Myanmar junta praises UN for relief efforts

Yangon: Army-controlled media in Myanmar praised the United Nations on Tuesday for its help to the 2.4 million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis, suggesting a thaw in the junta's frosty relationship with the outside world.

The English-language New Light of Myanmar said UN agencies took "prompt action" to provide relief supplies after the May 2 cyclone, which left 134,000 people dead or missing.

The paper, the generals' main mouthpiece, also softened the government's line that the immediate relief phase of the disaster was over, saying instead that "rescue and rehabilitation tasks have been carried out to some extent".

Three weeks after the 190 km/h winds and sea surge from Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy delta, the UN says fewer than one in three of those most in need have received any aid.

Thousands of beggars are lining up along the roads, with droves of children shouting "Just throw something" at passing vehicles.

Littered with corpses

Witnesses say many villages have received no outside help, and waterways of the former Burma's "rice bowl" remain littered with animal carcasses and corpses, either grotesquely bloated or rotting to the bone.

The stench of death is widespread, as are the swarms of flies.

Much of the blame for the aid delay rests with the junta, which has been reluctant to admit a large-scale international relief effort for fear of loosening the vice-like grip on power the army has held since a 1962 coup.

However, top diplomats who helped coordinate Sunday's conference said there were small signs of the generals gradually overcoming their pride and paranoia and admitting outside help.

"I can sense that there is a sense of urgency," Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations told a news conference in Bangkok on Tuesday.