First, the water level in a pond inexplicably plunged. Then, thousands of toads appeared on streets in a nearby province. Finally, just hours before China's worst earthquake in three decades, animals at a local zoo began acting strangely. As bodies are pulled from the wreckage of Monday's quake, Chinese online chat rooms and blogs are buzzing with a question: Why did n't these natural signs alert the government that a disaster was coming?

The humanitarian organisation founded by actor George Clooney and other Ocean's Thirteen stars has donated $250,000 to help children and families in Burma affected by Cyclone Nargis.

China warned the death toll from this week's earthquake could soar to 50,000 while the government issued a rare public appeal on Thursday for rescue equipment as it struggled to cope with the disaster. Rescue workers cleared roads to the epicentre in the race to find survivors.

At least 124 persons were killed in various accidents across Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday night when a duststorm, accompanied by a short spell of rain, lashed through several parts of the state, according to official sources.

Torrential tropical downpours lashed Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Friday, deepening the misery of an estimated 2.5 million destitute survivors of Cyclone Nargis and further hampering the military government's aid efforts. Despite the latest storm, which is likely to turn already damaged roads to mud in the swamp-covered region, the former Burma's ruling generals insist their relief operations are running smoothly.

The death toll from Monday's earthquake could climb as high as 50,000, China's state council said on Thursday as rescue workers continued to struggle to reach some of the worst affected areas. The number of deaths announced so far has reached 19,500 in Sichuan province, where the earthquake was centred. However, the sharp escalation in the expected death toll indicates that hopes are fading for the tens of thousands of people who are still buried under collapsed buildings.

Cyclone-hit Myanmar faces food shortages and may need to import rice if farmers in devastated areas do not get immediate help to plant a new crop, the UN food agency said on Thursday. Some 20 percent of rice fields in five declared disaster zones, including the Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, were damaged by the cyclone that killed up to 128,000 people, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

Realism comes with a hefty price tag. Iraq was supposed to have put paid to the internationalist impulse in foreign policy. The gathering outrage at the behaviour of the military junta in Burma reminds us that foreign policy, like life, is never quite so simple

The death toll from Monday's earthquake in China could reach as high as 50,000 people, the state council said last night, as rescue workers still struggled to reach some of the worst affected areas. The number of deaths announced so far rose yesterday to 19,500 in Sichuan province, the centre of the earthquake. However the sharp escalation in the expected death toll indicates that hopes are fading for the tens of thousands of people who are still buried under collapsed buildings.