When a magnitude 7.1 earthquake decimated China’s Sichuan region, the Chinese government swiftly realized they had a major humanitarian disaster on their hands and were quick to let in foreign aid and also channeled their own resources to try and help their own people.

The Chinese government isn’t exactly thought of as having the best track-record on human rights issues but at least they were quick to admit that they had a problem and weren’t too proud or too scared to accept foreign aid. Whether this has to do with them wanting to look good for the upcoming Beijing Olympics really doesn’t matter, the bottom line is that they didn’t stand in the way of aid being delivered to their own people.

The Sichuan region of course isn’t out of the woods yet as the earthquake created such severe landslides that there is a serious risk of wide scale flooding caused by burst dams putting many more people at risk.

The situation in Burma however, is quite different although now more than three weeks later, they are finally starting to allow foreign aid workers into the Irrawaddy Delta the ruling military junta still shows little concern for its own citizens affected by the disaster. They also extended the house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Let’s hope that some of this aid reaches some of the people who need it most, but as this article suggests, a lot of Burmese people are used to going it alone, and many have never heard of foreign aid and are too proud to beg.

The Burmese government for its part are content to force people to dismantle their roadside huts built out of scraps and garbage and post signs warning people who have just lost everything “Don’t throw food on the roads. It ruins the people’s good habits.”

The story out of Burma has gotten even worse, the Associated Press is now reporting that the UN World Food Program is stopping all humanitarian aid to Burma after all their aid packages were seized by the Burmese government.

The Story writes:

WFP spokesman Paul Risley said Friday that all “the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated.” The shipment included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits.

Not only is the Burmese government stalling all humanitarian aid effort within the country, they are now directly interfering with the little amount of aid entering the country, leaving millions further at risk.

Some reports have said that 200,000 have already perished and another 1.5 Million are without food, water and shelter, and if foreign aid does not come in quickly that toll could rise.

According to an article in the Sun the death toll from Cyclone Nargis which ravaged Burma’s Irrawaddy delta on Saturday could be as high as 500,000 if aid does not get in quick. If these numbers are accurate then, as the article suggests, it could “dwarf the 230,000 deaths across South East Asia in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.”

According to the article:

Sources said 200,000 people were already dead or dying.

But the figure could rise to HALF A MILLION through disease and hunger if the nation’s hardline army rulers continue to block aid for the devastated lowlands of the Irrawaddy Delta.

The sad part about all this is that although the military junta controlling Burma has called for foreign aid in order to help it deal with the crisis, it is still refusing to allow many foreign aid workers into the country to provide critical assistance.

Many members of the media have also been denied entry into Burma. BBC reporter Paul Danahar, one of the few foreign journalists currently inside Burma reports on the absolute devastation caused by the cyclone’s aftermath. Danahar says:

A full six days after the cyclone slammed into this country, there is so much aid sitting on the borders; there are so many needy people. And the two are not getting together.

So the people who have survived are living with thousands of corpses, polluting their environment, polluting their water supply, and the risk of disease taking hold is getting worse and worse by the day.

Danahar also said when reporting on this disaster, he has to hide from Burmese government officials who wish to hide its full scope, saying:

Normally you are welcomed as a journalist by the government that is trying to cope with a disaster. They want the world to know, because they want the world to give help.

Yet we are having to hide from the government here. We are having to send our material out while hiding in paddy fields. It’s an absurd situation. So we go into a village but we can’t stay long, because if the army does come round the corner we may be arrested and we may be sent out.

Normally when you cover a natural disaster the roads you are going down are choked with relief effort – with refugees going one way and with aid going the other. The roads we have been going down, straight into the Irrawaddy delta, are empty.

While it is far more critical at this stage for aid to reach those who have been devastated by the cyclone than it is for members of the media to be allowed to enter the country to report on it, we must also remember that it was the images of the devastation from the Indian Ocean Tsunami, coupled with the fact that one of the areas the Tsunami hit an was popular with many western tourists. There was also a lot of western media coverage there as well. Those images along with many stories about western tourists who were devastated by the storm helped bring the story international attention.

Many television news outlets had sent their anchors to the devastated areas to broadcast live.

During that story, much of the media coverage from the Tsunami centered on the damage which occurred in Thailand, which according to the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee there were 5,246 deaths reported. A large part of that might have to do with the fact that of those deaths 2,463 were foreigners, many of them western tourists.

According to those same figures Indonesia and Sri Lanka each suffered a much larger death toll although there were less foreign casualties. Indonesia was the hardest hit with reports of 94,081 deaths, the reported deaths in Sri Lanka were 30,196, more staggering was the fact that according to this same data 850,201 people were left homeless.

In Burma, the number of people displaced by the cyclone could be in the millions. Many foreign aid workers have still not been permitted to enter the country.

There are also U.S. aircraft carriers in the area ready to provide assistance, but they have as of yet been denied permission to enter Burma.

To make matters worse, the Burmese government plans to hold a referrendum despite the level of devastation that has been caused by Cyclone Nargis.

Not only that, the media coverage provided to this disaster while still significant, has been far less than the coverage given to the Indian Ocean Tsunami.

Part of this may be that so few foreign reporters have been allowed into Burma. Anderson Cooper reported last night that he is currently trying to get a VISA to enter Burma but as of yet he has been unsuccessful. Many other foreign reporters have also tried unsuccessfully to get VISAs.

Much of the Burmese Junta’s reluctance to allow the flood of foreign aid workers and reporters into the country could have to do with the fear that they may lose grip on their continued hold on power.

However, as U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack stated:

“While there may be differences with the regime, this is a humanitarian issue. Clearly, there is a substantial humanitarian need here. You have thousands and thousands of people who have been killed by this; many times more than that … have been affected by it [the cyclone]. So there’s a great need and we’re ready to help along with the rest of the international system.”

CNN Digital producer David Reisner brought the story a little closer to home with some sobering facts in a blog post titled “What 100,000 people means…” keep in mind, as stated previously, one report places the casualty toll at 200,000 and growing.

Now that Barack Obama has essentially sealed the Democratic nomination, look for Hillary Clinton to make a serious push to gain the Vice Presidential spot on his ticket for November.

According to former Bill Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos, who like many other pundits in the American media proclaimed the race to be over after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries — that is exactly what she is doing right now.

On first glance this may not be such a good idea for Obama especially with how bitter this campaign has been so far. Last night on Anderson Cooper 360 — CNN contributor and former advisor to presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, David Gergen jokingly suggested that people close to Obama felt that he might need a food taster if he were to select Hillary as his Vice Presidential nominee.

Andrew Sullivan provided perhaps one of the most persuasive arguments for this so-called “Dream Ticket,” in a May 4 column in the Sunday Times. Sullivan wrote:

There are three main theories behind Clinton’s refusal to acquiesce to mathematics: she simply cannot tolerate losing a nomination she believes she has a dynastic right to; she is trying to ensure that Obama loses in 2008 in order to run again herself in 2012; or she wants to be offered the vice-presidential spot on an Obama-led ticket. I’m beginning to suspect the last option is the most plausible, and it gives Obama a potential opening: why not give her what she wants? An Obama-Clinton ticket would certainly give the Democrats a massive sigh of relief — and perhaps some euphoria.

The conservative white voters that Clinton has amazingly managed to attract could be combined with the massive infusion of new young votes, internet money, and African-American enthusiasm to create a potential tsunami in the election. Instead of having to pick between the first black president and the first woman president, the Democrats could offer voters both: the first black president and first female vice-president. Worries about Obama’s relative youth and lack of Washington experience would be allayed by the presence of the Clintons. The toxicity of the Clinton baggage could be balanced by the hope Obama has inspired.

Simply put, Clinton may try to force her way into the Vice Presidential spot whether Obama likes it or not and she may be willing to further divide the Democratic party in order to do so. Look for Clinton to force the issue in West Virginia and Kentucky, two states which based on voting patterns and demographics in previous primaries, she should win easily. While the math is definitely not on Clinton’s side, she can still do plenty of damage to Obama’s campaign. And that is likely the main message she is sending Obama right now.

As far as Obama is concerned, as Sullivan argued he might be better to offer her the spot to keep her occupied and perhaps more importantly to take away her motivation to subversively undermine his campaign in hopes of running again herself in 2012. There is also the advantage that Hillary can be used as an attack dog going after the Republican attacks that are sure to come while Obama can continue to run a positive campaign. Add in the all important white blue collar and senior citizen votes and it could provide for an easy path to the White House.