Myanmar state media Tuesday praised the UN's relief efforts after the cyclone that left 133,000 dead or missing, in a marked shift of tone after weeks of claiming the military could distribute aid on its own. "The United Nations and its agencies took prompt action to carry out (the) relief and rehabilitation mission with the contributions of international organisations," the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

The United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) is trying to convince army-ruled Myanmar not to place at least 2,000 youngsters orphaned by this month's cyclone into state-run homes, a senior official said on Monday. "We should try and place children within family environments as a priority, and not in institutions," Anne-Claire Dufay, UNICEF's child protection chief in the former Burma, told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Cyclone relief hit by politics

Hundreds of troops carrying explosives trekked through a quake-devastated area in southwest China on Sunday, attempting to reach a "quake lake" that threatens a secondary disaster. Concerned by a steep rise in the water level of a giant lake at Tangjiashan, authorities want to blast a hole in the barrier before it bursts and causes a flashflood. Thousands have been evacuated below the lake as a precaution. Also on Sunday, state television reported an 80-year-old partially paralysed man had been pulled alive from rubble, 266 hours after the 7.9 magnitude quake hit.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon will travel to Myanmar on Wednesday to try to persuade the leaders of military regime to allow large-scale foreign aid and humanitarian workers to provide assistance to millions of victims of Cyclone Nargis, which has killed over 100,000. Ban's three-day visit comes as the world body estimated that hundred of thousands of victims are at the high risk of starvation and disease with the government refusing to allow large-scale foreign aid and rescue workers in the country.

Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawady delta region of Myanmar and the disastrous earthquake in the Sichuan province in China have each taken a toll of more than 50,000 lives. In each case, the victims were the ordinary people of the two regions in two distinct countries. Those worst hit, in both cases, are the poorest of the poor. Nature can take away more human lives than the worst terrorist in the world.

The people of Burma take omens seriously. For centuries, the paths of planets and vagaries of weather have been scrutinized by astrologers, who divine a relationship between celestial irregularities and earthly mayhem.

Japan will offer $10 billion over the next five years to help African nations tackle climate change, government sources said Sunday. The plan will be announced by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in his speech at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, to be held in Yokohama on May 28, the sources said.

A leading aid group warned yesterday that thousands of young children in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar could starve to death within weeks unless emergency food supplies reach them soon. Save the Children said on its website that the youngsters could succumb to hunger "within two to three weeks". "We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.