Bangkok: Japan today pledged $1.79 million in aid to Myanmar, months after it scaled back assistance following the junta's violent suppression of mass protests which left a Japanese journalist dead.

The aid package, announced by the Japanese embassy in Myanmar and the United Nations children's agency UNICEF, will be used to fund vaccinations, medicine and testing kits for potentially fatal diseases affecting children and women. Japan, one of the largest donors to Myanmar, in October cancelled nearly $5 million in aid in protest at the military's bloody crackdown on rallies, which a UN official has said left 31 people dead.

This figure includes Kenji Nagai, a video journalist for Tokyo-based APF News, who was shot dead on September 27 as he filmed the crackdown in Myanmar's commercial hub Yangon. Myanmar spends just 0.3 per cent of GDP on health, the latest UN figures show, while economic sanctions by the United States and European Union leave the country as one of the developing world's lowest recipients of foreign aid.

Source : PTI