Marian's Blog

$200/barrel Oil? Choosing sustainability

My cab driver, transplanted from Ethiopia, told me first. That was weeks ago. But I couldn't believe it till I read the headline of today's Independent (London): "Price of oil will double." Folks, we have now reached 'put up or shut up' time. Time to re-tool our out-of-whack, hyper-industrialised U.S./western lifestyle - much of which is so wastefully over-indulgent. Let's take the news as a wake up call, not doom-and-gloom. I prefer something akin to Lucile Alder's poetic view (Dancing toward the future, published in the same journal with Meadows, Meadows and Randers' 1992 follow-up to their 1972 The Limits of Growth). Make good use of age and even perhaps of wisdom. In short, finally learning, as human society, to wise-up while we have time.

"-- To become a dancer so late
To be determined so late to become
A dancer is to become part
Of the dream of the humble heart
Determined to dance to the beat
Of this one dawn becoming day
Caught by a great blush and throb
Of laughter at such a becoming
Such a desire to become a dancer
In the sense of one moving, clumsy
With effort, yet effortlessly becoming..."

Lucile Alder, Dancing toward the Future

State of the Black Union on CSPAN!

My brother just shared with me that the annual, public, free SOBU conference - the State of the Black Union - sponsored by broadcaster Tavis Smiley, is now being televised on CSPAN. Tavis says there are 5,000 persons attending the conference in Houston, Texas, plus scores more watching nationally and internationally via CSPAN. Thanks bro. Check it.

Back to Burning Women at the stake? South Dakota's move to end abortion & women's most basic freedom of choice

I am a 'pro-choice mom'. I am a mother (and Grandma) - I am a mother by choice and I am highly concerned over South Dakota's state government positioning itself for its assault on Roe v. Wade - the US law that gives women the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. My guess is that with its large population of Native Americans and including Indian "reservations" (Native 'reserves' in Canada) such as Rosebud and Pine Ridge, hard-pressed American Indian women will be disproportionately affected. Monica Davey writes in her NYTimes article, "If enacted, the bill, the most sweeping ban approved in any state in more than a decade, requires the signature of Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, who opposes abortion." Well of course; just what we need. In South Dakota's long and racially exclusionary "racially hostile" political tradition, one more white guy awarded the reins of power who pretty obviously never had an abortion and never will need to even consider one for his own body, yet politically poised to run roughshod over thousands of women's (and other men's) lives. Read my lips. In the long run any effort that might ban legal access to safe and affordable abortion will backfire. It is not going to work. You can try to destroy Roe v. Wade, but women's lives, minds and our political organisation will not turn back to pre-1973. ...Come to think of it, not even pre-2003. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mike.

Oilman's view of the State of the Union

Today's MSM news sounds like one of the chief talking points of Bush's state of the union speech was "Americans are addicted to oil." I thought we'd realised that in the '70s. So I suppose in another 30 years Bush will pronounce the world is experiencing global warming. He says it's technology that will save us. MEMO TO MR BUSH: Technology alone will not save the people of the US and the global North (along with the rest of the world) from its their own wasteful behaviour. Technology is a means - not a saviour.

BBC: 'Rollercoasters can stop hearts' - American Heart Association

A BBC article reports cardiologists' findings: "people with weak hearts should avoid riding roller-coasters as they could be risking their lives" - i.e., riding a roller coaster can stop your heart. I already knew this. In my heart. The report adds that rollercoaster riding should not affect 'healthy' people. Does this mean you should go ahead and ride to find out just how healthy you really are? Stress - emotional stress - seems to be a risk factor.

Hurricane WILMA Roaring toward Yucatan and South Florida

The US national hurricane center - based in Miami - is one of the best places I know to get latest info on hurricanes present and past. Only two days ago I warned weather scientists were tracking a new tropical depression in the Caribbean. I think it was #24 of the season. Now it's been named Wilma. Hurricane Wilma. Between then and today Wilma went from a depression to a tropical storm, and then overnight since yesterday from a Cat. 1 hurricane to the biggest, baddest Category 5 storm in tracking history. Haiti and Jamaica have already been hit. Central America seems about to be. This storm is currently on track to come aground somewhere along Mexico's Yucatan peninsula near Cozumel and over the coming weekend it may consume South Florida. That information and the course of this storm could change, which is why we need to pay attention and share information. If you have details to share about this storm and what's happening currently, please add them here as a comment. Between natural disasters and everything else going on all over this planet, around the world populations most likely to be affected need as many of their own people as possible - children, adults, women as well as men - to have the most appropriate and well-conducted disaster training and preparation that can be made available. I don't know all the parties out there responsible for things like this. But I do believe someone reading this does.

Shirkat Gah women's NGO earthquake relief

Pakistani women's resource centre Shirkat Gah is another NGO involved in earthquake relief and will appreciate your help. They are also associated with the JAC joint committee group mentioned in my last blog entry, and this info is from the same item on the website of Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Shirkat Gah is based in Lahore (Pakistan) and the centre coordinator is Ms Farida Shaheed. Ms Shaheed advises that "Gulnar" at Shirkat Gah is the contact person or "focal point" for quake relief and she can answer questions. My advice before contacting them: keep in mind how swamped these folks must be. Gulnar's contact is: gulnar at sgah.org (dot) pk. Shirkat Gah has some good strategic advice on how to collect and send humanitarian assistance funds. This would apply to sending almost any donation. "If you are sending [relief assistance] money to Shirkat Gah, please email Gulnar to inform her of the amount, date and reference number of the remittance, so that we can email you to acknowledge receipt. We will send you updates whenever possible... bank transfer is best, rather than sending bank drafts and international cheques which take too long to clear. It would also be better for one person or group to collect money from friends or family to send in one go, rather send small individual transfers since the bank deducts too much money per transaction. Some Pakistani banks with overseas branch[e]s may agree to transfer the money without bank charges. At least some are doing so in the United Arab Emirates. Shirkat Gah's office in Peshawar is working with others in that area to deliver direct assistance to one particular village. If you want to support that effort, then please inform us." Send contributions to:

Account name: Shirkat Gah Women's Resource Centre
Account No. 3582-050996-001
SWIFT code: SCBLUS33, ABA CHIPS UID 057048
Standard Chartered Bank
1 Evertrust Plaza, Suite 1101 (11th floor)

Jersey City, New Jersey 07302 USA

With instructions for onward telex / swift remittance to:
Standard Chartered Bank
Karachi, Pakistan
Account No. 3582-050996-001 SWIFT CODE: SCBLPKKX
For further credit to:
Shirkat Gah
US$ Account No. 05-5307597-79
Standard Chartered Bank
New Garden Town
Lahore, Pakistan

NGO Sungi - Sending Help to South Asia Quake Survivors

Uh, note to Typepad admin: I have no idea where my earlier draft went but this is the second and final time I'm writing this entry... Obviously 2005 has been a helluva year for natural & "other" disasters. My "other" category includes certain disasters that arguably are largely 'masculine-made' yet which could not be executed without varying levels of indifference, tolerance &/or support from some women. In the Americas right this moment meteorologists are monitoring "tropical depression #24" of the 2005 hurricane season; #24 is potentially another future tropical storm &/or hurricane currently dumping tons of rain on Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. I'm checking the Women Living Under Muslim Laws website for a variety of other issues, including their take on sending aid to South Asia quake survivors. (Whether Darfur, Malawi, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guatemala, the Gulf Coast or Kashmir, I prefer to think of people as survivors and not just victims, and those who sadly have not survived are now sheltered in the hand of God.) WLUML's website advises: "... Pakistani human rights organisations in the Joint Action Committee for Citizens Rights (JAC) have banded together for the relief work, with the NGO [nongovernmental (non-profit/non-lucrative) organisation] Sungi in the lead. Sungi has previous experience with relief work since they started with a flood relief programme some decades ago. The organizations in the JAC have long worked with local communities in the region of the earthquake and are thus able to access remote villages through social networks that are not available to the military and large donor organizations. ..." Makes sense to me; so, alongside other options you have, you may want to consider contributing to the JAC combined relief effort directly by sending funds to the Sungi NGO:

Sungi Development Foundation

www.sungi.org
US Dollar account no. 412-2
Branch Code: 0585
MCB Start Branch Abbotabad
Swift Code: MUCBPKKAA

Financial aid for HBCU students affected by Hurricane Katrina

This information is from the Southern University New Orleans (SUNO) campus website. Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund is offering US$500 emergency scholarships to students affected by Hurricane Katrina who normally attend SUNO, and also to students who are from New Orleans who attend a member school of the Marshall scholarship fund. Click for more info. Also - students from Xavier, Dillard and SUNO are eligible for a $1000 scholarship through the Tom Joyner Foundation. Deadline for this second source is 31 October 2005 - email HBCURelief /at/ blackamericaweb.com - send your full name, the school from which you are transferring, the school you are attending and a phone where you may be reached. Other important financial aid links for students from SUNO's fine website:

Hurricance Katrina Information for Students and Parents

Hurricane Katrina Information for Federal Direct Loan Borrowers

Hurricane Katrina Information for FFEL Borrowers

George Bush's take-charge-white-guy dog & pony trip to New Orleans & Gulf Coast

Photo op time again. Right this minute my TV screen is filled with nine (count 'em, 9) take-charge-white-guys. Bush has just said that "out of the ruins of Trent Lott's house there's going to come another great house" and - I kid you not - "I'm gonna look forward to sitting on the porch." George Bush. His "bud" (buddy) and ex-chair of the mighty GOP - Haley Barbour - is now Republican governor of Mississippi. Oh yeah. Mississippi. Where a Black 14 year old, Emmett Till, was tortured and murdered, and where civil rights workers Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman were murdered, along with a whoooole lot of other Black Americans terrorised, raped, killed and chased from their homes. So I'm pretty sure Bush won't be rubbing shoulders with many average Black Mississippians. And I don't think they'll be protesting in the street. New Orleans could prove to be a very different story.

Katrina, the writing on the wall for the "laissez-faire nation"

"No coordinated effort" - John Zarrella, CNN. "An engineering nightmare" - Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco. -- For more than 30 years, Americans of conscience have been forced to watch as a well-heeled and amazingly connected clique has dismantled virtually all of our national responses to national problems. Everything (except funding) has been "left up to" - read: dumped on - our cities and states. The Gulf Coast disaster of Hurricane Katrina is no exception. This must be "states' rights" at their finest - the right to fend for yourself. Most US governors and mayors (who aren't also part of the "laissez faire nation" mentality) must be taking all this as a very, very sober warning. 

The Constant Gardener: Kenya, Africa, Ourselves

This week I will see the new film version of The Constant Gardener. I'm fascinated by both the film's website and its soundtrack. "Big pharmaceuticals ... are right up there with the arms dealers," a voice declares on the website. "FMF" (who is not English, British, Kenyan or American) loaned me her copy of John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener (TCG) about three years ago when C and I were still living in Nairobi. Back then the book was banned in Kenya. I'm still not sure it's been officially unbanned. I read it in Kenya just before Daniel arap Moi completed his twenty four (24) year run as Kenya's president. He's mentioned several times in Constant Gardener and one can say it's not as a hero. The book was a fascinating read; I couldn't put it down, which I can't say for quite a bit of fiction. I hear they shot on location in Nairobi, including Kibera - Africa's largest slum[, and elsewhere in Kenya - including Lake Turkana?]. I keep thinking that whenever I recommend this book and film to others I must suggest they do 3 things: 1. Read Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost;(subtitle, "A story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa") 2. Read Edward Hooper's online letter about his suspicions on the origins of HIV and AIDS, and take a look at his entire website investigating the origins of AIDS; and 3. See the related, Emmy-nominated documentary film, The Origins of AIDS, which the Sundance Channel aired in the USA in February 2005. Truth really is stranger than fiction, and in this case a book and film of fiction help lead us to examine certain truths. Despite faults of yet another heavily eurocentric plot set in Africa, in some other ways The Constant Gardener is on the right track. God bless Africa.

Hurricane Katrina - Does Bush hear a Global warming wake-up call??

What if the current human and environmental tragedy on the Gulf Coast could be traced to effects of global warming? On one hand we have a no-book-readin' presidential jock - George Bush - now 'benevolently' promising to dole out "assets and resources" in the wake of a Category 4/5 hurricane. This is the same guy who for years has stonewalled repeated international requests for our country to sign a treaty to combat global warming. I have a feeling we are plumbing amazing new depths of cynicism. What do most of us know of scientific research on hurricanes, typhoons and global warming cited on this site from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Research Laboratory (which is part of NOAA - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)? Why is NOAA part of the U.S. Commerce Department, anyway? The website states: "The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Although we cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricanes will occur in the future with global warming, the hurricanes that do occur near the end of the 21st century are expected to be stronger and have significantly more intense rainfall than under present day climate conditions. This expectation is based on an anticipated enhancement of energy available to the storms due to higher tropical sea surface temperatures. ..." Hurricane Katrina pushes oil past an unbelievable $70 a barrel and cuts off oil supplies from the Gulf Coast, yet some of us like mindless sheep are out shopping for a huge, over-priced, gas-guzzling SUV ("truck") that in turn adds to the greenhouse gas burden on the entire planet, which is then going to spawn more intense, more devastating storms.

Katrina heads for New Orleans: Category 5 hurricane

I feel heartsick for New Orleans, along with Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss. and Mobile, Alabama. New Orleans lies 6 to 20 feet below sea level. It resembles a cup or a bowl and is surrounded by water: lakes, the mighty Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico. Now a history-changing category 5 hurricane is on the way. Only three have ever been recorded in the US - in 1935, 1969 and 1992. Now it's been about 12 hours since New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco did a news conference and jointly issued a mandatory order for all in the area to leave. Some people didn't listen while others didn't have the means to get out. So if you are a praying person, please do. And if you meditate, please do that. 

Google smacked by Virus??

Has Gmail been slapped by another virus?? I was just reading Internet reports they were hit last week. Now I keep getting a 502 server error. Earlier today a family member in a different time zone emailed to say "they" could not access gmail and I was replying this was strange since mine was ok. Well now it's not. Tech definitely is a trip: great when it works, "puzzling" (at best) when it doesn't, and critical to always have backup. Wish I could remember all those folks from Google whom I met at Blogher. As if they could do anything (smile)...

"Africa Meets the Americas" - Global Black Women Leaders Meet in TEXAS Usa, October 2005

Ladies and gentlemen: "Africa Meets the Americas," the Houston Global Congress Unites Black Women Leaders. October 7-11, 2005 we will celebrate the Second Global Congress of Black Women Leaders, this year in Houston, Texas USA. Perhaps you or your organisation or someone you know can sponsor a Black woman leader to attend. The first Global Congress took place last July at UNESCO headquarters, PARIS, where pioneer African Brasilian woman political leader Benedita da Silva was outstanding, and was elected Speaker of the Congress by conference attendees. For more info on "Africa Meets the Americas," go to: www.gcbwl.org or www.globalcongressofBlackWomenLeaders.org. Register here in English. Global Congress founder & Organiser is Ms Sandrah Monthieux Pelage, native of Martinique, West Indies/le Caraibe; email: gcbwl at e-a-r-t-h-l-i-n-k dot net - don't forget to take out the dashes. The Honorable Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Member of United States Congress is the Host and Honorary Chair. Be part *Bring passion *Break paralysis *Be powerful. Honorary Chairs who will address the Congress: Dr Dora Akunyili, Director General, National Agency for Food & Drug Administration and Control, Nigeria; Dame Jocelyn Barrow, the first Black Woman Governor of the BBC & Honorary Chair of the Global Council of Black Women Leaders; la Senadora Piedad Córdoba, Member of the Senate of Colombia, South America, and Lecturer at the National University of Colombia, Bogota; the Honorable Joyce London Alexander, first Black Chief United States Magistrate Judge, Boston, Massachusetts USA; Her Excellency Barbara Masekela, first Black Woman Ambassador to Paris and to the USA for the Republic of South Africa; Ms Harriet R. Michel, president of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, New York, New York; Dr Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Associate Dean, Harvard University School of Public Health and Leader of the Global Congress' Health & Wellbeing Commission; Ministra Matilde Ribeiro, Government Minister for Promotion of Racial Equality, Brazil; Hon. Députée Christiane Taubira, Member of the Parliament of France and originator of the "Slavery, Crime against Humanity" legislation in France; Her Excellency Marina Valère, Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago to the USA, and former board member of Trinidad and Tobago Airports Authority; and Ms Sandrah Monthieux Pélage, founder and president of the Global Congress and the Global Council of Black Women Leaders, Inc. Register here: www.gcbwl.org. Official conference hotel is Hilton Americas. Book your room now at Global Congress lower room rate; and for sure other Houston hotels also are available even if they aren't official conference hotel.

2004 Global Congress-UNESCO PARIS

Mapping California and Nevada earthquakes

What's shaking? California? On this map you see California and Nevada earthquakes - small and larger ones, both on land and offshore - plotted from the past hour to the past week. At the time I'm writing the map shows about 870 earthquakes. Incredible.

Italy, Fertility referendum, and multiple citizenship?

Today is the last day Italians can vote on a national referendum about whether to ease their laws currently limiting artificial insemination. Meanwhile the Vatican (a foreign state located in the middle of the city of Rome) is trying to weigh-in as the new pope is said to be encouraging voters to boycott the vote. Low turnout would mean results would be thrown out, and as of Sunday turnout was not looking very good; wonder why... As if that weren't enough, Canada's Globe and Mail is reporting this vote will test practical meaning of Italy's new law on 'overseas Italians' that potentially gives full Italian voting rights to anyone in any country who can meet Italian - male - ancestry requirements. Does anyone miss the irony in a vote on female fertility, based on male-ancestry, drawing (even more) intervention by a guy-centric Catholic church? All I can say is what ... a ... mess. But as an American I'm aware Italy is not the only country dabbling in citizenship/sovereignty issues. "...it has begun to dawn on [Italians] that the controversial [artificial insemination referendum] could be decided by a few thousand Canadians, some of whom have never set foot in Italy." Canada's a bit shook about the new "Italians in the world" law. "Never before in modern history has a foreign nation tried to elect representatives on foreign soil." I have to ask, what about Iraqis and other foreign-national voting in the US? Globe and Mail says about 130 thousand Canadians now hold Canadian/Italian dual citizenship. "Globalisation revisited" - it just gets juicier and juicier.

Kettlebells, and $$ to fight breast cancer

This week's off to a rolling start. Saturday I had an unexpected though enjoyable day with my grandbabies; I didn't make it to the 5K race for the Cure but all-told we did raise some money. Almost $300 for breast cancer education, prevention and research. And Sandra came by later in the day. Thank you again to everyone who contributed. We're already thinking of next year, and between now and then there'll be other races. By the way...has anyone tried kettlebell training?

Race for the Cure thank You ... and "Coming out Grandma"

Well I am up and getting ready for today's 5K. We have a woman-like change of plans. By now in my life I know: Women's lives are so - flexible. I'll be there with my granddaughters - a two year old and a two month old. This will be their first race. The 2 yr old loves running, the other one drinks alot. Luckily it's milk (not cow's). I've just about put aside thoughts of Burundi, Rwanda, Bosnia ... We'll see how the morning develops. Weather's good. I want to thank everyone who is supporting me by making donations. Detailed thank-yous later. "Italia" called this morning, in that "sarcastic" bemused voice, to let me know the town's rooting for me. And all of us are rooting for women and men all over the world dealing with breast cancer and other illness. Was it Susan Komen Foundation that notes in the US alone, about 1600 men a year discover they have breast cancer? Men have mammaries too. The rest of that is also a blog for another day.

Help me raise $500 by June 4 "Race for the Cure" against Breast Cancer

OK... one of my No. 1 goals for the next few days is raising 500 smackers for the Susan Komen Race for the Cure - and to finish next Saturday's 5k in good time. Thanks to some angels we've already raised about a third of the goal. If you can pledge something here’s the Marian’s Race for the Cure Pledge page link. Thank you in advance for a small or even a medium pledge. Less than 2 years ago I had a great time running Nairobi, Kenya's first women's 10k (for HIV/AIDS awareness) in about 1:40. That was then and this is now so my current race strategy is to practice without overdoing and see how well I do. A 5k is a fun run and that’s how it’s going to be. Oh cool, this is my 43 Things link... Run the 5k Race for the Cure against Breast Cancer.

Coming Out Colored™ - In spite of the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

A couple of days ago I took the online Implicit Association Test, or IAT, posted on Harvard University's website. I took the test for race, which a lot of people are talking about internationally. I saw something about it on CNN and read about it in an online discussion community I use. That online community seems to have some U.S. people of color along with mostly white American members, plus internationals of various, mostly unknown, sometimes vague ethnic & racial backgrounds. Before taking the IAT I was stunned to read a note on the website which seemed to say I should expect my test results to show "a bias in favor of whites (paraphrasing it)."

Well, my test results did not show a bias in favour of whites. Is that supposed to make me weird or something? The IAT website does not offer any comments for those of us who might actually have a "preference" for Blacks, Asians, or other people of colour. There are a number of white people who fall into that category; some whites refer to such persons as "race traitors." More on this later and on Coming Out Colored. Why would anyone claim to be surprised by other folks' "whites up, Blacks down" test results when most of us -of all colors- know and experience daily exactly how whites are favoured? There are exceptions but most of us are living in a GLOBAL world where all types of images of women (overwhelmingly white) and of white people in general are commodified, packaged, valorised (assigned ostensible $ value), then bought and sold. Particularly in both Europe and the Americas - both North and South America. (HINT: The world should be examining Latin racism more closely and a lot more often.) Overwhelmingly in Las Americas and in Europe advertising and organisations choose and promote white faces, white bodies and white customs - blond(e)s in particular. Brown and black bodies, minds and faces - of every shade - regularly are marginalised, devalued and excluded, both unconsciously and consciously. Yet among all of us we also have 'racial pecking orders within racial pecking orders' - including by and toward East and South Asians and by and toward Near and Middle Eastern people, etc. For these reasons and others more pro-active I started a media/society research information website called COMING OUT COLORED™ - Negotiating the Digital divide in social Computing. I invite you to read my entry on the IAT over at Coming Out Colored.

Today's Favorite Science headlines

My favourite headlines today: Obesity in middle age linked with dementia. If I'd written that I'd have called it 'Couch potato minds'. (A lot of us better watch out...)

... and after its maiden voyage yesterday 'en France' supposedly there's an "Airbus 380 for sale on Ebay," and the "Ivory-billed woodpecker flies back from the dead." In the US the last IBW was spotted in Louisiana in about 1946. Welcome back!

'Earthquakes' & 'Tsunamis' Corrected

A few days back here at Marian's Blog I should have qualified my remark that a tsunami can follow any earthquake. Not exactly true.

I should've said a tsunami can follow any underwater earthquake.

Not wishing to mislead I wanted to get this right. Perhaps we should all just speak a Latin language. Most of them - except French - use the same words to differentiate the 2 types of quakes. Les francais on the other hand went their own way with 'tremblement de terre' and 'tsunami'.

Italian, Spanish and Portuguese all use maremoto for a quake in the sea, ocean or water - and terremoto for "earthquake". To me these nuances are a sign of intelligence, of culture. Or at the very least of getting and sharing there's a difference worth noting.

Tsunamis Claim over 20.000 Lives So. Asia to E. Africa; Toll Still Rising

At least 100 Fishermen Lost in Somalia

"Death toll from Asian quake tops 23 300 "

Agence France Press AFP

http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/400727.htm
Posted Mon, 27 Dec 2004

The death toll in from an earthquake off Indonesia and tidal waves that it unleashed passed 23 300 on Monday with officials in nine countries reporting deaths.

The toll soared as the military and Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka reported that nearly 11 000 people, including 70 foreigners, had been killed in Sunday's disaster.

Almost 6600 people were reported killed in southern India with more victims expected, officials said. Among them were some 3000 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, close to the epicentre of the quake, and 2790 in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, according to police.

In Indonesia, more than 4725 people were killed as the country took the full force of the huge earthquake and tidal waves that swallowed entire coastal villages.

More than 860 people were killed and at least 7300 injured by tidal waves in southern Thailand, including foreign tourists at famous seaside resorts, the interior ministry said. Some 1200 are missing.

In Malaysia 51 people, including many elderly and children, were killed, officials said.

At least two British holidaymakers and 41 others were killed while another 63 were missing in the tourist paradise of the Maldives, officials said.

At least 56 people were killed in Myanmar [Burma] and the toll was expected to rise substantially.

In Bangladesh a father and child were killed after a tourist boat capsized from large waves, local officials said.

Fatalities also occurred on the east coast of Africa, with 100 fishermen declared dead in Somalia.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake registered west of the Indonesian island of Sumatra measured 9.0 on the Richter scale.

Death toll:
Sri Lanka: 10 897
India: 6597
Indonesia: 4725
Thailand: 866
Malaysia: 51
Maldives: 43
Myanmar: 56
Bangladesh: 2
Somalia 100
Total: 23 337

AFP