•  SOUTH ASIA

    • NBurma cyclone death toll 'at 351'                                                                  Nearly 15,000 people died in the devastating earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province, the official Xinhua news agency has reported.
      More than 25,000 are still trapped in the rubble two days after the 7.9 quake struck, flattening homes, schools and entire villages and cutting roads.
      Soldiers have begun to reach the isolated epicentre by helicopter and on foot, bringing much needed supplies.
      The government has meanwhile downplayed fears about the stability of a dam.
      State media had earlier reported that soldiers were working to plug cracks in the Zipingpu Dam near the hard-hit city of Dujiangyan, which they described as "extremely dangerous".
      But late on Wednesday, a manager of the Zipingpu Development Company said there was no risk of collapse, according to Xinhua state news agency.
      No damage has been reported to the massive Three Gorges Dam, also in Sichuan province, but there were concerns about dozens of smaller dams closer to the epicentre.
      Sichuan's Vice-Governor Li Chengyun said incomplete figures suggested 14,463 people were dead, another 14,051 were missing, 25,788 were buried in the debris and 64,746 had been injured, Xinhua reports.
      Officials reached the town of Yingxiu, in Wenchuan County, to find the devastation was worse than expected - out of the town's population of 10,000, only 2,300 have been found alive.
      The head of a police unit sent into the disaster zone said the losses had been severe.
      "Some towns basically have no houses left," Wang Yi, told Sichuan Online news site. "They have all been razed to the ground."
      The BBC's Michael Bristow says there are collapsed buildings all along the road to the nearby city of Beichuan.
      "We are all Chinese people - we've got to help"
      Survivors rally together
      Media examine quake response
      Stadiums have been put to use to house the displaced.
      Meteorologists are forecasting a small break in the poor weather that has hampered aid efforts.
      Helicopters have now been able to fly into the quake zone to take food, drinking water and medicine to Yingxiu - one of the towns in the mountainous area where the quake was centred.
      But the weather remains cloudy and more rain is expected at the end of the week, said the National Meteorological Centre.
      Slow effort
      China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has flown to the epicentre to see relief work, having met survivors elsewhere.
      How earthquakes happen
      History of deadly earthquakes
      The government has despatched tens of thousands of soldiers to the region to dig any remaining survivors out of the rubble and bring food, medicine and drinking water to the survivors.
      Roads in the mountainous area have been badly damaged by the earthquake or have been covered by landslides.
      Many soldiers and rescue workers have been making their way to cut off areas by foot. Others have parachuted in or have arrived by helicopter.
      Workers are digging through the rubble of collapsed buildings with their bare hands.
      Rescue workers now say hope is beginning to run out for more than 1,000 people thought to be trapped in a collapsed school building in Juyuan township, near Dujiangyan
    • UN raises Burma cyclone estimate

                                              The UN has sharply increased its estimate of those severely affected by Burma's cyclone to 2.5m people.
      The figure was revised up from the 1.5m previously thought to be in need, following the storm 12 days ago.
      Since Cyclone Nargis struck, hardly any foreign aid workers have been allowed into Burma to hand out relief supplies.
      As forecasters warned a new cyclone was brewing off the coast, latest Burmese official figures put the death toll at almost 38,500 with 27,838 more missing.
      But the Red Cross warned the actual figure could be as high as 128,000 dead.
      UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he "regretted" the UN had spent more time arranging rather than delivering help, amid claims of stonewalling by the junta.
      Under pressure from Britain to call an emergency summit, Mr Ban convened talks with donors and the Association of South-East Asian Nations in New York on Wednesday.
      "Even though the [Burmese] government has shown some sense of flexibility, at this time it's far, far too short," he said.
      Thai leader Samak Sundaravej flew to Rangoon for talks with Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein, but said the junta was adamant it needed no outside help.
      He insisted that his country [could] tackle the problem by themselves," Mr Samak said in Bangkok after his day trip to Burma.
      Meanwhile, the Hawaii-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center said "a significant tropical cyclone" could stir up off Burma's coast within 24 hours. John Holmes, the UN's head of humanitarian assistance, says although over 100 international UN aid workers were now in Burma, they were not being allowed into the worst affected area, the Irrawaddy Delta, to distribute aid.
      The UN accused the generals of beefing up security on checkpoints to keep out foreigners
      EU envoy Louis Michel is heading for Burma for a three-day visit, but he said his chances of making any headway with the junta were "slight".
      Residents have told the BBC's Burmese service how private citizens have been trying to distribute water and supplies from their own cars - but soldiers have been confiscating the goods.
      A BBC correspondent said one devastated village - with one in four of its 400 homes left standing - had received just one bag of rice from the government.