering aid would have a beneficial effect on the opinion of Pakistan citizens. In one interview with a mayor of a town in the Swat Valley, it was pretty clear that the Pakistan government had done virtually nothing while there were regular helicopter flights from the American military bringing in food and water.

 

[handels]

I have really been thinking about this.

In the past few weeks, 1500 or so dead in Pakistan, 1100 in China and 5,000 dead in Russia from the heatwave there.

That's 8,000 people in a couple of weeks in just 3 incidents. It's amazing the scale of tragedy in the rest of the world, compared to most losses we find devastating in the US.