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  • UN chief delivers 'message of hope'

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UN chief delivers 'message of hope'

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has taken "a message of hope" to Burma's cyclone victims.The UN chief used his visit to the former Burmese capital Rangoon to press the military government to allow large-scale international aid for the 2.4 million people left destitute.Mr Ban was driven down an avenue in Rangoon lined with trees uprooted by the cyclone where workers were still shovelling debris into trucks, some three weeks after the storm left nearly 134,000 dead or missing."I'm quite confident we will be able to overcome this tragedy," Mr Ban told the trustees of the Shwedagon Pagoda, the Buddhist country's most sacred site. "I've tried to bring a message of hope to your people."At the same time, I hope your people and government can coordinate the flow of aid so the aid work can be done in a more systematic and organised way."Mr Ban has said relief teams had been able to reach only a quarter of those in need after one of the worst cyclones in Asia in decades.He signed a book of condolences at the foreign ministry and is due to take a helicopter tour of the stricken villages of the Irrawaddy Delta southwest of the former capital.Mr Ban is due to meet Senior General Than Shwe on Friday in Naypyidaw, a new capital 250 miles north of Rangoon, where the junta lives in isolation from the rest of the country.The United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), of which Burma is a member, are to convene a donors' pledging conference in Rangoon on Sunday.The government wants more than £5 billion in aid, but international donors need access to verify the needs, Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said."Accessibility is important to guarantee confidence and verify the damage and needs, otherwise confidence during pledging will be affected," he added.The government's official toll is 77,738 people killed and 55,917 missing. It also estimates the damage to one of Asia's least-developed economies at £5 billion.

ITN | May 22, 2008Watch more videos from ITN

Tags:. .left. .same. .mr. .told. .signed











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