How responsible is a government for the impact of a natural disaster? In the ever-widening aftermath of Cyclone Nargis last week, this question is beginning to hound the Burmese Junta and its inexplicable resistance to international aid offers (much of which is still waiting on the Burmese border). Some analysts fear that the junta’s resistance to aid is an attempt to cover up how much devastation has been caused by government shortcomings.

Myanmar’s government has told the UN on Tuesday that it lacked the radar equipment necessary to detect the cyclone early enough for its citizens to evacuate. But a report from India indicates that the Indian government provided all the radar information necessary for Myanmar to warn the southwest Irrawaddy region. The Indian Meteorological Department revealed Tuesday that it had given Burma sufficient warning of the incoming storm. “Forty-eight hours before Nargis struck, we indicated its point of crossing, its severity and all related issues to Burmese agencies,” said a spokesperson for the department.

Whether or not the junta had the information in time, however, communicating a warning to the population in the Irrawaddy region–some 30 million people, over 60% of the Myanmar populace–would have been nearly impossible. In Myanmar, there are six radio stations, four television stations, and only a hundred internet servers. Telephone land lines and cell phone lines together number fewer than a million. By contrast, in neighboring Thailand, albeit with a slightly larger population (60 million to 47 million in Myanmar) there are nearly 50 million phone lines in use, over 600 radio stations, 111 television stations, and close to a million internet hosts.

Even if the government had overcome the communication obstacle, however, the Burmese population had no way to escape the path of the storm. Myanmar has only 2,000 miles of paved roads, and another 27,000 miles of unpaved roads; Thailand has 35,000 miles of paved roadway. Myanmar’s 10,000 miles of waterways, which would have been the most significant method of transportation for those in the hardest-hit areas, are also the most dangerous during a storm of this magnitude.

Al Gore has called the cyclone in Myanmar a consequence of global warming. The loss of life, however, clearly seems to be the consequence of something else altogether.

The Times Online from Britain has written that the government in Myanmar is “Running the country on a combination of internal repression and xenophobia.” This has lead to the (now fatal) insufficiency in communication and transportation infrastructure. As the CIA note on Burma’s economy observes, the nation “suffers from pervasive government controls, inefficient economic policies, and rural poverty.”

This week brought that suffering was brought to a new, devastating height.

As the death toll in Myanmar surged to 50,000 today, international governments and aid organizations jumped at the opportunity to help the reclusive southeast Asian nation, which spurned aid in the aftermath of a 2004 tsunami. Unfortunately, the Burmese junta seems somewhat less anxious to let aid workers into the country.

The U.S. Embassy provided an initial $250,000 package Monday after Cyclone Nargis swept through the southwest portion of Myanmar. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) followed with another $3 million on Tuesday. The USAID Disaster Assistant Response Team (DART), positioned next door in Bangkok and waiting for permission to enter Myanmar, will allocate the funds.

China has offered $1 million in aid, half of which is measured in relief materials such as tents, bedding and biscuits, and has promised to “closely follow Myanmar’s disaster relief.” China committed no personnel as of Tuesday.

a five-member UN disaster assessment team rushed to the region to mobilize UN relief efforts, only to wait for their visas to enter Myanmar. The UN has 1,650 personnel on the ground in Myanmar, and is waiting for the five specialists to enter before releasing $5 million in emergency response aid.

Operation Blessing International, a non-governmental organization with German funding, is also waiting—with doctors and water purification systems in hand—to “get green light to enter the country and permission to clear customs,” says OBI president Bill Horan.

One NGO, however, has been able to mobilize with the surprising acceptance of the Burmese junta. “Our organization has been given permission, which is pretty unprecedented, to fly people in. This shows how grave it is in the Burmese government’s mind,” World Vision Australia head Tim Costello said.

Myanmar’s government granted special visas to World Vision, allowing them to increase their present staff of 600 to provide assistance and materials like tents, clothes, and medicine.

World Vision analysts—some of the few allowed in Myanmar since the cyclone hit Saturday—have estimated that nearly 2 million people have been immediately affected by the storm. The UN has predicted that nearly 24 million people live in the areas most affected.

There are hand-drawn signs, black Sharpie arrows on printer paper, pointing down the hallway in an imperative parade, each declaring, “Vote!”

The destination, marked by a grand finale of arrow signs around a door, is the graduate student office for the Social and Public Policy program at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. On a high counter inside the office is a stack of pink-white National Mail Voter Registration Forms. Perched next to the forms is a grad student distributing pens to registering students.

“It never gets crowded,” he admits of student involvement in the voting drive. “But there’s a constant trickle.”

Voting drives are not new to universities, but the intensity and response of students is a phenomenon of this year’s election process. In Pittsburgh, the top three universities alone make up a hefty potential voting bloc, with nearly 40,000 students total between the three enrollments.

In the wider region of Pennsylvania, student enrollment from the five largest universities tops 130,000—over 1% of the state’s population. Many of these schools, such as the Pennsylvania State University, with an enrollment of 83,000, are positioned in the conservative center of the state.

With fewer registered democrats in those central Pennsylvania regions, students there tend to have a disproportionate impact on democratic primaries. This is likely to be a serious boost to the student-friendly Obama campaign. According to CNN, Obama has performed poorly among white middle-class voters, but he does remarkably well with voters ages 18-34.

Launching his week-long Pennsylvania bus tour on Friday, Obama held a signature rally at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, which stands across a four-lane avenue from the University of Pittsburgh. True to location, the crowd looked and behaved more like a college classroom than a community forum. After one of the senator’s talking points, one young woman shouted out, “I love you, Obama!”

The candidate chuckled a response, but the message was clear: the aging Italian mothers of Northern Pittsburgh were not in attendance, but the students from across the street were there in force.

Pollsters may have given Pennsylvania to Clinton, but Pennsylvania voters have yet to do so. With the state’s considerable student population and minority voting blocs, the New York senator may find her lead in the Keystone State somewhat difficult to preserve.

Clinton’s double-digit lead in Pennsylvania opinion polls (she leads 49% to 39% in a Rasmussen poll from March 25) is not news. Obama has been floating almost 10 points behind her for months. With Philadelphia’s 43% black population likely to lean towards Obama, Clinton’s lead relies primarily on support from the Pittsburgh region and the middle of the state.

That support, however, may prove less than stable. Figures from the Federal Election Commission show Obama now leads in monetary support from the Pittsburgh region. With $356,277 total raised at the end of February, Obama has overwhelmed Clinton’s total of $210,471. The Clinton campaign trails behind even the now-defunct Giuliani campaign, which picked up $315,110 from the Pittsburgh area before dropping out of the race in January.

Alongside the superior fundraising, Obama has also recently gathered the support of popular Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, who defeated Sen. Rick Santorum in a landslide 2006 election. The national significance of Sen. Casey’s support was underscored by renewed calls for Clinton to step out of the race on Saturday.

Perhaps the most dangerous element for Clinton, however, is time. Obama’s widening lead in national polls (up to 50% against 43% on March 29) may only further dishearten Clinton supporters as the month drags on towards April 22.