bangladesh (and the obligatory post-election discussion)

i'm yet to post about the bangladeshi floods (thanks to the commenter on the previous post - it reminded me!).

as i'm sure you read weeks ago, bangladesh was hit by a cyclone and flooding has followed. flooding happens pretty much every year, but this cyclone has brought the second bout of flooding to the region and this time is far more widespread.

anyway, it's off the news radars, but i'd just like to let you know it's obviously still a huge problem. people are still dying. farmers have lost their land, their crops, their livestock. once the initial aid relief stuff is done there's a whole lot of families that are going to need additional help to get back on their feet. i'd urge you to consider giving to TEAR Australia or other charities that have a specific option to give to the cyclone aid appeal. just yesterday TEAR announced where and how much money was going to their partner agencies in bangladesh. $25,000 is going to HEED (whom i visited), and it's going to both emergency aid and long-term stuff like building cyclone-resistance schoolhouses. you can read more here.

an interesting article i found in my interweb travels is this one. daily star is the bangladesh newspaper and this (long) article discusses the australian election (in a surprising amount of detail) and the implications for bangladesh, as well as the parallels between howard's government and the political parties in bangladesh.

In Australia, Rudd has shown how young, fresh and new leadership can rejuvenate not only a political party but also an electorate and a country in its entirety. This should serve as an inspiration to the talented up and coming new leadership, not only within BNP and AL but also other emerging political platforms and parties. The old leadership have proven themselves to be irrelevant to our future aspirations. New leadership, whether in existing or new political platforms, can help carve a new future for our people and country. 1/11 has provided the "enabling" or "facilitating" environment required for energetic, visionary and forward-looking leadership to face our challenges.

our new prime minister
so most bloggers i subscribe to already talked about the election and did so intelligently. it's 1 in the morning so i won't manage that.

i'm feeling optimistic about this government, and i'm looking forward to this change. i've only ever really known howard as my prime minister, so it's kind of sad letting go of him.
mostly, i'm just looking forward to the torture that the chaser gang will unleash on our new leader :P

stay tuned for a post on emergents and social justice coming up in the next few days. should be fun!