right on. But you make this point to people and they look at you like you are a baby murderer. It is bizarre.

Professor Carson- you are technically right, those other ones would be the biggest for the fact that very few Australians also perished in them.

Therefore, this is the biggest natural disaster the world has seen. (or is it that "Australia has seen") We didn't technically have to look at those other ones!

But for me, the biggest disaster that the tsunami showed up is that 1.2 million children are trafficked each year globally.

30% are from the Asian region, which is about 400,000 such kids stolen for adoption, sex or labour.

That’s each year- now surely that is a tragedy that should meet with a concerted response bigger then the wave generated.

But then again, many of the aid agencies are up to their eyeballs in trafficking kids- so I guess not!

I too am more than a little unsettled by the response to the tsunami - according to the British Medical Association, at least 100000 Iraqi civilians (of whom at least 60000 were women or children) have been killed by the 'coalition of the willing' since their invasion of Iraq.
I find it appalling that this disaster is tolerated, and ignored, by our society.
I guess accidents are horrifying, but deliberate acts of murder and destruction are acceptable.

There are many horrors in the world that need our input financially or otherwise. Unfortunately people tend to sympathise only with something they understand or can see. That's why the tsunami has had such a huge response, yet we still treat people in our own country badly. Take sufferers of mental illnesses. We are not tolerant of them at all, yet someone who has cancer or a physcial disability will be treated with sympathy and understanding by most.

Ben and Jayne are in effect baby murderers. And having read all this, I withdraw all my pledges of financial support. This thing was just nowhere as big as marketed.

is it a result of the term 'tsunami'? 'Tidal wave' is not a sexy term. Of course we all empathise for those poor battlers having their lives washed away, but General Wiranto did not stop shooting in Aceh.

All of the aid agencies need exposing too. Indonesia is a totally corrupt place and I urge all readers to avoid that Bali holiday.