ASEAN said yesterday that a team of experts had started work in Myanmar to assess the country’s aid needs a month after a devastating cyclone.
ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said the “Emergency Rapid Assessment Team” would produce an initial report in about three weeks, but would not complete its work until the middle of next month.
“I have high hopes for the joint assessment team,” Surin said in a statement released from the Jakarta-based ASEAN secretariat. “Based on the assessment report that they will produce, we will be able to identify the needs of the Cyclone Nargis’ victims and intensify our efforts in the most needed areas.”
ASEAN has been criticized for failing to respond soon enough to the May 2 to May 3 storm in member country Myanmar, where the military regime has been reluctant to cooperate with international aid workers.
The UN says more than 1 million people are still waiting for aid after the storm that left 133,000 dead or missing.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met junta leader Than Shwe on May 23 and reported that the general had agreed to allow foreign aid experts full access to the devastated Irrawaddy Delta.
More than a week later aid agencies say access remains patchy and security forces continue to block roads throughout the vast disaster area, allowing in only a handful of foreign aid workers.
The junta has agreed, however, to allow ASEAN to help coordinate relief efforts. Surin said he would visit the ASEAN “Task Force Office” in Yangon today.
The assessment team, working in cooperation with the UN, would produce a “comprehensive report” on the relief, recovery and rehabilitation effort by the middle of next month. A progress report would be available between June 24 and June 25.
“ASEAN is committed to helping our friends in Myanmar and will continue to do so,” Surin said, adding that the assessment team was “just the beginning of our commitments.”
Meanwhile, UN officials said yesterday that nine UN helicopters able to ferry aid to remote cyclone victims should enter Myanmar this week, but it was unclear when they would be allowed to fly to the worst-hit areas.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) received permission about two weeks ago to take 10 helicopters into the country, where more than 1 million people who lived through cyclone remain without foreign relief supplies.
One chopper entered the country on May 22, but was only able to leave Yangon on Monday to make its way down to the Irrawaddy Delta region, WFP Asia spokesman Paul Risley said.
“It has been ready for use for the past eight days with pilots, with ground crew, at Yangon airport,” Risley said.
“Yesterday, we were able to receive permission and the helicopter flew from Yangon to Labutta [in the delta] and returned,” he said.
Five helicopters are now ready to go at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport, with four more set to fly up from a southern Thai Navy base today.
Although two of the Puma helicopters were ready to fly into Myanmar last Friday, Risley said they would not travel into the country until the end of this week.
The cause for this delay was unclear.
Asked whether the nine helicopters had permission to fly supplies to the delta region, Risley replied: “That’s the next step.”
“Every step of the relief assistance process requires approval, permission and authority granted by the government,” he said.
“But clearly there is still very much a need for the use of these helicopters in delivering the last leg of this food assistance,” he said.
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Tuesday said Southeast Asian nations should step up humanitarian assistance in Myanmar.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS