By Aung Hla Tun YANGON (Reuters) - Army-ruled Myanmar started three days of mourning on Tuesday for the 134,000 dead and missing from Cyclone Nargis as diplomats pressed the reclusive generals to speed up aid to 2.4 million survivors.
Flags would fly at half mast until Thursday, state television said a day after the first appearance in the disaster zone by junta supremo Than Shwe, who left Yangon for a new capital 250 miles to the north in 2005.
shine," one weather-beaten farmer said in a delta village. "But it will never be good quality again." Continued...

NPR.org, May 19, 2008 · Myanmar's military government will allow medical workers from Southeast Asia to help in relief efforts for an estimated 2.4 million victims of Cyclone Nargis, a regional grouping said Monday.
Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said Myanmar will permit medical teams from the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help, but they will not have unfettered access to devastated areas. ASEAN members will also establish a mechanism for getting worldwide aid into Myanmar, he said.
er 56,000 were missing.

Burma junta leader Than Shwe has made his first visit to the cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta, state television says, one day after touring parts of Rangoon damaged in the storm more than two weeks ago.
Senior General Than Shwe toured emergency shelters in the devastated towns of Dedaye and Pyapon, in his visit to the region that suffered the brunt of the cyclone's power, state television said.
international aid effort led by its Southeast Asian neighbours to help two million survivors in dire need.

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) - Myanmar has agreed to let its South Asian neighbors send medical personnel and an assessment team to the cyclone-ravaged country, more than two weeks after a storm that killed tens of thousands of people.
ir government, a CNN correspondent in the country has discovered. iReport.com: Are you there? Send photos, videos
eceived in more than two weeks.

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

From AP YANGON, MYANMAR - The leader of Myanmar's military government made his first visit to a relief camp since Cyclone Nargis, patting heads of babies and shaking hands of survivors, amid growing international criticism over his government's handling of the crisis.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he would go to the disaster zone Wednesday to try to improve aid efforts in the country, also known as Burma.
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AP YANGON, Myanmar: Myanmar's military regime, which has barred almost all foreigners from its cyclone disaster zone, allowed the UN's humanitarian chief

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar wants to host an aid-pledging conference in Yangon to pool foreign assistance to survivors of this month's devastating cyclone, Thailand's foreign minister said here on Monday.
The announcement comes as the UN's top disaster official John Holmes arrived in Myanmar on Sunday on a three-day visit to convince the reluctant regime to open the doors to a massive relief effort after Cyclone Nargis.
e tearing into the southern Irrawaddy Delta on May 2.

Myanmar's military leader has finally visited cyclone survivors on the outskirts of Yangon, more than two weeks after Nargis struck.
Senior General Than Shwe made his first public appearance as an international aid group warned that 30,000 children under five could starve to death within weeks unless emergency aid and food supplies reach them.
UN secretary-general has finally been granted permission to visit the country.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Myanmar's junta kept a French navy ship laden with aid waiting outside its maritime border on Saturday, and showed off neatly laid out state relief camps to diplomats.
The stage-managed tour appeared aimed at countering global criticism of the junta's failure to provide for survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.
use Myanmar's leaders on the telephone, said he was sending U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes to Myanmar this weekend.

By Aung Hla Tun KUNTHECHAUNG, Myanmar (Reuters) - With a loudhailer in one hand and a clipboard in the other, the bespectacled Buddhist monk calls out names from a long list of villages devastated by Cyclone Nargis.
One by one, maroon-robed monks in the crowd milling round the make-shift relief centre put up their hands before coming forward to accept a carefully measured quota of food for his village.
re is universal. Continued...