The UN secretary-general said he planned to lobby Burma’s junta chief directly today for the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, acknowledging that his high-profile mission will be “very difficult”.

Foreign aid workers were today poised to reach the more than a million Burma cyclone victims still waiting for their first assistance, providing the military government gives them permission.

Burmese security forces blocked off a sprawling section of Rangoon today for a government-orchestrated mass rally in support of the military regime, amid growing pressure on the junta to negotiate with the pro-democracy opposition.

Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said that a proposed meeting between the leaders of India and Pakistan at an upcoming regional summit in Kazakhstan was not possible.