January 03, 2005

Remote Islands Made More Remoterer I have excerpted this from "The SMH," an Australian paper. I have provided the link, but it requires a subscription, pardner.

India's refusal to allow access to the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands is preventing aid from reaching the most desperate survivors of last week's tsunamis, international aid groups said. The country's death toll was expected to top 15,000. Despite the December 26 tsunamis that ripped through the low-lying atolls, the Indian government has stood by its long-standing policy of restricting entry to the islands out of concerns for the security of a military air base as well as the protection of indigenous tribes. "This closed-door approach of not allowing NGOs (non-governmental organisations) is delaying relief efforts," said Shaheen Nilofer, program manager for Eastern India for international aid agency Oxfam. "Valuable time has been lost because of this delay. (India is) accelerating the miseries of the poor people," she said. "Somewhere, someone has to be responsible. If you don't take care of the survivors, the number of deaths can far outnumber the deaths from the tsunami." By Monday morning, the Home Ministry put India's official death toll at 9,479, with another 5,681 people missing and feared dead in the remote island territories.

posted by Starc 19 years ago
  • It's, ah, called the Sydney Morning Herald, as it has been since, er, 1831. And you don't need to *cough cough* subscribe to get through to the link -- just registering should do the trick. /cranky part-time SMH (no capitalised "The", thank you) employee Note also that this is an AP feed.
  • Regular readers of this page will be aware that I am subject to fits of assholism when thingums offend me. Sorry, but after 8 days of all Tsunami all the time, I'm worn out.
  • i work in new delhi, same type of job. i was aware of the name of the newspaper. thank you.
  • It's, ah, called The Associated Press, as it has been since, er, 1848. Why would you snark about someone using an abbreviation and then use one in the same post? Come on.
  • I too have the same type of job. Wolof is correct: the Associated Press wire is officially called "AP News". Associated Press may be the name of the organisation, but the product is definitely called "AP", and has been for ages: I used to write it. (well, bits of it, but you know what I mean) /derail Starc: from the Indian perspective, then, just what are they playing at?
  • Why would you snark about someone using an abbreviation and then use one in the same post? Come on. Because he's grumpy right now, obviously. And grumpy people will grump at the littlest things, because in a state of grumping the tiniest irritant becomes an intolerable annoyance. By the by, does anybody actually call the Sydney Morning Herald "The SMH"? AP is the standard abbreviation, it's what people call it. Similarly, the Financial Times is most commonly referred to as "the FT", but if you tried referring to the Daily Telegraph as "the DT", a grumpy person would very likely roar at you. In any case, I would suggest that single-link tsunami news stories might be better added as updates in one of the pre-existing tsunami threads - it seems a better place for them, and people suffering from tsunami exhaustion (quite understandable) won't feel unduly overwhelmed. This relates nicely to the discussion here, for example - maybe it'd be better there? On preview: I do not technically have the same type of job, not yet.
  • >>is officially called "AP News". huh? nooooo... from the ap stylebook: Associated Press, The: The newsgathering cooperative dating from 1848. Use The Associated Press on first reference (the capitalized article is part of the formal name). On second reference, AP or the AP (no capital on the) may be used. The address is 450 West 33rd Street, New York, NY 10001. The telephone number is (212) 621-1500. The World Wide Web address is www.ap.org. The following are service names used most frequently by the AP. DataFeature DataSpeed DataStream DataStream 500 Stocks DigitalStocks GraphicsNet Newsfeatures NewsPhoto NewsPower Network News PhotoColor PhotoExpress PhotoStream SelectStocks SportsStats
  • Someone switch the MoFi background suddenly? I haven't seen this much shitting on a thread since JohnathanQuick was posting. Would it hurt to talk about the content?
  • Well, they certainly apply that stylebook well themselves... Founded in 1848, a year of revolution in Europe and therefore of great news-worthiness in the United States, The Associated Press is the oldest and largest news organization in the world. It serves as a source of news, photos, graphics, audio, and video for more than one billion people a day, and its customers include newspapers, radio and television stations, and Internet news sites. In 2003, the Associated Press established a Corporate Archives within its Corporate Communications department for the purpose of preserving The AP's valuable historical legacy in journalism. To this end, the Archives will systematically collect, maintain, preserve, and make available for research official records and other documentary material of enduring historical value. Its corollary mission is to serve as the ongoing institutional focal point for the documentation and study of AP. On preview: OK, shawnj... I think that's an interesting snippet of news, and it casts the conversation we were previously having about the non-interference on the Andamans in an interesting new light. However, in the absence of more information on the detail of the situation, or the actual motivations of the Indian government, I'm not sure any further judgements can be made at this stage.
  • yes flashboy much of copy editing is spent re-editing AP copy into AP style, go figure...
  • BTW, Starc, thanks for the post. This is, in fact, very interesting. Survival of the fittest?
  • As a Sydneysider and daily reader, I can confirm that a large number of people I know refer to the Sydney Morning Herald as the SMH. Glad we're all getting worked up over the important things.
  • I'm confused, since there were camera crews and reporters on Nicobar two days after the tsunami. I saw the footage on TV. Why news crews but no aid?
  • To comment on the actual link... If a Western government was involved with this, I would suspect a deliberate decision meant to force islanders to move away from the islands in the aftermath of the tsunami, so the military's top secret air base would be left to its lonesome out there.