YANGON- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon returned Sunday to Yangon for an international donor conference where Myanmar is set to seek more than US$10 billion cyclone aid. About 50 countries, as well as UN agencies and aid groups, are set to take part in the conference organised by the United Nations and Myanmar's neighbours in Southeast Asia.
Myanmar is expected to seek US$10.7 billion in aid for reconstruction, insisting that the relief effort is complete.
But three weeks after Cyclone Nargis left 133,000 people dead or missing, the United Nations says three-fourths of 2.4 million people needing emergency aid have yet to get it.
Ban visited Myanmar on Thursday and Friday to see the devastated regions for himself, and said he won an agreement from junta leader Than Shwe to allow foreign aid workers into the hardest-hit parts of the Irrawaddy Delta.
So far, the government has blocked most foreigners from the delta, where entire villages were washed away in the storm. - AFP/vm
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