BBC news 2010-01-15
BBC News with Deborah Mackenzie.
President Obama has said the United States is mounting one of its biggest ever rescue efforts to help the people of Haiti after Tuesday's massive earthquake. He said thousands of troops were being sent to the country to join the growing international rescue and relief effort. Mr Obama also announced that the United States was providing an immediate relief fund of 100 million dollars which would grow over the year to aid long-term recovery.
"It's important that everybody in Haiti understand at this very moment one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history is moving towards Haiti. More American search and rescue teams are coming, more food, more water, doctors, nurses, paramedics, more of the people, equipment and capabilities that can make the difference between life and death."
Rescue specialists have been arriving with teams from China, France, Spain and the United States among the first to fly in. Aid supplies have also been arriving, but latest reports say the airport at Port-au-Prince is having difficulty handling the traffic, and some flights were suspended. BBC correspondents in the ruined capital say there is no sign yet of any organized relief effort. Our correspondent Nick Davis saw scenes of misery in the Haitian capital.
I'm just walking past a flatbed truck which has got dead bodies. I can't even count how many dead bodies wrapped in makeshift shrouds made of blankets. The stench is appalling. I'm having to block my nose. There are crowds of people all around, looking across at the cemetery. It's a mass grave. From where I am stood on this wall, I can see maybe 20, 30 or more bodies which are just lying there. I'm not sure exactly how these bodies are going to be disposed of. But at the moment, they're just in a pile at the edge of the cemetery.
The relief organization Medecins Sans Frontieres, which is one of the groups operating on the ground, has sent reinforcements to assist its already sizable presence in Haiti. Speaking from Brussels, the MSF Operations Director Jerome Oberreit described to the BBC some of the difficulties his staff were facing.
"The way they can operate is extremely difficult. They don't have the infrastructure that they would have had. So very hard work, very difficult and extreme of patients wounded with crush syndromes, with head injuries, the trauma, very serious trauma, a lot of them. Well, we have to do all we can to try and do some of the life-saving work that's necessary with like I said very little infrastructure to be able to do so. So now the priority is to be able to set up surgical facilities that can answer to the acute need of this population."
The United Nations says at least 36 members of its mission in Haiti are now confirmed dead with many others missing.
This is Deborah Mackenzie with the latest World News from the BBC.
The BBC has learned that the president of Burkina Faso had met a senior adviser to the International Criminal Court just before Guinea's controversial military leader arrived in his country. The court is investigating the killing of more than 150 opposition demonstrators in September by troops loyal to the Guinean leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. If the ICC decided to issue an arrest warrant for the Captain Camara, Burkina Faso would be obliged to detain him. Captain Camara had been receiving medical treatment in Morocco following an assassination attempt.
President Obama has announced measures to make banks pay back all the money spent on the US government's huge bail-out of financial institutions. Mr Obama said he was committed to getting back every single dime the American people were owed. Andrew Walker reports.
At the depth of the financial crisis, the US government came to the rescue, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in banks and other financial firms. The result was that the feared collapse of the financial system did not happen. Now the US government wants the money back, and the new levy proposed by President Obama is intended to cover the losses that the administration expects to make. The timing reflects the fact that banks are expected to announce large bonuses over the coming weeks. And the levy would help the president argue he shares public concerns about bankers' pay.
Reports from Pakistan say the Taliban leader in the country, Hakimullah Mehsud, has narrowly avoided an American missile strike that killed at least 12 suspected militants. The attack targeted an alleged training camp in the tribal region of North Waziristan, near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
A court in Ukraine has ruled that the Soviet leadership of the 1930s was guilty of genocide in connection with the starving to death of nearly 4 million Ukrainians. The appeal court in Kiev found that Soviet rulers including Stalin were responsible for the Holodomor as the famine is known in Ukraine.
BBC News.