About 2,000 square miles of Burma’s Irrawaddy delta are still under water a week after the arrival of cyclone Nargis. The delta is the heavily populated region that produces two-thirds of the country’s rice. Tens of thousands are dead and at least 1m are homeless. Panic is spreading about corpse-borne disease and contaminated groundwater. And what is the Burmese military regime doing? It is dickering over visas for aid workers.

Burma’s 428,000-man military, which has ruled the country since a coup in 1962, sucks up 40 per cent of the budget and has run the country’s economy into the ground. It harasses, arrests and from time to time shoots democracy activists. After requesting foreign assistance in the storm’s immediate aftermath, the junta, the State Peace and Development Council, has had second thoughts. “For expert teams from overseas to come here, they have to negotiate with the foreign ministry and our senior authorities,” said Maung Maung Swe, the social welfare minister. Negotiate! Western and Asian countries have pledged tens of millions of dollars to bring drinking water, high-energy biscuits, dysentery pills and expertise to a disaster area and the generals act as if they would be doing the world a favour by accepting them.