The United Nations sent in three more planes and several trucks loaded with aid, though the junta took over its first two shipments. The government agreed to let a U.S. cargo plane bring in supplies Monday, but foreign disaster experts were still being barred entry.

State-run television continuously ran images of top generals — including the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe — handing out boxes of aid to survivors at elaborate ceremonies.

One box bore the name of Lt. Gen. Myint Swe, a rising star in the government hierarchy, in bold letters that overshadowed a smaller label reading: “Aid from the Kingdom of Thailand.”

“We have already seen regional commanders putting their names on the side of aid shipments from Asia, saying this was a gift from them and then distributing it in their region,” said Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, which campaigns for human rights and democracy in the country.

“It is not going to areas where it is most in need,” he said in London.

State media say 23,335 people died and 37,019 are missing from Cyclone Nargis, which submerged entire villages in the Irrawaddy delta. International aid organizations say the death toll could climb to more than 100,000 as conditions worsen.

The U.N. estimates that 1.5 million to 2 million people have been severely affected and has voiced concern about the disposal of bodies.

With phone lines down, roads blocked and electricity networks destroyed, it is nearly impossible to reach isolated areas in the delta, complicated by the lack of experienced international aid workers and equipment.

But the junta has refused to grant access to foreign experts, saying it will only accept donations from foreign charities and governments, and then will deliver the aid on its own.

Farmaner said the world needs to move to deliver aid directly to victims in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

“People we are speaking to in Burma say aid must be delivered anyway even if the regime doesn’t give permission,” he said. “We have had a week to convince the regime to behave reasonably, and they are still blocking aid. So the international community needs to wake up and take bolder steps.”

However, aid providers are unlikely to pursue unilateral deliveries like airdrops because of the diplomatic firestorm that it could set off.

So far, relief workers have reached 220,000 cyclone victims, only a small fraction of the number of people affected, the Red Cross said Friday. Three Red Cross aid flights loaded with shelter kits and other emergency supplies landed Friday without incident.

But the government seized two planeloads of high-energy biscuits — enough to feed 95,000 people — sent by the U.N. World Food Program. Despite the seizure, the WFP was sending three more planes Saturday from Dubai, Cambodia and Italy, even though those could be confiscated, too.

“We are working around the clock with the authorities to ensure the kind of access that we need to ensure it goes to people that need it most,” WFP spokesman Marcus Prior said in Bangkok, Thailand.

Richard Horsey, a spokesman for U.N. humanitarian operations, said an international presence is needed in Myanmar to look at the logistics of getting boats, helicopters and trucks into the delta area.

“That’s a critical bottleneck that must be overcome at this point,” he said in Bangkok.
He warned there was a great risk of diarrhea and cholera spreading because of the lack of clean drinking water and sanitation.

“We are running out of time here. This could be a huge problem and this could lead to a second phase which could be as deadly as the cyclone,” he said.

Heavy rain forecast in the next week was certain to exacerbate the misery. Diplomats and aid groups warned the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses and said thousands of children may have been orphaned.

Survivors from one of the worst-affected areas, near the town of Bogalay, were among those fighting hunger, illness and wrenching loneliness.

“All my 28 family members have died,” said Thein Myint, a 68-year-old fisherman who wept while describing how the cyclone swept away the rest of his family. “I am the only survivor.”
Officials have said only one out of 10 people who are homeless, injured or threatened by disease and hunger have received some kind of aid since the cyclone hit May 3.

The government’s abilities are limited. It has only a few dozen helicopters, most of which are small and old. It also has about 15 transport planes, primarily small jets unable to carry hundreds of tons of supplies.

“Not only don’t they have the capacity to deliver assistance, they don’t have experience,” said Farmaner, the British aid worker. “It’s already too late for many people. Every day of delays is costing thousands of lives.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. –In the days since Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, Eh Taw Dwe has heard only snippets about the villages he left behind when he fled the country.

Zin Moe has lived with the anguish of not knowing whether his mother and five siblings are alive — and not being able to help directly.

They are among thousands of Burmese immigrants around the United States who are desperately scrambling to organize relief to their ravaged homeland. In the process, they are hearing about a bleak situation: No electricity. Dirty water. Rampant diarrhea and malaria.

“Some people here, they have their family member over there, and they lose their family member or their house was totally destroyed,” Dwe said Wednesday. One of Dwe’s friends is stranded with his family in a village that was cut off from rescue workers. Nobody knows the family’s fate.

The challenge of providing relief has been magnified by the sheer desperation of the situation in Myanmar and a ruling military regime that is hostile to U.S. citizens and supplies. The United Nations and other agencies have said they are trying to persuade the government to issue more visas to speed the aid to sites where it is most needed.

“It’s difficult, because even if we collect things, how are we going to send them?” asked Moe Chan, a Burmese New Yorker.

He is one of more than 10,000 Burmese residents of New York City. Thousands more live in nearby New Jersey and Connecticut, forming the second largest U.S. Burmese community. California has as many as 100,000 residents of Burmese descent.

Dr. Kyaw Htyte, a New York cardiologist and president of the National Burma Action Committee, said that if he could, he would go to Myanmar himself, but it’s impossible to get an entry visa.

Instead, he said his organization relies on “an underground group” of people who enter the country in ways he would not disclose, for security reasons, and bring in money, medicine and other supplies.

These are only stopgap measures against a need for massive relief.

Four days after the cyclone hit, the best way for Americans to help was still through large international organizations with access to Myanmar, such as the International Red Cross, UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee and the International Medical Corps.

Moe has been using prepaid phone cards every day, calling home during rushed breaks from his job as manager of a restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

His family phones in Myanmar sound dead.

As he waits, he’s raising money among dozens of Burmese friends in New York “for the villages, where people are really poor,” said Moe, who has a friend he hopes will somehow enter Myanmar before the end of May.

Dwe (pronounced DEW-ee), 31, is one of perhaps 1,500 refugees from Myanmar who live in Minnesota, many of them from the ethnic Karen rebel group that has been fighting for autonomy in eastern Myanmar for a half-century.

He fears ethnic Karen will be left out of the aid effort.

“It’s the worst disaster in Burma and we need the assistance from the American government and we need the assistance from any country who has humanitarian support,” he said.

A local aid organization, the Minneapolis-based American Refugee Committee, has helped many Burmese in its refugee camp in Thailand, including some who now live in Minnesota. The agency hoped to get passports for two workers so they could enter the country in the next few days to evaluate what kind of help it could offer, spokeswoman Therese Gales said.

The Karen Community of Minnesota, a fraternal group of refugees like Dwe, contacted the agency to see how it could help, realizing that its contribution would be modest.

“If there’s anything we can do, even a dollar, even, you know, a piece of bread, we will do whatever we could,” Dwe said. “I can see the children and the women crying in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the storm and … it’s really sad.”

——–
Verena Dobnik contributed to this report from New York.

From the Boston Globe

Can you picture America being comprised of 50 states with no federal government and no president? This is a frightening thought, isn’t it?

Nonetheless, a similar situation exists in which nine Eastern Orthodox ethnic jurisdictions have been functioning independently in America for several decades with no American administrative leader.

Eight of these jurisdictions are of the following ethnicities: Albanian, Antiochian, Bulgarian, Carpatho-Russian, Greek, Romanian, Serbian, and Ukrainian. The ninth one is the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) which is “autocephalous” or self-headed.

Read the Rest Here