|
|
|
Writers needed. Help search for and post interesting news and/or press releases.
Politicians in the up and coming New Zealand elections are using Facebook and other social networking sites to promote their policies and image.
And in the race for Prime Minister, John Key, the current opposition leader, is doing better than Prime Minister Helen Clark - at least as far as Facebook is concerned.
Mr Key said the potential of social networking sites such as Facebook was important, and that because it's a thriving and rapidly growing community, a lot of people using the site are interested in politics. His aim is to reach out this group. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister claimed that the reason Key was more popular on Facebook is because his pages are maintained by paid staff who can recruit others, whereas the PM's page was maintained by supporters and volunteers.
Key confirmed that one of his communication staff monitored his social networking sites, which include not only Facebook but also YouTube and Flickr. He sees using these sites as a great way of taking 'our message to Kiwis living overseas.'
Key's Facebook page was begun in mid-February, and by Saturday the 24th, he'd attracted 3302 supporters. The Prime Minister, by contrast, has only gathered 1164, even though her page was started some six months ago.
Shared on
I received the following email yesterday - it had been sent to someone who sent it to someone else who sent it to my office. I feel it's necessary to give this issue as much exposure as possible, even if it's being repeated in several different places on the Net.
Greetings from Thailand.
I am going to pass on the information I have received from many sources here concerning the real situation in Burma, Myanmar. These sources include International schools in Yangoon, Burma, our church, which has many ministries and humanitarian aid projects in Burma. Individual friends who work in Burma and from the Koren, not Korean people.
Right now the scope of the disaster is enormous. There is at least 5,000 K. (3100 sq. miles) of land under the ocean that probably will never come back. The estimates are running as high as 1,500,000 deaths and could be more if the Burmese Govt. has its way. But the govt. will never let the real figure out as they don't care, and don't want the rest of the world to know. This disaster is far greater than the tsunami several years back. We have seen videos that were smuggled out Burma of bloated human bodies littering the river ways and rice fields and have been there for nine days now. The govt. can do something but does not. What will probably never reach the news media is that most of the people that have been affected are the Koren ethnic group and the govt. has been trying to exterminate them for decades. If you have seen the last Rambo, those scenes are accurate. The army finds a Koren village then opens fire and tries to exterminate every living thing. The Koren usually work their rice fields and vegetable fields with a basket on their backs, with a few essentials, so if a raid comes they can run into the jungle at once. The Burmese army is desperately trying to keep the atrocities out of the news, so the world won't know what they have been doing for 30 years.
There are many refugee camps for the Koren on the border in Thailand , but they have been full for 25 years and won't or can't take any more refugees. The borders are locked down on the Thai., Chinese, and Indian sides. Nobody is getting in. The few supplies that are getting in, that you may have seen on TV., are for propaganda. The govt. takes the supplies and gives to the army or puts the armies name on it and then gives it to a few Burmese villages to bride them to vote in the election taking place now. They will not help any of the 12,000,000 Koren that live in the country.
Our family has been helping several Koren here in Chiangmai financially for the last 6 and a half years. We pay college and high school tuition, employ them as maids, pay hospital bills and I have gotten three hired by our school in full time jobs. We send money and clothes to refugee camps during Christmas and help support a Koren pastor who works with the "untouchables", (lepers). Just 7 days before the Cyclone we sent up a group of 15 of our sports leaders from our high school to a refugee camp orphanage. We have classes for credit for high school students to train them in how to teach and coach sports. They also learn how to put on ports camps. We sent them up with clothes and money for rice and sports equipment of all sorts. Our students stayed three days and played with the orphans that cross the river each day and gave them balls, clothes and food.
What aid is getting in now, and has been for several days for the displaced people in Burma, is being done covertly by the Christians and the missionary organizations that work out of Thailand. There are many organizations that have been smuggling food, medicine, doctors and money for decades so they are familiar with the smugglers routes and how to get in. A non profit organization sponsored by our church has been doing relief work and orphanage work for years in Burma and has developed a sophisticated infrastructure within the country.(Our church was just informed that two of the orphanages and all inhabitants have disappeared) There are now many people and organizations using our network to get needed food, money, medicines and other supplies into the hands of the people.
What can you do? If God lays it on your heart to help, go to this site www.partnersworld.org and place a donation.
Name supplied, but not for publication.
Shared on
More Posts
121 Posts dating from December 2006
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:
|
|
|
DeAnne
Mike Crowl
Add Comments
Comments (2)
