Snowmail: obstacle to saving Burmese lives?

Last Modified: 09 May 2008
By: Krishnan Guru-Murthy

On tonight's show...

A quick one this evening, ladies and gents, as I'm about to go and interview Sir John Holmes, the UN's humanitarian aid man on Burma. The World Food Programme has suspended aid flights into Burma because two deliveries have been impounded by the authorities.

Indeed, the Burmese government is looking more and more like a straightforward obstacle to the saving of lives after the cyclone. They want international aid but none of the international aid workers that come with it, worried, it seems, about how they will look if the population see foreigners coming to their help in great numbers.

The aid community says it cannot go along with the Burmese wishes. Why, is something we will explore tonight, as well as the question of whether there are any options.

The security council already seems to have ruled out the French suggestion of ignoring the Burmese regime and delivering aid anyway, perhaps by air drops.

The diplomatic consensus seems to be that we cannot interfere with the internal affairs of a sovereign country. We will also be asking if that is compatible with a 21st century perspective on the world.

Our correspondent on the ground, as well as aid workers who have managed to get in, will give us the latest.

Labour's referendum disarray

Also tonight, we're expecting more developments on the bizarre saga of Labour's position on an independence referendum for Scotland. No doubt grinning like a Cheshire cat to himself, the SNP leader and first minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, has mischievously said the SNP could in theory vote with the Conservatives at Westminster to prop up a minority government.

The Labour leader in Scotland, Wendy Alexander, looking increasingly detached from Gordon Brown, is due to give an update later today. For his part, the PM is being accused of losing control in his own backyard.

Abortion debate

Back home, amid medical evidence that suggests the life chance of premature babies born before 24 weeks gestation has not changed in the last 12 years, we will be discussing the impact on the abortion law debate that is about to rear its head again.

Is it supporting evidence for those who think abortion should be allowed up to 24 weeks?

Post-war British art

And we will be rounding off the programme with a man in a dress, some perhaps overlooked British art, and a round-Britain tour. See you at seven.