New guidelines adopted by Myanmar's ruling generals are further delaying emergency efforts to deliver aid to regions ravaged by the cyclone, human rights experts said on Thursday.
The rules, issued on Monday, require UN and other aid groups to receive formal permission from Myanmar authorities to travel and to distribute aid.
Bureaucratic delays in the issuing of humanitarian visas and official roadblocks across the worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta region have already led to criticisms the Myanmar government was obstructing relief.
It had been hoped that assurances given to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon three weeks ago had eased the passage of aid.
“The government should be streamlining aid efforts to cyclone victims, not slowing down aid with these new rules,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“Once again the generals are placing control of the population over the needs of the population.”
Human Rights Watch says the new rules require humanitarian workers to obtain permission from both Myanmar government ministries and the core group — including the UN, the ASEAN and the Myanmar governent — coordinating the aid effort.
The local authorities, known as Township Coordination Committees, must also be kept informed, it said.
The watchdog said its sources in Yangon also claimed that permissions were also necessary from regional and local military commanders, and that government officials must accompany all travel by foreign aid workers to the delta.
Meanwhile, the junta warned yesterday that assistance from the US could not be trusted.
In a clear reference to the US, a media mouthpiece for the regime warned that “the goodwill of a big Western nation that wants to help Myanmar with its warships was not genuine.”
Myanmar turned down humanitarian aid aboard naval vessels from the US, as well as the UK and France, which had sailed toward Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis struck on May 2 to May 3.
State media has said that Myanmar feared the US was using the cover of humanitarian aid to invade the country.
The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said yesterday that aid from nations who impose economic sanctions against Myanmar and push the UN Security Council to take actions against it “comes with strings attached.”
Despite such regular attacks by the junta against Western donor countries, celebrities, ordinary people and aid groups there have donated generously to help the cyclone victims. Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Gates, JK Rowling and a clutch of Hollywood stars have been among the givers.
However, the UN said on Thursday that it had received about half the money it requested for cyclone relief, with some nations apparently delaying their donations because of concerns about restrictions imposed by the military government on foreign aid workers.
The UN set a goal of US$201.6 million for its relief efforts but so far has received only US$88.5 million, or 44 percent, from government donors, it said. Some US$51 million in pledges has not yet been delivered, it said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
RSS