"Don't leave me," said a young Haitian girl, her arms and head bandaged after being badly burned. She reached out to a nearby nurse, "Am I going to die?" "No, not today. Don't you worry," the nurse said. The girl settled back onto her litter. Farther down the row of litters a Haitian man was chanting, his breath fogging the oxygen mask over his mouth in urgent gasps. The man, a recent amputee, waved his remaining arm in the air like a preacher before a congregation.

The Norfolk-based guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG 60) is supporting relief efforts in the air, at sea and ashore for victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. U.S. Navy Capt. Jeffrey T. Griffin, Normandy's commanding officer and U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Hansen, officer-in-charge of Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron Light (HSL) 46 Detachment 3 "Screaming Seagulls" spoke to bloggers and blogger journalists during a Jan. 22 "DoDLive" bloggers roundtable. Normandy arrived off the coast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti Jan.

According to an Agence France Press report, as many as 2,000 Karen have fled into the jungles of Burma in the wake of Burmese army attacks on their villages. The Free Burma Rangers have stated they do not believe that a major attack is underway, but that three villagers were killed in the attacks.

An unusual political irony is reaching a climax on the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka. The two proclaimed heroes of the recently-ended quarter century civil war, who are openly accusing each other of war crimes, are facing off in the country's presidential election Tuesday. The two Sinhalese Buddhists have focused their campaigns on persuading the minority, mostly Hindu, Tamils, who bore the brunt of the war, to vote for them. The election is being closely watched by international agencies and donor governments.