But there are frustrations. The president himself is a frequent visitor. A university building recently had to be moved because he didn't like the view. Not surprisingly, the project is running late.
Authorities in the French Pyrenees are preparing for an influx of believers to the mountain Pic de Bugarach, where rumours have spread that UFOs will rescue human gatherers.
Our acting consul is en route to Heho Airport and the charge d'affaires has been deployed to Rangoon airport as we understand that some passengers involved in the incident are being flown there," a UK Foreign Office spokesman said.
Air Bagan is one of handful of privately owned carriers flying domestic routes in Burma. The airline operated two Fokker-100 jets, which are no longer being manufactured.
Diplomats have routinely expressed concern about the safety of Burma's domestic airlines, which have been unable to modernise their fleets because of sanctions, and whose safety checks are not published, the BBC's south-east Asia correspondent Jonathan Head reports.
There's a running gag in Doctor Who, wherein new characters are always dumbstruck by the Tardis being bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside," he wrote on his blog.
With just two days to go until Christmas, rail services have been suspended and many roads are flooded. In Devon, one woman was rescued by a police helicopter after she was swept away by floodwater and left clinging to a tree.
