Snowmail: from Burma to China

There is frustration tonight in the international community that attention on the cyclone disaster in Burma is evaporating in the face of the onslaught of dramatic pictorial evidence of the earthquake carnage and devastation in China.

Not because the Chinese tragedy isn't every bit as appreciated, but because the absolute lack of images out of Burma courtesy of the draconian strictures of the ruling junta mean inevitably that the media gaze is drawn to China and the necessary pressure on the Burma regime is weakened.

Britain has two ministers in the region, endless aid flights and relief teams, either finally getting in or on the point of doing so.

A very senior White Hall source has told Channel 4 News that what the aid agencies have been saying (a death toll running at beyond 200,000) may even be an understatement.

That as many as 300,000 people may have already died and the lives of many thousands of others are in peril from waterborne disease and more.

Tonight Jonathon Miller remains in Thailand in the rescue hub of Bangkok. He has been talking to both the UK ministers and trying to gage the extent to which an aid conveyor belt may now be in existence.

Lindsey Hilsum is meantime in China. She's been in Bechuan, the epicentre of the quake where the hope for life has died and where the rubble is everywhere. Even her graphic account of travelling into Bechuan on foot tells its own story.

We're looking too at the state of the dams after the central government put out a warning that some 400 are at risk.

And we've been talking to a lawyer who deals with Chinese construction who tells us that, whilst there are strong regulations for quake proof building across China, once you get into the ruling areas such as Sichuan province, corruption, corner cutting and the sheer pace of development have whittled away the building standards.

(I am just hearing that Lindsey is unsurprisingly having huge communications difficulties and it may prove impossible to email her piece in, but I'm going to live on the bright side and assume she will).

It is hard in both televisual and email mediums to follow the above. But I will.

Manchester: Uefa aftermath

Nick Martin is in Manchester where he witnessed what went wrong last night as a gigantic television screen failed to show pictures of the Rangers-St Petersburg match just as it was about to begin. It's pretty dramatic stuff and suggests some serious administrative miscalculations.

Police pay Channel 4 damages

Here's an odd one. The police in Birmingham are having to pay out damages and costs to Channel 4 in a libel action. All sorts of charges were made following the making of a documentary about a mosque in the city.

It's proving incredibly difficult to work out why on earth the police ever said what they said, but they did and they must be counting the cost. Alex Thomson will have an intriguing report at seven.

Revolutionary new autism treatment

We have a very interesting report on autism tonight which suggests that a revolutionary teaching technique may be reaping extraordinary results. Julian Rush is on the case.

What went wrong at the FSA?

Faisal Islam has finally secured a sit down interview with the head of the FSA, the regulatory body that should have spotted the madness in the boardroom of Northern Rock.

Cannes film revisits Shatila massacre

Finally, Nicholas Glass is in Cannes, not with Angelina and Brad (seven months pregnant, not Brad but Angelina) instead he has been to the most harrowing and provocative movie centred on the Shatila massacre 1982.

The most remarkable aspect of the film being that it is in cartoon form and is made by an Israeli who was serving in the army at the time. And let us remember at this moment that one man suspected of war crimes in Shatila is still alive to this day.

Ariel Sharon, comatose in an Israeli clinic.

Share this article

Send this article to a friend »

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon

What are these?