BBC news 2008-05-18 加文本

BBC news with Cathy Clarkston.

The massive relief effort underway in southwestern China has brought a marked improvement in circumstances for many left homeless by Monday's earthquake. But with official estimates putting the number of homeless across the affected region at some 5 million, many more are still lacking basic supplies. Quentin Sommerville reports from Sichuan Province.

In the city of Dujiangyan, makeshift shelters have given way to proper tents. Residents now say they have enough to eat and clean drinking water, while earlier they had only basic rations. Electricity has been restored to parts of the town, and the dead are being buried. With almost 29, 000 people confirmed dead across Sichuan, China has resorted to mass graves. Disinfectant teams have been out spraying city's streets and freshly cleared sites of collapsed buildings.

A British Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown says Britain will push for Asian leadership of the Burmese cyclone relief effort. He said he hopes that it will be more acceptable to Burma's military rulers who have so far refused all Western efforts to help the hundreds of thousands of people in dire need. Lord Malloch-Brown was speaking in Rangoon after visiting one part of the city affected by the storm.

The veteran American Democratic Party Senator Edward Kennedy has been taken to hospital in Boston. A spokeswoman for the Senator said he had suffered a seizure. She said he was undergoing tests but gave no further details about his condition. Mr. Kennedy, who is 76, had preventive surgery in Boston in October to unclog a partially blocked carotid neck artery. Emilio San Pedro has the details.

Senator Kennedy was initially taken to a hospital in Cape Cod in the early hours of the morning. His condition was serious enough that he was then airlifted to one of Boston's major hospitals Massachusetts General, where he is currently being treated. Mr. Kennedy, who is 76, is the youngest brother of the American President John F. Kennedy. In recent months, he has played a prominent role in the campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination of Barack Obama.

The authorities in Georgia have shown evidence to the BBC, which they say, proves that Russia is assembling a fighting force in the separatist region of Abkhazia. With tensions high between Moscow and Tbilisi over the breakaway region which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists. A Georgian military administrator Nairashvili showed the BBC footage she said was from an unnamed and unmanned Georgian military surveillance plane which had flown over Abkhazia. He said the video footage showed Russian soldiers deploying heavy military hardware.(Www.hxen.net)

"We think that Georgia, especially at the times(time) when we, we have confirmed reports of possible deployment from Russians and ultimatums presented by the, again, the Russian and Abkhazia, we have the right to know what's going on there, to be, to be ready. "

World News from the BBC.

President Bush on the last stage of his Middle East tour has reiterated his commitment to helping the Israelis and Palestinians secure a lasting peace deal by the end of the year. Mr. Bush is in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh where he held talks with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Our BBC correspondent at the talks says Mr. Bush has been working hard to reassure the Palestinians he is committed to peace, after criticism in the Arab media that he was only interested in appeasing Israel.

The Zimbabwean government says it's not aware of any threats to the security of the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai who has postponed his return to Zimbabwe because of an alleged plot to assassinate him. A government spokesman said Mr. Tsvangirai should come home to campaign in the presidential run-off election against President Mugabe at the end of June and report any security concerns to the Zimbabwean authorities. Caroline Hawley reports from Johannesburg.

The opposition has so far given only the sketchiest details of the alleged plot. A spokesman for Morgan Tsvangirai, George Sibotshiwe, was unable to tell the BBC who was behind it. Officials from the MDC insist that Mr. Tsvangirai wants to return to Zimbabwe but they say they are first asking the regional observer group SADC to ensure he can campaign for the presidential run-off without risking his life.

The Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin has returned home after being freed by the suspected Islamic militants who kidnapped him three months ago. Mr. Azizuddin said he'd been released in the tribal area of north Waziristan, but he was vague about the identity of his abductors.

The Cuban authorities have joined celebrations marking International Day against Homophobia in the capital Havana. It's only the second time Cuba officially joined the celebrations which mark the anniversary of the World Health Organization's decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

BBC News.