U.N. chief going to Myanmar to speed aid

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will travel to Myanmar this week to try to speed up troubled cyclone relief, his spokeswoman said on Sunday, as signs mounted of a breakthrough in getting aid to survivors.

Ban's spokeswoman Michele Montas also said she expected there would be an international conference in Bangkok on May 24 to marshal funds for the relief effort in the former Burma.

Ban should arrive in the military-ruled Southeast Asian country on Wednesday evening and travel to the Irrawaddy delta, the area hit hardest by Cyclone Nargis on May 2, she said.

"The objective of the trip is to dramatically accelerate the flow of disaster relief," Montas said.

Britain's Asia minister, Mark Malloch-Brown, said a turning point could be near on a framework to accelerate international aid to up to 2.5 million desperate survivors of the cyclone that left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.

"But, like all turning points in Burma, the corner will have a few 'S' bends in it," Malloch-Brown told Reuters.

Than Shwe, the reclusive leader of junta, made a public appearance on Sunday for the first time since the disaster.

Ban hoped to meet senior members of Myanmar's government, Montas said, but she could not immediately say whether Than Shwe would be one of them. The general has refused to talk to Ban by telephone since the cyclone.