Photo via virtual-myanmar.com

UN Chief going to Myanmar to discuss cyclone aid

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will travel to Myanmar this week in an attempt to speed up troubled aid operations for victims of the devastating cyclone that hit earlier this month, his spokeswoman said Sunday, reports Jeremy Reynalds, correspondent for ASSIST News Service.

“I can confirm he (Ban) is going to Myanmar this week,” spokeswoman Michele Montas told Patrick Worsnip by telephone for a story published by Reuters News Service.

Montas told Reuters that Ban is expected to arrive in the Southeast Asian country on Wednesday evening and travel to the Irrawaddy delta, the area hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis.

Ban hopes to meet senior members of Myanmar’s reclusive military government, Montas said, but she could not immediately identify which ones.

“The objective of the trip is to dramatically accelerate the flow of disaster relief,” Montas told Reuters.

Food, medicine and other outside aid have been slow to reach Myanmar because the junta, suspicious of the outside world, has been reluctant to let in foreign relief and the workers to distribute it.

[05/23/2008]

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