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Rulers Impound Burma Aid Shipments
By Sky News SkyNews - 41 minutes agoThe United Nations has suspended aid shipments into cyclone-ravaged Burma, saying the country's ruling military junta has impounded everything it has sent so far.

The two shipments, 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, were enough to feed 100,000 people.

Marcus Prior, of the UN's World Food Programme, told Sky News they were very disappointed at the decision and had no idea why the shipments had been blocked.

"These are absolutely critical first-response supplies," he said.

"We wanted to be able to reach 100,000 people with their first rations.

"It completely compromises our ability to reach people who we now know need this very, very urgently.

"It is incredibly frustrating, but we hope it is just a hiccup and over the coming days we will be able to get food in."

However, a spokesman for the junta dismissed the UN's complaint that all its aid has been seized as "baseless accusations".

Ye Htut said the government had taken control of the aid shipped by the World Food Programme to distribute it "without delay by its own labour to the affected areas."

He disputed the UN's suggestion that it amounted to a seizure.

State television said Burma would accept emergency aid from the United States, but did not specify how it would be delivered or distributed.

A team of Qatari rescue workers were turned back after arriving on an aid flight.

In a statement, the foreign ministry said Burma would accept "relief in cash and kind" but not foreign aid workers.

"Burma is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment," it said.

"But at present Myanmar (Burma) is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them."

Sky News Asia correspondent Alex Crawford crossed into Burma for a day to speak to people on the ground.

She said that although the government has imposed three-year minimum jail terms for any resident caught speaking to a foreign journalist, a few brave individuals did talk to her.

She said they could not understand why foreign aid was not being allowed in, and were worried about a referendum set to take place over the weekend.

The military junta have attracted criticism for refusing to postpone the poll, which some see as a blatant attempt to bolster their position in power.

Tens of thousands of people are feared to have been killed in the storm, and some 1.5 million made destitute.