Irish Examiner, page 16

IN Burma today some 2.4 million lives are dangling by a slender thread. In Ethiopia the lives of another two million people are under threat from famine.

In both cases, thanks to the generosity of the Irish people, GOAL is poised and on hand willing to help. But the Burmese junta is obstructing the efforts of all aid agencies on the ground who still cannot enter the disaster zones.

In Ethiopia, the prolonged drought of 2007 has cut harvests disastrously. GOAL clinics are seeing large influxes of severely malnourished people, with small children especially vulnerable and disease-prone.

GOAL'S team in Ethiopia has established emergency feeding centres for mothers and children, bringing truckloads of clean water where drought has hit hardest.

Without urgent financial aid and direct food assistance, catastrophe looms.

John O'Shea PO Box 19 Dun Laoghaire Co Dublin