Ursula Errington, Bangkok

While foreign aid and people are struggling to get in to Burma to assist in the aftermath of the cyclone, others are relieved to have left the country.

One group of teachers from Canada, America, the UK and South Africa, told Sky News they initially felt it was morally wrong to leave the country and that they offered to stay and help.

That offer was rejected by aid agencies inside Burma. They were warned that to get involved "could get them into trouble" with the government.

British teacher Christine Sandaver was in Rangoon when the cyclone hit.

"It was terrifying" she said, "It was very windy to start with and it just built and built. I thought a branch was going to come through the roof at any moment. I was so terrified, I couldn't bring myself to look out of the window. Windows were blown in and there was glass flying everywhere."

Although the cyclone's approach was forecast on TV weather reports for the region, most Burmese people did not know it was coming.

"The government could have done a lot more to warn people," said South African Riaan O'Brien, who flew out of Burma on Saturday. "There are trucks and trucks of military on the streets so they could have spread the information, but they didn't."

One difficulty is that many rural villages don't speak Burmese, they speak their own local dialect so unless the village chief has information to disseminate, no-one knows about it.

After the 14-hour storm abated locals were on the streets trying to clear up - knowing they must take matters into their own hands. "They were using kitchen knives, utensils, anything sharp to cut through fallen trees," said Christine, "even though they knew the military have the equipment to do it."

American Ashley Ferranti, who'd been teaching English in Mandalay, about 370 miles from Rangoon said: "In the worst-hit areas people are frustrated because they know people want to help, that people are trying to get aid in and that the government hasn't been letting it through."

In other areas the teachers describe a lack of understanding about the scale of the damage and the loss of life.

Csilla Csisza wanted to encourage her students at a private school in Mandalay to raise funds. "Their first reaction was 'Why? the government will take care of it'."

Now able to enjoy a hot shower and a night out in Bangkok this group say they feel sad about what they have left behind in a country they all say they would love to return to one day.

One said:  "It's a relief to be out of Burma. But it's OK for us, we can leave. They can't."

By Alistair Bunkall, Sky News reporter

Election counts – be they general, local or mayoral – are fascinating events to cover as a journalist.

For many, many hours, the count floor is a flurry of furious action and yet there is relatively little for us to report on.

Then when the final results are tallied up and verified - its action stations!

The Mayoral count was unusual in so much that it started at 8.30 on the morning following polling day; normally counts take place over night, almost as soon as the polls shut.

Many people believe the delayed count detracts from the immediacy of an election - others regard the timing as being far more civilised!

Whilst the counting is going on, I spend my time speaking to party activists, trying to get a feel for the mood in the various camps. They can have a tendency for talking a good game, all convinced their guys will win - but this year was different.

Labour party members were pretty deflated and glum after a torrid night around the country. The Tories tails were up and wagging hard.

At Alexandra Palace we got the first declarations around 9pm, the last ones came in just before midnight (who says this electronic counting system is quicker?!).

For the hacks it’s a long and at times frustrating day, but for those with a vested interest it must be even more so.

It’s a great reminder to us, just how much passion and dedication there is in local politics.

By Catherine Jacob, Sky News environment correspondent

The queue of people snaked down the road past Euston Station, around a thousand of them in all. There was definite anticipation in the air. But it wasn't a rock concert or a film premiere they were waiting for. No, perhaps surprisingly, they were all there for a debate on the government's forthcoming Climate Change Bill.

Topping the bill: the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, the Conservative Environment Spokeman, Peter Ainsworth and the Liberal Democrat's man on all things green, Steve Webb: by anyone's standards, not the most glamorous line up. All three were given a strict limit of ten minutes to emit their views on climate change and the debate was kicked off provocatively by green hero and outgoing Friends of the Earth Director, Tony Juniper.

To the chagrin of environmentalists the country over, the draft Climate Change Bill currently sets out a target for a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 and does not include aviation and shipping emissions. Tony reminded the audience that the science is now clear, climate change is happening quicker than anyone expected and he called on Hilary Benn to strengthen the bill:

"There is no point in setting the direction later. We need a clear signal from the beginning: 80% by 2050."

Next up, the Environment Secretary himself, who as always was big on enthusiasm about how everyone needs to act together to save the planet. But if the crowd was hoping for a firm commitment to an 80% CO2 reduction target in the Climate Change Bill, they didn't get it.

Mr Benn said: "I know many of you would like to see a higher target beyond 60%. That is why we have asked the Climate Change Committee whether the target should be changed. If the Government didn't think the target needed strengthening, why would we ask the committee to look at it? But you need a proper process."

Unsurprisingly, that didn't go down well with the largely environmentalist audience.

The Conservative spokesman also stopped short of calling for an 80% emissions reduction target, though Peter Ainsworth did provoke a rousing round of applause with his criticism of the government's performance on the environment.

He said: "The real test of this bill will be whether it's going to change the face of government and whether never again will we have grand words on climate change as the government gives the go ahead for a third Heathrow runway, or the first coal-fired power station to be built for thirty years or a renewable fuel obligation that will sacrifice the orang-utan in the name of the environment."

So, the Lib Dems' Steve Webb had a hard act to follow, but with a few jokes and some tough talk on their environment policies, he seemed largely to win the audience over. His is the only party to call publicly for an 80 percent reduction target to be inserted into the Climate Bill right now.

He said: "Hilary Benn's department is a minnow among wolves. He may not want a third runway at Heathrow or a new coal-fired power station, but he can't stop it. Defra - responsible for the biggest problem we have as a planet - is a piddling department which is broke. That's the brutal reality of where we're at."

After the speeches, the questions from the audience were largely good natured, though a few got some of the panel a little hot under the collar. The thorny subject of staunch Tory Nigel Lawson's new book, for example, and the delay in a new law banning plastic bags. Among the many subjects covered were recycling, feed-in tariffs and the London mayoral elections, to name but a few. Much hot air was spouted from all three politicians.

Tony Juniper received perhaps the biggest applause of the evening when he suggested the government should take the same approach to adverts for gas-guzzling cars as they did with tobacco and stick a big "This car could be bad for your planet" sign on the side of every Band G. I don't think he was serious.

So, a good natured debate was certainly had by all, but if the audience were hoping the debate might prompt an immediate public commitment to an even stronger climate bill, they went home disappointed.

By Peter Sharp, Sky News China correspondent

Supermarkets seldom feature large in international politics but the French Carrefour chain was an exception this weekend.

It found itself in the unlikely position of a lightning rod for protest in half a dozen cities across China.

Anti-western sentiment, fanned furiously by the state-run media, saw thousands of demonstrators protesting outside its stores.

Foreigners are not too popular on the streets of Beijing these days but it is the French that are bearing the brunt of this angry and rising tide of nationalism.

The pictures of a young disabled Chinese athlete in her wheelchair struggling to maintain a grip on the Olympic torch while grappling with a Pro-Tibet demonstrator on the streets of Paris turned little Jin Jing into a national heroine.

And also set the wheels spinning down at China Central Television (CCTV).

Earlier in the week CNN did not help much. One of its commentators in Atlanta described the Chinese as "a bunch of goons and thugs".

He later explained that he was referring to China's leaders and not the Chinese people. So that's alright then…

You could practically see the steam rising from the Foreign Ministry building.

CNN was already in the China doghouse for its coverage of the demonstrations in Tibet. Now it became China's international media whipping boy.

"Shut up CNN" t-shirts went on sale online.

You could go to the Chinese web site www.anti-cnn.com and view a catalogue of videos lambasting not just CNN but the whole of the western media.

Sloppy reporting strengthened China's case.

Pictures of troops beating six shades of you know what out of saffron-robed monks made for powerful images around the world but these were police in Kathmandu not Lhasa and the monks were in Nepal not in Tibet.

Down at the propaganda factory, Chinese news mandarins found themselves in a win-win position: banning foreign media from the streets of Lhasa last month and then accusing the same news organisations of biased coverage the next.

The pro-nationalism/anti-western media card is an easy one to play in a country where there is only one version of events.

Rather than blank out the scenes of disruption along the 85,000 mile route of the "sacred flame", CCTV spun it.

The sustained protest was described on China TV as "isolated incidents by a handful of pro-Tibet sympathisers".

Worldwide protest over a range of issues is seen not just as anti-China but anti-Chinese.

It has been said there is no public opinion in China just public sentiment and, with the help of a highly-focused and relentless state media, that sentiment is now being directed against the west.

As a Beijing taxi driver told our producer Eve: "The only thing that unites the Chinese is when foreigners attack us."

But even the dark suits in the politburo will have to concede it has all been an unmitigated public relations disaster.

At a time when Beijing should be welcoming the world to the coming Games (slogan: One World One Dream), China is snarling in the corner with its image in shreds, according to one commentator.

It will now have to work hard to ensure the enduring image of the Beijing Olympic Games will be a photograph taken of an athlete in the Birds Nest stadium and not protestors on the streets of London, Lhasa or worse on the Olympic winners' podium itself.

Catherine Jacob
Environment correspondent

Far be it from anyone to suggest, in these dying days of his administration, that President Bush might be a little desperate to rescue his legacy on climate change, but environmentalists across the world could be forgiven for questioning George W's reasons for making a keynote speech on the subject on Wednesday.

Nonetheless, whatever his motives, the President appeared to have taken a little step in the right direction, with the highlight of his speech, a call for a halt in US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

Unfortunately, he seemed to lack any specific solutions as to how to go about it, or indeed any firm figures at all.

He spoke of the importance of new technologies, of nuclear power, renewable energy and of course, biofuels (America's new green gold).

However, crucially, he failed to cite any specific percentages by which he hoped to cut the emissions of the world's second biggest green house gas emitter by 2025.

Without targets, arguably, emissions are unlikely to fall far. And if anyone was hoping for a commitment to lead the world in a post Kyoto agreement, when it expires in 2012, those hopes were, unsurprisingly, in vain.

Typically dismissive of Kyoto, President Bush gave numerous plugs to this weekend's Major Economies meeting being held in Paris.

That's a group of 16 of the world's biggest emitters - China and India included - which the US decided to set up, some would claim, to rival Kyoto.

The United States, of course, remains the only developed country not to have siged up to the Protocol.

On the thorny subject of binding emissions - which caused so much angst at the UN's Bali climate change conference in December - President Bush reiterated that he was was willing to include the United States in a binding international agreement, just as long as their fellow major economies were also willing to do so.

In other words, if China and India (which are considered to be developing nations under Kyoto) do not sign up to binding targets, the US won't either. So there.

The content of the speech is unlikely to impress the environmental lobby and other nations, who have already declared binding emissions reductions targets, are probably not particularly thrilled at the President's attempt to "urge" other countries to follow America's example and develop personal plans to cut their own CO2 footprints.

His proposals also fall far short of those of the three Presidential candidates, all of whom support a cap and trade emissions system similar to the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme. But apparently George hasn't ruled that out altogether.

He ended his speech with a flourish, saying he was confident that his country's policies on climate change and new technologies will "continue to amaze the world".

Judging by his past record on the environment, there's surely little doubt of that.

By Sky News Editor James Jordan

I've been covering the trans-Atlantic plane bomb plot at Woolwich Crown Court on and off for the past 10 days - but I have yet to see the inside of the courtroom.

It's not because I'm skulking around outside enjoying the fresh south east London air, it's because I've been sent to the annexe.

Not some terrible punishment chamber but a prefab building set up for the hoards of media from around the world unable to fit inside courtroom three.

Sky has got three passes one for the actual court, two for the annexe.

And because it's my job to co-ordinate the lives and talk to the newsdesk and because I need to nip in and out of the building, it's the beautifully appointed annexe for me.

Set outside the actual court building but still within the imposing 8ft-high fence, the annexe comprises two prefab buildings pushed together.

At the front are six giant TV screens relaying the scene from inside the court and displaying evidence.

Gazing up at these are the journalists from every type of media and from every corner of the world.

Well, that's not quite true anymore.

Now that the opening of the trail is over and we are hearing the evidence in minute detail, the numbers of reporters down here has dropped off dramatically.

I'm here with three other reporters in a room designed to hold about 70 people.

The guard whose job it is to take our mobile phones off us and generally keep order in the annexe has gone from run-off-his-feet to somewhat underemployed.

It's easy with the press room so empty to forget why we're here.

But when you remember the eight men sitting in the dock are accused of plotting to blow up passenger jets causing the deaths of thousands the stark details of the prosecution case really hit home.

The trial continues and all the men deny the charges.

My only hope is that over the next few months I might actually get into court to see the drama unfolding with my own eyes.

By Sky News China correspondent Peter Sharp

Wow - I can report that Beijing's Olympic Stadium does not fail to impress.

From tier three, nearly 200ft above the track, you can look down and across one of the biggest and most spectacular sporting stadiums in the world.

The Bird's Nest is a fiendishly complex tangle of brutal steel beams that swoop and loop but somehow, even in Beijing's ubiquitous smoggy skies, manage to retain both grace and a kind of beauty.

More than an icon and not just a national stadium, the Bird's Nest has already become the symbol of these games even before they have begun.

Around 41,000 tonnes of steel were used to build the outer nest. It measures 320 metres by 297 metres and from the inside resembles a vast red concrete bowl. It is almost circular, providing excellent views from every tier. Behind its girded exterior nestling in the nest are shops, bars restaurants and meeting places.

A small army of migrant workers toiled for four years to build the stadium At times there were more than 7,000 labourers on site. Their average pay was just £3 a day.

It was the Chinese who dubbed it the Bird's Nest on the day its design was unveiled in 2003. It's the creation of Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron working with the British design company Arup. The partnership has achieved design standards that the London Games will struggle to match.

Adjoining the Bird's Nest is the Cube.

Beijing's National Aquatic Centre is a £50m steel and concrete box surrounded in sheets of ETFE, a lightweight substitute for glass. It is the same material used to clad the domes of the Eden Centre in Cornwall. At night it is lit up and looks like blue coloured soap bubbles. Inside there is seating for 17,000 people. Swimming wunderkind Tom Daley competed at the pool in February and said it was the most amazing venue he had ever seen.

Both buildings have one thing in common. They were both completed on time and in budget. And they couldn't really have been built anywhere else.

China's huge supply of cheap labour and building development industries, unfettered by planning permissions and residents' concerns, give the country's mammoth construction industry an edge and a commercial advantage found nowhere else in the world. Only in China could you build these Olympic masterpieces with this sort of money and in this timescale.

But to get back to the Bird' s Nest, if I have to nit pick, the seats are a disappointment. They are too low, too small and they are murder your back. But hopefully the rest of this Bird's Nest experience, and of course the Games themselves, will take your mind off your aching back.

By a writer inside Zimbabwe who wishes to remain anonymous

Living in Harare is interesting. You are never entirely sure what is going to happen.

From the daily grind of going to shop after shop for basic food stuffs, to lining up for hours for fuel or to get money from the cashpoint, people are never sure what and when things will be available and for how long.

This has led to panic shopping. Right now my cupboard is full of enough ‘Handy Andy’ and baked beans to clean the Houses of Parliament from top to bottom and keep my son happy for the next 12 months.

This is the way it is in Zimbabwe and has been for a while now. There is very little you can rely on except for the stoical patience of your average Zimbabwean to wait in line for whatever item is in short supply right now.

The complete collapse of the economy here has also led to a massive brain drain of professionals and semi professionals, mostly to South Africa and the UK. The saying still circulates that there are more trained Zimbabwean nurses in Manchester than in Harare. The UK and South Africa may need these nurses to support the West’s ailing and ageing population, but what’s left for the young here in Zimbabwe?

In the rural areas where we work, people have to walk on average at least 30km to get to their nearest clinic. Try this in a place with no proper roads, and no fuel available even if there was some kind of transport, and it’s no wonder people don’t even attempt it.

They may try instead with a local traditional healer, who might deal out a combination of herbs and curses to cure malaria, pneumonia or HIV. But the fact that one in ten children will die here before they reach the age of five shows the stark reality of the results.

Nor is it any easier in the cities. Most hospitals demand a minimum of 10m Zimbabwean dollars just to get seen. Yet 80% of people here are unemployed and are scrabbling to afford the very basics – cooking oil, salt, bread when it’s available. Being asked to buy your own drip so you can get treated is just not an option for most people.

The life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is now 34, the lowest in the world. Most of my friends back home have just had their first baby by the time they reach that age.

One of our social workers was telling me about Yemurai, a young girl of 14 who we are supporting. She lost both her parents to AIDS a few years ago, and has since been caring for her sick grandmother, clearing up vomit, bathing her and exercising her limbs, while looking after her younger brother and trying to keep the house clean. The stress many children here in Zimbabwe are suffering is enormous.

As soon as there’s a resolution to these elections, whoever is in power, there’s got to be a major push to help rebuild this country’s health system and to draw back many of the qualified minds who have been forced to earn a living elsewhere. Yemurai, like many other children in Zimbabwe, deserve this stability and hope for the future.

By Sky News undercover reporter in Harare

Every day this week the streets of Harare have been bustling with people. Most are queuing to withdraw money but wherever there is food or fuel there is a queue. The mood in Zimbabwe’s capitol is muted. No Rose revolution here, at least not yet. Queuing for four hours in the heat of the day for money that is almost worthless would sap anyone’s will.

Most people who want change have lost any faith in the system. Many fear change because they know they will pay a heavy price for it. There is a sense of impending violence in the background that is only heightened by the veneer of calm. Robert Mugabe himself has threatened blood on the streets if he is not reinstated as president and he is a man of his word. So far, though, he has only really threatened the expected clampdown. Riot police flood the streets and are gone the next day. A few foreign journalists are arrested and everyone scatters. Mugabe’s thugs start to roam the countryside to remind everyone of the violence they are capable of.

The lack of information here doesn’t help. Rumour becomes news as there is little else to go on. Intentionally or not, it’s a master-stroke from Mugabe. With nothing to rally around, people can only expect the worst, and have no choice but to try and get on with their lives as best they can. With each day that passes, the prospect of change becomes more unlikely.

It is hard to understand why the few who still have a job bother to show up. The hyper-inflation here means salaries become worthless much more quickly than they can be renegotiated. If they are not working they are generally waiting for something to spend their money on while they can afford it.

Those with enough money however, can still spend it. A local restaurant I went to was heaving. The food was pretty good and at 400 million Zimbabwean dollars, the chicken and chips was pretty good value too.

The scale of the inflation takes a bit of getting used to. As we left the restaurant I asked my driver how much I should tip the parking attendant. "Fifty should do it," he told me. Rummaging through the thick wad in my hand I pulled out a note with a lot of zeros on it. "Not 50,000," he said despairingly. "That is worthless. I meant 50 million." A far cry from the days when one Zimbabwean dollar was worth three US dollars.

Sky News China correspondent Peter Sharp looks back to his days as a young radio reporter when he was sent to cover the War in Rhodesia in 1978.

Rhodesia had two years left before it was consigned to history when I arrived in Salisbury in the autumn of 1978. But you would never have guessed.

The statue of Cecil Rhodes - the founder of Rhodesia - looked out confidently across Cecil Square taking in a spotless city of manicured lawns and bright blooming purple jacaranda trees. There was a smell of mown grass in the air and on the streets the largest collection of vintage cars you could imagine.

Rhodesia had declared independence 13 years earlier and the clapped old Morris Minors and Humber Super Snipes were a sign of the economic sanctions slapped on Ian Smith's rebel state when the colony split with Britain in '65.

In the bush the guerrilla war was growing in intensity but apart from the men in camouflage and the spider-like mine-proofed vehicles on the streets you wouldn't have known that either.

This was Surrey with a lunatic fringe on top. And I was joining one of the most heavily armed journalistic communities in the world. Here everyone carried a "weapon". Guerrilla attacks were increasingly common on roads outside the capital. And white farmers, a frequent target of attack ,wouldn't allow visitors unless they were armed.

Don, a reporter with the Argus Africa group, preferred a sawn off shotgun. He called it the "Argus Enforcer". One British TV crew had a sten gun and a Star pistol. And most journalists stumped up the £40 for a locally manufactured machine pistol called the "Rho Gun".

All guns were checked in at reception at the Meikles Hotel. Before gathering for a beer at the Prospectors Bar.

The locals hated us. The troopies despised us. "If it wasn't for you blokes we would have solved our problems 13 years ago."

The war itself was impossible to cover. Only one journalist had ever been allowed out on "ops" with the Rhodesian Security Forces. Lord Richard Cecil, a freelance British TV reporter, was the son of the Marquess of Salisbury who had close links to the government in Salisbury. No surprise there. Richard had impeccable credentials but very bad luck. He was shot dead by a ZANLA guerrilla on one of his first assignments.

So with frontline coverage of the bush war impossible, journalists hunkered down in Salisbury with occasional forays up to Bulawayo, Victoria Falls or Kariba. Compared with Angola or Mozambique, left ravaged by the departing Portuguese colonists, Rhodesia was Switzerland. A place of prosperity. Although most of the country's black majority population was confined to mainly barren tribal trust lands.

And the rich agricultural lands were owned by generations of white farmers. They produced enough food to feed the region. Tourism and tobacco earned valuable hard currency.

This was what Mugabe inherited on April 2, 1980.

The journalists gathered at Rufaro Stadium that night to watch Prince Charles, the Governor Lord Soames and Robert Mugabe share an uncomfortable platform as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. The body language was hysterical

Earlier the police had used tear gas to disperse thousands of local township residents trying to break in to the stadium to watch Bob Marley and the Wailers at their last concert.

Mugabe, Soames and the Prince of Wales were all in tears as the gas drifted invisibly across the rows filled with the great and the good.

Out in the white suburbs that night they were packing. One 60-year-old woman had her entire belongings loaded aboard a moving van.

"I'm giving Mugabe 48 hours to convince me to stay," she said.

Remarkably, Mugabe did exactly that in a speech of reconciliation aimed at the white community.

My friend unpacked the van.

But that was all a long time ago.