tonight on "worldfus" -- in asia, fraic rescue efrts are unr way following a destating typhoon that stru both china and taiwan. hundreds a missing after the worst floodi in half a century. in myanmar, the lo trial in noble peaceaureate aung san suu kyi is oveand the verdict is guilty. we'll tell youhe punishment and have reaction. >>secretary of state clinton says those behind rampt sexual vience in congo must be tonight,ur "signature story" th focuses on rape as a weapon of war. and imate change is forcing farmers the world ov to consider owing crops they've ver grown before. which explains why ty're going banas in nepal. from the world's leading porters and analysts, here i what's hpening from around the world. this is "worldfocus."

made possle, in part,by the followinfunders -- good evening. i'm martin savidge. for several now par of asia have been stggling with theevastating effec of a typhn that sept through over the weekend, leaving ain at least 70 peopleead and perhaps manyore than that. typhoon rakot produced as much as 80 inchesf rain in taiwan and also swept through parts of china, where million a a half people re evacted and 10,000 homes destroyed. thiswas the screen tod in taiw, which is still dealing with its worst floodinin half a centur hundreds of people have now en rescued but ma more have still t been located. for toght's "lead focus" on the typhoon and s aftermath we dr on our partners, starting th this report from steve ch of al jazeera enish. >> reporter: ting advantage of break in weather, emergency

teams at first lightere once again rborne. one after another licopters brought in those thecould find. having endured days cold and in, many of the elderlneeded to be carried toaiting ambulances.chung litin and his dog were rescued from iao lin ville, where it's feared a massive mudsli has buried hundreds. "we've been trapd for four days," chung sai "for so long we didn'know if anyone was ming for us." >> reporter: with the ly road into hsiao lin and sever other remote villages ill washed out,escue efforts have been painfullslowed. dical teams trying to get in on t ground have been forced to wait. wee been here hours now and so far escavators have madeittle no progress in clearing the road. it ri mains very mh a liquid rove o mudand the cnstant rain is makingatters worse.

we'rnot getting through this engineer tells us. it may still take days. anso the government's answer, send soldiers in bair. thfirst group touched down in hsiao lin to scene of utter devastation. currently the tire village is buri says taiwan's deputy minister of defense, and whave t even started to look for t missing from nghboring villages. by late afternoon, hdreds of survivors habeen airlifted out of t region. but thousands re remain unaccoted for. at a neay high school, relaves of those missing waited to hearals. ese sisters last heard from their pants saturday. ey told us hsiao lin village was a dister and that they were going to be ecuated, then the phone ed. authorits say it will be days before the death toll from phoon morakot is known. r now it is still very much rescue mission in the dark mountains.

steve chao, alazeera, huo shan kou, taiwan > japan is recovering tonigh from verstrong earthquake that hit the central rt of the country. is is how it looked as it was recorded by closed circuit telesion caeras. as the quake a 6.5 magnitude struck. rockintokyo and nearby areas. police said one woman s killed by falli debris and more than a hundred peop were injured. that quake forcethe temporary shutdownf trains and two nuclear reacto for safety checks. inyanmar today, the pro-decracy dissident aung san suu kyii was cvicted of violating her house arre and will he to serve more time. the military junta that ru the soutast asian country also known as burma was widel criticized after today's vdict against the noble ace laureate. as andrew thomas of itn tes us, today's seence removes us, today's sentence roves

aung san suu kyi from the political scene until after elections ne year. reporter: she has spent 14 the past 20 ars in detention. today aung san suu kyi learned that will stretcby at least 18 month burma's democracy ghter guilty of aowing an american tourist into her home after had swum ross this lake to visit her. state television announcedhe sentce early this morning as if it were cpassionate. three ars of hard labor reduced immediately 18 months of further house arrt. the american who was swam to suu kyi given seven yrs for meeting her, breing immigratn rules and swimming with these homemade finsn a nonswimming ea. security was tight arod the yang prison where suu kyi was being held. >> burma's people rned not to caustrouble. preverdict ptest abroad rather than on home territory.

>> reporter: post verdt condnation came from around the world. a statemenfrom the prime minister on holiday in t lake district saying heas "saddened and gry" after what he called a "sham" trial. crucially, today's vdict will keep suu kyi from campaigning in nt year's electi. she won the last one, backn 1990, but the litary junta prevented her nld pay from ever takg power. >> they wanted to silen s suu kyi in the period of the coming rigged election plan because this election will bring a constituti -- itwill lelize the military rule in burma. >> reporter: t europeannion has called for tougher sanions against burm buthose are unlikely to make much difference. the regime tay explaining its "compaionate" decision to have suu kyi sentenced as wh it calls oad to democracy" and next years elections "demracy" in burma aning "convenient imprisonment" on "trumped up charges." >> andrew thomasf itn.

afghanistan, military officials said today tt three more amecans have been killed in separate insus in recent ds. so far this month at least7 foign troops including 18 americans have died in ghanistan. "the wall stet journal" repos today that the afghan and u.s. govnments are borrowing a tactic thaworked in the w in iraq. enlisting local tribal fhters to fht the militants. it says, "inoming days, offials will ask tribal shuras, or councils,n participating ovinces to organize armed milias to guard polling places, roadand public gathering spaces. officials hope that the milias wi provide an additional layer of security to suppo the new amican strategy of trying to bett protect afghan civilians from taliban violence. members ofhe militias will be alwed to use their own ak-47s and other weapon but they won't reive arms, ammunition or uniforms om the government."

auorities in kuwait toay say they may have prevented a terrorist attack on the in american milary base in that peran gulf country. they said they had aested six memberof an al qaeda-linked group who had confessed out plans to bomthe camp and the hequarters of kuwait's security agey. ciintended to load truck intended to load truck with fertizer, chemicals and gas cylinders and ram itnto the heavily arded camp. sectary of state hillary clinton spent a second day toy in the demratic republic of congo. a country with vast tural reurces that for years has been plagued by civil war d sexual violence, an issue that we'll be takin an exnsive view tonig. today, clion visited a clinic and a large regee camp in the stern town of goma, where sh pledged $17 milln to deal with seal abuse. yesterday, s spoke about the issue at a university of

kinshassa. >> i hope that here the drc there will be a ncerted effort to demand justice for womewho are violeny attacked and to make sure that their attkers are punishednd i hope that studentsill take the lead in is to speak out because thes e fundamental human rights. on tonight'sblogwatch," we found a letter to clton on what she wou see in congo from laura, an erican researcher who s traveled frequently to congo. you will meet little gir o've been gang raped by soldiers a who can no longer talk or feed themsves. you'll see mothers and their children who live a kind of poverty th does not compare with wt you see in kenya or soh africa or ghana orny of the places you've previous visited in theontinent. remind youelf that this is the no in eastern congo.

wh has happened to the few people you'll meetn auick tour a not expecting, indeed, the only differee between th and the 5 million congolese we've di since 1998 is that soone is helping them. these are people whoave seen the worst things that human beings c do to one another. you wi not be the same after hearing their stories. that's a descripon, but we now want tshow you what it's like in congo for some of ose affected by xual violence in that country. nar weturn to a "signature story" tt we first bught to you lateast year with michael cavanah, who traveled tcongo for "worldcus" with the help of the pulitzer center on csis reporting. >> rorter: 58-year-old georgi lived in a camp. nine nths agoeorgina was gathering firein the forest when the soldiers came. >> transtor: when i was on my way to get firewood i met ree men. on i put the wood on my back they grabbed me.

en they threw me on t ground and they slept with me. one was going in. another was going ou anher was going in. i left that ace screaming. >> reporter: georgina ran back tohe camp wher she was ling with her husnd. >> translar: when i got home, i told husband. he sai he di't want me anymore. he said, soany men have slept with you. i cannot seep with y now he rejected me. left me. >> reporte many men in congo find it humiating to have eir wives raped. and they worry about diseases like hiv. so women are often victimized doubly. first byheir rapist and then by husbands who rejt them. >> it's really been women and gis who have paid t price and they're the direct correlation between ongoing fighting and increased nbers of rape. rape is beg used as a weapon of war in eastn congo. >>eporter: armed groupsse rape t tear apt falies and weaken communities that migh oppose them. this was the case of georgina and her hband of33 years.

georgi lives alone in her hut. her husband andres in the sam displaced rson's camp 2 yards away. >> transtor: we had a home, a autiful family, food. it was a beautiful life. but when i learned she'd been raped as a man ofonor i think not stay wh her. my friends mocked me. i had to leave her. i thought she'd have disee. now wn i seeer in the camp, i say, "hello, how are yo," that all. >> reporter: georgina's ory is far from uommon in konga after morehan a decadof condplikt. some eimate hundreds of thousands of women have been praipd rs synergy r werjs an ornization that offers counseling, health carend protectionor victims and their chdren. among the v are infant like gabrielle whoas born of pe. >> translato this is our 559th

child. her actualother was a sex slave for four months with an armed group. she entually escaped andhe was pregnanthen she came here. >> reporter: here in theack of hospital in go, justine houses women whouffer from severe, mtal and physal trauma because of rape. women spend nths or eveyears here getti treatment. translator: the women here learn skills. they learn to sey. they sey handbags and clothes so they can make a living and whe they're he they can tal about problems whichlso helps them ovcome their trauma jornd the cities and towns around ngo ere are advertisements educating peop about sexual olence. th one wns that rapists wil serve0 years inprison but that almost never happens. war has crippled theustice system. >> tnslator: since 2003 we've dealthith 8,000 cases ofrape. 280 women ve pressedharge flps have been only 68 court rulings so far. women don't trust e justice system >> reporter: justine counsels

15-year-old. she was raped by her neighr. >> tnslator: after a few weeks i was told the man w rapedme was no lonr in pris. the courts arecorrupt. i thinkhe gave them money. >> reporter: now the m is threatening her and her family. >> wn people know th can get away with muer or rpe or theft or whatever the abuse seems to be, then th will do that, ani think because we have seen that rape has become the nowhere if etern cong not onlyo we see aed groups commit rape, we also se increase the cases ofivilians commitng rape. >> reporter: ands fighting ntinues more women like her d georgina are vulnerable. without her husban to help support her, georgina struggle to make ends meet. she brings bags and beer for her displaced people in the camp. >> translator: i alws think that maybe if i had not gne into the fore test thaday to get firewood i wouldn't have these problems. we had a beautiful fe. we had chickens and piece of land. husband was a good man no one could separate us.

i sti love him. ife cameack i wouldn't ffer so much. i've askedhem to forgive me. >> reporter: for "wldfocus," m michael cavanaugh ieastern congo. th conflict in congo has long histo and is often rerred to as a humanitarian disaster for more onhe situation the, we turn to severinne, an sistant professo of political science herin new york at baard college and thor of "the trouble with congo." >> hi, how are you? >> what is happeningis basicalla major -- that has been going ongoing for the past years and it is the deadliest conflictsince world war ii. it is also the laest ongoing humatarian crisis in the rld. and the fightinginvolved many

different militias. many differe foreign armed groups. so wt the u.s. can d about if is basally support the peace process so tt finally we can end the fighting in easern congo. >> i wonderin does secretary oftate hillary clinton have morepresence, more power to speak on this issue? because she a woman. and when she spes out against the use of rap as a weap of war, w's your mssage ceived? >> i thnk that she has more power just becau she ishe representative of the united states and, therefore, she has so much weightn the political scene. i don'think that being a woman or just calling t for an end to sexl violence means so much. i think whateally means something would be concrete tion to end sexual violence in the cngo. so mostorceful action and support the congole government andn support of all of the u.n. and nongovemental agcies that are fighting against sexl violence in the congo.

>> how is her messag thoug going to be reived by the govements that are inhat regi and also by tse that artaking part of the violence? >> i thi they're going tsay, oh, yes, we're not supportg xual vionce. wee actually telng our soldiers and telling our commanders to end sexu violence. an there is aero tolerance licy against sexual olence. >> but ithat true? >> unfortunately not. most of e people w are responsible for sexu violence are not bei prosecuted so we need much tougher action on the part ofll of the leaders and all of th commanders to end sexual vi olen violce. >> reporter:everine, we have to stop there. thank you very much, martin and you can nd our extended coverage of therisis in congoincluding more videos and background on thwar at rldfocus.org. another subjt we're going

to lk at extensively at tonight, climate chae. the u.n. sretary-general ban ki-moon describethe problem yesterday as "simply the grtest collective challenge we face as a human mily." he declared that t world "has less than ten years to halt e rise in greenhse gas emissions we are to avoid catastrophi coequences for people and the planet." ban urd world leaders to reach an agreement olimiting carbon issions when themeet at a u.n. cmate conference in copenhagen this coming decber. alrey, of course, the consequences are being felt d seen. rising temperares from global warming are foing changes in how pele live and work. tonight, we' going to bring yothe first of three reports th week on the global environment produced bour new rtner, the u.n.'s irin films and its enronment program, unep. in thifirst story, we take you to nepal, in sou asia, where climate chan has altered the lives of those whoepend on the lando get by. >eporter: in the hillsf southern nepal changes afoot. the cropthat are tritionally

grown here, like rice, corn and by t, havbeen hard hit irregur rainfall ptterns and over the course the last decadeheir cultivation ve become increasingly difficult. leadingsome farmersto to think the unthinkabl in a cntry where rice enjoys almost god-like status ging up its cultivatn is not an easy decision on make. but for 24-year, hardship leftim no choice. reporter: so he learned how to grow bananas instd. a decion that was not popular with his father.

[ speaking in native tone ] >> reporter: and hisopposition crumbled, the day his wife came ck from market, having sold thebanana crop for doubly the amount thathey're get for ce. annow the whole family's committed to growingananas.

works for the agency, practical action, who run crop bstitution programs like th one. but it is he hielf ctions climate ange will rain a seous challenge for the people of nepal. >> ifhe climate woens and thent may not be able to ovide. and then ain they have to swit into other crops. and erefore theyhave to adapt to the climate scenio, consequences. they cannot at this time impa the climatehange and then they ll lostthe crop. imagine 's situation that do or die. either you adapt oyou will die. for more on climate chge and hothe world is responding we invited bo lim to jn us. ms. lim is the speci climate change adviser at the uned nations developmt program. welcome to the show. >> pleased to be here. >> as weust reported there,

lack orainfall in nepal is forcing fmers to make new chces in the crops that they grow. and i'm woering, are we seeing this elsewhere in t world? >> oh, yes, many plaes in the rld. are being aected in the same y. we're seeing crops switching in e anzes in per afri, switching fm -- to rice. so it's a really, really exxon impact that we're sing all over the world. >> probably amerins don't think of nepal as being impacted. we of more larger country, more developed coutries. and y as you justutlined there e a numberof nations perhaps we don't think about. >> right. that are suffering or ting to come up wh mu ways to grow crops to feed their pple. gi us examples of how they're struggling wh this. >> well,for example, nepal and bhut and countries which are clos to glaciers sufair lot from glacial retreat. and whas happening in tho regions is that the glacia lakes are building up as e glaciers fill the lakes more and moreo the point where ty

just burst and create vastating damage further downstream. so these are really quite tremenus disaster >> and th's a specific disaster. how do you deal withsomething like that? >> well, in that ki of example what you have to is tackle it from a loof different ways. oneay is to buildin more early warning systems, gets the pele better repared for disasters whh will happen more freqntly, recate people, lower lakes, you kow a number of different ings. >> what cathe united nations actually do when it comes to the issue climate change >> oh many different things. we're basically supporting countries to do assessmentsof wh theirriorities are how they can ma decisions by their velopment this is future. for example, in some countries where they gro cotton. cotton in a ry, ver water-inteive crop and the price of cotton is dropng. so doesn'takence. a climate-cstrained world to continue to ovide subsidies to

cotton owers. or into a differentindustry. so there's the kindf kind of choices counies will have to make. >> about 30 secondleft. meant larger developing countries recently refused limit e emison of greenhouse gasses that they produce. so how can we cange that kind of thinking? >> well, we're going to have to try to bridge a gap. and this is where the united natis can help. we can denitely help t to encourage countri, see how we can support them to ilement and transition to low carbon economs, clite resilient development patents and it's very imptant in copenhagen, the uoming climate conference in december, to se the deal. >> bolim, thank you vy much for joing us today. >> you'rweome. you've heard us descri the use of twitt quite a bit arnd here in the last several months. that's theicroblogging service

that let's use post short text items on mim characters for ares to rea twitter gained added pronence during theecent wave of prests in iran. but twter goes far beyond sharing newsnd we found a fascinating exame of that today. britain's royal opera hous which traces i origins to 1732, is commissioning what appearto be the world's first user-generated, twittebased era. it'snvited users to submit their lyricssome of which will be selected and turned into storyline and seto some familiar opera tunes. one example, talk to the bir without uttering a word, by singing in birdson you'll always bheard. some 300 tweets as they're call have already been suitted. ll the opera be a comedy or tragedy? will it be the next ai or laraviata? that wl be up to you and your fellow tweeters. you' find more on our website

at worldfocus.org. and th's it for us on this tuesday evening. i'm martin savidge in new yo. as always, tha you very much r joining us. we hope to s you back here again tomorrow or anyme on the b. until th, have a good night. "worldfocus" is de po in part, by the following funders -- "worldfocus" is de po in part, by the -- captions by tac -- wwvitac.com