Homeless people shelter in a school in the Irrawaddy Delta

Polling stations opened on Saturday across the main city of Yangon and the southern Irrawaddy Delta, one of the regions devastated by Cyclone Nargis three weeks ago.
 
The government says 92 per cent of voters were in favour of the charter during the first round, held a week after the cyclone.
 
It says the constitution will pave the way for democratic elections in 2010, but the opposition National League for Democracy of Aung San Suu Kyi has denounced the vote.
 
The pro-democracy leader's party says the constitution will enshrine military rule, and condemned the government for focusing on its referendum rather than on delivering aid to cyclone victims.

The cyclone left at least 133,000 people dead or missing and around 2.4 million people remain in desperate need of food, shelter and medicine.

Aid agreement
 
Relief could finally be on the way after Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, met Than Shwe, Myanmar's senior general.

The military leader on Friday agreed to allow access to all foreign aid workers to help with the relief operation after earlier refusals.

"He has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities," Ban said in Naypyidaw, Myanmar's capital, on Friday.

But the specifics of the agreement remain unclear and aid agencies are still questioning whether or not they will be given the access they say they require.

Since the storm hit, only 146 aid flights have arrived in Yangon.

Ban, left, visited Myanmar to seek permission for foreign aid to enter the country [AFP]

International donors have committed $110m to relief efforts, and pledged another $110m if foreign aid workers are allowed into the hardest-hit Irrawaddy Delta region.

Cautious response

Aid agencies have repeatedly insisted that more people will die unless they get immediate food, water, shelter and medical care.

Amnesty International warned that the move from the government could already be "far little too late".

Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Myanmar researcher, said: "International aid agencies are estimating that at most, 30 per cent of the victims in the worst affected areas have received some kind of assistance. That clearly is not enough."

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