Villagers lacking food and shelter. Towns without power. Eighteen days after a cyclone ravaged Burma, the relief effort is private and decidedly patchwork, contrary to what the state says. (more…)

Myanmar began three days of national mourning for cyclone victims Tuesday, one day after agreeing to let its Southeast Asian neighbors help coordinate foreign relief assistance following the devastating Cyclone Nargis more than two weeks ago. (more…)

Despite more than 1,000 tons of international aid dispatched to Burma for cyclone victims, many residents in Rangoon say they have had to pay inflated prices for reconstruction materials while others have received no aid and are still living outdoors. (more…)

Burmese monks have again stepped into the front lines in a moment of national crisis, this time helping to provide money, food, shelter and medical supplies to survivors of Cyclone Nargis. (more…)

Private weekly journals in Burma have been ordered by the press scrutiny board not to run any story that depicts the destruction but to cover the reconstruction exercise undertaken by the authorities in the aftermath of the cyclone that pummeled Rangoon and Irrawaddy delta areas, according to local journalists. (more…)

They are living with the dead. More than two weeks after Cyclone Nargis wiped away all but one of this village’s houses, decomposing corpses still lie on muddy pathways or are trapped in eddies along the shore of the broad Pyamaia River nearby. (more…)

Despite approaching monsoon, farmers in Laputta Township in Burma’s richest rice producing division, are jobless as they cannot resume cultivation after the killer Cyclone swept across their area on May 2 and3. (more…)

A volunteer Burmese doctor, after seeing a number of patients in Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta following Cyclone Nargis, shook his head in disbelief. (more…)

Asean yesterday agreed in an emergency meeting in Singapore to set up an Asean-led coordinating mechanism to help cyclone-hit Burma with emergency relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction. (more…)

Several aid agencies have welcomed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) initiative to lead a task force to facilitate aid distribution in Burma’s cyclone hit regions. (more…)

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to arrive in Rangoon tomorrow to assess the devastation in the cyclone-hit country, diplomatic sources said. (more…)

The World Bank has refused to lend money to Burma to help it recover from the cyclone because the country’s ruling generals have been in arrears with the bank for a decade. (more…)

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said on Tuesday that Myanmar’s junta had granted permission for the World Food Programme to use helicopters to distribute aid to cyclone-hit areas of the country. (more…)

Five monks from Myanmar marched through the Cannes Film Festival crowd on Monday to demand that the Southeast Asian nation’s junta allow foreign aid workers into the country to help cyclone victims. (more…)

There’s only one priority in Burma: aid for the thousands who have been abandoned. The story of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated much of Burma more than two weeks ago, long ago moved from the tragic to the criminal. It is now becoming grotesque. (more…)

Asean countries, of course, have great sympathy for the cyclone-hit Burmese survivors, but they lack any political leverage-and courage-to try to influence the reclusive generals who rule Burma. (more…)

ASEAN Plan Inadequate to Deliver Timely and Sufficient Assistance (more…)

Five monks from Myanmar marched through the crowd at the 61st Cannes Film Festival in Paris on Monday. The monks are demanding that the Southeast Asian nation’s government allow foreign relief workers into the country to help the victims of the cyclone. (more…)

As Burma begins three days of official mourning for its cyclone victims, the World Bank has said it can’t provide any financial help because the country hasn’t been servicing its debt.
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Myanmar agreed Monday to let its Southeast Asian neighbors help coordinate foreign relief assistance for cyclone victims, bending somewhat to international pressure to allow more outside aid, Singapore’s foreign minister, George Yeo, said.
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