THE first US aid flight has landed in Burma, where some 1.5 million survivors of Cyclone Nargis are still waiting for help. A C-130 military transport plane flew into Rangoon yesterday from Thailand, carrying 12,700 kilograms of water, mosquito nets and blankets. The arrival of the plane follows a week of delays and negotiations and is a huge concession by the nation's military junta. Greeting the plane at Rangoon airport was the junta's Navy Commander-in-Chief Soe Thein, who promised to deliver the supplies "as soon as possible" to the cyclone-hit region, a US embassy official in Rangoon said. US aid officials said they hoped it would be the the first of many US aid flights. The arrival of the aid comes as criticism has mounted over Burma's handling of the disaster. When one of the nation's best-known film stars, Kyaw Dhyu, travelled through the Irrawaddy delta to deliver aid to the victims, a military patrol stopped him as he was handing out bags of rice. "The officer told him, 'You cannot give directly to the people,' " said Tin Win, the village head man of the stricken city of Dedaye, who had been counting on the rice to feed 260 refugees who sleep in a large Buddhist prayer hall. The politics of food aid