YANGON, 14 May 2008 (IRIN) - As the world watches in disbelief the horrific images of devastated areas and floating bodies, the people of Kun Gyan Gon, a town 55km south of Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, and 8km from the sea, are seeing very little signs of help. Its 20,000 households have been severely hit; not one shack was spared.

MANILA, 14 May 2008 (IRIN) - Imelda Lacandazo, a 41-year-old rice grower, should be glad the government has hiked the farm-gate price of palay (unhusked rice) in the wake of the rice crisis. Lacandazo and her husband till a one-hectare rice plot in Victoria Town in Laguna Province and, if good weather permits, they harvest about 80 cavans of palay (about 4,000kg) in the first crop season.

COLOMBO, 13 May 2008 (IRIN) - After provincial elections in Sri Lanka’s Eastern region concluded on 10 May, some economic recovery and increased assistance from the humanitarian community is likely, according to UN and other officials.

BANGKOK, 13 May 2008 (IRIN) - Charm Tong does not remember fleeing into Thailand - she was only six years old when her parents took her across the border from Myanmar. Her home in Shan State - Myanmar's largest region - was a conflict zone, with government troops battling rebels of the Shan State Army.

QUETTA, 08 May 2008 (IRIN) - Outside a small pharmacy in the dusty capital of Pakistan’s vast southwestern Balochistan Province, Zaitoon Bibi, 25, clutches two bottles of medicine. “One is for the cough and one is for fever. I hope I can remember which is which,” she says, looking worried.