BURMA:THE UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, will hold talks with the Burmese leader Gen Than Shwe to try to speed up the relief effort for the millions affected by Cyclone Nargis in Rangoon tomorrow.
The meeting with the reclusive regime's leader is a step forward for the international community that has raged against Burma's failure to allow relief to get to those in desperate need.
Just one-quarter of the 2.4 million people severely affected by the disaster have received help 18 days after the cyclone hit. The UN said up to 1.4 million people still needed relief following the cyclone that killed an estimated 128,000, mostly in the Irrawaddy delta.
Mr Ban said the UN World Food Programme would be permitted to use helicopters, vital to aid distribution in the delta, where downed bridges and impassable roads have hampered the relief effort.
Flags flew at half-mast on government buildings on the first of three days of official mourning as the government appeared to wake up to the scale of the tragedy. Burma's state media reported that Gen Than had visited the devastated delta, but he was shown inspecting well-equipped relief camps that belie the reality discovered by aid agencies still discovering destitute communities.
Sir John Holmes, the UN head of humanitarian affairs, met prime minister Lieut Gen Thein Sein to press for visas for overseas disaster management experts to bolster the work of aid agencies' Burmese staff on the ground in the delta. He described the disaster zone in the worst-hit townships which he visited as shocking.
The apparent breakthrough that would allow aid to be channelled through an Association of South-East Asian Nations taskforce was encouraging, said Mr Ban. - (Guardian service)