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BBC News with Jerry Smit.
A week after typhoon Haiyan swept through the central Philippines, thousands of survivors are still desperate for help. A huge international aid effort is gathering pace, but agencies still haven't been able to get supplies through to some areas. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes sent this report from the stricken city of Tacloban.
“After weeks of lying in the open, the dead are now being collected placed in body bags and removed for burial. In one district near the airport, the police told us they have picked up more than 100 bodies this morning. It is a grim task. The aid effort is still only just beginning. There is still no large scale food distribution taking place and won't be for several more days. But for the first time in a week, the people of Tacloban are starting to feel as if they haven't been forgotten by the rest of the world.”
Police in Canada say an investigation into child pornography has led to the rescue of nearly 400 children around the world and the arrest of 341 people. The inquiry centred on a film company based in Toronto which allegedly sold DVDs and streamed videos of naked boys. Police say the films were distributed in over 90 countries. The head of the company Brian Way is among those detained. Joanna Beavan-Desjardins heads Toronto's sex crimes unit. “It is alleged that Mr. Way's company had revenues in excess of $4m during the years he was operating. It is also alleged that Mr. way paid people to have children filmed in Eastern European countries in order to produce some of the movies that he would sell online.”
President Obama has tried to address widespread frustration in the United States caused by problems with his flagship health care policy. Mr. Obama said insurers can now extend existing health plans which without warns have been cancelled. The President admitted that his administration had fumbled the introduction of the scheme knows as Obamacare. From Washington Mark Mardell.
“The President admitted implementation of this huge change had been rough and he is unhappy, ultimately this is about trust. President Obama promised people that under his signature legislation the Affordable Care Act they would be able to keep their current health insurance. That isn't true, many plans don't meet the higher standards of cover demanded by the law, and the Republicans have accused him of lying. It's no coincidence that new poll shows 52% of Americans now don't trust the president, his worst ratings ever. So, he's announcing people can keep their old plans for another year.”
The British Prime Minister David Cameron has defended his decision to travel to Sri Lanka for a Commonwealth Summit despite calls for him to boycott the meeting of human rights concerns. Mr. Cameron who has arrived in Colombo told the BBC he would raise the issue of alleged war crimes by the Sri Lankan military in its conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels.
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Brazil says the rate of deforestation in the Amazon has risen sharply after years of decline. The Environment Minister said it had increased by nearly 30% over the past year. She called the destruction a crime, but said the government was working to reverse the trend. Environmentalists have blamed increased destruction on a controversial reform to Brazil's forest protection law.
The UN Nuclear Watchdog says that Iran has almost stopped the expansion of its nuclear enrichment capacity over the past three months. Bethany Bell has the details. “Iran's nuclear work has slow down considerably according to the IAEA report. It says that since August Iran has installed only four of the centrifuge machines which enrich uranium compared to over 1,800 earlier in the summer. The report also says that Iran’s stockpile of more highly enriched uranium has risen only slightly and remains below the 250 kilos needed for a bomb. Tehran says its nuclear work is clearly peaceful.”
A judge in the United States has rejected a legal attempt by authors to stop Google scanning millions of books and making extracts of them available online. The technology firm was sued for breach of copyright in 2005 over its project to create a massive digital library. The judge in New York ruled that the Google Books scheme provided significant public benefits while taking into account authors' rights.
The former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney has made a personal appeal to President Putin to release Greenpeace activists imprisoned in Russia. The 28 activists and two journalists are awaiting trial for hooliganism. Sir Paul quotes a line from the Beatle song Back in the USSR, about it being good to be back home, and asks Mr. Putin to make that true for the prisoners. In 2003, Vladimir Putin gave the rock star a personal tour of the Kremlin.
BBC News
