DW-World.de
Deutsche Welle

Specialist teams from Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have arrived in China's Sichuan province to assist in the rescue and recovery effort following Monday's devastating earthquake. Officials now say that the 7.9-magnitude quake has left nearly five million survivors homeless. The confirmed death toll stands at 22,000 with tens of thousands more still missing. President Hu Jintao, who is in the region, has urged rescue workers to work as quickly as possible to save more lives. Among several survivors to be pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building in the past 24 hours was a German tourist. Many of the victims have been children whose schools collapsed in the quake. The European Union has pledged initial aid of two million euros. It has already sent a special assessment team to Sichuan.

Burma's ruling military junta now says that 78,000 people have died as a result of a cyclone that struck part of the country two weeks ago. State television said 56,000 others were listed as missing. The junta is now allowing a some foreign aid into the country, but it has again rejected international calls to let outside experts direct relief efforts for more than two million survivors in urgent need. The European Union's commissioner for development, Louis Michel, has left Rangoon empty-handed after failing to persuade the regime to accept large-scale foreign help. The United Nations says Burma's junta has now granted a visa to its emergency relief co-ordinator, John Holmes. He is expected to arrive in Rangoon on Sunday. Meanwhile, aid agencies with local staff in Burma say cholera has broken out in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta.  

Leaders of Lebanon's rival political factions are in Qatar for talks aimed at resolving a dispute that has pushed Lebanon to the brink of a new civil war. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who is chairing the talks in Doha, gathered the two sides for a short opening session on Friday. He told leaders of Lebanon's Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition that the task before them was both great and difficult. The meeting was brokered by the Arab League in an effort to end clashes between gunmen from the Shi'ite radical group Hezbollah and supporters of the government that left more than 60 people dead and dozens of others wounded. This has been the worst fighting Lebanon has seen since its 15-year-long civil war ended in 1990. The clashes were sparked by a government move to limit Hezbollah's power. The government has since backed down on the measures.

In the Peruvian capital, Lima, 50 European Union and Latin American leaders have wrapped up a summit with a pledge to do more to further trade between their regions and tackle global warming and poverty. This was part of a joint statement dubbed the Lima Declaration. European Commission officials expressed disappointment at the slowness of the trade talks. The European Union is seeking better access to Latin American markets, but regional leaders are reluctant to reduce trade barriers. Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez used the summit to apologise to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. During a meeting on the fringes of the summit, Chavez told the chancellor that he was sorry if comments he made earlier in the week had been harsh. Chavez had described Merkel as a political descendent of Adolf Hitler. German officials, though, have denied Chavez's claim that Merkel had invited him to visit Germany.

US President George W. Bush has failed to convince Saudi Arabia to make a major increase in oil production. This is the second time this year that Saudi officials have rebuffed an appeal from Bush to step up production in an effort to bring down global oil prices. However, following a meeting between Bush and Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh, Saudi officials announced that they had already increased oil production by 300,000 barrels per day earlier this month. They said that current production was enough to meet customer demands and that no further increase was needed. Meanwhile, the price of a barrel of oil has hit a new record high of more than US $127.

A United Nations conference on biosafety has wrapped up here in Bonn, without finalizing international rules on who is liable if farming experiments with genetically modified organisms go wrong. However the 2,000 delegates from 150 countries did agree on a draft convention that would allow legally binding claims for compensation. The environmental group Greenpeace has criticised the delegates for failing to set clear rules. It has advised poor farming nations to avoid GM-modified maize and soya due to legal and biological risks.

In a joint swoop security service agents in France, Germany and the Netherlands have arrested ten terror suspects accused of funding Islamist extremists linked to al-Qaeda. The broadcaster "France Info" says a year-long probe led to eight arrests in France's eastern city of Mulhouse and the Rhone region by the French agency DST. All are reportedly Turkish nationals or of Turkish origin. A nineth suspect was arrested in the Dutch town of Tilburg. The tenth was arrested in Weil am Rhein, a German town bordering France, according to the German public broadcaster SWR. It said the suspects were accused of having links with the Islamic Jihad Union or IJU, an Uzbek-based al-Qaeda affiliate. The IJU came to prominence last year when three alleged members were arrested in Germany for plotting a car-bomb attack.

Zimbabwe's presidential run-off election has been scheduled for June 27 according to an announcement in a government newspaper. The leader of the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the disputed first round, although he did not receive the necessary 50 percent of votes needed to avoid a run-off. The aftermath of the March poll has been marked by violence that the MDC has blamed on government forces. The opposition says 40 of its members have been killed and more than 1,000 homes damaged  or destroyed. President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party has denied responsibility and accused the MDC of unleashing the violence in an effort to discredit Mugabe.

German national soccer team head coach Joachim Löw has named a squad of 26 players ahead of next month's European Championship in Austria and Switzerland. Fifteen of the players named in a ceremony held at the top of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze, were members of the squad that finished third in the World Cup two years ago. Among the surprises was the fact that long-time No. 2 goalkeeper Timo Hildebrand was left out of the squad. Germany's first match of the European Championship is against Poland in Klagenfurt on June 8.