Foreign diplomats and aid workers in Myanmar said yesterday they had not seen enough on a government tour in the cyclone-hit south to fully assess the damage caused by a cyclone two weeks ago.
A day after the regime said the official toll from the disaster had doubled to around 78,000 dead and 56,000 missing, they took diplomats on three flights into the zone, which has been mostly closed off to foreigners.
“What they showed us looked very good, but they are not showing us the whole picture,” said Chris Kaye, Myanmar director for the UN’s World Food Program, one of many agencies helping take part in the emergency relief effort.
PHOTO: AP
“I went to the three locations and there were [at] maximum 250 people at each one,” he said. “They showed that they can put together the package — there were tents, water, basic supplies.”
An Asian diplomat who went on the tour said they had been shown around by helicopter.
“The ambassadors themselves looked around the affected Irrawaddy delta area in the morning hours,” he said on condition of anonymity. “It was not good enough to get a clear picture of the damage in the area.”
The international community has been turning up the pressure on the country’s military rulers, who have been criticized for holding up visas for foreign disaster experts and insisting on managing the relief effort alone.
With up to 2.5 million people facing dire shortages of food, water, shelter and medical care, according to international agencies, there have been signs that the junta is easing some constraints on the operation.
Two shipments of US aid were for the first time given directly to relief groups rather than handled by the regime, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, adding that nine more flights were set for this weekend.
Thirty Thai medics flew into the country early yesterday, part of a group of more than 100 Asian medical workers who the junta is allowing to treat victims of the storm, a Thai health official said.
But Louis Michel, the EU’s humanitarian aid commissioner, said on Friday after two days of talks that the junta had refused to open an airport in the delta to aid flights, currently going to the main city Yangon.
The military, which has ruled since 1962, is deeply suspicious of the outside world and has appeared to fear the influx of anything that could weaken its control.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’