Daily News - May 13, 2008 - Tuesday
  • US lifts cap on cash transfers to Burma
  • US sends second relief flight to Burma
  • US flight arrives, Bush condemns junta
  • UN chief slams junta for slow response
  • US concerned about aid reaching Burma's victims
  • US readies 13 million dollars aid for Burma
  • UN food agency: Rice prices surging in Burma
  • Buddhist Monks Step In To Help Cyclone Victims But Military Tries To Curb Their Efforts
  • Burma says parts of nation still cut off
  • The dangers of reporting Burma's cyclone in a country where journalists are not welcome
  • Junta Pressed by UN, U.S., India to Take Aid
  • Samak will go to Burma Wednesday
  • Australian aid flight to arrive in Burma
  • British Queen gives money to Burma appeal
  • First UK Aid Flight Off To Burma, More On Standby




    • US lifts cap on cash transfers to Burma

    WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Treasury said Monday it had removed the cap on cash transfers that Americans are allowed to send to family and friends in Burma which was hit by a devastating cyclone earlier this month.

    The Treasury said it had lifted the cap to help "ease the humanitarian crisis in Burma,".

    State television in Burma announced earlier Monday that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis had increased to 31,938, with 1,403 people injured and 29,770 still missing.

    US diplomats have said that the toll likely exceeds 100,000 people. The large cyclone stuck Burma's southern delta region on May 3.

    "The people of Burma need all the help we can provide during this crisis," said Treasury official Adam Szubin.

    The Treasury's move abolishes the restriction on cash transfers Americans were previously allowed to send to family and friends in Burma, one of southeast Asia's biggest countries, through US-owned banks.

    Prior transfers were capped at 300 dollars within a three-month period.

    The United States has prickly relations with Burma's ruling military government which has been criticized for suppressing democratic freedoms.

    Days after the cyclone hit, US First Lady Laura Bush accused Burma's military junta of failing to issue warnings about the vast cyclone and pressed the military chiefs to accept US aid in the disaster's wake.

    The Treasury, which has blacklisted certain members of Burma's ruling military junta from the US financial system, said personal banking transfers could now be made through "blocked financial institutions in Burma" as long as cash is not shipped to blacklisted individuals.

    US officials said the new measures would help deliver financial aid to people affected by the cyclone and its aftermath.

    "This action will speed the flow of aid to the Burmese people by allowing Americans to send an unlimited amount of funds to their relatives and friends who are in need," Szubin said.

    In a related move, the US government said it would also now permit money to be transferred, through US banks, to any humanitarian and religious groups operating in Burma, with the exception of the country's government.

    The Treasury had previously blocked cash transfers to such groups in Burma unless they ran partnerships with US or other foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

    Burma's military regime has been criticized by foreign governments for allowing only a trickle of much-needed foreign aid to enter the country since the cyclone struck.

    The military chiefs have refused to accept a 1990 election result in which democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi led the National League for Democracy (NLD) to a landslide victory. She has spent more than 12 years under house arrest.

    Burma has faced mounting pressure to implement democratic reforms in recent months after a government crackdown on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks last September triggered widespread international outrage and tighter Western sanctions.

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    US sends second relief flight to Burma

    UTAPAO, Thailand (AP) - A U.S. military official says a second flight has left with relief supplies for Burma's cyclone victims, and more flights are expected.

    Lt. Col. Douglas Powell says the Marine C-130 cargo plane left for Rangoon Tuesday carrying 19,900 pounds of water, blankets and mosquito nets.

    He said a third flight carrying more supplies will leave later in the day.

    Douglas said he expects flights will continue on Wednesday. He did not give details.

    The first flight delivered relief material to Burma on Monday after prolonged negotiations with the country's ruling junta. It was a major breakthrough given that the junta considers the United States its enemy. The agreement was to initially send three flights on Monday and Tuesday.

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    US flight arrives, Bush condemns junta

    RANGOON (AFP) - The United States has sent its first aid flight to Burma but President George W. Bush denounced the nation's military rulers over their slow response to the devastating cyclone.

    "Either they are isolated or callous," Bush told CBS News radio in an interview. "There's no telling how many people have lost their lives as a result of the slow response."

    He said the "world ought to be angry and condemn" the junta, which has been widely condemned for stalling the disaster relief effort.

    UN chief Ban Ki-moon echoed his words, slamming the "unacceptably slow" actions of the junta and urging the generals to accelerate aid distribution.

    A US military transport plane military transport plane laden with emergency supplies was permitted to land in the disaster zone and two more US flights are due to arrive on Tuesday.

    "We know that it is a small salve for a much larger wound. More has to get into Burma. More has to reach the areas that have been hardest hit," said US ambassador to Thailand Eric John.

    "It is absolutely critical that disaster response specialists be allowed into Burma. It is important that we and the international community be allowed to help the victims of this unimaginable horror."

    The flow of international aid into Burma, which says 62,000 people are dead or missing, has increased in the past two days, but relief agencies say much more is needed to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

    "Today is the 11th day since typhoon Nargis hit Myanmar," Ban told a press conference. "I want to register my deep concern and immense frustration on the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis."

    State television raised the death toll by some 3,480 to 31,938 with another 29,770 still missing. The United Nations says more than 100,000 are likely to have been killed.

    A total of 1.5 million cyclone survivors are at grave risk from hunger and disease.

    The UN also said the relief operation was only at 10 percent of the level needed to bring water, food and supplies to desperate survivors, and that just 20 percent of the food required was making its way in.

    In Rangoon, the country's main city, the UN food agency's rice warehouse was empty.

    "I would urge that we don't judge the success of this operation by flights arriving alone," Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the UN's humanitarian arm, said in Bangkok.

    "This is a huge disaster," Horsey told AFP TV in an interview. "It would overwhelm the capacity of any country."

    Deeply suspicious of any outside influences that may undermine their total control, the generals reiterated that foreign experts -- who have the know-how to oversee the relief effort -- would not be put in charge.

    "If we do not act now, and we do not act fast, more lives will be lost," said Catherine Bragg, the UN's deputy emergency relief coordinator.

    British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the curbs as "completely unacceptable", and urged the regime to allow aid agencies "unfettered" access, while Ban called on Burma to expedite visas for relief personnel.

    A US delegation led by Admiral Timothy Keating, chief of the US Pacific Command, held talks with senior junta leaders when they touched down on the C-130 military transporter in Rangoon.

    They said they held a "cordial meeting" but failed to win permission for a far broader US relief effort in Burma, including navy ships and helicopters that could deploy in the Irrawaddy Delta hardest-hit by the May 3 storm.

    Ten days after the tragedy struck, bloated corpses are still floating in the water, disease is breaking out among survivors with little food or shelter, and many say the government has given them nothing.

    "We have not got any aid from anyone," said Man Mu, a mother of five in one of the thousands of tiny delta villages that were pulverised by the storm. One of her children was swept away in the disaster.

    "We only have the clothes we are wearing. We have lost everything."

    A Western diplomat in Rangoon said there were reports of extensive dysentery outbreaks, and that cholera, typhoid and malaria could follow quickly.

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    UN chief slams junta for slow response

    UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized Burma's military junta Monday for what he called its "unacceptably slow response" to helping cyclone victims.

    Three of the U.N. Security Council's five veto-wielding members — France, Britain and the United States — remain interested in possible action to require Burma's government to open its doors to more aid, U.S. and other council diplomats said.

    "We'll be pushing the issue in the council," Deputy U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told The Associated Press.

    There has been no agreement on proposed wording for a statement or resolution, but U.S. officials say their aim is to craft language saying authorities in Burma must do everything possible to accept international help.

    A previous such effort last week was temporarily set aside after Burma began taking steps to let in a few flights and aid shipments.

    One of the diplomats said the Western powers were taking a wait-and-see approach, based on indicators such as how many U.S. flights are allowed into Burma. The first one flew into the country Monday carrying water, blankets and mosquito nets.

    "We believe that it's going to be very difficult to reach everybody and to tackle the crisis as we would like without some outside military and civilian assets," John Holmes, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official, told reporters Monday.

    Nearly 32,000 people were killed by the cyclone and almost 30,000 others are still missing after the May 3 cyclone, Burma's state television reported Monday. Almost all foreign relief workers have been barred entry into the isolated nation. The junta says it wants to hand out all donated supplies on its own.

    "I want to register my deep concern — and immense frustration — at the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis," Ban said.

    "Unless more aid gets into the country — very quickly — we face an outbreak of infectious diseases that could dwarf today's crisis," he said. "I therefore call, in the most strenuous terms, on the government of Myanmar to put its people's lives first. It must do all that it can to prevent this disaster from becoming even more serious."

    In London, the leader of Britain's opposition Conservative party suggested possibly dropping aid in Burma without the consent of the country's military rulers.

    "If the situation hasn't radically improved by Tuesday then we need to consider the further steps of direct aid being dropped to help people," David Cameron told British Broadcasting Corp.

    British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said any move to drop aid by air was unlikely though all options should be considered. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week he could not imagine dropping aid into Burma without consent from authorities.

    Last week, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested the 15-member Security Council could use the U.N.'s mandate adopted in 2005 that nations have a "responsibility to protect" their own citizens to bypass Burma's military leaders and drop supplies by air. But that mandate does not mention natural disasters.

    Burma's U.N. ambassador, Kyaw Tint Swe, said last week that his nation was prepared to cooperate with the international community but that the aid "has to be orderly and systematic."

    Ban said Burma's leaders have not returned his repeated calls and letters to them, including a second letter sent Monday, seeking greater cooperation with U.N. and other international relief efforts.

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    US concerned about aid reaching Burma's victims

    WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has "massive concern" about whether its aid for Burma's cyclone victims will get to those suffering from disease and lack of food and water, the director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance said Monday.

    Ky Luu told reporters that the United States plans to rely on aid groups to track the supplies flown into the country Monday on a U.S. military C-130 cargo plane. U.S. officials were not allowed to accompany the supplies to the areas hardest hit.

    Luu acknowledged that it is difficult to determine what will happen to the aid in the tightly controlled, military-led country, saying "There's massive concern" about whether it will reach the victims.

    "We have to stay optimistic, support the in-country team and hope that the commodities will be able to reach the beneficiaries," he said.

    Asked about the lack of U.S. control over the distribution of the supplies, Luu said: "What we are trying to do here is react, on the one hand, to the immediate humanitarian imperative; on the other hand, we do want to make sure to be able to verify and track these commodities."

    Luu urged Burma to allow U.S. disaster experts into the country to make sure the aid gets to the people in need.

    Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the plane that landed Monday carried water, mosquito nets and blankets and that Burma has given permission for two more C-130 flights.

    The local government is taking possession of the goods and working to distribute them, Whitman said. He said the U.S. is still talking to the Burmese junta about the possibility of U.S. distribution of aid in the country.

    Luu said Burma's allowing U.S. flights of aid is a good start, but the supplies represent only a small fraction of what the U.S. and others are prepared to give.

    The Navy's USS Essex expeditionary strike group is expected to arrive off Burma on Tuesday. It was in the region to participate in a multinational military exercise in the Gulf of Thailand.

    The White House said the United States was prepared to provide an additional $13 million in food and logistical assistance to the United Nations' world food program for distribution to cyclone victims, bringing overall U.S. aid to $16.25 million.

    Also Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department said it was removing the limit on funds that Americans are allowed to send to family and friends in Burma.

    Previously, remittances to Burma were only permitted if the total did not exceed $300 per Burmese household in any consecutive three-month period.

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    US readies 13 million dollars aid for Burma

    WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House said Monday it was extending an extra 13 million dollars in aid for cyclone-hit Burma as the first US flight of emergency supplies landed in the country.

    "We are prepared to provide an additional 13 million dollars in food and logistical assistance to the United Nations World Food Program for the relief operations in Burma," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

    The extra money includes 12 million dollars for food supplies "that will arrive in the coming weeks" and takes the US total for Myanmar so far to 16.25 million, she said.

    Perino noted that the United States was sending two more relief flights into Burma on Tuesday, as announced by US aid officials in Bangkok, hours after the first US C-130 military transporter landed with emergency supplies.

    "But we hope this is just the beginning of what will be much needed assistance that we are happy to provide and so we hope that this gets to the people as quickly as possible," the spokeswoman said.

    The US C-130, laden with emergency supplies including equipment to provide clean drinking water, was permitted to land by Burma's ruling junta, which has been condemned for stalling the disaster response.

    The flow of international aid into Burma, which says 62,000 people are dead or missing, has increased in the past two days, but relief agencies say much more is needed to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

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    UN food agency: Rice prices surging in Burma

    ROME - A U.N. food agency says rice prices in the capital of Burma have surged 50 percent since a devastating cyclone.

    The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that the cyclone struck as paddy farmers were harvesting the dry season crop that accounts for 20 percent of annual production.

    The Rome-based FAO says the destruction could reduce access to food and may force Burma to seek imports from neighboring countries. It also could negatively impact global rice production.

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    Buddhist Monks Step In To Help Cyclone Victims But Military Tries To Curb Their Efforts

    KYI BUI KHAW (AP), Pyapon - The saffron-robed monks who spearheaded a bloody uprising last fall against Burma's military rulers are back on the front lines, this time providing food, shelter and spiritual solace to cyclone victims.

    The military regime has moved to curb the Buddhist clerics' efforts, even as it fails to deliver adequate aid itself. Authorities have given some monasteries deadlines to clear out refugees, many of whom have no homes to return to, monks and survivors say.

    "There is no aid. We haven't seen anyone from the government," said U Pinyatale, the 45-year-old abbot of the Kyi Bui Kha monastery sharing almost depleted rice stocks and precious rainwater with some 100 homeless villagers huddled within its battered compound.

    Similar scenes are being repeated in other areas of the Irrawaddy delta and Rangoon, the country's largest city, where monasteries became safe havens after Cyclone Nargis struck 3 May _ and the regime did little.

    "In the past I used to give donations to the monks. But now it's the other way around. It's the monks helping us," said Aung Khaw, a 38-year-old construction worker who took his wife and young daughter to a monastery in the Rangoon suburb of Hlaingtharyar after the roof of his flimsy house was blown away and its bamboo walls collapsed.

    One of the monastery's senior monks said he tried to argue with military officials who ordered the more than 100 refugees to leave.

    "I don't know where they will go. But that was the order," he said, asking for anonymity for fear of reprisals.

    The government has not announced such an order, which appeared to be applied selectively. Other monasteries in Rangoon have been told to clear out cyclone victims in coming days, the monk said, but in the delta, refugees were being allowed to remain or told they could come to monasteries for supplies but not shelter.

    "They don't want too many people gathering in small towns," said Hla Khay, a delta boat operator. The regime "is concerned about security. With lots of frustrated people together, there may be another uprising."

    Larger monasteries were being closely watched by troops and plainclothes security men _ "invisible spies" as one monk called them.

    Such diversion of manpower at a time when some 1.5 million people are at risk from disease and starvation reflects the regime's fear of a replay of last September, when monks led pro-democracy demonstrations that were brutally suppressed.

    Monks were shot, beaten and imprisoned, igniting anger among ordinary citizens in this devoutly Buddhist country. An unknown number remain behind bars, and others have yet to return to their monasteries after fleeing for fear of arrest.

    "I think after the September protests, the government is afraid that if people live with the monks in the monasteries, the monks might persuade them to participate in demonstrations again," said a dentist in Rangoon, who also asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.

    Newspapers have been ordered not to publish stories about monks aiding the people, and at least one monastery and one nunnery in Rangoon were prohibited from accepting any supplies from relief organizations.

    "The government is very controlling," said U Pinyatale, the abbot at the Kyi Bui Kha monastery. "Those who want to give directly to the victims get into trouble. They have to give to the government or do it secretly. (The military) follows international aid trucks everywhere. They don't want others to take credit."

    It appears unlikely that foreign aid organizations seeking to enter Burma will be allowed to use monks as conduits for relief supplies as many had hoped.

    "One of the best networks already in place in the country are the monks," said Gary Walker of PLAN, a British-based international children's group, speaking from Bangkok. "So we'll be exploring ways in which we can see whether the monks can start distributing supplies throughout the country."

    At the Kyi Bui Kha monastery, located on the banks of the Pyapon River deep in the delta, U Pinyatale glanced anxiously at the remaining 10 bags of rice.

    "At most, we have enough for the week. We will have to find a way to get more food," he said as monks and villagers worked together to try to dry the sodden rice, even as rain clouds gathered above the largely roofless monastery.

    In Rangoon, monks have been able to go out on their traditional morning rounds to accept food donations from the faithful and then share these with refugees at their monasteries. But in devastated areas of the delta that is not an option.

    About 90 of the 120 houses in Kyi Bui Kha have been totally destroyed. Gaps in the monastery's storm-riddled wooden walls revealed a 360-degree view of ravaged rice fields.

    U Pinyatale said the sanctuary's two dozen monks and nuns were also trying to offer spiritual comfort to the traumatized villagers.

    "We pray with them. We pray for the dead to go to the peaceful land of the dead and for the living to rebuild their lives," he said.

    "When the cyclone came, all of us hid in the rice warehouse. I saw one person holding tightly onto a tree but he did not make it," the abbot added. "After the storm, there were dead bodies floating everywhere. Some people get nightmares. Some hear voices at night that their dead children are calling for help. Some haven't spoken since."

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    Burma says parts of nation still cut off

    RANGOON (AFP) - Parts of Burma are still cut off 10 days after its devastating cyclone, the military regime said Monday, ahead of the first aid flight from the United States -- one of its most vocal critics.

    The flow of international aid into Burma, which says 62,000 people are dead or missing, has increased in the past two days, bringing new hope for around 1.5 million people in desperate need of emergency aid.

    But aid agencies said it remains difficult to get a full picture of the extent of the catastrophe in one of the world's poorest and most isolated nations, where the army has kept an iron grip on power for 46 years.

    Long suspicious of any outside influences that could undermine their total control, the generals again said Monday that foreign experts -- who have the expertise to oversee the massive relief effort -- would not be put in charge.

    "Delivery of relief goods can be handled by local organisations," said Economic Development Minister Soe Tha, quoted by the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, the junta's state-run mouthpiece.

    He said there were still some parts of country where government officials had not been able to visit since the massive storm, which churned up a tidal wave and sea surge, hit the southern delta on May 3.

    "Supplies were dropped in flooded areas where the helicopters could not land," Soe Tha said.

    Aid groups have insisted the regime does not have the capacity to direct the relief operation in the delta, where diarrhoea and other illnesses are starting to threaten survivors living in scenes of almost unimaginable despair.

    Ten days after the tragedy struck, bloated corpses are still floating in the water, untold numbers do not have enough food or fuel or clean water, and many people say the government has not turned up with emergency supplies.

    As it showed in the Asian tsunami disaster of 2004, the United States is perhaps the only country with the military manpower and equipment to carry out a vast and immediate relief effort of the kind needed.

    But there is no question of Burma, which has suffered years of sanctions imposed by Washington, allowing in the military of the United States or indeed any other nation.

    Analysts say that for the regime, it is crucial to maintain an image of being in total control of the welfare of the people -- even though aid groups say any delays in reaching the neediest could cost more lives.

    "It sounds pretty devastating," said US Marine Major Tom Keating, as a US C-130 transport plane in neighbouring Thailand was loaded with blankets, mosquito nets and water for a flight to Burma's main city Rangoon later in the day.

    "When you have a crisis going and you can't help out, it's just frustrating," he said.

    International aid flights have been increasing, and a Red Cross spokesman that nine of its planes alone will have reached Rangoon by day's end. But aid groups stress that far more is needed.

    "It's not true that nothing is happening at all, but not enough is happening," said Frank Smithuis of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

    It has been impossible to get an accurate toll of the numbers of dead and missing, and estimates have varied widely from day to day. The United Nations and US diplomats have said they believe at least 100,000 are dead.

    Relief agencies have struggled to get a clear picture of the situation on the ground.

    Andrew Kirkwood of Save the Children, one of the few agencies allowed to operate under tight controls inside Burma, said there were now outbreaks of fever and diarrhoea among survivors.

    He said many people were also suffering from wind-burn, from spending days out in the elements after their homes were destroyed.

    Thousands of people have been flocking over the past few days to the delta town of Myaungmya, fleeing villages that in many cases are no longer there.

    ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan has written to Burma seeking "quick admission" of aid from the region, but unlike western governments has stopped short of condemning the junta.

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    The dangers of reporting Burma's cyclone in a country where journalists are not welcome

    BANGKOK (AP) - "I can't talk now, I think I'm in danger," a reporter in Burma whispered into the phone. Click. Phones are tapped and the few foreign journalists inside Burma are operating in secret, making it dangerous and difficult to tell the story of the cyclone that has devastated the Southeast Asian country.

    Covering catastrophes always carries risk in impoverished countries where disasters can cause shortages of food, clean water, outbreaks of disease and staggering death tolls. But the challenges are multiplied in Burma where the reclusive and notoriously brutal military regime does not want details of the suffering to leak out.

    "This government is very paranoid, very xenophobic and they think this cyclone could undermine their credibility," said Aung Zaw, editor of Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based magazine and Web site put out by exiled Burmese journalists.

    "The military regime wants to conceal the extent of the damage. And they don't want the Burmese people telling foreigners the true story.

    According to the U.N. the May 3 cyclone may have killed between 62,000 and 100,000, and left up to 2 million survivors facing disease and starvation.

    Foreign journalists _ like many foreign aid workers _ have not been allowed into the country. Local reporters have faced harassment and risk imprisonment for stories that offend the famously thin-skinned ruling generals.

    While a reporter in Burma was talking to an editor in Bangkok, loud tick-tick-tick sounds could be heard on the telephone line, often an indication of a tapped phone. That day, the reporter had been informed that the government was not pleased by an unflattering detail about the junta in a recent story. The reporter expressed concern about being arrested before abruptly hanging up, a fear that has so far proved unfounded.

    Tightly controlled state media paints a one-sided picture of a beneficent junta. The New Light of Myanmar and other government mouthpieces only show images of the junta distributing aid and comforting survivors, making little or no mention of help pouring in from around the world.

    Reporters Without Borders and other media watchdogs have urged the junta to lift its ban on journalist visas, noting that news reports and images broadcast around the world play a key role in helping disaster victims and reconstruction efforts. "Journalists have an important role to play," the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement. "Their reporting often uncovers previously undiscovered areas of need, and they help keep the international community of donors informed of conditions on the ground.

    At the Burmese Embassy in neighboring Thailand, several journalists seeking visas were told they were blacklisted after entering Burma on tourist visas in September 2007 during the junta's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks.

    Incriminating images of troops firing on monks broadcast by global news networks enraged the junta and prompted a tightening of the already severe restrictions on media freedoms, the CPJ said in a recent report.

    Among those killed in last year's crackdown was Kenji Nagai, 50, a video journalist for Japan's APF News. Video footage of Nagai's death appearing to show a soldier shooting the journalist at close range was televised around the world. Burma's military government said Nagai's death was an accident and that he had not been deliberately targeted.

    But commentaries in the state-controlled press implied that he was responsible for his own fate because he came into the country pretending to be a tourist and then put himself in a dangerous situation.

    Since the cyclone, a few reporters have managed to get into Burma, concealing the satellite phones, battery packs and generators needed to operate in the cyclone-hit areas where electricity is down and there is no cell phone coverage.

    But getting into the country is just the first of many hurdles. Undercover police keep constant watch over hotels popular with journalists in Yangon, the commercial capital, prompting many reporters to constantly change locations to avoid attracting attention.

    "Myanmar authorities are now searching hotels outside the capital in search of Westerners. The authorities were going room to room in a number of hotels," the London-based aid group PLAN said in a statement, citing accounts from journalists in the country.

    The junta's jitters are rubbing off on international aid organizations, many of which say they are uncomfortable speaking in public to reporters out of fear that associating with media could jeopardize their relief efforts.

    Police checkpoints along the roads that link Rangoon to the devastated Irrawaddy delta in the south stop cars to ask passengers their identities, passport numbers and reasons for travel.

    "This area is restricted. No foreigners," a checkpoint officer told an Associated Press reporter on the outskirts of Labutta, one of the hardest-hit areas in the country.

    CNN reporter Dan Rivers hid under a blanket in the back of a van at one checkpoint after sneaking into the country and being informed by a local contact that his TV reports had made him a marked man. Police at one point questioned him and demanded his passport, alarming Rivers who has covered hotspots around the world.

    After five days in Burma, Rivers returned to his base in Thailand, thinking, "I'd used my nine lives up and it was time to get out of the country.

    Leaving is not an option for Burma's local journalists, who require exit permits for trips out of the country. A variety of national security laws have been used for years to imprison journalists, political dissidents and other activists. Last year, Reporters Without Borders ranked Burma as the world's sixth worst violator of media freedom, after Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Cuba.

    Despite the hazards, many local journalists have braved the cyclone story. Some rushed to the delta immediately after the disaster and ferried back video footage to international news agencies who couldn't access the area for days. Many asked for nothing in return except an outlet to tell the world what the junta was hiding.

    Irrawaddy magazine has five Burmese reporters covering the cyclone, three of whom lost their houses in the storm, Aung Zaw said. Their reports are picked up by U.S.-government funded radio stations Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, which relay them back to listeners in Burma.

    "They are all undercover. They wouldn't dare tell people they are (journalists)," the editor said. "There is a huge risk.

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    Junta Pressed by UN, U.S., India to Take Aid

    May 13 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations, U.S. and India told Burma's military rulers to allow international aid to reach the country, where more than 1.5 million people need help after Tropical Cyclone Nargis struck 10 days ago.

    The junta must "put its people's lives first,'' UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday in New York. The delay is "another reason why the world ought to be angry and condemn the government,'' President George W. Bush said in an interview with CBS Radio.

    As many as 100,000 people may have died in the disaster, according to UN officials. The death toll reached 33,416 people with 29,770 missing, Burma's state radio announced late yesterday, according to China's Xinhua News Agency.

    Burma, a country of 48 million people ruled by the military since 1962, has accepted a fraction of the relief offered by the world. The UN estimates that only a third of the people needing aid have received help as flood waters still cover areas of the southern Irrawaddy delta, the worst-hit region.

    The U.S., which has led international calls for the junta to return the country was allowed to land its first aid flight in Burma yesterday.

    "It's a drop in a bucket for what they are going to need,'' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said at a briefing yesterday in Washington.

    Relief Flights

    The U.S. won permission to land more relief flights in Burma and boosted its aid offer fivefold to $16.25 million yesterday after Navy Admiral Timothy Keating, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, met with Burmese naval officers.

    Keating was on the first U.S. aid flight, said Ky Luu, director of the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance in Washington. Burma has rejected help from U.S. naval ships in the region.

    India, which shares a 1,460-kilometer (907-mile) border with Burma, called on the junta to accept more aid when Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee spoke by telephone with his counterpart Nyan Win.

    Mukherjee pledged more assistance from India and "also urged Myanmar to accept international relief supplies to supplement their efforts,'' India's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site.

    Two Indian navy ships and five aircraft have brought medical supplies and equipment, including tents, to Burma, the ministry said.

    Thai Visit

    Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej will visit Burma tomorrow, Foreign Minister Noppadol Pattama said today in Bangkok. He had planned to visit May 11.

    Samak "will definitely travel to Myanmar tomorrow,'' Pattama said. ``He will help coordinate the aid between international countries and the Myanmar government.''

    Burma's military leader General Than Shwe has refused, during the past five days, to respond to repeated attempts at telephone contact, Ban said, adding he has sent two letters to the junta head.

    "I want to register my deep concern and immense frustration,'' Ban told reporters. ``Unless more aid gets into the country very quickly, we face an outbreak of infectious diseases that could dwarf'' the disaster caused by the cyclone.

    The amount of food that has been allowed to enter the country "is less than a tenth'' of what is needed, Ban said.

    UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said the junta has approved only 34 of more than 100 visa applications by relief workers.

    More Workers

    Less than 10 percent of the international workers needed to respond to the disaster are on the ground, the World Food Program said yesterday. About a fifth of the 375 metric tons of food that needs to be delivered each day is reaching cyclone victims, it said.

    Burma's ``response is not good enough,'' Bush told CBS. "Here they are with a major catastrophe on their hands and do not allow the full might of a compassionate world to help them.''

    International aid supplies are being successfully transported by Burmese workers to disaster-hit areas, Xinhua cited Myanmar state radio as saying.

    "What the people really need now is food and sanitation,'' Joe Lowry, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said yesterday in the former capital, Rangoon. "You've got lots of people living homeless next to pools of filthy, standing water'' that can cause skin diseases, diarrhea and respiratory infections.

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    Samak will go to Burma Wednesday

    The Nation

    Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej will go to Burma on Wednesday to negotiate with Burmese junta to allow in foreign aid workers to enter the country, a government source said Tuesday.

    Samak is expected to relay the foreign community's requests for Burma to permit their staffs to enter the country to provide humanitarian assistance for the Burmese effected by the deadly cyclone.

    The Burmese government has not permitted the foreign aid workers to enter Burma to help the Burmese effected by the Nargis cyclone, which killed at least 31,938 people.

    Samak has been asked by the United States and Britain to act as a go-between with Burma. He initially planned to go to Burma last week, but abruptly changed the plan after the junta said they would be too busy to welcome him.

    UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was among the foreign power-brokers who had asked Samak to act as a mediator with the regime.

    Meanwhile Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said Tuesday that a trip had now been arranged, but it is unclear if Samak will be able to meet the top leadership.

    "The prime minister will go to Myanmar tomorrow (Wednesday) to ask Myanmar to open up for foreign aid and aid workers," Noppadon said.

    "I am not sure at this moment who he will meet but we hope to meet Prime Minister Thein Sein and at the very least we do hope to meet the country's foreign minister," Noppadon told reporters.

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    Australian aid flight to arrive in Burma

    An Australian aid plane is expected to arrive in Burma on Tuesday to offload urgently needed supplies in the cyclone-devastated country.

    Overnight, the first US military aid flight to Burma landed in Rangoon but emergency supplies remain at a trickle for 1.5 million people facing hunger and disease in the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy delta.

    The official death toll from Nargis, which hit Burma on May 3, stands at 31,938, with 1,403 people injured and 29,770 still missing. But US diplomats have said the toll likely exceeds 100,000 people.

    Burma's reclusive military government has finally begun accepting aid from the outside world, including the United Nations, but is still refusing to admit foreign experts waiting in Bangkok for visas.

    World Vision Australia chief Tim Costello, who has been allowed into Burma, says the situation is still desperate.

    "This is an absolutely huge and horrifying level of devastation and human suffering," he told the Nine Network.

    Mr Costello said he spoke to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd about the Australian aid flight on Monday. Australia has pledged to provide $25 million in humanitarian assistance to the people of Burma.

    "The American plane and the Australian plane ... are getting in," Mr Costello said.

    "(It's) less than ideal conditions because they land and the deal is the that the goods are unpacked and they go to the government here to distribute, then the personnel have to fly out of the country again straight away.

    "Obviously, that's not ideal, but at least the door is a little bit ajar.

    "From our point of view, we're certainly getting the aid through."

    Mr Costello said he had personally negotiated a letter with a general to ensure World Vision aid passed untouched through military checkpoints.

    "We are getting access, unrestricted access, but the truth is it is still a very small amount for the scale of this disaster and for the level of human suffering and that causes deep,deep frustration and tears on the part of our staff."

    The distribution of aid was being hampered by a lack of transport infrastructure such as helicopters.

    "There's essentially one road down and it's pretty clogged. You queue for six hours just to get petrol to make that trip," he said.

    "Our trucks have been rolling down that road, but we don't and others don't have access to helicopters and planes and the sorts of heavy lifting aid opportunities that we had in the tsunami, so we're working under a very difficult situation."

    The Rudd government has refused to confirm whether an Australian aid flight will be arriving in Burma.

    "At this stage we don't have any comment," a spokesman for the prime minister's office said.

    A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith also refused to comment.

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    British Queen gives money to Burma appeal

    BBC

    The Queen has made a "significant personal donation" to help the victims of the Burmese cyclone, Buckingham Palace has said.

    The undisclosed amount is thought to have gone to the UK Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal, which has so far raised £5m.

    News of the royal donation came as the UK's first aid flight left Dubai for the Burmese capital Rangoon.

    Gordon Brown has said aid agencies must have "unfettered access" to survivors.

    Burma's ruling military junta has stopped some foreign aid workers crossing its borders, despite fears that 1.5m people could die in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis because of disease and hunger.

    'Making a difference'

    On Monday, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander appealed to Britons to keep giving money despite fears it might not reach those most in need.

    He said donations were "already making a difference" thanks to UK charities, many of whom come under the DEC's umbrella. Need in Burma is said to be "immediate and vast"

    Brendan Gormley, DEC chief executive, said Burmese people desperately needed clean water, food and medical supplies.

    "We can't let these people down and we're relying on the generous support of the British public to help us continue this life-saving work," he said.

    The official death toll in Burma has risen to almost 32,000, but aid agencies fear many more could die if help does not come.

    The UN is seeking $187m (£96m) to provide basic supplies for the victims.

    The UK's first aid flight to Burma contains plastic sheets meant to provide shelter for more than 9,000 families. Four more planeloads of aid are on standby.

    On Monday, the first US aid flight landed in Burma, as did the first from medical relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres.

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    First UK Aid Flight Off To Burma, More On Standby

    Press Release: UK Government

    The UK's first aid flight for Burma is leaving for Rangoon today, announced Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander. The flight contains plastic sheets, which will provide desperately needed shelter for over 9,000 families affected by Cyclone Nargis.

    Four more planeloads of aid are on standby. The UK's emergency operations team is working in Rangoon with the UN and Aid agencies to identify what and where the greatest needs are, and to oversee the UK's assistance into the country.

    Douglas Alexander said: "The situation inside Burma is becoming evermore desperate for the hundreds of thousands of people affected by this disaster.

    "There is now the very real danger of a second tragedy developing on the back of the first - the risk of water-borne infections grows with every day of inaction by the Burmese authorities.

    "The UK is working hard at a diplomatic level to secure international and regional agreement in how best to get aid into Burma, but we are also sending humanitarian aid. Our first flight is scheduled to leave Dubai tonight and has been granted permission to land in Rangoon. We are ready to do much more and we continue to urge the active cooperation of the Burmese authorities."

    Douglas Alexander has called for an emergency meeting of EU Development Ministers and has also asked the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Navy to direct HMS Westminster to international waters of Burma.

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