Southeast Asian nations will take the lead in an international aid effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, but the ruling military junta will n0ot allow unfettered access for relief teams.
"We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all over the world can flow into Myanmar,'' Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo said after an emergency meeting of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) today.
struck the Irrawaddy delta two weeks ago, leaving 134,000 dead or missing.

By SETH MYDANS and ALAN COWELL BANGKOK — After two weeks of resisting offers of international help, Myanmar was reported to have agreed Monday to permit

Southeast Asian nations are to establish a mechanism to co-ordinate foreign aid efforts to cyclone-hit Myanmar, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has announced.
Myanmar agreed to allow its neighbours to co-ordinate foreign relief efforts at an emergency meeting of the regional bloc in Singapore on Monday.
low foreign aid workers into Myanmar, but restrictions imposed by the country's ruling generals have hampered relief efforts.

A girl reads a book as she hangs wet clothes on logs to dry at a village hit by Cyclone Nargis, outside of Yangon. Reuters
SINGAPORE // Myanmar will accept foreign medical workers to help with the cyclone relief effort, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed today at an emergency regional meeting.
e disaster zone for days, a UN official said.

SINGAPORE, May 19 (Xinhua) - Myanmar agreed at a special meeting here Monday to let the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) coordinate foreign assistance for Cyclone Nargis victims, Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo announced.
"The foreign ministers have agreed to establish an ASEAN-led coordinating mechanism" to facilitate the distribution and utilization of assistance from the international community, Yeo told reporters after conclusion of the special meeting attended by foreign ministers from 10 ASEAN member countries, including Myanmar's U Nyan Win.
the special Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers meeting on Myanmar in

By Jean Chua and Michael Heath May 19 (Bloomberg) - Myanmar will allow its Asian neighbors to coordinate aid to regions hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis, almost three weeks after the storm lashed the country, killing more than 70,000 people.
Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will be permitted to send medical teams and aid workers to Myanmar, Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo said after an emergency meeting of the group today. Myanmar's government estimates losses from the disaster at more than $10 billion, he said in Singapore.
will be a ``defining moment'' for the group, Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said in Washington last week.

AP PARIS: France's foreign minister says the UN Security Council should force Myanmar to allow passage of international aid to cyclone victims.

Cyclone Nargis has killed an estimated 100000 people in Myanmar and left some two million people in desperate need of help. It has also laid bare ASEAN and

By Patrick Goodenough (CNSNews.com) - More than two weeks after a massive cyclone hit Burma, foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Cyclone-stricken Myanmar will accept foreign medical workers to help with the relief effort, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations said on Monday.
ASEAN held urgent talks in Singapore to discuss ways of helping an estimated 2 million people left homeless after Cyclone Nargis hit two weeks ago. The official death toll is 78,000, but foreign aid agencies say many more may die without urgent help.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Cyclone-stricken Myanmar will accept medical workers from Southeast Asian countries to help with the relief effort and is ready to accept international aid agencies, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations said on Monday.
"Myanmar will accept international assistance," SingaporeForeign Minister George Yeo told a news conference after ameeting of the bloc in the city-state. He said that Myanmar hadagreed to accept medical teams from all ASEAN countries.
0 dead andmissing and 2.4 million destitute.

SINGAPORE (AP) — Burma has estimated that it has sustained losses of $10 billion from the recent Cyclone Nargis. Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo says

YANGON, May 19 (Xinhua) - British Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch Brown and Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Kimura are currently in Yangon to look into the status of Myanmar's relief and resettlement works in the aftermath of the cyclone disaster, the state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Monday.
Both of the two high-ranking foreign officials, who arrived in the biggest city of Myanmar on Sunday, met with Myanmar Minister of National Planning and Economic Development U Soe Tha, Minister of Health Dr. Kyaw Myint and Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Thu separately shortly after their arrival.
f Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations in its post-storm rehabilitation move.

By Aung Hla Tun YANGON, May 19 (Reuters) - Hopes turned to a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers on Monday for a breakthrough in speeding up aid

There are glimmers of hope in disaster-stricken Burma, Britain’s Asia minister said from the country today.
Lord Malloch-Brown said mounting international pressure on the military government to open up the country to foreign aid workers had resulted in a potential UN and Asian-led relief operation.
deeply suspicious, engrained over years, of outsiders.”

By Nesa Subrahmaniyan and Gavin Evans May 18 (Bloomberg) - Thousands of children in cyclone-hit Myanmar are starving and may die unless aid arrives, a British charity warned, a day before nations from around the region hold an emergency meeting to discuss the humanitarian crisis.
``Children may already be dying as a result of a lack of food,'' Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK, said today in a statement. An estimated 30,000 children less than five years old were malnourished before the storm struck and several thousand could perish within three weeks, it said.
ministry, said by telephone today from Bangkok. ``We have to assess their needs, and we hope to do that tomorrow,'' Tharit said.

YANGON (AFP) - The UN's top disaster official headed Sunday to Myanmar, where the government is under mounting pressure to accept a full-scale relief operation for desperate cyclone survivors in need of immediate aid.
The secretive military rulers have let more foreign experts into the country in recent days to help the estimated two million survivors who do not have enough food, water or shelter more than two weeks after the storm struck.
overnment says left nearly 134,000 people dead or missing.