In an amazing move, the Burmese junta have refused entry to foreign aid workers and impounded what little emergency supplies have arrived in the isolated state.

Below is an article written by Aung Hla Tun and published by News.com.au:

Burma's junta has impounded two UN food aid shipments at Rangoon airport, triggering more outrage at the military government's refusal to accept a major international relief operation.

"We're going to have to shut down our very small airlift operation until we get guarantees from the authorities," a furious World Food Programme regional director Tony Banbury told CNN.

The two shipments, 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, were enough to feed 95,000 people - a tiny fraction of the estimated 1.5 million destitute survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which ripped into the southeast Asian nation six days ago.

"It should be on trucks headed to the victims. You've seen the conditions they are in. That food is now sitting on a tarmac doing no good," Mr Banbury said.

Despite the desperate needs of the survivors, the generals are adamant that only they will distribute the emergency aid that is going in after the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people were killed in Bangladesh.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej had to cancel a planned trip to Burma this weekend to ask the junta to open their doors just hours after he said he would go.

"After they said today they would not welcome foreign staff, there is no point of me going there," Samak said.

In a statement in the official media after Burma turned back a team of Qatari rescue workers coming in on an aid flight this week, the foreign ministry said Burma would accept "relief in cash and kind" but not foreign aid workers.

It said Burma was "not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment".