Burma caves, a little late

Seth Mydans reports on the cyclone aid situation: "Foreign aid workers have begun to receive permission to travel to remote areas of Myanmar hardest hit by the May 3 cyclone, following a promise by authorities last week to the United Nations, relief agencies said Tuesday... The opening comes more than three weeks after the cyclone, which left 135,000 people dead or missing. The United Nations estimates that 1.5 million survivors deep in the Irrawaddy Delta have not yet received any aid... While apparently opening its door to international donors, the military government has refused permission to United States, French and British warships loaded with supplies just outside its territorial waters. In denying entry, the government has said it fears that any such aid from Western powers would have “strings attached.” However, it has allowed more than 60 United States Air Force flights to bring supplies to the Yangon airport... The delivery of aid has already accelerated with chartered boats and barges and a fleet of trucks loaded with rice, high-energy biscuits and ready-to-eat food. The government has given the World Food Program permission to deploy 10 helicopters. Mr.Risley said one had arrived in Yangon and the others were being brought in transport planes from South Africa, Uganda and Ukraine... With an estimated 30 percent of children in the delta area already malnourished, aid workers fear that they are particularly susceptible to diseases like cholera that are spread by contaminated water. Monsoon season is approaching and aid workers fear a second wave of deaths from epidemics and untreated ailments.

(Rico grew up in a house in California that Seth's famous father, Carl, built.) Rico says that Burma may have waited just long enough for the dying to really get underway...