Burma’s top leader has agreed to let all foreign aid workers into the country for relief work in cyclone-hit areas, UN head Ban Ki-moon has said.

After talks in Burma’s remote capital, Naypyidaw, with Gen Than Shwe, Mr Ban said the decision was a breakthrough.

But correspondents say Burma has a record of withdrawing promises made to the UN, and it is not clear how much access aid workers will get.

About 78,000 people died and 56,000 are missing after the 2 May cyclone. Burma’s military leaders had previously refused to allow a full-scale relief effort by foreign aid workers.

They had said that the relief phase of the aid operation was over and that the government was now focusing on reconstruction.

‘Flexible position’

The senior leader had until recently failed to respond to the secretary general’s letters and phone calls.

‘Show camp’

On Thursday, Mr Ban flew over flooded rice fields and destroyed villages and visited a government relief camp in the Irrawaddy delta.

A UN official privately called it a “show camp”, says the BBC’s Laura Trevelyan, in Burma with the secretary general.

Mr Ban said he was “very upset” by the devastation he saw, adding that the international community stood ready to overcome the tragedy.

Western governments have backed Mr Ban’s visit, calling for pressure on Burma’s leadership to do more to help the cyclone victims.

Burmese Blogs

There are those in the Burmese diaspora with relatives in the worst-affected areas who have waited for days with no news from home.

Dr Lun Shwe says on his Burmese language blog that his wife’s family is from Bogalay - one of the worst hit areas.

“We are very anxious and desperate. We are really worried. We are waiting for news but we know it will probably be bad news,” he says in plea entitled “Give back our Irrawaddy!”

He focuses his anger on the failure of the government to warn the public of the advent of the storm.

Ko Moe Thee, a well-known student leader from the 1988 uprising, writes in his US-based blog Golden Colour Revolution posts an e-mail he received from a relief mission which describes how the authorities have obstructed their efforts to distribute aid.

“Now, all the NGOs are trying to support and go to the affected area, and but we cannot go immediately as gov don’t want to permit it,” the email says.

How long can this crisis go without full coverage and assistance? The junta has teased aid workers again and again with promises to allow foreign assistance. They withdraw their permission as easily as they grant it. They keep trying to cover up their inadequacies. Burma is not the exclusive resort for the military elite. There is a whole population that is totally disconnected from those who RULE their future survival. There is a glaring difference between RULING a country and GOVERNING a country. Separation of identity and experience does not allow those in charge to identify or understand the plight of their population. The history of disconnect between leaders and the led is best remembered in the French Revolution. The population allowed themselves to be suppressed without a voice for hundreds of years before they finally turned on the suppressors. How long will the Burmese people tolerate this tyrannical junta? Is this the final blow? Is there a country willing to assist the people? South East Asian dictatorships must be addressed seriously by the modern concept of allowing the people to have a voice determining their future and their welfare. The age old example of allowing the people to suffer to protect the elite few is obsolete and has no place in this century. We are a global community that is only as strong as the weakest link. The weakest are the most vulnerable to breed disease and spread it to the rest of the world. Health and welfare are no longer isolated from the rest of us. Tyrannical approaches to this concept threaten the welfare of the world.

Children, elderly now dying from dysentery in Myanmar, says Church World Service

Senior General Than Shwe, the “old man” of Myanmar

How Nargis Devastated an Already Vulnerable Land

Degradated mangroves exacerbated Burma cyclone disaster

Burma: A Human Rights Disaster and Threat to Regional Security

It makes no sense, it feels like the government wants these people to die

Dohlaiy lost her children and grandchildren to the cyclone.

She now lives together with 20 other survivors, in the only house that still stands amid the rubble of the former fishing village of Uomiou. One of its walls is missing.

The survivors have no fresh water and just enough rice to get by.

The rice, they told us, was donated by the neighbouring village, not the government.

“We have two cups a rice a day per family. Its not enough,” Dohlaiy said.

“We don’t know what to do, we don’t have a boat to get out of here, but we can’t stay here either,” another villager said.

The cyclone has filled their rice fields with sea water, devastating the crops and stripping the people of the only source of livelihood they know.

The state-controlled newspapers have been full of praise for the way the government has handled the crisis.

The generals have tried to make sure that no-one is in a position to challenge their view.

Army checkpoints block all roads to the Irrawaddy Delta.

Foreign journalists have been thrown out of the country and no aid workers are allowed anywhere near the disaster area.

“It makes no sense, it feels like they [the government] want these people to die,” said one aid worker, who asked not to be identified as he is waiting for the permission to go into the delta.

In the meantime, the UN says another cyclone could be on its way to Burma.

“We asked them to drop rice and water as everyone is starving, but they did not hear us.”

Burma generals failing their people

A trail of wreckage and dead bodies stretched all along Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta.

Two weeks on since Cyclone Nargis hit, the Delta is still devastated and hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting to be rescued.

They are hungry and homeless not just because of the disaster, but because of the government that does not seem interested in helping them.

YANGON: The Red Cross estimated that the cyclone death toll in Myanmar could be as high as 128,000 — a much larger figure than the government tally. The UN warned a second wave of deaths will follow unless the military regime lets in more aid quickly.

The grim forecast on Wednesday came as heavy rains drenched the devastated Irrawaddy River delta, disrupting aid operations already struggling to reach up to 2.5 million people in urgent need of food, water and shelter.

“Another couple of days exposed to those conditions can only lead to worsening health conditions and compound the stress people are living in,” said Shantha Bloemen, a spokeswoman for UNICEF.

A tropical depression in the Bay of Bengal added new worries, but late in the day forecasters said it was weakening and unlikely to grow into a cyclone. Myanmar’s government issued a revised casualty toll on Wednesday night, saying 38,491 were known dead and 27,838 were missing.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, however, said its estimate put the number of dead between 68,833 and 1,27,990. The Geneva-based body said the range came from a compilation based on other estimates from 22 different organizations, including the Myanmar Red Cross Society, and on media reports.

Burma expels foreign aid workers

THE Burmese authorities have sealed off the cyclone disaster zone from the outside world, expelling foreign aid workers and placing multiple checkpoints along roads into the Irrawaddy Delta, to the despair of foreign diplomats and aid workers.

The isolation of the delta confirms the growing sense among international organisations that the Burmese junta is never going to allow a wide-ranging foreign-led aid effort of the kind that was mounted in several countries after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Aid groups are trying instead to mount a stealth operation in which Western aid is distributed by government organisations, local aid workers, and international staff from countries that the regime regards as friendly and compliant.

Time, though, is running out - not only to avert epidemics of infectious diseases such as cholera, but also to prevent a catastrophic failure of this year’s rice crop, 65 per cent of which comes from the cyclone-stricken area.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon called an emergency meeting on the aid crisis yesterday to discuss a strategy for escalating the humanitarian response.

Myanmar’s killing fields of neglect

BANGKOK - With an estimated two million people at risk of death by disease, deprivation or starvation and the scant amount of foreign aid that has entered the country diverted from those most in need, Myanmar’s worst case humanitarian scenario is now playing out in full view of the international community.

As the death toll mounts and the United Nations futilely negotiates with the country’s ruling generals to open Myanmar’s borders and allow a multinational response to the Cyclone Nagris disaster, the moral case for a unilateral US military-led humanitarian intervention has grown.

The the world today, the entertainment and coffee table discussion is Burma, Darfur and China. What entertainment these disasters have become. World governments admire China’s rescue and recovery efforts. World governments condemn the Myanmar Junta and Sudan’s genocide policies. Talk and talk everywhere while the world watches and waits for things to get worse. That really helps those who have no food, water or sanitation. There must be a death toll criteria before the world decides to take action. There must be a combined agreement to watch these disasters evolve into a global health threat before a decision is made to intervene. Cholera is already spreading. Starvation is spreading. crops are ruined and the victims are unable to support themselves in the meager way they are accustomed. Fishing is ruined until the waters recover from the toxic pollution. Isolation for victims without resources is a criminal act worthy of Geneva Convention intervention. The Junta has demonstrated its unwillingness to open up to world relief efforts. Oh yes, they will accept supplies and confiscate them while telling the humanitarians they have everything under control, its not as bad as it looks. Somehow a few journalists have managed to release more realistic information about conditions.

Is there a monetary value on human life? Is there no consideration for the consequences of neglecting the health and welfare of so many? Will the world look back and see this as the start of a new pandemic? The water, fresh and salt travels to other communities. With that water comes more disease and suffering. Should the world wait until the entire quadrant of this planet is unusable? The human factor should not be dismissed as the consequences of poverty and tyranny. If the world neglects to act now, there will be little hope for recovery for decades. The world can stay aloof from personal emotion because no one knows the names of the casualties. That makes it easier to look to other issues, like oil and entertainment.