Ban Ki-moon to travel to cyclone-hit Burma

18 May 2008 | 19:22 | FOCUS News Agency

A United Nations spokesman says the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will visit Burma this week to discuss the delivery of international aid to the victims of cyclone Nargis, DW informed. The announcement comes as a senior UN official arrived in the Burmese capital, Rangoon on Sunday. The UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, John Holmes, was reportedly carrying a letter from Ban to Than Shwe, the head of Burma's ruling military junta. The latter had refused to speak to the secretary-general via telephone. Holmes is expected to press junta leaders to grant more access for international workers to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of survivors of cyclone Nargis. The official death toll now stands at 78,000 with another 56,000 listed as missing.

UN says Ban Ki-moon will visit Myanmar this week to discuss aid delivery
NEW YORK (Thomson Financial) - United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon will visit Myanmar this week to discuss the delivery of international aid to the victims of
the devastating cyclone, a spokesman said on Sunday.
"He will visit Myanmar this week," spokesman Yves Sorokobi told Agence
France-Presse, adding that Ban is due to leave New York on Tuesday and arrive in
Myanmar on Wednesday or Thursday.
He said an official statement would be released later Sunday.
The United Nation's top disaster official, John Holmes, arrived in Myanmar
on Sunday for talks with the junta about widening the much-criticized relief
effort after Cyclone Nargis hit more than two weeks ago, a U.N. official said.
Holmes was due to visit the devastated Irrawaddy Delta and hold talks with
senior officials of the regime to get them to speed up the effort for 2 million
cyclone survivors in desperate need of immediate aid.

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