BBC & Gaza - Just Not Right-wing Enough

Good work by the chaps at the BBC to prevent aid agencies getting the airtime that is desperately required to help the people of Gaza:

The BBC has refused to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza, leaving aid agencies with a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella group for 13 aid charities, launched its appeal yesterday saying the devastation in Gaza was "so huge British aid agencies were compelled to act".

But the BBC made a rare breach of an agreement dating to 1963, saying it would not give free airtime to the appeal. Other broadcasters followed suit. Previously, broadcasters had agreed on the video and script to be used with the DEC, to be shown after primetime news bulletins.

The BBC, which has been criticised in the past over alleged bias in its coverage of the Middle East, said it did not want to risk public confidence in its impartiality. A BBC spokesperson said: "The decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in the context of [a] news story."

Impartiality before humanitarian aid? Clearly the BBC is a hotbed of radical leftism.

Medical Aid For The Palestinian People

Two good shouts from Ten Percent:

1. You can donate money to be used as medical aid for the Palestinians here
2. And a story that has been missed by large sections of the media....is the Israeli action part of an attempt to secure gas supplies?

Humanitarian Aid for Burma

As a consequence of my failure to blog for a week, I haven't been posting on the situation in Burma. If you want to make a difference in this oppressed country, visit Ten Percent and see what you can do.