Myanmar Cyclone Nargis
This is a village in Myanmar before (May 3, 2008) and after (May 7,2008) cyclone Nargis arrived. As you can see from the photo (click for larger) everything is gone and much of the land is underwater.
Recent news reports say clean drinking water is scarce and although it isn’t official, its now estimated that 60,000 are dead or missing. On May 3, Cyclone Nargis swept across southern Myanmar, leaving more than 28,000 Burmese dead and 33,000 still missing as it washed away people along with their homes. It is suggested by the UN that these numbers will rise to 150,000 very soon if aid does not start flowing into Myanmar soon. Everything hinges on access. Only a quarter of the victims have received any help at all, triggering a race against time to reach more than a million critically short of food, water and other aid and stalked by hunger and disease.
As the Myanmar government’s continued refusal to allow more than a trickle of aid into the country, the real disaster is said to be coming. With no experienced disaster relief workers, it has upped the chance of disease wiping out more people than the cyclone and the tidal surge that followed it.
Emergency teams are starting to penetrate some of the areas worst hit by Nargis and they are finding villages where all the homes are destroyed and survivors who have had no clean water since May 2. The World Food Programme estimates that aid has reached only about one-quarter of the 1.5 to 2 million victims of the cyclone.
CARE International workers have been interviewing survivors and hearing about repeated stories of villages of 400 or so people where only three or four people survived.
Oxfam, which is probably the best equipped international agency to deal with the drinking water and sanitation problems which are posing the greatest health risks to the cyclone survivors, is not registered in Myanmar and has yet to receive permission to enter the country. Oxfam suggests 1.5 million face death if they do not get clean water and sanitation soon.
With all the delays the region is now at huge risk of diseases spreading, particularly dysentery and cholera. The World Health Organization says it is already seeing diarrhea and dengue fever and fears outbreaks of malaria and measles, which are both endemic in Myanmar.
To make matters worse, if at all possible, a Red Cross relief boat sank which carried supplies when it hit debris in the Irrawaddy Delta region.
Many countries are coming to Myanmar’s aid, with Australia’s most recent and generous $25 million in relief aid.
It takes hundreds of millions of dollars over a period that often stretches to two or three years to deal with a disaster on the scale Myanmar suffered.
Click Here to Support American Red Cross: Myanmar Cyclone Relief
Monthly Update - April 2008 ($872,365, +$39,068)
Thanks to a nice comeback of the stock market, our net worth received a much needed boost of 4.7% in April. I hate to mention the fact that despite our continued hard work and savers' mentality, our nest egg is still lighter compared to the low 900's it fetched in October 2007 -- our total wealth basically went no where in the last six months thanks to the rollercoaster ride of the stock market.
BALANCE SHEET
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Portfolio Update - April 2008 (Up 3.98%)
SUMMARY
The market finally recovered some ground after five back-to-back monthly losses, and my portfolio benefitted from the market's sudden enthusiasm too with a nice gain of 3.98%, the largest monthly gain in a while. Since my portfolio is decidedly under-exposed compared to my benchmark, my monthly gain is dwarfed by the benchmark's 4.45% expansion. On a year-to-date basis, both my portfolio and the benchmark lost about 3.30%.
TRANSACTIONS
I made some shuffling in my mutual fund positions to embrace the newly available option of BrokerageLink -- a 401(k) plan feature that allows participants to expand investment options to almost all stocks and mutual funds. As such, I dropped Russell International Growth and ING International Value (NIIVX), bought more of Harbor International (HIINX) and USAA Precious Metals and Minerals (USAGX).
In addition, I moved more U.S. dollars to Chinese Yuan on my "carry trade" experiment. By the end of the month, I have about one seventh of my portfolio in Chinese Yuan, yielding handsomely from gradual, predictable appreciation of the currency. (Starting from this month, I'm breaking our my Chinese Yuan positions from the "Cash/Fixed Income" category.)
Also, I had to pull some money out of my portfolio to repay some 0% APR credit card debt that is coming due. This, of course, reduced the leverage of my portfolio.
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Read more news like this from PFBlog.com, The Unique Personal Finance Blog Since 2003.
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