Myanmar tightens security after blast
AFP / July 3, 2008

Myanmar's military regime Wednesday tightened security in Yangon and urged the public to remain alert for "saboteurs," after a small bomb damaged the offices of a pro-junta group.

The blast caused no injuries when it exploded inside a local government compound around dawn on Tuesday in a township on the northern outskirts of Yangon.

But it blew a hole in the brick wall of the office belonging to the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), damaging some office equipment, the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

After the blast, police increased their patrols during the night, with heavy trucks rumbling through the streets of Myanmar's main city, witnesses said.

State media Wednesday also warned the public to remain on alert and to report any suspected attackers.

"The authorities have already reminded the people to pay special attention to the saboteurs who will be active assuming various forms in public places and to expose them by reporting to officials," the newspaper said.

More cyclone victims in Myanmar found infected with TB
Xinhua / July 02, 2008

More cyclone victims in Myanmar have been found infected with tuberculosis (TB) in the aftermath of the storm disaster that stroke the country early last May, the local weekly 7-Day News reported Wednesday quoting the TB Program of the Medical Association.

A total of 21,834 storm victims have been found carrying TB virus two months after the disaster following field trips to the storm-hit areas by over 500 experts with the medical association, the report said.

Diseases such as TB, malaria, dengue fever and diarrehoea easily hit people especially when they live in populated relief camps.

TB generally occurred in Myanmar with 100,000 people found infected annually, according to medical experts.

TB is among the three major communicable diseases of national concern in Myanmar. The other two are HIV/AIDS and malaria.

The health authorities have called for efforts to combat the three diseases.

Meanwhile, international medical teams have joined in healthcare services for cyclone victims soon after the disaster.

Various domestic healthcare associations, international non-governmental organizations, private clinics and Myanmar traditional medicine practitioners have also made field trips to storm-hit areas and carried out treatment for survivors.

Meanwhile, state media reported earlier no outbreak of other contagious and epidemic diseases in the storm-hit areas, saying that a total of 206,039 storm patients had received medical treatment during a month after the cyclone storm hit the country.

Deadly tropical cyclone Nargis, which occurred over the Bay of Bengal, hit five divisions and states -- Ayeyawaddy, Yangon, Bago,Mon and Kayin on May 2 and 3, of which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon inflicted the heaviest casualties and massive infrastructural damage. The storm has killed 84,537 people, leaving 53,836 missing and 19,359 injured according to the latest official death toll.

Myanmar again to take severe action against vehicles with stickers
Xinhua / June 27, 2008

The Myanmar traffic police authorities have reiterated to take severe action against vehicles with stickers on side windows and rear wind screens running on roads in the biggest city of Yangon as part of its efforts to effectively combat human trafficking or other crime commitments, local media reported Friday.

Beginning from July 1, legal action will be taken against rule-breaking drivers in person with a cash fine up to 50,000 Kyats (45U.S. dollars), the 7-Day quoted the traffic police sources as warning.

According to the sources, 66 such vehicles operating on roads in the former capital have been warned so far during this month.

The police authorities once banned such acts in 1998, taking action through education but afterwards observance of the rule became loose, the sources said.

According to the authorities, there were instances that over the past two years, a woman was kidnapped and trafficking of arms was committed under the cover of non-transparent stickers on the vehicles.

Myanmar: 84,500 confirmed dead from cyclone
AP/ June 24, 2008

Myanmar's ruling junta has announced that 84,500 people perished in Cyclone Nargis in May, up from an earlier confirmed toll of 77,700.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu told reporters Tuesday that the official death toll stood at 84,537 and 53,836 still missing.

Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3 cut a swath of destruction through the Irrawaddy river delta and in and around the country's largest city, Yangon.

A major international effort is under way to aid some 2.4 million survivors of the natural disaster, the worst in Myanmar's modern history.

Tuesday's update was the first since May 17, when officials said 77,738 had died and 55,917 were missing.

U.N. says funding for Burma cyclone victim relief falls short
AP / June 13, 2008

Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Gates, J.K. Rowling and a clutch of Hollywood stars have all donated generously to help Burma's cyclone victims, but the United Nations says funding to keep its relief effort going is falling short of the targets.

The U.N. said Thursday it has received just over half the money it has requested for cyclone relief in Burma, with some nations apparently delaying their donations because of concerns about restrictions imposed by the military government on foreign aid workers.

The U.N. set a goal of US$201.6 million for its relief efforts but so far has received only US$113.2 million, or 56%, from government donors, it said. Some US$51 million in pledges has not yet been delivered, the U.N. said.

Funding shortfalls were particularly great for emergency food operations and education, said the world body.

"Funding is clearly not coming in at the rate we would hope," said Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman in Bangkok, Thailand, for the U.N. relief operations. "Funding is urgently needed to sustain the pipeline for food and assistance."

Other agencies are faring better. The private, Christian-oriented group World Vision, a major international relief agency, says it is looking for about US$25 million or US$26 million to enable operatiosn for six months and has US$19 million so far.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says it has raised 96% of US$50.8 million it is currently seeking.

France Hurtubise, a spokeswoman for the IFRC, could not explain why the U.N. had less success in meeting its goals.

But she said the IFRC is able to tap an established, trusted network of national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in 186 countries and that in absolute terms, the IFRC is seeking just one-quarter of what the U.N. wants.

Private agencies — which play a large part in relief operations — raise much of their funds from individuals, both rich and not-so-rich.

"Obviously people see images on television of people in great need. I think there's a natural desire to give in that situation," said World Vision spokesman James East.

He noted that the U.N. taps different sources for its funds, primarily governments, which generally want more "access and accountability."

"They want to be sure that their money is going to spent wisely and that the aid can be monitored," he said.

Aid donors met late last month in Rangoon and agreed to provide some cyclone aid, but many of them warned the ruling junta they would not fully open their wallets until international aid workers are provided access to the hardest-hit areas. The junta promised to allow foreign workers into the Irrawaddy delta, but has continued to hinder access to the area.

Celebrities also play a part in blazing a fundraising trail.

Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee — a consortium of 13 humanitarian aid agencies — says Queen Elizabeth II and Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling both contributed "significant donations" to Burma relief.

The committee, which says it has raised US$20.8 million so far, would not reveal the size of their donations, but spokeswoman Patricia Sanders said releasing the names shows that the committee and its members are "trusted routes to give money to."

U.S. software billionaire Bill Gates has donated US$3 million through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for emergency relief efforts in Burma and offered software to help reunite family members separated in the cyclone.

Hollywood is also doing its part, most notably through the nonprofit organization Not On Our Watch — founded by actors Don Cheadle, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, producer Jerry Weintraub and human rights lawyer David Pressman.

Not On Our Watch awarded US$250,000 to Save the Children and offered to match every additional dollar given to the aid group up to US$250,000.

U.N. spokeswoman Pitt said the U.N. hopes that funding will increase after a comprehensive assessment of the needs of the estimated 2.4 million survivors of the May 2-3 cyclone is finished by June 20.

About 250 experts from the U.N., Burma's government and Southeast Asian nations headed into the Irrawaddy delta on Tuesday for the survey of 6,000 hard-hit villages. They will determine the food, water and shelter needs of the survivors, along with the cost of rebuilding houses and schools and reviving the farm-based economy.

The U.N. estimates that more than 1 million survivors, mostly in the delta, still need help more than five weeks after the cyclone struck. Cyclone Nargis killed more than 78,000 people in impoverished Burma and left another 56,000 people missing, according to the government.

Myanmar junta says Suu Kyi deserves to be flogged
Reuters / June 11, 2008

Myanmar's military junta said on Wednesday that detained opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi deserved to be beaten like an errant child for threatening national security.

Seeking to justify the 62-year-old's latest stretch of house arrest, now in its sixth year, official newspapers said Suu Kyi and other detainees had been in contact with and had received cash from rebel guerrillas and foreign governments.

"Due to the crimes they have committed, they well deserve flogging punishment as in the case of naughty children," the papers said in Burmese and English-language editorials thought to reflect the thinking of the junta's top brass. The editorials added that the government was behaving like the "parent of the people" and exercising "great patience".

It detained Suu Kyi and others "in order that they will not be in a position to commit similar crimes again", they said.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won more than 80 percent of seats in a 1990 election, only to be denied power by a military that has ruled the former Burma since a 1962 coup.

As the daughter of independence hero Aung San, she exercises enormous personal political clout in the nation of 57 million. It is largely out of fear of this that the ruling generals have kept her in some form of detention for nearly 13 of the last 19 years.

The newspaper commentaries also sought to explain the specific security law under which Suu Kyi is being held, but they failed to clarify whether the extension of her detention order on May 27 was for six or 12 months.

The papers also cited Singapore, Malaysia and the United States as countries which had laws to "prevent those who pose danger to the state".

UN choppers fly into Burma cyclone zone
AFP / June 10, 2008

Six UN helicopters have been allowed to fly deep into Burma's devastated Irrawaddy Delta, delivering desperately needed supplies to hungry and homeless cyclone survivors, a spokesman said.

Five of the helicopters arrived in Burma's former capital of Rangoon on Saturday, and all of them have been allowed to join one chopper that arrived earlier, said Paul Risley, spokesman for the UN's World Food Program.

Four more helicopters were expected to be allowed into Burma later this week, Risley told AFP in Bangkok.

"There are hundreds of villages still inaccessible and this is what the helicopters are for. Boats can reach them, but the helicopters speed it up," he said.

"Helicopters fly down from Yangon (Rangoon) to our food hubs in Labutta and Bogalay, and they load them up and fly back and forth to villages. This is what they're designed to do - carry food the last leg of the supply chain," he said.

"By the end of tomorrow (Tuesday) 26 separate villages will have been reached," he added.

The helicopters will help aid workers reach some of the most devastated villages in the Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the storm that left 133,000 dead or missing.

The WFP received permission more than two weeks ago from Burma's junta to take 10 helicopters into the country, where more than one million people who lived through Cyclone Nargis remain without foreign relief supplies.

The first chopper arrived in Rangoon on May 22, but was only able to make its first trip into the delta region last week.

Burma's ruling military junta outraged the world by blocking foreign relief supplies after the cyclone hit, leaving 2.4 million people in need of food, shelter and medicine.

After a UN-led diplomatic effort, the junta agreed on May 23 to allow foreign aid workers access to the delta, but aid agencies say progress has been slow.

1.5 Million Survivors in Myanmar Without Shelter
AP / June 07, 2008

A severe shortage of housing has left hundreds of thousands of cyclone survivors in Myanmar exposed to heavy rain as the monsoon season begins, aid agencies said Saturday.

The United Nations and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said there was an urgent need for tarpaulins to provide temporary shelter to an estimated 1.5 million homeless survivors. Otherwise, the threats of hunger and disease could intensify, they warned.

"Exposure to the elements five weeks after a disaster of this magnitude has to be a major concern," said John Sparrow, a spokesman for the IFRC. "People are in a weakened condition. They are sick; they are hungry. Without shelter, their whole situation is seriously exacerbated."

Sparrow estimated that only a quarter of those who need shelter materials have been reached.

The U.N. estimates 2.4 million people were affected when Cyclone Nargis hit May 2-3, and warns that more than 1 million still need help, mostly in the hard-to-reach Irrawaddy delta.

John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said "relatively few" of those survivors who were badly affected by the storm have not received any sort of aid. But he said the U.N.'s effort needs to be stepped up because many survivors still need help and supplies.

"I think people are getting to all the main places, although it's not always as easy as it should be," he said. "There's no evidence of starvation at the moment, although as I say many people are still in significant need of aid."

U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized the regime for hindering access to the delta, saying it has prevented enough food, water and shelter from reaching desperate survivors.

The U.N. also said Saturday that a lack of funding was hindering the aid effort, with only $20 million of the required $50 million received to finance logistic efforts that allow it to extend aid operations into remote regions.

The U.N. has said that access could also be greatly improved if the country's military junta would accept American offers of support which include the use of 22 military helicopters to ferry aid to remote locations.

The U.S. military said it is keeping 22 helicopters on standby in case Myanmar's ruling junta reverses its rejection of such help for cyclone victims, saying the aircraft could reach survivors within three days.

With only seven Myanmar government helicopters reportedly flying, relief supplies are mostly being transported along dirt roads and then by boat. International aid agencies say boats able to navigate the delta's canals are scarce and efforts to import vehicles have been hampered by government red tape.

"Of the 1 million or 1.5 million people in need of relief support, we think that between 450,000 to 750,000 are in emergency need," said Lt. Gen. John Goodman, commander of Marine Forces Pacific and head of the U.S. relief operation for Myanmar.

They could be reached "over the course of a three-day period" by American helicopters and landing craft, he said in telephone interview from a temporary U.S. staging area at Utapao, Thailand.

Goodman said the junta was "still considering" the offer of the use of U.S. helicopters, which would include allowing Myanmar officials aboard all U.S. helicopters to monitor their routes and to unload relief supplies.

The country's military leaders are particularly sensitive to allowing U.S. helicopters into the delta, given the fact that Washington has been a leading critic of the junta for its poor human rights record and refusal to hand power to a democratically elected government.

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