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Thousands to face 'unimaginable tragedy’ if Myanmar delays aid

Reuters, Yangon

Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Sunday in search of food, water and medicine but aid workers said thousands of them would die if emergency supplies do not get through soon.

Buddhist temples and schools in towns on the outskirts of the storm's trail of destruction are now makeshift refugee centers for women, children and the elderly-some of the 1.5 million people left clinging to survival.

The reclusive military government is accepting aid from the outside world, including the United Nations, but has made it clear it will not let in the foreign logistics teams needed to transport the aid into the inundated delta. "Unless there is a massive and fast infusion of aid, experts and supplies into the hardest-hit areas, there's going to be a tragedy on an unimaginable scale," said Greg Beck of the International Rescue Committee.

In the delta town of Labutta, where 80 percent of homes were destroyed, the authorities were providing just one cup of rice per family per day, a European Commission aid official told Reuters. The scenes are the same across the delta, the former "Rice Bowl of Asia" where as many as 100,000 people are feared dead in the worst cyclone to hit the continent since 1991, when 143,000 people died in neighboring Bangladesh. "We have 900 people here but we only have 300 lunch boxes. We gave it to the women and children first. The men still have not had any food," one woman said at a relief centre in the town of Myaung Mya, 100 km (60 miles) west of Yangon.

"More are coming every day," she said. The lives of 1.5 million people in cyclone affected areas are at risk due to disease outbreaks unless a tsunami-like aid effort is mobilized, international agency Oxfam said on Sunday.

"In the Boxing Day tsunami 250,000 people lost their lives in the first few hours, but we did not see an outbreak of disease because the host governments and the world mobilized a massive aid effort to prevent it from happening," Oxfam's Regional Director for East Asia Sara Ireland told reporters in Bangkok. "We have to do the same for the people of Myanmar."

The cyclone is one of the worst disasters since the December 26, 2004 tsunami that hit a dozen countries along the Indian Ocean.

The government's official death toll stands at 23,350 dead and 37,019 missing from the May 2 disaster. Most of the victims were killed by the 12-foot (3.5 meter) wall of sea-water that slammed into the delta.

The U.N. has appealed for $187 million in aid, even though it is still not confident the food, water, medicines, bedding and utensils flown in will make it to those most in need because of the junta's reluctance to admit international relief workers.

Australia dramatically increased its aid contribution to the cyclone victims on Sunday, pledging an extra A$22 million to take its total offer to A$25 million ($23.4 million).

The World Food Programme said on Sunday it was now moving aid down to its field headquarters in Labutta using trucks provided by its long-time partners in Myanmar, including the Red Cross.

The WFP has flown in seven shipments of aid, and an eighth was due to land on Sunday, WFP spokesman in Bangkok Marcus Prior told Reuters. The agency reported its food shipments had been briefly impounded on Friday at Yangon airport.

Congress trails after vote in Karnataka

AFP, Bangalore

India's ruling Congress party trailed its main rival after the first round of balloting in a crucial state election seen as the precursor to a national vote, according to an exit poll Sunday.

The Congress would emerge with just 23 assembly seats out of 89 that were decided in Saturday's balloting in the southern state of Karnataka, showed the poll, conducted by broadcaster NDTV.

Karnataka is home to 60 million people and its capital Bangalore is the hub of India's thriving software industry. With 28 seats in the state assembly, Bangalore was among the southern Karnataka districts that voted Saturday.

The exit poll that covered 7,000 voters showed 31 seats going to the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is making its first solo bid for power in southern India.

The poll gave 30 constituencies to Janata Dal (Secular), the BJP's partner in a coalition that collapsed in November.

The numbers mark an 11-seat increase for the BJP, India's main opposition party, and a loss of five seats for the Congress and six for Janata Dal from the last state assembly election in 2004.

Karnataka, with a 224-member legislature, is the first of a raft of states to choose local governments ahead of national parliamentary elections due before May 2009.

The remaining seats will be filled May 16 and 22 in a three-phase election the Congress is fighting on a promise to rein in prices, provide a stable government and improve the state's shabby infrastructure.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of slain former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, led the party to national power in 2004 on a pro-poor ticket.

But the party is facing flak from both its allies and the opposition for failing to curb inflation that has shot up to a four-year high, and the election is seen as a gauge of popular discontent.

Sri Lanka govt wins key polls in boost for war effort

AFP, Trincomalee

Sri Lanka's ruling coalition was on Sunday declared the winner of key elections in the east of the island, and hailed its victory as a major boost for the war against Tamil rebels.

Election officials confirmed the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance party (UPFA) and its allies had won control over a new 35-member provincial council in the eastern coastal region.

Opposition parties and monitoring rights groups, however, complained of widespread irregularities, including harassment by Tamil Tiger defectors now allied to President Mahinda Rajapakse. The region, once home to several Tamil Tiger enclaves, was brought under government control after heavy fighting last year and Colombo is determined to show normality has returned. The polls were overshadowed by the rebel sinking of a navy cargo ship in Trincomalee port hours before voting started on Saturday, as well as a bomb attack in the town of Ampara late Friday that killed 12 civilians.

But the government said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are fighting for a separate state in the north and east, had suffered a major blow by failing to derail the elections.

19 dead as tornados batter Oklahoma, Missouri

AP, Picher

Many have fled this depressed, pollution-scarred mining town. Those who have chosen to stay or have not yet relocated face a new heartache. A tornado ripped through a 20-block swath of Picher late Saturday afternoon, killing at least seven people. The same storm system then moved into southwest Missouri where tornadoes took the lives of at least 12 others, authorities said.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. George Brown said Picher's victims included an infant. He said at least three people were confirmed missing. "We've seen homes that were completely leveled to the foundation," Brown said. "In a few of these homes you would have had to be subterranean to survive."

Ottawa County Emergency Manager Frank Geasland said dozens of people were injured, some seriously.

"Trees are toppled over, ripped apart," he said. "There are cars thrown everywhere. It looks like a bomb went off, pretty much." Brown said 32 people were transported to Integris Baptist Hospital in the nearby town of Miami. Of those, 26 were treated and released.

Many families have moved away from Picher to escape the lead pollution left by mining operations.

Sudan cuts ties with Chad after rebel attack

Reuters, Khartoum

Sudan cut diplomatic relations with Chad on Sunday after an attack on the Sudanese capital by Darfur rebels which it said was supported by Chadian President Idriss Deby.

The rebels fought Sudanese troops in a suburb of Khartoum on Saturday in a bid to seize power but officials said the attack was defeated.

Sudanese authorities extended a curfew indefinitely on Sunday and said troops were still hunting down rebels who were wandering the streets.

"These forces are all basically Chadian forces supported and prepared by Chad and they moved from Chad under the leadership of Khalil Ibrahim," President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on state television.

Ibrahim is the leader of the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) which attacked Khartoum state's suburb Omdurman after a lightning move through the country from the Chadian border.

Obama outlines plans for race against McCain

AP, Bend

Barack Obama began sketching the outlines of his expected presidential contest against Republican John McCain on Saturday, saying the fall election will be more about specific plans and priorities than about questions of political ideology or who is more patriotic.

Barely mentioning Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he was open to campaigning with McCain in "town hall" events. But he also warned that controversial issues such as McCain's ties to the Keating Five savings and loan scandal are fair game, and he called McCain's proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax a pander and a gimmick.

He did not mention that Clinton supports a similar plan.

Obama also said he soon will campaign in Michigan and Florida, two battleground states whose Democratic primaries were essentially nullified by party disputes, angering many voters. He is scheduled to campaign Tuesday in Missouri, marking the first such visit to a state where the primary is over and McCain awaits him in the fall.