The United Nations secretary general Mr Ban Ki-moon visits Shwedagon pagoda during his trip to Myanmar on May 22.

January
THE Minister for Relations U Aung Kyi meets Daw Aung San Suu Kyi twice, first on January 11 and then again on January 31.

February
THE government an-nounces on February 9 that a referendum on the new constitution will be held in May and parliamentary elections in 2010.

MYANMAR and its Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partners agree on a plan to establish a regional human rights body, at a meeting of the grouping’s foreign ministers in Singapore on February 20.

THE government enacts a law on February 26 detailing procedures for the May referendum.

March
THE United Nations special envoy to Myanmar, Mr Ibrahim Gambari, begins a five-day visit to Myanmar on March 6 to hold talks on promoting democracy and national unity in the country.

FIVE people are shot dead in a home on Seinle Kantha Road in Yangon’s Bahan township on March 6.

April
VICE Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council Vice Senior General Maung Aye visits India from April 2-5. The visit includes the signing of a series of agreements to promote economic cooperation and to share intelligence on criminal activities.

May
CYCLONE Nargis batters Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions on May 2 and 3, killing nearly 140,000 people and leaving at least 1 million homeless. The cyclone, one of the worst natural disasters to affect Myanmar, makes landfall in the coastal region of Ayeyarwady Division with wind speeds of 190 kilometres an hour and triggers deadly tidal surges of up to 15 feet (4.5 metres).

THE government announ-ces on May 6 that it is leading relief operations in the cyclone-affected areas and needs financial assistance and emergency supplies from the international community.

THE death and destruction inflicted by Cyclone Nargis forces the government to postpone the referendum – scheduled for May 10 – for two weeks in many parts of Ayeyarwady and Yangon Divisions. The referendum goes ahead as planned in other parts of the country on May. On May 15 the government announces the first phase of the referendum garnered enough “yes” votes to approve the constitution. The announcement says only 4.6 million voters are yet to vote and 92.4pc of the electorate have voted in favour of approving the draft document.

THE government announ-ces on May 15 that more than 133,000 people are either dead or missing in Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions following Cyclone Nargis, amid reports of progress in providing relief supplies for the more than 2.5 million people left homeless by the storm.

THE United Nations secretary general Mr Ban Ki-moon arrives in Yangon on May 22 to hold talks with government leaders on Cyclone Nargis operations. The talks, held in Nay Pyi Taw between Mr Ban and Senior General Than Shwe, result in allowing foreign aid workers to visit Myanmar for relief operations. The two-day visit to Myanmar by Mr Ban was the first here by a UN secretary general in 44 years. Mr Ban returns to Myanmar on May 25 to participate in an intern-ational pledging conference for cyclone victims and helps to form a tripartite group inv-olving the Myanmar govern-ment, the UN and ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member.

AT the pledging conference donors call on the government to allow international aid workers into the country and stress the importance of a creditable needs assessment.

June
AN ASEAN-led assess-ment team is deployed to cyclone-affected areas in Ayeyarwady delta on June 4. The 250-member team visits villages in Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions to collect data on humanitarian needs.

July
THE United Nations issues a fresh appeal for funding for aid work in the Ayeyarwady delta on July 10 and says $481 million will be required to fund more than 100 projects through to April 2009.

THE Post-Nargis Joint Assessment report, compiled by ASEAN assessment team, is issued in Yangon on July 21.

THE UN emergency relief coordinator Mr John Holmes says Cyclone Nargis relief work has opened a “positive door” for cooperation among the international community, ASEAN and the Myanmar government.

August
THE UN special envoy Mr Ibrahim Gambari visits Myanmar from August 18 to 23 and meets Prime Minister General Thein Sein as well as senior government officials and members of the National League for Democracy.

September
FOREIGN Minister U Nyan Win addresses the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York.

October
SIX months after cyclone Nargis struck the Ayeyarwady delta, the main concern for the United Nations is the massive shortfall in funding needed to help rebuild livelihoods for the hundreds of thousands of survivors, the UN resident coordinator, Mr Bishow Parajuli, says in an interview with The Myanmar Times on October 25.

November
BANGLADESH protest to Myanmar on November 3 over oil exploration activities und-ertaken by Daewoo Intern-ational in the Bay of Bengal off the Rakhine coast in an area claimed by both nations.

THE Myanmar government rejects the Bangladeshi claim and issues a statement on November 6 which says the site is within Myanmar’s special economic zone.

MYANMAR and Bang-ladesh agree to hold a new round of talks in January to resolve the maritime dispute between the two countries.

December
THAILAND announces on December 2 that it has postponed the ASEAN regional summit until March because of ongoing political turmoil that has shut down the capital’s two airports.