Indonesia warned the thousands of aid workers providing relief to earthquake and tsunami victims in devastated Aceh Province Tuesday not to venture beyond two large cities because of militant threats. 

Budi Atmaji, the head of relief operations in Indonesia, told a news conference that aid agencies would need permission to work outside the provincial capital Banda Aceh and the town of Meulaboh, the latter just 150 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake.

When asked if some places in Aceh were not safe for international aid workers, Atmaji said: "Yes, in some places."

Most of Indonesia's dead were in Aceh, a province that has been the site of a separatist rebellion for the past three decades led by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Both GAM and the government made conciliatory gestures after the tsunami but have since accused one another of initiating several clashes.

Meanwhile, life in Thailand was slowly returning to normal. More children were back in school - even if the buildings themselves were in shambles, business were open and tourism operators tried to lure people back to the country's famous beaches.

At the same time Interpol launched the biggest disaster victim identification system in history yesterday to unravel the mesh of forensic data from the bodies of more than 5,000 tsunami dead in Thailand.

"This is like a world first," said Jeff Emery, an Interpol forensic expert in charge of a team of about 60 detectives, doctors and pathologists from 20 countries. "It is using the world's best and latest technology."

The painstaking process, which will involve close cooperation with police, dentists and victims' families in Thailand and dozens of overseas countries, is likely to take many months to complete, but is already starting to bear fruit.

Also in Thailand, the country's cabinet agreed a US$1.5 billion relief package for Thai tsunami victims, damaged businesses and to repay airlines for flying foreign survivors home free.

The televised cabinet meeting on Tuesday agreed a US$140 million for payments to everyone who lost relatives or property to the December 26 tsunami that crashed onto Thailand's Andaman Sea coast and islands.

There was no immediate word on how it would be divided after the giant waves killed at least 5,300 people and left 3,370 missing, presumed to be among 3,700 unidentified bodies.

Nearly US$6 million would go to hotels who gave free rooms to surviving foreign tourists and the airlines which flew them home, also for free.

(China Daily January 12, 2005)