Worst News So Far
(Thailand and Burma are bordering countries.)
Burma agonyBangkokPost.com
(Thai) Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej called off plans for a flying weekend visit to Burma, concluding late on Friday that not even he can talk the military junta into accepting international aid for its suffering cyclone victims.
Mr Samak had said earlier on Friday that he would fly to Burma, talk to the junta members, and use his personal influence to open the doors to civilian aid workers.
Hours later, after talking on the telephone with his counterpart Thein Sein, he said the trip would be a waste of time.
Thien Sein told Mr Samak he was welcome to travel to Burma on Sunday, but the regime was adamant that no foreign aid workers will enter Burma, now or ever.
"So there is no point of me going there," he said.
Prime Minister's Office Minister Vichienchote Sukchotirat said Mr Samak was not giving up. Two Thai envoys inside Burma will try to impress on Burmese officials the necessity of getting expert aid to an estimated one million suffering Burmese villagers.
If there is any sign the Burmese will negotiate the issue, he will immediately go to Burma, said the Thai premier.
Mr Samak has cultivated warm relations with Burma's military rulers, even in the face of strong domestic criticism. After an official visit in March, he described the military dictators as "good Buddhists," despite the September crackdown on dissent in which they killed at least 31 people.
US Ambassador to Thailand Eric John met with Mr Samak Thursday in a bid to seek Thai help in airlifting $3.25 million of emergency aid to Rangoon. Thailand even offered to use its own aircraft to fly in the aid, but the generals said "No."
All countries and aid agencies have met with red tape and delays from the regime in their effort to provide relief to the victims of Cyclone Nargis, which crashed into central Burma last weekend. It left about 23,000 people dead, 42,000 missing and more than a million homeless and in need of food, water and medicine.
Burma agonyBangkokPost.com
(Thai) Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej called off plans for a flying weekend visit to Burma, concluding late on Friday that not even he can talk the military junta into accepting international aid for its suffering cyclone victims.
Mr Samak had said earlier on Friday that he would fly to Burma, talk to the junta members, and use his personal influence to open the doors to civilian aid workers.
Hours later, after talking on the telephone with his counterpart Thein Sein, he said the trip would be a waste of time.
Thien Sein told Mr Samak he was welcome to travel to Burma on Sunday, but the regime was adamant that no foreign aid workers will enter Burma, now or ever.
"So there is no point of me going there," he said.
Prime Minister's Office Minister Vichienchote Sukchotirat said Mr Samak was not giving up. Two Thai envoys inside Burma will try to impress on Burmese officials the necessity of getting expert aid to an estimated one million suffering Burmese villagers.
If there is any sign the Burmese will negotiate the issue, he will immediately go to Burma, said the Thai premier.
Mr Samak has cultivated warm relations with Burma's military rulers, even in the face of strong domestic criticism. After an official visit in March, he described the military dictators as "good Buddhists," despite the September crackdown on dissent in which they killed at least 31 people.
US Ambassador to Thailand Eric John met with Mr Samak Thursday in a bid to seek Thai help in airlifting $3.25 million of emergency aid to Rangoon. Thailand even offered to use its own aircraft to fly in the aid, but the generals said "No."
All countries and aid agencies have met with red tape and delays from the regime in their effort to provide relief to the victims of Cyclone Nargis, which crashed into central Burma last weekend. It left about 23,000 people dead, 42,000 missing and more than a million homeless and in need of food, water and medicine.
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I’m a professional Internet marketer, SEO expert and web designer. I have been thinking for some time that there must be a way I can use my skills to further God’s kingdom. After doing some analysis, I discovered that although there are many missionary blogs and websites, there are not many that have been optimized correctly to get a lot of readership traffic. You are probably aware of this, but a couple of the most important ways to get a lot of traffic is by having a high Google (Google, because it gets the most search traffic) PageRank and by having new content – A LOT of new content.
That is were you come in, with the content. Before I launch the news website, I would like to get 100 (eventually, I hope to have even more than this number, but this would be a good start) missionaries around the world to agree to be “news journalists.” If you are interested, I would like you to be one of the 100. If successful, there would be thousands of hits a day on the website. You would benefit by having many thousands of people around the world read about how God is using you, the work you are doing, and the people you are working with. Hopefully, some of the people visiting the website would support you with prayers and/or finances. Maybe some of them would want to volunteer to help with some of the projects you are working on. You could also benefit from having increased traffic to your website (each article you write could have a link to your website).
If you choose to participate, I would like you to agree to provide at least 12 articles in a year’s time. If you don’t want to write that many, you don’t have to feel obligated to do so though. The topic choice would pretty much be up to you. You could write about events in the country, challenges you are facing, tips for new missionaries, how God provided for your needs, and more. The articles don’t even have to be all that long. If you want to write more detailed articles, that’s fine, but if you want to write short ones(minimum should probably about 300 words), that’s fine too. You can also submit videos and photos. I just ask that everything submitted is good quality (you know, dot the i’s and cross the t’s, spelled checked, etc.) and original. It’s fine if it’s been published in print before, but if the content is already on the internet, the news websites PageRank will be reduced if the content has a copy somewhere out there on the web (yeah, the search bots are picky like that). Search engines don’t care about copies of videos and photos, so no worries there. The reason I say a year is because that is the time period through which I will evaluate how well the idea is accepted and whether I should continue the project. Call it beta testing if you want But that is about the necessary time needed to make the website a success.
If you are interested, please contact me by sending an e-mail to joe@josephkolb.info. Please let me know your name, the country you are working in, your missions name, your website, your contact information, your website, and any questions you have. Please provide as much of that information as possible as it will be hard to keep track of everyone if I have so many participants. Sometime after I get your e-mail and once I get the site going, I will send you a user name and password for your publisher account. I may also send updates or more detailed article criteria (good titles, photo sizes, etc.). I will also send a statement of faith that will have to be agreed to. Pretty much Jesus is the only way, the truth and the light and no one comes to the Father but through him.
I think that’s about it for now. Oh, yeah one more thing, I would like participants to add a link from their website (if they have one) or blog to the news website. In-links is another way that Google uses to establish PageRank. Also, I have had some people respond saying that they were uncomfortable with having the articles link to there blogs, if you don’t want to do that, it’s fine. And if you feel uncomfortable giving me some info, then that’s fine, I understand. I won’t sell it of course, but you don’t know me, so I can see why there would some level of distrust.
Along with the news website, I’m thinking of launching a social networking website (maybe part of the news website) for missionaries and those interested in getting connected with missionaries. It would be very similar to myspace’s set-up, but would be geared towards the specific audience that I just mentioned. Before I launch that though, we’ll have to see how successful the news website is. It would take considerable resources to get the social networking site up and running.
If you don’t want to write articles, adding a link on your site directed to the news site would help increase it’s PageRank. If you only can do that, email me and let me know and I will let you know when the site is ready.
So think about it, and most importantly, pray about it! Thanks in advance!
If you have any ideas that would help with the website, let me know!
God Bless You!!
Joe<><
joe@josephkolb.info
PS. A little introduction to myself: I’m Joe Kolb and I’m from Britton, Michigan. I go to a church called Hope Christian Fellowship and North Ridge Church on weekdays. I’m currently working as a web/graphic design and finishing my second degree. I am engaged to an awesome girl and Lord willing, I will be getting married January 2, 2009.