U.N.: 800,000 need food in Aceh
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 Students return to school for the first time in the Indonesian provincial capital of Banda Aceh.
 A 4-month-old baby who survived the Sri Lankan tsunami has dozens of couples claiming he is their son.
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BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- The United Nations says the number of people needing food aid will soar to nearly 800,000 in Aceh following the December 26 quake and tsunami.
The urgency for food comes one day before Australian Prime Minister John Howard is set to visit the devastated Aceh province and meet top Indonesian officials as well as Australian forces based there.
Indonesia was the worst hit of a dozen nations hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami. The quake struck off the northern tip of Sumatra, sending massive waves inland that claimed 108,328 lives. Five weeks after the tsunami, 127,774 people are still missing in Indonesia alone.
As aid workers reach isolated villages and the economic effects of the disaster take root, World Food Program Aceh chief Claude Jibidar told The Associated Press about 790,000 people would need food aid.
At the moment 340,000 people are being fed by the WFP. But many more will face hunger because they cannot sell cash crops due to disrupted trade networks, or because their food stocks have been shared with refugees, the agency says.
The WFP has said that they are confident they have enough supplies.
The tsunami has killed more than 154,000 across a dozen nations bordering the Indian Ocean. Tens of thousands more are still missing.
Aceh, which was closed to foreigners because of a civil war, was swamped with military personnel and aid groups from many countries, and there were hopes the tsunami might bolster peace hopes there.
But members of the Indonesian government and the Aceh rebel movement meeting in Finland on Saturday said they cut short talks on relief operations and ways of ending a 30-year conflict in the breakaway region.
On Wednesday, Howard will visit Australian defense forces and aid groups, as well as Indonesian officials managing the massive relief effort in Banda Aceh.
After a fraught relationship with Indonesia, Australia has been the single largest contributor to the aid effort, donating Aust. $1 billion.
In Phuket, Thailand, tourism officials from around the world were wrapping up a two-day U.N.-sponsored conference Tuesday to discuss ways to revive their industry in tsunami-devastated countries, including Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand and Indonesia.
The economic effects of the disaster are clear in Phuket, where hotels normally full of tourists this time of year are deserted.
Reconstruction work is going ahead, but hoteliers are worried it will take years to restore the area's reputation for fun and sun -- rather than death and destruction.
"I came because I heard they needed tourists to come back," Sarah Newton, a 35-year-old British traveler who was ending her year-long holiday on one of the island's nearly deserted beaches, told AP.
Delegates are expected to approve the Phuket Action Plan, which includes ad campaigns and airline ticket giveaways to lure travelers back to the tsunami-hit countries of Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand and Indonesia.
Over the weekend, Asian nations meeting in Phuket failed to overcome their differences on which country should host a proposed early warning system in the Indian Ocean.
The gathering followed a U.N. conference earlier this month in Kobe, Japan, where delegates agreed on an action plan to reduce casualties and damage wrought by natural disasters.
The Indian Ocean has no safeguard against tsunamis, unlike the Pacific that is covered by a U.S.-based warning system and experts say such a network could have saved countless lives.
Delegates struggled where to base the center that would collect seismic and oceanographic data from nations on the Indian Ocean's rim and issue alerts to coastal areas in danger.
Thailand pushed hard to make a Bangkok-based disaster prevention center the hub, but faced opposition from India and Indonesia.
In the end delegates eager to maintain broad support for the warning system and distribute responsibilities chose a decentralized network.
But there were concerns that a decentralized system could be unwieldy, leading to high rates of false alarms leading to unnecessary evacuations.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had pledged that his country would offer $10 million towards the international warning system, The Associated Press reported.
Other countries have pledged at least $8 million to the effort.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
