2010-01-18 BBC
BBC News with Mary Small.
Emergency aid is finally reaching some parts of Haiti's devastated capital Port-au-Prince with relief workers and the US military distributing water and food to victims of Tuesday's earthquake. But demand is still far outstripping supply. Michelle Chouinard the head of Médecins Sans Frontières in Haiti, says that their problem is trying to get aid materials into the airport. She was asked what the charity was managing to achieve.
"There is still thousands of people waiting for treatment. We've done everything we can with the means that we have now, to treat as many people as possible. The priority right now is still to get people to surgery. So now we will be starting to set up our hospital, it's a hundred-bed-hospital with two operating theaters, in terms of care work and a emergency room and will be able to hospitalize the patients, following the surgical intervention.
Reporting now from the Haitian capital, here is Nick Davis.
In this highly Christian country, there are still songs of prays being sung in church, but also prayers for the dead and dying. The rescue operations continue to pull out survivors. But as the days, hours and minutes pass, hopes fade. This is the largest international rescue operation ever undertaken, but already some countries are pulling out, this likelihood of finding people alive diminishes.
Gangs of Muslim men and Christian youth have clashed in the central Nigerian city of Jos. The scene of religious and ethnic riots in 2008. Churches and mosques were burnt, at least 7 people are reported to have been killed and many injured. Caroline Duffield reports from Lagos.
The violence erupted in the western part of the city of Jos. One aid worker who spoke to the BBC, said at least 58 people have been taken to hospital, many of them suffering from machete wounds. Riot police and Nigerian military have imposed a dusk to dawn curfew. Jos has been a scene of repeated clashes between different communities in recent years. The violence is often blamed on sectarianism between Muslims and Christians. But in reality, it is nearly always about economic rivalries, landownership and battle for political power between different communities.
The leader of Guinea's military government Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has confirmed that he supports the deal that hands power to his deputy and paves the way for a return to civilian rule. Speaking in Burkina Faso where he's been recuperating from an assassination attempt, Captain Camara called for reconciliation and urged Guineans to support democracy. On Friday, he agreed not to return to Guinea for the time being. Guinea's opposition leaders have welcomed the deal.
World News from the BBC.
The Islamic Solidarity Games which are due to be held in Iran in April have been canceled because of a dispute between Iran and Arab countries over how to refer to the gulf. The Saudi Arabian based games federation said the Iranian organizers had failed to address its concerns, particularly over the planned logo and medals The Israel's strip with the words Persian Gulf. Arab countries rejected this as the description, calling it the Arabian Gulf.
Exit polls published after the end of voting in the Ukrainian presidential election, suggest that no candidate has won an outright majority.But the current president Viktor Yushchenko has been eliminated. There will be a second round of voting on February 7th. Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Kiev.
If the exit polls are correct, then Viktor Yanukovych will face the current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in a run-off on the 7th of February. She was instrumental in bringing the current President, Viktor Yushchenko to power during the Orange Revolution. Now though, his support has evaporated, and she is portraying herself as the inheritor of the Orange Mental. But the most remarkable transformation has been for Viktor Yanukovych. Five years ago, he was portraited as the villain of the Orange Revolution, tarnished by allegation of vote-rigging and open support from Moscow. Now though, both leading candidates here favor a closer ties with the Kremlin after five years of rising tentions.
Pope Banedict has once again defended the Vatican's conduct during the Second World War, saying that the Roman Catholic Church often provided what he called hidden and discreet help to Jews threaten by the Nazis' holocaust. The Pope was speaking while visiting Rome's main synagogue, only the second time a Roman Catholic Premier has done so. The visit has caused controversy among some Jewish groups. The Pope's decision to move his wartime predecessor piors the 12th closed synagogue had angered some Jewish groups.
BBC News.