The Secretary General of the United Nations has said that he ‘regrets’ that the government of Burma (also known as the whims of Than Shwe) will continue to keep Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
Kyi has attracted the wrath of the Burmese leaders for daring to support the radical notion that the people of Burma should have the right to choose their own leaders. Of course the rest of the world has a somewhat different tack on the situation, seeing as how she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
For the past 20 years she (and her family) have fought to bring freedom to an area of the world that is starving for something other than the latest incarnation of the tin pot dictator (aka President for Life, etc). But so far her efforts have been repeatedly suppressed.
Obviously at this point we do need to focus on recovery from the recent disaster (though keep in mind the world had to fight for the right to help the dying), but it is worth looking at this to see just how powerless and/or indifferent the United Nations has become to real problems.
They ‘regret’ when nations are under the thumb of brutal dictators, but don’t expect them to actually do something about it. If they did, they might not have enough time to give speeches about how evil the United States and capitalism are.