Daily News - May 14, 2008 - Wednesday
Junta allows more U.S. aid
Aid worker enters 'unrecognizable' Burma's delta
Cyclone survivors beg for help
U.S. admiral: Junta unconcerned by cyclone
Police block aid workers, food piles up
World fears for plight of cyclone victims
Canada will push UN on Burma aid
Canada sending emergency shelters to Burma
Burma Should Open Air, Sea Corridor for Cyclone Aid, UN Says
British Govt slams 'callous' junta
Low technology is the only hope in Burma, China disasters
Burma's regime accused of hoarding cyclone aid
EU ministers discuss Burma aid
Burma Needs Building Materials To Rebuild Homes: Malaysian Envoy
Burma's biofuel drive deepens food shortage
Myanmar outlines three phases of restoration work after disaster
Burmese families wait for word from loved ones
3rd of those killed in Burma likely children: UN
Child traffickers preying on Burma victims: aid groups
Thai PM leaves for Burma
Aussie aid to Burma may be 'rebadged'
US couple helps cyclone victims
Stallone hopes Cyclone helps highlight Burma's injustices
Junta allows more U.S. aid
PATTAYA, Thailand (CNN)
-- The government of Burma authorized five more U.S. flights to land in the country with needed aid for survivors of last week's cyclone, a U.S. Marine spokesman told CNN. Lt. Col. Jeffrey Blau said Tuesday that the planes would leave Thailand's U-Tapao airfield within 24 hours.
Two other flights departed Tuesday and another departed Monday carrying food, mosquito netting and plastic tarpaulins to the disaster zone.
Meanwhile, the USS Essex, USS Juneau and USS Harpers Ferry were in international waters off the coast of Myanmar laden with more than 14,000 containers of fresh water and other aid and awaiting orders to deliver by air or landing craft, Pentagon officials said.
On Tuesday, a U.S. military commander said Myanmar's government seemed unaware of the scope of the death and destruction Cyclone Nargis wrought on the country.
Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, was on the first of three U.S. aid flights allowed into Myanmar this week. He described meeting with a Myanmar three-star general who opened up a map of the country and pointed to the areas worst-hit by the cyclone.
"[He] characterized activity there as returning back to normal -- his words," Keating said. "[He said] people are coming back to their villages, they're planting their crops for the summer season, the monsoon will come and wash all the saltwater out of the ponds.
"His manner, his demeanor, his attitude indicated something less than very serious concern."
The United Nations estimates that between 63,000 and 100,000 people died as a result of Cyclone Nargis.
The United States has pledged $16.25 million in aid to the country.
The two U.S. aid flights that arrived Tuesday carried water, blankets, plastic sheets, mosquito nets and other relief supplies, the U.S. military said. Together with a third flight that arrived in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, on Monday, the planes carried 70,000 pounds of supplies.
Government forces took possession of the aid shipment on the tarmac, transferring it from a C-130 U.S. transport plane onto helicopters, said Ky Luu, the director of foreign disaster assistance for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Keating said he offered Myanmar the assistance of thousands of U.S. sailors and Marines, plus U.S. military aircraft.
"The Burmese were cordial; they acknowledged our offers of assistance, but we got no firm decisions from them," Keating said.
"The Burmese simply said, 'We will take these matters under consideration; we will have to discuss them with the prime minister, and we will get back to you when we have a decision,' " he said. "It may be days; it may be longer."
The cyclone hit Myanmar on the night of May 2, but junta leaders have been reluctant to allow foreign aid workers into the country.
The delay has caused concern among aid agencies and foreign governments and sparked unusually strong remarks from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who blasted the junta's "unacceptably slow response."
The U.N. said the World Food Programme was getting in only 20 percent of the food needed because of logistical problems and government restrictions, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
"There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't picked up pace," spokesman Richard Horsey told AP.
There was also concern Tuesday about the quality of relief supplies reaching storm victims.
CARE Australia staff have found rotting rice being distributed to people in the worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta, its director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, told AP.
"I have a small sample in my pocket, and it's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he said. "It's affected by saltwater, and it's very old."
A former Yangon resident now living in Thailand told AP that angry government officials told him that high-energy biscuits rushed into Myanmar on the World Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse.
Speaking on condition of anonymity over fears for his safety, he told AP that the biscuits were exchanged for what officials said were "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry.
Victims in outlying areas are now arriving in towns and cities to seek the assistance they haven't received, said Bridget Gardner, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross delegation in Myanmar.
"We can see that some of the major needs are related to water and sanitation," Gardner said.
If junta leaders are unaware of the extent of the disaster, however, local leaders and medical officers know all too well, Gardner said.
"They're very aware of the issues they're facing in their townships," she said, adding that local Red Cross volunteers have actively been providing assistance with existing supplies.
The U.S. military will not make any flights into the country without the government's approval, Keating said.
"We have to deal with the leadership of the country," he said. "That is our government's position, and that's what we're prepared to do."
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Aid worker enters 'unrecognizable' Burma's delta
RANGOON (AP)
- The first international aid official allowed into the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy delta by Myanmar's military leaders described towns rendered unrecognizable, thousands of survivors without shelter in heavy rains and local volunteers saving lives.
Soldiers have barred foreign aid workers from reaching cyclone survivors in the areas hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis, but gave access to an International Red Cross representative who returned to Yangon on Tuesday.
"People who have come here having lost their homes in rural areas have volunteered to work as first aiders. They are humanitarian heroes," said Bridget Gardner, the agency's country head.
The ruling junta has been blasted by aid agencies for refusing to allow most foreign experts into the delta and not responding adequately to what they say is a spiraling crisis.
Relief workers also reported some storm survivors were being given spoiled or poor-quality food rather than nutrition-rich biscuits sent by international donors, adding to fears that the ruling military junta in the Southeast Asian country could be misappropriating assistance.
U.N. officials warned that the threat was escalating for the 2 million people facing disease and hunger in low-lying areas battered by the storm unless relief efforts increased dramatically.
Ten days after the tempest, reaching the worst-affected areas was getting more and more difficult.
Checkpoints manned by armed police were set up Tuesday on roads leading to the Irrawaddy River delta and all international aid workers and journalists were turned back by officers who took down their names and passport numbers. Drivers were interrogated.
"No foreigners allowed," one policeman said after waving a car back.
However, Gardner, the Red Cross expert, and her assessment team were able to visit five locations in the Irrawaddy delta. In one of them, 10,000 people are living without shelter as rain continued to tumble from the sky.
"The town of Labutta is unrecognizable. I have been here before and now with the extent of the damage and the crowds of displaced people, it's a different place," Gardner was quoted as saying in a statement by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
In Labutta and elsewhere she said volunteers were giving medical aid to hundreds of people a day even though "they have no homes to go back to when they finish."
Supplies piled up at Yangon's main airport, which does not have equipment to lift cargo off big Boeing 747s. It took 200 Burmese volunteers to unload by hand a plane carrying more than 60 tons of relief supplies, including school tents, said Dubai Cares, a United Arab Emirates aid group.
A report from a Tuesday meeting of the U.N. center overseeing logistics said the airport was a bottleneck in the aid effort. "Discharging operations at Yangon airport are hampered by limitations of handling equipment, fuel availability and worsening weather conditions," it said.
The report said Britain's Department for International Development had offered to send in machinery for unloading jumbo jets and other aircraft.
With rain falling on Yangon on Tuesday and downpours predicted later this week, aid officials also said there was not enough warehouse space to protect the supplies beginning to flow in after the regime agreed to accept foreign help.
Even the quicker pace is not enough, U.N. officials warned.
"We fear a second catastrophe (in Myanmar) unless we're able to put in place quickly a maximum of aid and a major logistical effort comparable with the response to the (2004) tsunami," said Elisabeth Byrs of the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs.
The tsunami killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen nations around the Indian Ocean, prompting the largest relief operation ever known. Tens of thousands of aid workers poured into devastated areas and the world community donated billions of dollars.
Myanmar's state television said the number of confirmed deaths from Cyclone Nargis had risen by 2,335, to 34,273, and the number of missing stood at 27,838. The United Nations estimates the actual death toll from the May 3 storm could be between 62,000 and 100,000.
Some victims and aid workers said that in many cases spoiled or poor-quality food was being given to survivors.
A longtime foreign resident of Yangon told The Associated Press that angry government officials were complaining that high-energy biscuits rushed in on the World Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse.
Those supplies were exchanged for what the officials described as "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity because identifying himself could jeopardize his safety.
A spokesman for the military regime would not comment.
U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said that while Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had expressed concern about food aid being diverted to non-cyclone victims, so far there was no evidence that was happening.
"It is a fact that a very small percentage of victims so far have received the aid, but from yesterday until today ... the situation has improved in terms of the delivery," she told reporters in New York.
Speaking at the U.N. in New York, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the U.S. is concerned that the aid reaches the neediest.
"We want to make sure that aid goes to the people that are intended to be the recipients, that they're not diverted for other uses, and therefore we want more people there to be able to distribute the aid," he said.
CARE Australia's country director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, reported problems with some rice going to survivors.
He said members of his local staff brought back samples of rotting rice that was being distributed in the Irrawaddy delta.
"I have a small sample in my pocket, and it's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he said. "It's affected by salt water and it's very old."
It was unclear whether the rice, which Agland described as dark gray in color and consisting of very small grains, had come from the government or from mills or warehouses in the delta.
"Certainly, we are concerned that (poor quality rice) is being distributed," Agland said by telephone from Yangon. "The level of nutrition is very low."
The military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, has taken control of most supplies sent in by other countries.
Among those are the United States, which made its first aid delivery Monday and sent in another cargo plane Tuesday packed with blankets, water and mosquito netting. A third shipment was en route.
The head of Myanmar's navy, Rear Adm. Soe Thein, told Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific forces, that basic needs of storm victims were being fulfilled and that "skillful humanitarian workers are not necessary," according to state television.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington was pressing the junta and its foreign allies to allow in not only food and supplies but disaster relief experts.
"We are doing everything we can, because this is a humanitarian issue, not a political issue," she said. "We want to make very clear that our only desire is to help the people of Burma."
Survivors are jamming Buddhist monasteries or camping in the open. Drinking water has been contaminated by fecal matter, and dead bodies and animal carcasses are floating around. Food and medicine are scarce.
The international Red Cross said its delegation in Myanmar found an urgent need for more medical supplies in the Irrawaddy delta.
"During the cyclone, many people held — onto trees to avoid being blown away," Red Cross official Bridget Gardner said. "They were almost 'sand blasted' by dirt and saltwater; (many) lost the top layer of their skin and it's important that these injuries are treated before infections can set in."
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Cyclone survivors beg for help
RANGOON (Reuters)
- Desperation among Myanmar's 1.5 million cyclone survivors mounted on Wednesday as the international aid flow remained a trickle and police barred foreign aid workers from worst-hit areas.
The United Nations and Western powers piled more pressure on the military regime to speed up its slow and disorganized response to the disaster by suggesting that helpless victims could have been robbed of food and other urgent supplies.
The reports were unconfirmed, but the relief effort -- further complicated by heavy rains -- is only delivering one tenth of the supplies needed in the devastated delta region, where up to 100,000 people are dead or missing.
"It's just awful, people are in just desperate need, begging as vehicles go past," Gordon Bacon, an emergency coordinator for International Rescue Committee, told Reuters by phone from Yangon.
The international community has flown in tonnes of medicine, food and shelter materials, but getting it to low-lying delta area has been complicated by poor equipment, bad weather and government intransigence.
Myanmar's reclusive junta has also made it very clear it does not want outsiders distributing aid.
Foreign experts in sanitation, nutrition and medicine have either been prevented from entering the country formerly known as Burma or are restricted to the main city of Yangon.
Armed police send back foreigners who attempt to pass through checkpoints surrounding the former capital.
"It's such an immense area of devastation and so many people need help that I'm sure if these people could get in and be coordinated properly it would assist the effort dramatically," said Bacon. "There is frustration all around."
TRAGEDY
The international community has warned of an even greater tragedy if the aid effort is not ratcheted up.
In a statement after emergency talks on Myanmar in Brussels on Tuesday, EU development ministers called on Yangon "to offer free and unfettered access to international humanitarian experts, including the expeditious delivery of visa and travel permits."
The EU ministers stopped short of endorsing a French call to deliver supplies if necessary without the junta's permission.
France's junior minister for human rights said it had the backing of Britain and Germany to call on the U.N. Security Council for aid to be taken into Myanmar without the government's green light if necessary.
"We have called for the 'responsibility to protect' to be applied in the case of Burma," Rama Yade told reporters.
British officials said London would welcome discussion of the 'responsibility to protect,' a 2005 U.N. resolution conceived to assist victims of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, but not natural disasters.
But the official did not consider the proposal realistic given Russian and Chinese objections.
Tens of thousands of people throughout the delta are crammed into monasteries, schools and other buildings after arriving in towns that were on the breadline even before the disaster.
Lacking food, water and sanitation, they face the threat of killer diseases such as cholera and in some parts are waiting in vain for help to arrive.
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U.S. admiral: Junta unconcerned by cyclone
CNN
Myanmar's government seems unaware of the scope of the death and destruction Cyclone Nargis wrought on the country more than a week ago, a U.S. military commander said Tuesday.
Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, was on the first of three U.S. aid flights allowed into Myanmar this week.
He described meeting with a Myanmar three-star general who opened up a map of the country and pointed to the areas worst-hit by the cyclone.
"[He] characterized activity there as returning back to normal -- his words," Keating said. "[He said] people are coming back to their villages, they're planting their crops for the summer season, the monsoon will come and wash all the saltwater out of the ponds.
"His manner, his demeanor, his attitude indicated something less than very serious concern."
The United Nations estimates that between 63,000 and 100,000 people died as a result of Cyclone Nargis.
The United States has pledged $16.25 million in aid to the country.
Two U.S. Air Force flights will head into Myanmar on Wednesday with needed aid, and plans for two more flights are in the works for Thursday, Pentagon officials said.
The two U.S. aid flights that arrived Tuesday carried water, blankets, plastic sheets, mosquito nets and other relief supplies, the U.S. military said. Together with a third flight that arrived in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, on Monday, the planes carried 70,000 pounds of supplies.
Government forces took possession of the aid shipment on the tarmac, transferring it from a C-130 U.S. transport plane onto helicopters, said Ky Luu, the director of foreign disaster assistance for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Keating said he offered Myanmar the assistance of thousands of U.S. sailors and Marines, plus U.S. military aircraft.
"The Burmese were cordial; they acknowledged our offers of assistance, but we got no firm decisions from them," Keating said.
"The Burmese simply said, 'We will take these matters under consideration; we will have to discuss them with the prime minister, and we will get back to you when we have a decision,' " he said. "It may be days; it may be longer."
The cyclone hit Myanmar on the night of May 2, but junta leaders have been reluctant to allow foreign aid workers into the country.
The delay has caused concern among aid agencies and foreign governments and sparked unusually strong remarks from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who blasted the junta's "unacceptably slow response."
The U.N. said the World Food Programme was getting in only 20 percent of the food needed because of logistical problems and government restrictions, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
"There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't picked up pace," spokesman Richard Horsey told AP.
There was also concern Tuesday about the quality of relief supplies reaching storm victims.
CARE Australia staff have found rotting rice being distributed to people in the worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta, its director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, told AP.
"I have a small sample in my pocket, and it's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he said. "It's affected by saltwater, and it's very old."
A former Yangon resident now living in Thailand told AP that angry government officials told him that high-energy biscuits rushed into Myanmar on the World Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse.
Speaking on condition of anonymity over fears for his safety, he told AP that the biscuits were exchanged for what officials said were "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry.
Victims in outlying areas are now arriving in towns and cities to seek the assistance they haven't received, said Bridget Gardner, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross delegation in Myanmar.
"We can see that some of the major needs are related to water and sanitation," Gardner said.
If junta leaders are unaware of the extent of the disaster, however, local leaders and medical officers know all too well, Gardner said.
"They're very aware of the issues they're facing in their townships," she said, adding that local Red Cross volunteers have actively been providing assistance with existing supplies.
Meanwhile, the USS Essex, USS Juneau and USS Harpers Ferry were in international waters off the coast of Myanmar with more than 14,000 containers of fresh water and other aid awaiting orders to deliver by air or landing craft, Pentagon officials said. The United States has not received permission from the government of Myanmar for the aircraft to deliver aid or food, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday.
The U.S. military will not make any flights into the country without the government's approval, Keating said.
"We have to deal with the leadership of the country," he said. "That is our government's position, and that's what we're prepared to do."
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Police block aid workers, food piles up
RANGOON (AP)
- Police barred foreign aid workers from reaching cyclone survivors in hard-hit areas Tuesday, while emergency food shipments backed up at the main airport for Myanmar's biggest city.
Relief workers reported some storm survivors were being given spoiled or poor-quality food rather than nutrition-rich biscuits sent by international donors, adding to fears that the ruling military junta in the Southeast Asian country could be misappropriating assistance.
U.N. officials warned that the threat was escalating for the 2 million people facing disease and hunger in low-lying areas battered by the storm unless relief efforts increased dramatically.
Ten days after the tempest, reaching the worst-affected areas was getting more and more difficult.
Checkpoints manned by armed police were set up Tuesday on roads leading to the Irrawaddy River delta and all international aid workers and journalists were turned back by officers who took down their names and passport numbers. Drivers were interrogated.
"No foreigners allowed," one policeman said after waving a car back.
Supplies piled up at Yangon's main airport, which does not have equipment to lift cargo off big Boeing 747s. It took 200 Burmese volunteers to unload by hand a plane carrying more than 60 tons of relief supplies, including school tents, said Dubai Cares, a United Arab Emirates aid group.
A report from a Tuesday meeting of the U.N. center overseeing logistics said the airport was a bottleneck in the aid effort. "Discharging operations at Yangon airport are hampered by limitations of handling equipment, fuel availability and worsening weather conditions," it said.
The report said Britain's Department for International Development had offered to send in machinery for unloading jumbo jets and other aircraft.
With rain falling on Yangon on Tuesday and downpours predicted later this week, aid officials also said there was not enough warehouse space to protect the supplies beginning to flow in after the regime agreed to accept foreign help.
Even the quicker pace is not enough, U.N. officials warned.
"We fear a second catastrophe (in Myanmar) unless we're able to put in place quickly a maximum of aid and a major logistical effort comparable with the response to the (2004) tsunami," said Elisabeth Byrs of the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs.
The tsunami killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen nations around the Indian Ocean, prompting the largest relief operation ever known. Tens of thousands of aid workers poured into devastated areas and the world community donated billions of dollars.
Myanmar's state television said the number of confirmed deaths from Cyclone Nargis had risen by 2,335, to 34,273, and the number of missing stood at 27,838. The United Nations estimates the actual death toll from the May 3 storm could be between 62,000 and 100,000.
Some victims and aid workers said that in many cases spoiled or poor-quality food was being given to survivors.
A longtime foreign resident of Yangon told The Associated Press that angry government officials were complaining that high-energy biscuits rushed in on the World Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse.
Those supplies were exchanged for what the officials described as "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity because identifying himself could jeopardize his safety.
A spokesman for the military regime would not comment.
U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said that while Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had expressed concern about food aid being diverted to non-cyclone victims, so far there was no evidence that was happening.
"It is a fact that a very small percentage of victims so far have received the aid, but from yesterday until today ... the situation has improved in terms of the delivery," she told reporters in New York.
Speaking at the U.N. in New York, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the U.S. is concerned that the aid reaches the neediest.
"We want to make sure that aid goes to the people that are intended to be the recipients, that they're not diverted for other uses, and therefore we want more people there to be able to distribute the aid," he said.
CARE Australia's country director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, reported problems with some rice going to survivors.
He said members of his local staff brought back samples of rotting rice that was being distributed in the Irrawaddy delta.
"I have a small sample in my pocket, and it's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he said. "It's affected by salt water and it's very old."
It was unclear whether the rice, which Agland described as dark gray in color and consisting of very small grains, had come from the government or from mills or warehouses in the delta.
"Certainly, we are concerned that (poor quality rice) is being distributed," Agland said by telephone from Yangon. "The level of nutrition is very low."
The military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, has taken control of most supplies sent in by other countries.
Among those are the United States, which made its first aid delivery Monday and sent in another cargo plane Tuesday packed with blankets, water and mosquito netting. A third shipment was en route.
The head of Myanmar's navy, Rear Adm. Soe Thein, told Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific forces, that basic needs of storm victims were being fulfilled and that "skillful humanitarian workers are not necessary," according to state television.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington was pressing the junta and its foreign allies to allow in not only food and supplies but disaster relief experts.
"We are doing everything we can, because this is a humanitarian issue, not a political issue," she said. "We want to make very clear that our only desire is to help the people of Burma."
Survivors are jamming Buddhist monasteries or camping in the open. Drinking water has been contaminated by fecal matter, and dead bodies and animal carcasses are floating around. Food and medicine are scarce.
The international Red Cross said its delegation in Myanmar found an urgent need for more medical supplies in the Irrawaddy delta.
"During the cyclone, many people held — onto trees to avoid being blown away," Red Cross official Bridget Gardner said. "They were almost 'sand blasted' by dirt and saltwater; (many) lost the top layer of their skin and it's important that these injuries are treated before infections can set in."
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World fears for plight of cyclone victims
RANGOON (Reuters)
- International fears about the plight of 1.5 million victims in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar deepened on Tuesday as the United Nations and Western powers suggested helpless people could have been robbed of food and other aid.
As if fears of shoddy aid distribution were not enough, heavy rains pelted survivors in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta, complicating the already slow delivery of aid to hundreds of thousands of homeless people facing hunger and disease.
As more foreign aid trickled into the former Burma, critics ratcheted up the pressure on its military rulers to accelerate a relief effort that is only delivering an estimated tenth of the supplies needed in the devastated delta.
Speaking at a regular news conference in New York, U.N. spokeswoman Michel Montas said the United Nations was concerned that some aid sent to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, might be diverted to people who were not victims of Cyclone Nargis.
And Britain's U.N. Ambassador John Sawers told reporters in New York that Britain had also heard reports that aid was being diverted but had no hard proof confirming them.
"If they do turn out to be true, we would be very concerned indeed," he said. "This just underlines the necessity of the Burmese authorities accepting that their own capacity to distribute aid to 1.5 million people" is insufficient.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad said concerns about aid diversion were another reason why "we want more people there to be able to distribute the aid."
In Brussels, the European Union called on the military junta to allow entry to aid workers to help victims avert "an even greater tragedy," and France urged U.N. action if the junta did not cooperate. Spain said that failure to allow aid in could amount to a crime against humanity.
The United Nations says more than 1.5 million people are struggling to survive and up to 100,000 are dead or missing after cyclone Nargis hit.
U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva it was also vital to secure the means to deliver aid.
"We need a kind of air bridge or sea bridge, and huge means (just) as the aid delivery we did in the tsunami, it is the same kind of logistical operation," said Byrs, of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The junta has accepted aid from the outside world but the help has only trickled in as the rulers have made it clear they do not want outsiders distributing it.
FREE AND UNFETTERED ACCESS
In a statement after emergency talks on Myanmar in Brussels, EU development ministers called on Yangon "to offer free and unfettered access to international humanitarian experts, including the expeditious delivery of visa and travel permits."
The EU ministers stopped short of endorsing a French call to deliver aid if necessary without the junta's permission.
France's junior minister for human rights said it had the backing of Britain and Germany to call on the U.N. Security Council for aid to be taken into Myanmar without the government's green light if necessary.
"We have called for the 'responsibility to protect' to be applied in the case of Burma," Rama Yade told reporters.
British officials said London would welcome discussion of the 'responsibility to protect,' a 2005 U.N. resolution conceived to assist victims of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity but not natural disasters.
But the official did not consider the proposal realistic given Russian and Chinese objections.
An Australian air force plane landed in Yangon, Myanmar's main city, with 31 metric tons of emergency supplies, a day after the first U.S. military aid flight arrived in a country Washington has described as an "outpost of tyranny."
Two more U.S. flights arrived on Tuesday as part of a "confidence-building" effort to prod Myanmar's reclusive generals into allowing a larger international relief operation 11 days after the disaster.
Tens of thousands of people throughout the delta are crammed into Buddhist monasteries and schools after arriving in towns that were poor even before the disaster.
Lacking food, water and sanitation, they face the threat of diseases. The heavy rains added to their misery.
"Where I am now, there's over 10,000 homeless people and it's pouring rain," Bridget Gardener of the International Red Cross said during a rare tour of the delta by an aid official.
While a steady stream of aid flights have landed in Yangon, only a fraction of the relief needed is getting to the delta due to flooding and the junta's desire to keep most foreign aid and logistics experts either out of the country or in Yangon.
Myanmar state television said six ships carrying 500 metric tons of supplies had left Yangon for the delta on Tuesday.
International relief organizations say their local staff are stretched to the breaking point, while Medicins Sans Frontieres said its workers faced "increasing constraints."
In New York, the U.N. spokeswoman Montas noted that "a very small percentage of victims have so far received the aid."
One Yangon businessman who returned from a personal aid mission to Bogalay, a delta township where at least 10,000 people were killed, told Reuters that soldiers were appropriating aid.
"There are still some villages in the worst-hit areas that nobody has got to," the man said. "Around Bogalay, private donors are not allowed to distribute their assistance to the victims themselves. We had to hand over what we had."
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Canada will push UN on Burma aid
National Post, Canada
OTTAWA
-- Canada is pushing the United Nations Security Council to press Myanmar's military dictators to permit international aid to reach cyclone victims, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said Tuesday.
The move comes as the Conservative government faces mounting pressure to back the UN's "responsibility to protect" doctrine -- one that Canada pushed the world body to adopt -- which calls on the international community to essentially invade the sovereign territory of a country if its government is not protecting its people.
"We've asked our ambassador in New York to transmit this message to the Security Council of the UN. There is going to be a discussion, we hope, on this issue so that aid can get to the Burmese people," Mr. Bernier told the House of Commons.
"Minister Bernier believes Canada should focus international efforts on the urgent need for humanitarian access. This is why Canada is pushing for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in concert with like-minded partners," said Neil Hrab, Bernier's spokesman.
Earlier this week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his "deep concern" and "immense frustration" that Burma's military rulers were blocking the delivery of aid to the cyclone victims, as the disaster is about to enter its second week.
France last week urged the Security Council to invoke the responsibility to protect doctrine, known as R2P, to force the delivery of aid over the objections of Myanmar's ruling generals. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, a man Mr. Bernier regularly refers to as a friend and with whom he recently travelled to Afghanistan, put forth the proposal.
But other countries, led by Britain, argued that the doctrine was inappropriate and was meant to prevent genocide, and not be used in times of natural disasters.
France has now reportedly considered asking the council to endorse a non-binding resolution that would ask the country's rulers to allow more foreign aid workers entry. The opening of such a humanitarian corridor for aid would not be as invasive as invoking the responsibility to protect doctrine.
In Ottawa, Mr. Bernier said he has had discussions with "my Chinese counterpart, my French counterpart and also with other members of the international community to see that Canadian aid can get there, to help the people in Burma."
The government continued to face heavy criticism on Tuesday for not pushing harder on R2P and for only contributing $2-million in humanitarian assistance to the cyclone-ravaged country.
Liberal development critic Keith Martin urged the government to increase its aid tenfold.
"What we need to do is marry up that obligation to act to support the responsibility to protect. We can go through the Security Council and we should be using our diplomats to do that but that can't take away from the urgent need to get medical supplies, food and clean water on the ground now," said Martin.
"That has to be priority No. 1 because without those, the death toll is going to increase astronomically in the coming days."
Meanwhile, the nine-member advance team of the Canadian Forces Disaster Assistance Response Team, known as DART, was still cooling its heels in neighbouring Bangkok, Thailand awaiting permission to enter Myanmar.
The Chinese Canadian National Council renewed its call Tuesday to have the DART deployed to the earthquake zone of China's Sichuan province, where the death toll climbed past 12,000 on Tuesday.
Victor Wong, the council's executive director, said he was "all for the DART team going to Burma" but if it is continually denied entry, it should be diverted to the China earthquake zone.
"The DART team is not going to save thousands to people but they could make a difference if they are allocated to one specific area, one specific task," said Wong.
DART spokeswoman Maj. Julie Roberge told Canwest News Service that the nine-member advance team in Bangkok, Thailand is still focusing on Burma but is making contingency plans for China.
"As you know, the military always does contingency planning. We're definitely looking at it, but we haven't got any orders," said Maj. Roberge.
"We're looking at every possibility. It seems that the world is on fire."
A spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay said no decisions have been taken on where to deploy the DART and stressed that the final decision would ultimately be made by Foreign Affairs.
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Canada sending emergency shelters to Burma
- Canada will send emergency shelter kits to aid survivors of Myanmar's cyclone, but expressed concern on Tuesday over how much the government there was doing enough to help its own citizens.
Canada will send 2,000 kits that can provide emergency shelter for some 10,000 people, with the aid scheduled to be airlifted to Thailand and distributed by the International Red Cross, Canadian officials said.
But Ottawa echoed concerns voiced by other countries about how the military junta in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was handling the disaster that has left more than 1.5 million people struggling to survive.
"We call upon the Burmese government to move rapidly to meet the immediate needs of the affected communities, rather than pushing forward with the upcoming referendum on the constitution," Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said in a statement.
The junta in Myanmar has accepted aid from the outside world but help has only tricked in as the military rulers have made it clear they do not want outsiders distributing it.
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Burma Should Open Air, Sea Corridor for Cyclone Aid, UN Says
May 14 (Bloomberg)
-- Myanmar should open an air and sea corridor to allow emergency aid in large quantities to reach the country quickly and prevent disease causing a second catastrophe after Cyclone Nargis hit 11 days ago, the United Nations said.
The UN used an "air or sea'' bridge to help victims of the tsunami that devastated Indian Ocean countries in 2004, Elizabeth Byrs of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said yesterday. Supplies have reached 270,000 people in Myanmar, only about a third of those at risk, the UN says.
The military junta must let international aid workers enter because "hundreds of thousands of lives are in the balance,'' European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel said yesterday. The junta barred outsiders from distributing aid to an estimated 1.5 million people affected by the cyclone.
Myanmar's state radio said the death toll rose to 34,273 people yesterday, with 27,836 missing, according to China's Xinhua News Agency. The UN estimates as many as 100,000 people died in the May 3 cyclone, the worst natural disaster in Southeast Asia since the 2004 tsunami killed more than 220,000 people.
Tens of thousands of people throughout the southern Irrawaddy delta, the worst-hit region, are crammed into monasteries and other informal camps and many are living by the roadside, Michel said in a statement. "Disease is one of the biggest concerns as so many streams are contaminated by bodies, both human and animals.''
Michel is heading to Myanmar to assess the disaster zone after receiving a visa late yesterday, the British Broadcasting Corp. cited his spokesman as saying.
Severe Trauma
Survivors, particularly children and the elderly, are suffering severe trauma, according to the Irrawaddy, a magazine published by Myanmar dissidents in neighboring Thailand.
They are surrounded by dead bodies and young children are particularly afraid of the water, the magazine reported, citing an unidentified resident of the former capital, Yangon, who traveled to the delta town of Bogalay to help with relief work.
Children are most vulnerable to infectious diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, dengue fever and malaria. The World Health Organization said diarrhea and dysentery have been reported, while there have been no confirmed cholera cases.
Before Tropical Cyclone Nargis struck, about one in three children in the country formerly known as Burma were malnourished, the UN said.
Bush Calls Hu
President George W. Bush told China's President Hu Jintao during a telephone conversation yesterday that the U.S. wants to send more aid to Myanmar, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in Washington. ``Hu offered to assist our efforts,'' she said. China is a key ally of Myanmar.
The first U.S. plane carrying relief supplies touched down two days ago in Yangon. Two more are scheduled to land today or in the coming week.
The U.S. has repeatedly criticized Myanmar's military, which has ruled the nation since 1962, over its corrupt and oppressive rule. Bush said two days ago the world "ought to be angry'' at the way the junta has delayed the relief effort.
Myanmar government officials have distributed some materials to affected areas, in exchange for payment to be collected from villagers at a later date, according to the Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident publication.
It cited an unidentified resident of Bogalay as saying that international aid supplies including plastic sheets are being sold by soldiers and other pro-government groups.
"We want to make sure the aid goes to the people that are intended to be the recipients,'' Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the UN, told reporters yesterday in New York.
Supplies Arrive
More than 40 metric tons of shelter supplies, including plastic sheets, blankets, kitchen sets and tents, have reached Yangon in the past 24 hours, the UN said yesterday.
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej is due to arrive in Myanmar today, after delaying a visit scheduled for May 11. Samak will help coordinate aid between the international community and the Myanmar government, Foreign Minister Noppadol Pattama said yesterday in Bangkok.
The prime minister will bring 100 satellite phones with him and technicians, in response to a request from the Myanmar government, said Wichianchote Sukchotrat, a government spokesman. Most cellular and land-line networks were destroyed in the cyclone-hit areas, he said.
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British Govt slams 'callous' junta
LONDON (AFP)
- Foreign Secretary David Miliband blasted Myanmar's ruling military junta, saying Tuesday its "callous disregard" for the country's people was hampering the supply of aid to cyclone survivors.
He said the situation was becoming a "man-made catastrophe" and vowed that London stood ready to support "any and all" United Nations action to help the victims of Cyclone Nargis.
"As we debate here today, people are dying by the score in Burma and the Burmese regime are unconscionably holding up the supply of aid," he told lawmakers in parliament.
Miliband said he was angry "that any government could show such a callous disregard for its responsibility towards its own citizens."
Britain, the former colonial power in Myanmar, has pledged five million pounds (10 million dollars, 6.3 million euros) towards the relief effort.
"We are examining all options for getting this aid through and getting the message through to the Burmese regime their obstructionism is completely intolerable," Miliband said.
"We have over the past 12 days supported the use of any and all UN action that will help. We will continue to do so -- the only test is whether the action saves lives in Burma."
Regarding the possibility of aid air drops, Miliband said all options were being considered, but the best "by a long way" was for the Myanmar junta to "stand up for its responsibilities".
Lawmaker Tony Lloyd urged Beijing to put pressure on the Myanmar generals to open more to humanitarian agencies.
Miliband said Asian powers had an "immensely important role" in putting pressure on the junta.
"It's obviously essential that we continue the link with the Chinese government to ensure that they understand the strength of feeling across British political parties and across Britain about the need to respond to what is becoming a man-made catastrophe."
Meanwhile Queen Elizabeth II has made a "significant" personal donation to the Myanmar relief effort, her Buckingham Palace office said.
The amount of money was not disclosed but it is thought to have gone to Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella body of humanitarian agencies.
A palace spokeswoman said: "The queen has made a significant personal donation to the Burma appeal."
The first British aid flight left Dubai on Monday carrying enough shelter material for 43,000 families. Following a refuelling stop-over, it is due to arrive Wednesday. Five further British aid flights are expected to leave later this week.
The Department for International Development said at least 10 times the aid flow being allowed to trickle into Myanmar by its ruling military junta was needed, along with the international expertise needed to distribute it.
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Low technology is the only hope in Burma, China disasters
PARIS (AFP)
- There is no hi-tech solution to help the thousands of survivors in Myanmar and China who need immediate help and assistance, aid workers said Tuesday.
So surely we have some hi-tech help for the hundreds of thousands of people in Myanmar and China who are walking on the tightrope of death. Right?
The short, sad answer is No. In the early 21st century, disaster relief bears a remarkable similarity to that of the mid-20th century -- and even before.
"I used to be an aid worker in Mozambique, back in the eighties," Oxfam spokesman Ian Bray told AFP.
"I had to travel all the way from Mozambique to Harare, all day in a Land-Rover, just to send a telex back to my operations here in Oxford. Now I can quickly phone our people. That's how technology has helped us.
"But the basics remain the same. People still need food, they need clean water and sanitation, they need something as mundane as soap and buckets to wash their hands after defecation to break the cycle of disease. You can't email that to them."
Trucks or boats, laden with sacks of rice, blankets, material for shelter and other big items, remain the method of choice for getting help to remote parts of cyclone-ravaged Myanmar and quake-hit Sichuan, said Bray.
Air transport may be faster and sexier, "but it's a very ineffective and very expensive way of delivering aid," he explained.
Helicopters can only carry small payloads, and dropping food from aircraft may cause a bloody scramble among refugees that benefits only the strong and the fit.
In addition, relief equipment, such as water purifying machines and medical gear, has to be simple and rugged, able to resist extremes of temperature and humidity and rough transport and to be operated by local personnel.
So a fancy scanner that works fine in a hospital in Surrey or California with the help of a university-educated engineer is clearly out of the question.
As for emergency shelter, the smartest aid -- the kind that is easiest and quickest to assemble and gives best value for money -- is the simplest, says Graham Saunders of the International Federation of the Red Cross.
"A lightweight tent costs 265 dollars, but a shelter kit, comprising a roll of plastic sheeting, a bag of tools and some fixings, costs just 60 dollars," he said.
For food, nutritionists have done great work on developing high-protein biscuits and a peanut-based substitute called Plumpynut as ready-to-use, wrappered food in disasters.
These are among the palette of therapeutic options for badly malnourished survivors.
But for the bulk of survivors, a food that is familiar, acceptable and easily digestible is the No. 1 requirement, which is why rice is the staple of choice.
Saunders recalls a mission in Afghanistan where he found that US military rations -- meals ready-to-eat, or MREs -- had been used by the locals as bricks to fill in road potholes. Nobody had explained to them that the strange, plastic-wrapped packages contained food.
In the Chinese earthquake, the search for survivors under the rubble will entail a mixture of technology, sniffer dogs and experience in knowing where a collapsed building may provide a survival space, said Julie Ryan of a British charity, International Rescue Corp.
The tools include a tried-and-trusted system of microphones set on the rubble to pick up sounds from a survivor and triangulate his position, as well as a "Scubar", a camera on a flexible pole that can be fed into the rubble.
A recent innovation is a device called a carbon dioxide analyser, said Ryan. "If you are unconscious and in a confined space, the level of CO2 in that space will rise."
Still in prototype phase is a ground radar system, which sends a signal through rubble to locate voids and, with luck, pinpoint a survivor's heartbeat.
Even farther down the track, in experiments conducted by US military scientists, are rats trained to home in on people and send back a radio signal via a brain implant to give their location.
"We take any increase in technology seriously, but there's a lot of instinct in this business," said Ryan.
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Burma's regime accused of hoarding cyclone aid
RANGOON (AP)
- The United Nations said Tuesday that only a tiny portion of international aid needed for Myanmar's cyclone victims is making it into the country, amid reports that the military regime is hoarding good-quality foreign aid for itself and doling out rotten food.
The country's isolated military regime has agreed to accept relief shipments from the U.N. and foreign countries, but has largely refused entry to aidworkers who might distribute the aid.
Two U.S. planes have already delivered aid to the country, and, in an apparent broadening of the initial agreement, the government seemed willing to allow future shipments.
But logistical bottlenecks, poor infrastructure and the junta's restrictions have delayed the distribution of the aid, which is piling up at the airport in Yangon.
"There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't picked up pace" 10 days after the cyclone hit, said Richard Horsey, the spokesman of the U.N. humanitarian operation in Bangkok, Thailand.
Cyclone Nargis devastated the country's Irrawaddy delta on May 3, leaving about 62,000 people dead or missing, according to the government count. The U.N. has suggested the death toll is likely to be more than 100,000.
With their homes washed away and large tracts of land under water, some 2 million survivors — mostly poor rice farmers — are living in abject misery, facing disease and starvation.
The U.N. said the World Food Program is only getting in 20 percent of the food needed.
"That is a characterization of the program as a whole. We are not reaching enough people quickly enough," Horsey told The Associated Press.
The survivors are packed into Buddhist monasteries or camped in the open, drinking dirty water contaminated by dead bodies and animal carcasses. Food and medicines are scarce.
The military — which has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1962 — has taken control of most aid sent by other countries including the United States.
The regime told a U.S. military commander who delivered the first American shipment on Monday that basic needs of the storm victims are being fulfilled and "skillful humanitarian workers are not necessary."
But the junta's words and actions have only served to back up complaints that the military is appropriating the aid for itself.
A longtime foreign resident in Yangon told the AP in Bangkok that angry government officials have complained to him about the misappropriation of the aid by the military.
He said the officials told him that quantities of the high-energy biscuits rushed into Myanmar by the WFP on its first flights were sent to a military warehouse.
They were exchanged by what the officials said were "tasteless and low quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, the foreign resident said.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because revealing his identity would jeopardize his safety.
He said it was not known what's happening to the high quality food — whether it is sold on the black market or consumed by the military.
The government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But the claim appeared to be backed up on the ground.
CARE Australia's country director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, said members of his local staff brought back some of the rotting rice that's being distributed in the delta.
"I have a small sample in my pocket, and it's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he said. "It's affected by salt water and it's very old."
It's unclear whether the rice, which is dark gray in color and consists of very small grains, is coming from the government or from mills in the area or warehouses hit by the cyclone.
"We were using food from the World Food Program, which is very high quality," Agland said by telephone from Yangon. "Certainly, we are concerned that (poor quality rice) is being distributed. The level of nutrition is very low."
The foreign resident also said that several businessmen have been told to make "donations" in cash of a minimum of $1,800 to the government to aid cyclone victims. Companies approached include jade mining concerns in Hpakant, restaurants and construction companies in Yangon, he said.
The authoritarian junta has barred nearly all foreigners experienced in managing such catastrophes from going to the delta — an area west of Yangon — and is expelling those who have managed to go in.
Jean-Sebastien Matte, an emergency coordinator with Medecins Sans Frontieres, said his foreign staff have repeatedly been forced to return to Yangon from the delta.
"We can go for two days and then we have to come back," he said. "We're able to do 100 or 200 consultations a day but we should be doing 1,000."
Armed police checkpoints were set up outside Yangon on the roads to the delta, and all foreigners were being sent back by policemen who took down their names and passport numbers.
"No foreigners allowed," a policeman said Tuesday after waving a car back.
After its first aid delivery on Monday, the United States sent in one more cargo plane Tuesday with 19,900 pounds of blankets, water and mosquito netting. A third flight was to take in a 24,750-pound load.
U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Douglas Powell said the situation remains fluid, but flights were expected to continue after Tuesday, which appears to broaden the original agreement for three flights on Monday and Tuesday.
Yangon was pounded by heavy rain Monday and more downpours were expected throughout the week, further hindering aid deliveries.
But for many, the rainwater was the only source of clean drinking water.
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EU ministers discuss Burma aid
BRUSSELS (AP)
- EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana says officials must use all diplomatic means to convince Myanmar's military leaders to let in more emergency aid to cyclone victims.
Solana spoke Tuesday before emergency talks in Brussels with ministers from all 27 EU nations.
He says EU diplomats are pushing the United Nations to take action to convince Myanmar to open its doors to aid workers.
Solana says the "most important objective" now for international donors — including the EU — is to get aid into the Asian country devastated by a deadly cyclone.
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Burma Needs Building Materials To Rebuild Homes: Malaysian Envoy
KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 (Asia Pulse)
- Although humanitarian aid and assistance continue to pour into cyclone-ravaged Myanmar, the country is in dire need of building materials to rebuild homes.
Malaysian Ambassador to Myanmar, Mazlan Muhammad said the materials were badly needed as millions were rendered homeless, following the devastating effects of last week's Cyclone Nargis.
"At the moment, most humanitarian aid offered by countries are mostly food, medicine, tents and drinking water," he told Bernama at his office in Yangon, Myanmar Monday.
"But looking at the current scenario, (building) materials to build homes and buildings have taken priority.
"I have discussed with Wisma Putra and the National Security Council on whether Malaysia could provide materials such as zinc and nails to rebuild the affected homes."
Mazlan said the cyclone had ripped off the roofs of houses and buildings, adding that more than 30,000 lives were lost and about 1.5 million people left destitutes in the military-ruled country last week.
"What they want now is at least a temporary makeshift home as it might take three or four months for the nation to recover from the devastation," he said, adding that the coming monsoon season would worsen the situation.
Meanwhile, Mazlan said the embassy had received numerous visa applications from the locals since the cyclone struck the country.
"When asked, they (the locals) replied that they wanted to find jobs in Malaysia for a better living until everything returned to normalcy here," he said.
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Burma's biofuel drive deepens food shortage
BANGKOK (AFP)
- Myanmar is struggling to feed its people in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis -- in part because the regime has been forcing some farmers to stop growing rice in a plan to produce biofuel instead.
In 2005 the military government's leader Than Shwe ordered a national drive to plant jatropha, a poisonous nut he hoped would be the cornerstone of a state industry that would capitalise on growing world demand for biofuels.
Taking a page from the textbook of planned centralised economies, he issued a quota for jatropha production for every township in the country -- even in cities, where people were forced to grow it in their yards and along roads.
"It was the national duty," said Sai Khur Hseng, a Myanmar exile who has extensively studied the government's biofuel programme. "Everybody had to plant it."
A flowering bush which produces a nut that is poisonous to humans and animals but high in oil, jatropha is usually planted in arid regions where little else can survive.
But in fertile regions such as the southern Irrawaddy delta, where the cyclone hit, Than Shwe's edict meant that fields producing rice and other foods were torn up, said Monique Skidmore of the Australian National University said.
"This has meant that people have either had to not plant paddy or pull up paddy" to grow the crop, she said.
In some cases, the military actually confiscated land from farmers to grow the nuts, said Dave Mathieson, a researcher with Human Rights Watch.
"It's just absurd," Mathieson said.
"In the rural areas, it's the military that's responsible for meeting the quota. So they've just been seizing land and ripping out food crops to grow jatropha."
But after the crop started to grow, farmers discovered a bitter truth -- they could not sell it.
The government has not bought the jatropha nuts because it hadn't set up any facilities to process biofuel, Skidmore said.
"They don't have even the sort of tanks and trucks and warehousing and distribution to handle" biofuel production, she said.
The fiasco has now turned to tragedy for the people of Myanmar, which was once one of the world's top exporters of rice.
Decades of central economic planning along with other autocratic policies have made it difficult for the regime to feed its people.
Even before the cyclone, the UN's World Food Programme estimated that 10 percent of Myanmar's more than 50 million people did not have enough to eat.
The cyclone, which left at least 62,000 people dead or missing, has now further imperilled the nation's food supply because so much of the fertile delta has been turned into swampland by the storm.
The United Nations has warned that the country, where up to two million victims of the cyclone face immediate needs for food, water and shelter, could face food shortages for years to come.
"This is the rice basket of the country, and clearly damage has been done to the paddy fields," said Richard Horsey, of the UN's emergency relief arm.
"Some ... have been inundated with salt water, others flooded and stocks of seed for planting destroyed. So it will be an issue, and there are agricultural assessments under way to determine the full extent of the problem."
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Myanmar outlines three phases of restoration work after disaster
YANGON, May 14 (Xinhua)
-- Myanmar has outlined three phases of restoration work plan after being deadly hit by a tropical cyclone Nargis and called for implementation of the plan with internal and international assistance, according to Wednesday's official newspaper New Light of Myanmar.
The authorities said the first phase of rescuing storm victims, providing temporary shelter, supply of food and clothes and healthcare is underway to an extent, while the second phase is in a process to encourage domestic construction entrepreneurs to take part in the resettlement of the victims by rebuilding their wrecked houses.
Dealing with the third phase of the restoration plan, First Secretary of the State Peace and Development Council Lieutenant-General Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo stressed at a coordination meeting in Nay Pyi Taw Tuesday the need to re-generate farmlands in storm-hit areas, saying that agriculture and fishery play key businesses in the areas.
To rehabilitate the areas flooded by sea water, he called for construction of embankments and sluice gates, repairing of destroyed dams and provision of paddy strains which are resistant to sea water.
Over the past week, relief measures were in progress with internal and international aid flowing in.
A deadly tropical cyclone Nargis, which occurred over the Bay of Bengal, severely hit five divisions and states in Myanamr, causing the heaviest ever casualties and infrastructure damage.
The tidal wave triggered by the storm claimed a large number of human lives with an official death toll registered at 34,273 as of Tuesday evening. Altogether 27,836 people still remained missing.
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Burmese families wait for word from loved ones
Business Gazette, Maryland
Saw Myint landed in Myanmar for the start of a month-long vacation from his Silver Spring restaurant on May 1, one day before tropical cyclone Nargis hit the nation formerly known as Burma, leaving about 62,000 dead or missing, and Myint stranded.
Myint’s family members, who own the Mandalay Restaurant and Cafe, talked with him for a few minutes by satellite phone late May 4. He was safe, but phone service and electricity was out throughout the region.
‘‘Anyone who is Burmese is up to 3 or 4 a.m. watching updates, trying all night to call home,” said Myint’s son, Aung. ‘‘And all they hear are busy tones.”
Aung Myint said his brother and aunts and uncles who live in Myanmar were also safe. His father has since been able to get himself to Thailand, and is expected back home next week.
The biggest losses reported by family members were broken windows, flooded homes and blown-off rooftops. Aung Myint said it was harder for him to grasp how families were coping who still didn’t know whether their loved ones were dead or alive. At least 33,000 are still missing, according to published reports. The United Nations estimates the final death toll will be more than 100,000.
‘‘The aftermath’s going to be worse,” Aung Myint said.
U Bo Hla-Tint, a member of the country’s Parliament in Exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which has its headquarters in Rockville, urged international pressure on Myanmar’s government. Hla-Tint is a spokesman for the government, which was elected in 1990, but the results were not recognized by the military junta.
‘‘A lot of people were already aware that Burma is ruled by a military dictatorship, but now they are more angry because they are not doing anything,” he said Monday. ‘‘...If the international community shows their seriousness, they have to cooperate. That’s the mentality of the junta – they test the waters.”
He said there have been reports that the junta is collecting aid packages and selling some items.
‘‘We’re trying our best and praying for them,” Hla-Tint said of the exiled government’s efforts to aid the cyclone victims.
Rollin Van Bik, a pastor at Lai Baptist Church, which meets at First Baptist Church of Gaithersburg, said the congregation has raised about $1,200 to donate to relief efforts. He said last week that two of the church’s families have family in Rangoon. Their homes were destroyed.
Bik, who is Burmese and lives in Frederick, was formerly pastor at Chin Baptist Mission Church in Silver Spring.
Nay Lin, a volunteer at the Burma-America Buddhist Association in Silver Spring, said Tuesday his family in Myaung Mya, a town close to the area most devastated by the cyclone, told him that survivors have been flowing into the area, which is on a higher elevation than surrounding towns.
‘‘They’re now trying to organize people to try to help the others,” Lin said. ‘‘The government, they don’t care what’s happening.”
Lin said the association was working on calling the Burmese families in the community, sending letters, and praying with them. Ideally, any donations they collect would go directly to contacts they have in Myanmar, but a restrictive military government has made such endeavors difficult, Lin said. Even the most established relief agencies have had trouble gaining access to Myanmar.
Defence Lalawng, a leader of the Chin Committee of U.S.A. Inc. (D.C. Area), a group for the Chin people, immigrants and refugees of Myanmar, said most devastating was what the government was doing to cyclone survivors.
‘‘There is nothing we can do but pray,” said Lalawng, of Gaithersburg. Most Chin communities in the county are collecting donations to send to Myanmar, he said, or relief agencies that may have better access.
‘‘We pray that the government stops ignoring what’s happening,” he said.
Sarah Henshaw, the Asia program development officer for Silver Spring-based CHF International, said the organization found one staff member who had an existing Myanmar visa, and should have someone there assessing damage by the early part of next week.
The organization did not have any luck working through embassies surrounding Myanmar to get approval for entry visas into the country, Henshaw said. CHF’s focus is on providing shelter following natural disasters.
‘‘We responded to tsunamis, the earthquake in Pakistan. ... This is the first time we’ve had such challenges just getting into the country,” Henshaw said.
Mandalay is planning a fundraiser at 5 p.m. June 1 to raise money for disaster relief. Donations of $50 per person are requested for an all-you-can-eat buffet of Burmese food. For more information, visit http:⁄⁄mandalaycyclonerelief.wordpress.com.
‘‘It bothers a lot of people here who want to help, and can’t,” Aung Myint said. ‘‘It’s sad that the government has been thinking of their own agenda before the people.”
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3rd of those killed in Burma likely children: UN
Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates
BANGKOK (AP)
- Children may account for a third of the victims killed in Myanmar's cyclone and those who survived could now be at risk of human trafficking and sexual abuse in chaotic refugee camps, the U.N. and other agencies said.
The crowded, makeshift shelters built by survivors have forced orphans and separated children to live alongside strangers, often in dark areas with little supervision.
We are really concerned about the risk of exploitation and sexual abuse," said Anne-Claire Dufay, chief of UNICEF's child protection section in Myanmar. If they don't have private sleeping spaces, it could be an issue."
Dufay said Tuesday there had been one report of the attempted trafficking of a teenage storm survivor in the country's largest city, Yangon, but so far no confirmed reports of sexual abuse.
Similar concerns were expressed following the 2004 tsunami, but little evidence of such problems emerged.
Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on May 3, leaving about 62,000 people dead or missing according to the government count. The United Nations has suggested the death toll is likely to exceed 100,000.
UNICEF estimates that a third of those killed were children, based largely on population data from the affected areas.
Reports from the delta tell of village upon village ruined by the storm waves. Scores of families were killed and chilling photos show the bodies of dead children.
Our figures in the camps show a lot of adults, but very few children and very few elderly," said CARE Australia's country director in Myanmar, Brian Agland.
The worst-case scenario is that a lot of children may have lost their lives because of drowning," said CARE Australia's country director in Myanmar, Brian Agland. In one village there were 500 survivors and they were all adults. So that's the kind of despair people are living with, wondering where their children are."
The other concern is the trauma faced by youngsters, some of whom lost entire families or barely escaped the waves. Schools were heavily damaged in many areas.
Andrew Kirkwood, country director of Save the Children in Yangon, estimated that 3,000 schools were destroyed _ meaning half a million young children would have no prospect of going back to classes when they open June 1. It's a huge concern," he said.
The United Nations and several nongovernmental organizations have been setting up scores of youth centers, where the young can talk about their concerns in a safe environment can play games, sing and study basics like their numbers and alphabet.
It helps these children go through the process of grief and shock more quickly," said Laura Blank, a spokeswoman for World Vision, which is setting up 37 centers to serve up to 3,700 youngsters in and around Yangon. When the children have a chance ... to play and sing, you create an environment where they feel like it is OK for them to be kids again."
Many children who survive such tragedies endure a range of emotions from depression to anger to sadness, child protection experts said.
In Myanmar they were also facing health problems including malnutrition, diarrhea and possibly malaria.
A woman and her 8-year-old grandson were begging in the streets of Yangon, saying they lost their home in the disaster. We are here to help mother make some money so we can eat," the child, Tin Soe, said softly. We are hungry."
Asked if he thinks his school will be rebuilt before the school year begins, he scratched his head and said: I don't know. I hope so. I miss my friends and my teachers."
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Child traffickers preying on Burma victims: aid groups
ABC Online (AFP), Australia
Nearly half of those killed in Burma's cyclone were children, others have been orphaned or lost, and traffickers are targeting youngsters in crowded camps, aid groups say.
They said the young are the most vulnerable survivors among the almost 2 million people desperately in need after Cyclone Nargis, and some camps have few children in them, underlining the vast numbers who have perished.
"Unaccompanied children are at risk of injuries, abuse and trafficking," UNICEF's chief child protection officer in Burma, Anne-Claire Dufay said.
Ms Dufay said two suspected traffickers had been arrested after a "broker" came to a shelter and tried to recruit children.
Katy Barnett of Save the Children, one of the few international aid groups allowed to work inside Burma, said the trafficking problem would become more serious as the crisis developed.
"It's an absolute standard thing in the fallout of an emergency like this," she said.
"Traffickers can easily get hold of unaccompanied or separated children and tell them they'll lead a better life or be safe."
Mr Barnett said another unconfirmed report of people looking in camps to recruit girls to work as domestic workers, a typical ruse for traffickers, was being investigated.
"They are asking families if they would give their girls up," she said.
Child victims
The organisation's Bangkok-based spokesman, Dan Collinson, said children were believed to account for almost half of the cyclone's death toll.
"It's highly likely to be more than 40 per cent, because children are less likely to withstand these kinds of storm surges," he said.
Parents saw their children ripped from their arms by the powerful currents in the storm, which left around 62,000 people dead or missing, according to the regime's official figures.
In the hardest-hit regions of the Irrawaddy delta, hungry and barefoot children dressed in rags have been left begging on roadsides.
Reporters have seen children trying to catch fish and crabs in muddy canals, surrounded by the bloated corpses of the dead.
"We've heard reports of 300 children living in a camp that have been separated" from their parents, Save the Children's Kathryn Rowe said in Bangkok.
"So they may have extended families there but they have been separated from their parents."
Many anguished parents there said they had nothing but coconuts and bananas to feed their children. With no substantial meals, young survivors are beginning to weaken and fall ill. The United Nations estimates that 20 per cent of children living in the disaster zone, where clean drinking water is scarce, are now suffering from diarrhoea, which can often prove lethal.
UNICEF says 3,000 schools were wiped out by the cyclone, leaving 500,000 children without classrooms as holidays are set to end early next month. The agency said it was working to create makeshift schools in relief camps, in the hope of giving children a semblance of normal life.
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Thai PM leaves for Burma
Bangkok Post
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has traveled to Burma and is expected to be welcomed by Burma’s military leaders in the new capital Nyapidaw.
The prime minister’s aim is to convince the military junta to allow foreign aid workers into the country to provide humanitarian assistance for those affected by cyclone Nargis.
He will also donate 100 satellite phones as requested by the Burmese military junta. He also has with him, a letter from the United Nations (UN) urging it to grant visas to foreign aid workers so that they may come to the aid of victims of the cyclone.
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Aussie aid to Burma may be 'rebadged'
Examiner, Australia
Aid officials have warned that Australia's shipment of aid to Burma will almost certainly be rebadged as the property of the Burmese military government.
Portions of the shipment are also likely to be siphoned off by corrupt officials following the May 2 cyclone which has left up to 100,000 people dead, the Australian Newspaper reported on Wednesday.
An Australian aid plane arrived in Rangoon on Tuesday to offload urgently needed supplies.
A senior aid official in Burma said there was little doubt the Australian aid would be rebadged as the property of the Burmese Junta.
Credible eyewitness accounts have detailed that UN aid had been similarly repackaged.
"The narrative is the military rescuing the nation," the official said.
"It's highly probably there will also be leakage of Australian aid.
"It's been the same with UK and US aid."
Meanwhile, the Queensland government will donate $300,000 to the aid response to Burma's devastating Cyclone Nargis.
Premier Anna Bligh says the $300,000 in aid will be delivered through the Australian Red Cross.
Ms Bligh told state parliament the Burmese military government's response to the disaster had been "nothing short of appalling".
"Aid is slowly getting through, however, I agree with our prime minister that the response to date from the regime in Burma has been nothing short of callous," she said.
"Offers of assistance have been rejected by the junta, relief workers cannot get through to help those in need.
"This is not good enough and I add my voice to the chorus of international condemnation.
"There is no excuse for politics and power blocking humanitarian aid to these people."
Queensland also will offer aid to China, where the death toll has reached 12,000 after Monday's earthquake in Sichuan province.
Ms Bligh said the Department of Emergency Service's urban search and rescue team were available to respond, and could deploy at 10 hours notice.
The state government would work with the federal government to decide the appropriate response, she said.
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US couple helps cyclone victims
BANGKOK (AP)
- As frustrated foreign aid workers plead to enter Myanmar, one American couple is already ferrying supplies to cyclone victims.
Curt and Cathy Bradner, who have been working on a water treatment project in Myanmar for two years, have secured the military regime's trust — and that has paid off with visas allowing them to come and go as they please.
"We have such a good relationship with the Myanmar people, and we never empower ourselves," said Cathy Bradner, 52, preparing to take a shipment of water purification tablets and filtration equipment into Yangon, the country's largest city.
"We always empower them, and I think that's why they like us."
Visas have become a sought-after prize for Western aid workers, foreign disaster specialists and journalists waiting for permission to enter Myanmar following the May 3 cyclone that flooded a large swath of the low-lying Irrawaddy delta. More than 60,000 people were killed or are missing, and more than a million are homeless, according to the U.N.
Some aid has started trickling in, with the first U.S. shipment delivered Monday by a military cargo plane. But the authoritarian government has restricted most foreigners from leaving the airport after supplies are unloaded. Many agencies fear relief is not reaching those who desperately need it, as diarrhea spreads and a lack of food and clean water heightens fears that thousands more could die.
"It's killing (victims) that we're sitting here," said Rahul Singh, a paramedic with Toronto-based Global Medic, who was stuck in Bangkok waiting for the go-ahead to enter Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. "I was grinding my teeth so hard I snapped a tooth. That's how frustrated I am."
When Singh found out about the Bradners' access to the country, he asked them to carry in the aid group's supplies. On Sunday, Curt Bradner, 53, got in, followed a day later by colleague Bryan Berenguer of Virginia Beach, Va. They hauled in water filtration pumps that run on car batteries and more than a million purification tablets — enough to provide clean drinking water to about 20,000 people.
"We are giving it to local (aid agencies) who are distributing it out to needy areas," Berenguer said by telephone from Yangon. "We're basically trying to bring things in and coordinate with" Myanmar-run aid groups.
The military junta is extremely distrustful of the United States, which has been the loudest critic of its human rights record. But the Bradners, who spend nine months of the year in Myanmar working on their water project, Thirst-Aid, and the rest fundraising in the U.S., say their experience shows Americans can work with the regime.
"I really believe the world wants Burma to look like a horrible place, but it's not always evil," Cathy Bradner said.
While Myanmar's military regime encourages tourism, it limits most stays to two weeks, with longer ones granted to businessmen, especially those who fuel the economy, as well as U.N. and other aid groups. But long-term visas that allow travel in and out of the country, like those granted to the Bradners, are rare.
Cathy Bradner said she and the others at Thirst-Aid realize this rare opportunity allows them to ferry in much-needed aid.
"We're mules, we carry things in," she said. "Despite the disaster some really positive things are going on. The monks are helping distribute aid and they are setting up distribution centers."
Since the cyclone struck, even the United Nations has been having problems getting visas for its aid workers, especially Westerners. And for the few allowed in, most are confined to Yangon — hours away from the worst-hit delta areas where people are living without shelter and drinking water contaminated by dead bodies and animal carcasses.
The Bradners, who married 33 years ago, sold their house in Gunnison, Colo., along with their small engineering business and all of their possessions to go on a world tandem bicycling trek nearly a decade ago. They started working with Burmese orphans during that adventure and vowed to find a way to help people living in the impoverished country.
During the 2004 Asian tsunami, they used their mechanical engineering background to make ceramic water filters for victims in Thailand. They brought the technology to Myanmar in 2006 and say they started Thirst-Aid with the backing of UNICEF.
It is run by Burmese, who produce water filters at two factories. One was damaged by the cyclone, but Cathy Bradner said they are producing about 100 filters a day for victims desperate for clean water.
The filters, which resemble ceramic flower pots, are made out of clay with a rice-husk lining. They are porous so the water can filter through, trapping nearly all of the bacteria. A colloidal silver coating is added to kill any remaining bacteria.
The filters sell for about $3 each and will last as long as they're not broken. But the Bradners do not profit from them.
"We don't get a dime," Cathy Bradner said, adding that the plan was always to turn the project over to Burmese — a local potter who operates one factory in Twante and a Myanmar non-governmental group in charge of the other in Yangon. "We just come and help set them up and build capacity."
They fund the project, which runs on about $75,000 a year, through donations from Rotary and church groups, and by giving slide shows at sporting goods stores, private homes, coffee shops — "begging for dollars" from anyone willing to help, she said.
Daughters Bree Ervin, 29, of Eugene, Ore., and Willow Bradner, 31, of Denver, help with the fundraising, and run the group's Web site.
"I am so entangled in this country," Cathy Bradner said. "It's not about governments, it's about people and they need water."
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Stallone hopes Cyclone helps highlight Burma's injustices
Sylvester Stallone is convinced the media interest in the Myanmar cyclone will help to highlight the injustices in the Southeast Asian nation. The action man shot his Rambo movie in the country, formerly known as Burma, and witnessed injustices and hardship first hand.
He attempted to highlight the problems while promoting the film last year (07), but now he feels sure the world's press will descend on Myanmar in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Nargis, which has left thousands dead and millions homeless - and they won't be able to ignore what he saw.
He says, "I think what's going to come out of this devastating cyclone, and the fact that our film has made the violence that these people live under apparent is there's going to be great social change in that country.
"They can't hide any more." Myanmar officials have been accused of indifference to the disaster.
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