It seems that at least about 25,000, and anything up to 100,000, people were killed in Burma by cyclone Nargis.
About 2,000 people were killed by cyclone Katrina in the U.S.
News coverage of Burma’s misfortune is a tiny fraction of that given to Katrina.
Why?
Probably because the their loony government won’t allow world press or help in. Wondering if they are trying to hide something other then a huge catastrophe?
Brian
Depends upon which country one is talking about. As KC states, the Burmese dictators have banned most reporting by outside agencies but it is still front page news on the BBC, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and The Telegraph (these are the websites I visit several times everyday)
I can’t see much difference in the reports here, it’s big news. We don’t have moving pictures like with the tsunami '04 or katrina but it’s a top story in every news show or paper.
The Burmese scum military dictator pricks have only grudgingly allowed aid into the country…
I agree to a point mate, but I have been following the overseas sources rather than our pathetic news reports here.
Ok, how about the volcanic eruption in Chile-same issue, news reports here are sketchy at best and yet there is plenty of reports on the international news services.
Sorry I forgot comrade Pixie dominates our news networks now;)
This about the same when came to terorrist attack,.
In indonesia, terror bombing are not too uncommon,… the victims were mostly locals,. be it moslem or others,. but infact most were moslem people. numbers can reach to hundreds
And when the 1st bali bombing happened in 2001, where many of its victims were western (Australian were the most),. the reactions were massive,… especially from western press.
This indeed created some questions back then among indonesian,. does the local lives cost cheaper than the western,… or much developed countries?
Well, it should be fairly obvious, that news usually focus on issues of public interest and if “our guys” are affected in an attack, this obviously creates more public interest here than if not. A terror attack with XXX deaths in Indonesia would definatly be covered in the news here, though, even without westerners involved. But to expect the same coverage as if we were directly affected is pretty naive.
is that so,. have you ever heard of one australian beauty queen being held for drugs smuggling over indonesia?,… perhaps not,. however for Australian it was huge,… but there was another australian passport holder who was facing exactly the same charge, but less lighting to him,. as he was a vietnamese descent,… both are ‘our guys’ for australians,. but the wattage of lights given somehow differs
the questions of ‘our guys’ is really intruque me a lot,. who is ‘our guys’ here?,… all the caucasians?,. or western countries citizens?,…
when German tourists slaughtered in Egypt about a decade ago,. the news are big also in Indonesia,… or ICE train accident,. those things were not involving ‘my guys’ but seeing the lost one should reminded people on many things that can be avoided(tecnical /human errors,.terror attacks,… natural disasters,. )
so be it I am naive, but at least i have a heart.
germans > other europeans > other westerners > anyone else.
For an incident to make it to the news (and the amount of coverage), the gravity of the incident needs to increase from left to right, which is pretty obvious, otherwise the paper would have to be pretty big, given 7 billion people on earth. Humans need to relate to get interested and they relate more to things they know and from their immediate surroundings. I haven’t heard of the australian girl, but we have the same stories here with german tourists in south america or turkey etc. so in such cases the news consider germans “our guys”, but not belgians, australians etc.
Like I said, these incedents get news coverage, if they are severe enough.
It’s depressing that amount of news-coverage often equals to the number of died Americans/Europeans. Without them, there just isn’t enough CONSUMERS who care.
If couple of fat Western-world out-of-shape persons, who cannot function without his/her fancy electronic gadgets, die it makes a lot of headlines, and causes a lot of new security measures be initiated.
Of course there are things that can overpower lethal natural disasters in the headlines, like some skinny celebrity selling his/her house in the Hollywood.
_
Mate, she wasn’t a beauty queen.
Just a beauty therapist.
And the therapy wasn’t working. 
Don’t worry, that aspect and the different responses have been noted and publicly commented on here at national levels too, in a number of cases. And strongly supported by Anglo Aussies like me who are disturbed by the unequal treatment of our citizens in similar circumstances.
If they’re one of us, they’re one of us.
There ain’t any test for it.
If you’re a half way reasonable one of us, you know when people qualify as one of us.
On the other hand, when we have people who identify as Vietnamese or Vietnamese Australians and Lebanese or Lebanese Australians and who have strong links with people in Vietnam and Lebanon for their drug and gun supplies and so on and who piss off overseas on a non-Australian passport when they’re finally up against the wall after years of criminal activity, whose fault is it if they’re not regarded as one of ‘our guys’?
So do I. The tears of any mother whose child has been killed are as real in all languages.
But my heart doesn’t extend to any sympathy for anyone, whatever their colour or ethnic or religious origin who imports crime into my country from their lawless and primitive backgrounds.
Maybe you don’t have that problem where you are, but we do have it as a result of our foolishly liberal immigration policies and our foolishly liberal reluctance to deport some people who ought to be shot into space. And this is coming from a liberal.
All true.
Four hundred people die in a plane crash and half the article is about the one Australian (or Finn or whomever) on board.
The rest are just numbers, while our dead is a person.
But if we could experience grief or even concern for all the others in all the tragedies that occur on the planet, how long would we last before we committed suicide under pressure of the unbearable misery?
Jaipur Bombing already big in the news here. Another 35 victims of the religion of peace.
Earthquake in China…BIG BIG news here.
Yeah, of course, 18000 still missing in just one city.
your sarcasm is really means nothing,.
i dont know how you see the bigger picture here,. however religious clashes are pretty common in India,. this time it is the Hindus,… tomorrow perhaps the muslims,. and later time perhaps the sikhs and so forth,…
this things happens like most of other develop countries, where political turmoils, religious/ethnic clashes are common,… and ‘your people’ like to choose stories on which are best to put over the media so it could stir up some reactions,… and hopefully obtaining profit out of it,…
try to type ‘sampit’ a horror action done by dayak christians in indonesia,. where hundreds of maduranese moslem beheaded or mutilated,… be it a small baby or aged person,…
pictures contents are extreme,. your discretion advised,…
i donot need to mention other place where muslim butchered,… and yet they are still other similar tragedy occured,…
funny thing,. i hardly saw those massacre accross western media,. except little column stated ‘massacre in indonesia’s remote province’ and not mentioning specifically on who are the victims,…
You were the one who asked, whether terror attacks in the eastern hemisphere are newsworthy here and I merely provided a recent example.
Dayak vs. Maduranese is an ethnic conflict, namely indigenous tribes that feel threatened by aggressive settlement from others. According to the first couple of internet sources I checked, most of the dayak in central kalimantan are btw. muslims, not christians, about 70%, so how do you know those were christians and not muslims? After all, beheading fits the profile of one group much more than the other. The matter of fact is, that it were dayak from all religions who attacked the maduranese, including ones still clinging to their original animist religion.
But since we are at examples, how is life in Aceh for the common kuffar today?
I guess you should check deeper,. population of central kalimantan are 80%muslims most of them are banjar,. HOWEVER many of indigineous dayak are christians and/or pagans(kaharingan) with some percentage of muslims,…
the clash was provoked because of business reasons,. and the provocateur used religion as the base to stimulate the action from dayaks,. beheading also part of ritual by dayaks for their fallen enemies,…
and how do know i these things?,… first hand informations,. some of them took refuge to jakarta,. where i was live,. and i happened to heard their stories direct and live from their mouth,… many of dayak muslim avoid to join the mob,. but the mass are to big for them to refuse,. it is either you with them or against them,.
and my wife origins where from kalimantan,… she is a chinese,.
during 1997 riots,. the dayaks gave assurance to the chinese that no muslim will touch the chinese,… otherwise,. kalimantan will be bath with muslim blood,. this i heard in 1997,… it was like disaster in waiting
come on man,. you are arguing with someone who actually had his relative slashed with machette in ambon,…
about Aceh,. why dont you ask ‘your guys’ up north, who mediate the trust between Indonesia government to the Aceh rebels who wants autonomous islam state in indonesia,…
Hang on…heres the other side to this coin…
The very “newsworthiness” of large scale European/American deaths can work against us.
We now do not have the ability to take large scale punishment in overseas warfare. What would our press do if we had an entire unit surrounded and captured, say of 5,000 people (roughly what the US Army lost in one day on Omaha Beach (June 6th 1944).
Are we going to become victims of our own success in this manner?
When trench warfare made an ugly reappearance in the Iran/Iraq War of the 1980s, the appalling casualty lists did not make much of a ring in the bells of the press. For Desert shield, we delighted in informing everybody of how low our own casualties were compared to Hussien’s Republican Guard…
We are fighting one war after another where our own expected casualty figures are getting less and less, until we make the forgiveable error of assuming that ALL of our soldiers will be “home for Christmas”…
Are we suffering from victory disease?
I quote Emperor Hirohito (1942)…
“The fruits of victory are tumbling too rapidly into our mouths.”