Than Shwe had replaced Yangon in the previous year, and permitted Gambari to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi. However, Than Shwe refused to meet Gambari when he visited Burma in November 2007 and again on 10 March 2008. In early May 2008, Than Shwe refused many foreign aid workers from entering the country in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis (May 2, 2008). This led to many criticisms from the UN as well as the international community. In early July 2009, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon visited Burma and held talks with General Than Shwe. The military junta rejected UN
2008 Yemen cyclone 2008 Yemen cyclone In October 2008, the remnants of a tropical cyclone caused extensive damage in Yemen, a poor country on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. The storm, officially known as Deep Depression ARB 02, was the sixth tropical cyclone of the 2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, and the second tropical cyclone in the Arabian Sea that year. It formed on October 19 off the west coast of India from the same broader system that spawned a storm in the southern Indian Ocean. Moving generally westward, the depression failed to intensify much, reaching maximum sustained winds of