Snowmail: Burma crisis deepens

Last Modified: 16 May 2008
By: Jon Snow

On tonight's show...

Our man 'Hugh' has been out and about in the Irrawaddy delta and has a shocking account of what is happening here. This on a day when the EU's humanitarian aid man Louis Michel has been denied access on his trip to Burma to anywhere other than a perfectly run camp on the end of Rangoon.

Michel could not get answers as to why no visas are being issued, nor as to why aid is being constricted. At the same time the generals have allowed the toll to reach 77,000, despite the fact that most people on the ground now think the total sum is somewhere between 200,000 and 300, 000. We hope to catch Michel as he comes off the plane.

People still alive in China rubble

There is an enormous amount of material coming out of China still, the earthquake aftermath continues to dominate. Lindsey Hilsum has a very intimate portrait of family loss in a country where family means three and where the family she is with has lost a daughter and a granddaughter.

Tom Clarke has an interesting report out today that reveals that a third of the world's species have disappeared and become extinct since 1970. He's on the case.

Bobby Sands biopic thrills Cannes

As a hack you know you're beginning to get somewhere into middle age when Hollywood starts making movies about people and events you were present at. The latest from Cannes, a film about Bobby Sands, the first of the Northern Ireland hunger strikers to die and who on his deathbed became the MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone.

The accusation is that the portrayal is too sympathetic. Actually at the time there was some criticism of Mrs Thatcher for being too hard and Sands had no small admiration for his courage in going through with it all.

Dambusters fly again

Finally, everyone loves a 65th birthday, not least those who wish to remember the Dambusters. If you don't remember them then it won't mean much, but if you do, and even if you don't, it was a crazy escapade to drop bouncing bombs on reservoirs that would eventually go and blow the dams open.

It was always cracked up to be slightly more successful than it was, but it was an absolutely brilliant example of British ingenuity.