P.S. Suryanarayana India's economic engagement with Myanmar cannot be equated with the Western political game plan of fishing in the cyclone-stirred turbulent waters. Jairam Ramesh

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

The French navy has given up the idea of trying to deliver humanitarian aid directly to Myanmar and will instead divert its cargo to neighbouring Thailand, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The statement said the UN World Food Programme would take charge of the shipment and ensure it gets to victims of Cyclone Nargis that devastated Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta earlier this month.

Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the United Nations

Myanmar's junta has given the World Food Program permission to use helicopters to send aid to cyclone survivors, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as flags flew at half-staff across the country to mourn the dead. The first day of a three-day mourning period passed in torrential rain and diplomatic prodding of the reclusive generals to allow more international aid after Cyclone Nargis hit in early May, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing.

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.

About 70 per cent of Myanmar's hungry cyclone survivors remain without UN food aid more than two weeks after the disaster, forcing them to leave their villages, relief workers said on Monday. With the junta so far resisting calls to allow enough foreign disaster experts in to help direct the emergency effort, supplies are stacking up in Yangon with only small trucks to get aid to some two million needy people.

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.