The humanitarian organisation founded by actor George Clooney and other Ocean's Thirteen stars has donated $250,000 to help children and families in Burma affected by Cyclone Nargis.

Torrential tropical downpours lashed Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Friday, deepening the misery of an estimated 2.5 million destitute survivors of Cyclone Nargis and further hampering the military government's aid efforts. Despite the latest storm, which is likely to turn already damaged roads to mud in the swamp-covered region, the former Burma's ruling generals insist their relief operations are running smoothly.

Cyclone-hit Myanmar faces food shortages and may need to import rice if farmers in devastated areas do not get immediate help to plant a new crop, the UN food agency said on Thursday. Some 20 percent of rice fields in five declared disaster zones, including the Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, were damaged by the cyclone that killed up to 128,000 people, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

Realism comes with a hefty price tag. Iraq was supposed to have put paid to the internationalist impulse in foreign policy. The gathering outrage at the behaviour of the military junta in Burma reminds us that foreign policy, like life, is never quite so simple

Burma's military rulers have appealed for international help to get the county's cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta rice farmers back to their paddy fields, amid concerns about food shortages if they miss the planting season. The request came as Burma's state television yesterday said a military-sponsored constitution had won the support of 92.4 per cent of voters in a partial referendum on Saturday. A vote in cyclone-hit areas and Rangoon has been delayed until May 24.

The Red Cross estimated Wednesday that the cyclone death toll in Myanmar could be as high as 128,000

Myanmar's ruling junta has tightened access to the cyclone disaster zone in the country's south, frustrating aid groups trying to bring help to survivors, reporters and aid agencies said yesterday. Relief groups are furious over the regime's refusal to allow foreign experts into the country to mount a full-scale disaster response, and say they face even more constraints in bringing help to some two million survivors.

The 1.5 million people left destitute by Burma's cyclone are in increasing danger of disease and starvation, experts said on Wednesday, but its ruling junta said no to a Thai request to admit more aid workers. Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej met his Burma counterpart Thein Sein in Rangoon for 2 hours trying to convince him the former Burma should open up for international relief operations and ease visa rules for aid workers.

HONG KONG: On the day of the Sichuan earthquake, I happened to be in Bengkulu, the province of Sumatra, Indonesia, which has been experiencing almost weekly quakes that measure about 5 on the Richter scale, following one that measured 8.5 last September. Despite its magnitude, that earthquake killed just 25 people. This raises the question: What combination of nature, chance, human activity and government competence determines the death toll when a cyclone, earthquake or tsunami strikes?

More than 60,000 people may have died as a result of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, and at least 1.5 million are homeless or otherwise in desperate need of assistance. The Burmese military junta, one of the most morally repulsive in the world, has allowed in only a trickle of aid supplies. The handful of United States Air Force C-130 flights from Utapao Air Base here in Thailand is little more than symbolic, given the extent of the need.