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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- | |
| No need for foreign aid distribution: Myanmar | |
| 2008-05-10 | |
| YANGON - Myanmar's junta showed no signs on Friday of bending to a chorus of angry and anguished demands to admit foreign aid workers, saying it can distribute relief to the 1.5 million people affected by Cyclone Nargis by itself. Frustration is mounting over Myanmar's generally feeble response to one of its worst disasters in memory and particularly the delays in giving visas to aid workers and landing rights for relief flights. Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej cancelled a planned trip to Myanmar this weekend after the junta's announcement that it would not welcome foreign aid workers, just hours after he said he would go. 'After they said today they would not welcome foreign staff, there is no point of me going there,' Samak said. In a statement in the official media after Myanmar turned back a team of Qatari rescue workers coming in on an aid flight this week, the foreign ministry said Myanmar would accept 'relief in cash and kind' but not foreign aid workers. 'Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment,' the statement said. 'But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources.' The Qatar plane was one of 12 international relief flights that landed in the former capital on Thursday, it said, the first to arrive since Saturday's cyclone. Western aid experts in Bangkok will have to wait at least four more days to get into Myanmar to help cyclone victims because the Myanmar embassy in the Thai capital took a local holiday on Friday. 'This is a four-day wait which just should not happen,' said Paul Risley, spokesman for the U.N. World Food Programme. 'This is too long to wait for people whose lives are at such a precarious balance.'
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 exactly big jim or maybe weapons |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-05-10 10:25 |
| #1 Myanmar would accept 'relief in cash and kind' but not foreign aid workers. Nuff said. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-05-10 09:12 |