BBC news 2008-05-07 加文本

BBC News with Jonathan Weekley.

Casualty figures have risen sharply in Burma, four days after the country was said hit by cyclone. Official reports say more than 22,000 people have been killed by a tidal surge. At least 40,000 people are listed as missing. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator in New York Rashid Khalikov has urged the Burmese government to waive visa restrictions for UN workers.

They applied for visas today and we hope that they will be able to proceed as quickly as possible. We’ll also hope that the government will understand the requirements of international assistance in terms of easing up regulations for visa applications and also whatever it comes to relief supplies crossing the customs border of the country.

President Bush has repeatedly called on Burma to accept American aid and to allow disaster assessment teams in. Some foreign journalists are also being denied entry to Burma, but a BBC reporter who is there says the scale of the disaster is so big that the country urgently needs help from outside.

Voting is ending in the American states of Indiana and North Carolina, the two biggest remaining states in the Democratic race for the presidential nominee. Barack Obama who leads the race overall is predicated to win in North Carolina while polls suggest Hillary Clinton has a lead in Indiana. From Indianapolis, our correspondent James Coomarasamy reports.

It’s 40 years since Indiana’s voters at last had a meaningful say in the presidential primary race and they seem to be relishing their moment. Opinion polls have favored Senator Clinton in this state in recent days but not by much in a place which is notoriously hard to characterize. Making the contest even harder to call is the fact that it is an open primary, meaning that Republicans who already have a candidate i.e. John McCain can vote in the Democratic ballot if they wish.

Sources close to the French President Nicolas Sarkozy have told the BBC that he has withdrawn his backing for the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to become the first president of the European Union. From Brussels our Europe editor Mark Mardell.

For those who want the European Union to be represented on the world stage by a bigger international figure, a Mr. or Mrs. Europe who could excite the media would be able to pick up the phone to the president of the United States. The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is an obvious choice. His biggest backer has been his friend President Sarkozy of France. Until now, senior sources close to the French President say that he’s dropping the idea with regrets. It appears after a meeting with Germany’s Angela Merkel he has decided the opposition to Mr. Blair is too strong because he backed the Iraq War and because Britain isn’t in the Eurozone, nor the passport-free area, and has other opt-outs.

The BBC has gathered detailed accounts of violence and intimidation being meted out by the government in Zimbabwe against opposition supporters. The BBC’s correspondent says villagers in one stronghold of the opposition MDC told her that supporters of President Mugabe have threatened them with violence if they didn’t vote for the governing party, ZANU-PF.

You are listening to the world news from the BBC.

The Supreme Court in the American state of Georgia has refused a stay of execution for a convicted murderer William Early Lynd who is due to die by lethal injection shortly. He was convicted of kidnapping and killing his girlfriend nearly two decades ago. He could now become the first prisoner to be executed in America since last September when the US Supreme Court began considering a challenge to the legality of executions by lethal injection.

Georgia says it is very close to war with Russia after Moscow dramatically boosted its troop numbers in the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia. Speaking in Brussels, after talks with European Union and NATO officials, the Georgian Minister for Integration Temur Yakobashvili said Russia was pushing his country into war. Electron Neil Smith reports.

Tension over Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia has been building for some time. But the deployment, just days ago, of an extra 1000 Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia has been criticized as an unnecessary escalation. Both NATO and the European Union say they are seriously concerned, and now Washington is appealing to Moscow to stop what it calls provocation in the breakaway territories. There were those who say both sides just were in plain indulging in rhetoric. But Georgia says it knows Russia well and war is very close.

The authorities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu have partly demolished a wall built by higher caste Hindus hid them separate from Dalits, previously known as untouchables. The higher caste residents say they got a permission to build the wall after Hindu caste violence in the late 1980s.

A musician who left his $4 million violin in the back of a New York taxi has performed a free concert to thank the driver who returned it. Philippe Quint’s 285-year-old violin was returned the next day by Mohamed Khlil, who got a 100-dollar reward. Mr. Quint also decided to perform for free in the taxi waiting area at Newark Liberty International Airport.

BBC News.