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Zomi says:
The UN is powerless.
The generals want only the aid, not the aid workers.
Why should other countries deal with the generals as human beings? The
generals are brutes in human form. They should be dealt with as the
brutes,
which they are.
Highlights:
Myanmar's military regime seized United Nations food shipments today and
said it would distribute them to the 1 million people left homeless by
last
weekend's cyclone.
UN and Western relief workers, with experience assessing and distributing
aid amid disasters, have had little success gaining entry to Myanmar.
Myanmar refused entry to two of four members of a previously approved UN
assessment team that arrived yesterday. Myanmar deported a
search-and-rescue
team and reporters who arrived on a May 7 flight from Qatar because it
expected the plane to carry only emergency aid, not workers, AFP cited the
Myanmar Foreign Ministry as saying.
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Myanmar Seizes Food Shipments, Assumes Distribution (Update1)
By Gregory Viscusi and Demian McLean
May 9 (Bloomberg) -- Myanmar's military regime seized United Nations food
shipments today and said it would distribute them to the 1 million people
left homeless by last weekend's cyclone.
The UN said it will fly in more food tomorrow as it tries to reach an
agreement with the military-ruled country, ranked as the world's most
corrupt by nonprofit Transparency International. About 276,000 of the 1.5
million people needing aid received it as of May 7, Richard Horsey, a
spokesman for the UN disaster- response unit, said in Bangkok today.
The seizure came just as outside aid was beginning to get into the
isolationist nation formerly called Burma, where as many as 100,000 were
killed by the May 3 storm. Torrential weekend rains, marking the start of
monsoon season, are likely to make remote, hard-hit region more difficult
to
reach and expose homeless people to the elements.
``The food that we flew in hasn't been released to us as had been
promised,'' Chris Kaye, Myanmar country director for the UN's World Food
Program, said in a phone interview from Yangon. ``If the government's
doing
that to give priority to certain groups, that's going to make it very
difficult for us to operate.''
The WFP has sent three planeloads of high-energy biscuits to the Southeast
Asian nation since yesterday, said Marcus Prior, a spokesman for the UN
agency in Bangkok. Two more should land tomorrow.
`Urgent Need'
The White House said Myanmar had agreed to let a U.S. plane land in
Myanmar
on May 12 with relief supplies.
``One flight is much better than no flight,'' said White House spokesman
Gordon Johndroe. The contents of the plane are still being worked out, he
said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the country may lack the capacity to
distribute supplies. He told a meeting of health reporters in Atlanta
today
that there is an ``urgent need'' to allow aid workers to enter.
While 156 tons of rice stockpiles are on hand in Yangon, local volunteers
had distributed less than a fifth as of yesterday.
UN and Western relief workers, with experience assessing and distributing
aid amid disasters, have had little success gaining entry to Myanmar.
``It's very frustrating,'' Prior said. ``The situation isn't
sustainable.''
The WFP has 16 visa applications for staff pending, with only one accepted
so far.
Entry Refused
The U.S. State Department said on its Web site that Myanmar refused entry
to
two of four members of a previously approved UN assessment team that
arrived
yesterday. Myanmar deported a search-and-rescue team and reporters who
arrived on a May 7 flight from Qatar because it expected the plane to
carry
only emergency aid, not workers, AFP cited the Myanmar Foreign Ministry as
saying.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel today called on Myanmar to allow aid to
enter.
``I emphatically urge the government to live up to the responsibility it
has
for its people and quickly allow international aid into the entire
disaster
area,'' Merkel said in an e-mailed statement. ``Very many people are now
dependent on fast aid.''
In London, Michael Ellam, a spokesman for U.K. Prime Minister Gordon
Brown,
said ``we are pressing the Burmese authorities as a matter of urgency to
address the barriers to rapid access for staff and supplies and to allow
international agencies to disperse relief to worst affected areas within
Burma now.''
Forty-Five Tons
The four WFP flights will bring to 45 tons the amount of food the WFP has
sent, Prior said. `
`It's a trickle and they need an awful lot more,'' he said. The WFP
already
had 10 international and 200 local staff in the country, which isn't
enough
to oversee the distribution. ``We have to direct the aid by remote
control,
which doesn't allow us to put in place a sustainable effort,'' he said.
A Boeing 747-400 from China, a neighbor and key ally of Myanmar, landed at
Yangon International Airport today carrying supplies including medicine,
tents, food and water-purification tablets, China's official Xinhua news
agency reported. The government in Beijing will send additional relief
supplies tomorrow, Xinhua cited unidentified government officials as
saying.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
flew in 6 tons of shelter supplies to Yangon from Kuala Lumpur yesterday
and
will send a further 8 tons from Bangkok today, spokesman John Sparrow said
by telephone from the Malaysian capital.
Russian Aid
Russia plans to send two planes carrying mobile electricity generators,
tents, blankets, food, bandages, antiseptics and other medicine to Myanmar
today and tomorrow, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its
Web site.
``Aid right now is going in at a trickle,'' Anne Richard of the U.S.-based
International Rescue Committee said in an interview With Bloomberg
Television today. ``Without the permissions to go into the country the
whole
system is grinding to a halt.''
Myanmar's ``food basket'' bore the brunt of the cyclone and supplies in
the
nation are now threatened, the UN said. The five worst-affected states
produce most of the fish, rice and pork for the nation's 47.8 million
people, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said.
Myanmar has been under international sanctions since the military rejected
the results of elections in 1990, won by Aung San Suu Kyi's National
League
for Democracy.
The junta plans to press ahead with a referendum tomorrow for a new
constitution before elections in 2010. The ballot will be delayed until
May
24 in the worst-affected areas.
To contact the reporters on this story: Demian McLean in Washington at
dmclean8@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Gregory Viscusi in Paris at
gviscusi@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Updated: May 9, 2008 12:44 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ae7eZFw_Jb7w&refer=home
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