Not forgetting Burma

The top story on today's running order is China, with the official death toll now standing at more than 19,500.

Our international editor and China correspondent Lindsey Hilsum - on leave in England when the earthquake happened - has flown back to China to cover the aftermath.

She'll be talking to several people, including a structural engineer who is critical of some of the building standards in the country.

Meanwhile our reporters have been talking to people from Sichuan province, the badly-hit area in south western China, who are based in the UK.

"We were speaking to a Sichuan man in a restaurant in Kilburn," one of the reporters says, "And as we were talking his phone rang. It was his father - still in China - calling to let him know he was OK."

Many will not be so fortunate. Some, stuck in remote mountainous regions, desperately need aid - and fast. And then there's the dam that's near bursting point, threatening to flood Sichuan province.

But as China, and the rapidly growing death toll, has dominated the headlines this week, there's a risk the other humanitarian disaster of the moment - Burma - is sliding off the news agenda.

When we get to US politics, Burma comes out fighting.

"Do we think this is interesting?" the prog ed asks about the US politics story.

"I do!" someone shouts out.

"I'm totally bored of it," the prog ed replies.

"I'm not bored of it at all, but I'm not interested enough to see a piece on this instead of a piece on Burma," another prog ed chips in.

"Same here," another adds "Burma is a continuing disaster - there's still a chance people could be saved and it's awful that the news focus has shifted away from these people who are in desperate need of help."

Malloch Brown is giving a press conference on the crisis today. It looks like US politics will have to wait.

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