This is just unbelievable. The death toll from the Asian Tsunami now exceeds 55,000.

Half of the deaths come from Indonesia's Aceh province. In Sri Lanka, 17,640 have been declared dead.

The fear that outbreaks of disease could unleash a second wave of tragedy on a region struggling to cope with the first also loomed large with decomposing bodies and sewerage contaminating water sources. In some areas food and medicines were in desperately short supply.

As we noted earlier, Bush has offered up $15 million in disaster aid. Atrios points out his inauguration is going to cost $30 to $40 million, exclusive of security costs which will be unprecedented.

U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland called Bush's offer "stingy." We agree.

Here are some headlines from Tuesday's Asia newspapers on the Tsunami. The numbers dead refer to that country's local totals. Good photos from beginning to end of Tsunami here:

Phuket Gazette

Latest Figures: 934 people are confirmed dead in the southern provinces hit by the tsunami, 2,720 missing and a further 10,063 injured.

Thai Immigration officers are also on hand and cooperating with them in issuing Certificates of Identification for foreigners who lost their passports. There are also Immigration officers on standby at Phuket International Airport.

Harbor Department officials continue to recover dead bodies from the sea around islands around Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi. All are being taken to Phuket, which has become the default center of emergency relief operations in the region.

* Swedish Baby Separated From Parents Identified
* Thai Tourism Ministry Secures 1,000 Hotel Rooms and Flights for Foreigners at Its Expense

Bangkok Post:

Update: The Command Post has a comprehensive list of relief efforts accepting contributions.

This is just unfathomable...23,000 people dead in a natural disaster that rippled like a wave from country to country in the Eastern hemisphere. I hadn't planned on writing about it but I also can't ignore it. So add your thoughts.

The disaster spared no one. Western tourists were killed sunbathing on beaches, poor villagers drowned in homes by the sea and fishermen died in flimsy boats. The 21-year-old grandson of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej was killed on a jet-ski.

"We have a long way to go in collecting bodies," said Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who expected the 866 death toll in his country to go much higher. One Thai official estimated up to 30 percent of the dead were foreigners.

There is already a weblog cataloguing events in the region. [link via Instapundit.]

His first term did not endear Bush to the international world--including the French and those between Berlin and Beijing. What are they thinking of his second term? Trepidation:

To the French, he's an uncouth cowboy - a swaggering statesman in a Stetson who shoots from the hip and asks questions later, if he asks them at all. They're not the only ones who think so. From Berlin to Beijing, President Bush was widely scorned abroad during his first term as a headstrong hombre more interested in action than consultation. Now, as the world spins into a new year, many are eyeing his second term with a mixture of caution, frustration and resignation.

It's an interesting article because it goes through the European and Asian sectors of the world, reflecting what leaders of the various countries say about Bush. Not all are negative....he's popular in Japan and Poland. [link via Buzzflash.]

Human Rights Watch lawyer and Findlaw Columnist Joanne Mariner, along with two others, snuck into Darfur last July to witness first-hand the atrocities. She provides this report :

It was late July, and we had snuck into what the rebel groups that control the area like to call “liberated territory.” But the barren and depopulated landscape we saw before us suggested defeat rather than victory. It took a few hours of driving before we came upon people: a weary group, mostly women, with babies on their backs and random household goods on their heads, making the long trek toward Chad and safety.

...Over the past year and a half, since the Sudanese government and allied militia began their scorched earth campaign against the black African population of Darfur, more than 1.5 million civilians have fled their villages.

The Sudan Government is supporting the ethnic militias:

If you're going to be in New York City Monday evening, head on over to Washington Square Park for a candlelight vigil.

Diverse groups will join in a candlelight vigil on Monday, Dec. 13, at the Fountain Plaza in Washington Square Park in New York City at 6:30 pm EST.Slavery survivor Simon Deng will be a keynote speaker at the event.

The first genocide of the 21st century continues in Sudan, and despite the death toll of 70,000 and counting, the international community and the UN have largely refused to come to the aid of the 2 million Sudanese who have been forced into the desert, and the thousands more who have been raped and enslaved. The United Nations still refuses to acknowledge that these events constitute genocide. This candlelight vigil is sponsored by the Columbia Coalition for Sudan, NYU Law Students for Human Rights, Judson Memorial Church, the Massaleit Community in Exile, Brooklyn Parents for Peace, the Church of St. Francis Xavier, the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, the Darfur Rehabilitation Project, Jews Against Genocide, the New York Board of Rabbis, the students of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and the American Anti-Slavery Group.

Our Republican-dominated Congress has begun to turn up the heat on foreign countries that don't sign "article 98" immunity agreements with the U.S. The countries that don't capitulate stand to lose substantial amounts of foreign aid from the U.S., including amounts that go to programs we have supported in the past because they are in our best interest:

A provision inserted into a $338 billion government spending bill for 2005 would bar the transfer of assistance money from the $2.52 billon economic support fund to a government "that is a party" to the criminal court but "has not entered into an agreement with the United States" to bar legal proceedings against U.S. personnel. The House and Senate are to vote on the budget Dec. 8.....congressional staff members say the legislation would disproportionately hurt small countries with limited strategic importance to the United States.

...Congress's action may affect U.S. Agency for International Development programs designed to promote peace, combat drug trafficking, and promote democracy and economic reforms in poor countries. For instance, the cuts could jeopardize as much as $250 million to support economic growth and reforms in Jordan, $500,000 to promote democracy and fight drug traffickers in Venezuela, and about $9 million to support free trade and other initiatives with Mexico.

We've written a few times about Bush's wrong-headed refusal to sign onto the International Court. A short primer from today's Washington Post:

The torture debate is not limited to the U.S. It's the subject of an ongoing debate in Germany, where a policeman was accused of torturing a suspect in a child kidnapping case. The issue seems to be whether torture might be appropriate in exceptional circumstances. According to the BBC,

...it has also set alarm bells ringing, evoking historical memories of Hitler's Gestapo.

The policeman denied using torture. But he says "direct pressure" is allowed.

He said he ordered "direct pressure" to be used on Gaefgen, which he insisted was permitted under state law. "It is absurd to equate direct pressure with torture," he said.

What exactly is "direct pressure"? Sounds like a euphemism for torture to us.

The U.S. is sending Assistant Secretary of State William Burns to Cairo to attend Arafat's funeral. Here's a list by country of who's attending on behalf of their government. It's interesting to see who is sending "foreign ministers" and who is sending Prime Ministers and Presidents.

Yasser Arafat has died. (Fox News Television)

Yasser Arafat may be dead by the time you read this. He suffered a brain hemorrhage last night and has detoriated rapidly. He is expected to be dead within hours.

Update: Palestinian leaders say he is dead. The French say he is not.

Update: Iran endorsed Bush for President today. [Via Oliver Willis.

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This is so outrageous, I'm reprinting it in full. I haven't been able to find a working link to an online action site, but I'm sure one will appear soon. A news article confirming the details below is here.

The fundamentalism regime of Iran is planning to stone a 13-year-old girl, Jila [also spelled Zhila], in the city of Marivan in coming days. Jila was raped and impregnated by her brother and Iran’s clerical judge has sentenced her to death by stoning. According to the Iranian regime's penal code, stoning is the punishment for those who commit adultery. Jila did not commit adultery; rather she is a victim of rape.

Stoning in Iran is carried out as "the condemned are wrapped head to foot in white shrouds and buried up to their waists. “ The misogynous regime of Tehran even details the difference between the stoning of men vs. women. “The female condemned are buried up to their neck to prevent their escape.” Furthermore, "the stones are specifically chosen so they are large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the condemned immediately. They are guaranteed a slow, torturous death. Sometimes their children are forced to watch.” No other government in the world practices stoning as the Iranian regime.