Burma's military rulers told foreign diplomats yesterday that more than 10,000 people had died in the devastating cyclone at the weekend, as the regime made a rare appeal for international help to bring relief to survivors. The diplomats fear a further 3,000 could be missing. The cyclone, which devastated Rangoon, the largest city, and the rice-growing Irrawaddy Delta, reached speeds of up to 120mph as it ripped through the countryside.

Biotechnology companies, who argue they could help solve the global food crisis, are hoping for a boost on Wednesday as regulators attempt to overcome the deadlock over growing genetically modified food in the European Union. With just one crop, an insect-resistant maize, approved for cultivation in the past decade and after several governments instituted GM bans in recent months, in violation of EU law, the European Commission has called for a rethink of the process.

India is considering a blanket ban on trading in food futures, highlighting growing concerns in Asia over the role of hedge funds and financial market traders in the recent surge in commodities prices. An emergency move by India to shut down its food futures market, proposed on Monday by P Chidambaram, the finance minister, would reverse measures introduced only five years ago to aid the development of India as a financial centre.

Cartoon

European Union plans to restrict chemical use by farmers in Europe could reduce harvests at a time of global food shortages, farmers, academics, regulators and pesticide makers warned yesterday. Crops such as apples and hops could no longer be grown on the continent if EU draft plans are not amended, they said. Wheat and potato yields could drop by almost a third, according to industry-sponsored research.

Japan and the European Union failed to agree on Wednesday on a "mid-term' target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but will go into the G8 talks this summer with a closely matched position that contrasts sharply with that of the US. The governments agreed that national "mid-term' emission cutting targets should be set, but Japan was unwilling to specify a year. The EU has agreed to cut its emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, and had urged Japan to agree the same. Both sides agree that emissions should be halved by 2050, in line with scientific warnings on climate change.

A generation of treatments for diseases ranging from cancer to kidney failure might be lost unless the erosion of biodiversity in sea and on land is reversed, according to the authors of a new book. Experimental treatments can be derived from chemicals made by frogs, bears and salamanders, for example, but Sustaining Life, whose lead authors, Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, are from Harvard, warns that the rapid loss of species from pollution and climate change is threatening these efforts.

China's emerging carmakers are often the butt of jokes in industry circles abroad, where they have a reputation for building shoddy cars with knocked-off designs and eccentric model names such as Cool Bear, Tiggo or Dingle. But the derision is dying down as Chinese carmakers begin to produce better-looking and higher-quality cars in a drive to capture local market share and enter foreign markets.

Plans to build a

The European Commission might again put pff a decision on whether farmers can grow more genetically modified crops when it holds a long-awaited biotech policy debate in May, officials said yesterday, Reuters reports from Brussels. After months of expectation, the Commission has finally decided on May 7 for a debate on its biotech policy, centred on what has been called the "Dimas package": after Stavros Dimas, EU environment commissioner and one-of the most GMO-wary commissioners.