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Martin Vennard | 09:01 UK time, Thursday, 30 August 2007

Good morning. Some thought my headlines were getting a bit long so I am trying to be briefer.

Officials at Virginia Tech university in the US might have saved lives if they had acted sooner after the first shootings by student Cho Seung-hui, who killed 32 people in April in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history, a has said.

The independent panel said although Cho had earlier shown signs of mental instability, the university had not intervened effectively. It said officials should have issued an alert or cancelled classes after Cho shot his first two victims.

We heard from students and other people there at the time. Perhaps we should be going back to get their reaction to the report.

Peru has made an for more tents for the 200,000 people made homeless by the devastating earthquake two weeks ago.

Aid agencies said many survivors in the Ica region were living on the streets in unhygienic conditions, and were desperately in need of basic supplies. The aid agency Medecins San Frontieres said it was as if the earthquake had struck just a day before. Perhaps we should be getting first-hand accounts of what's going on from people in the cities of Pisco and Ica.

The editor, Mark, thinks that maybe we should look at Iran today. On Tuesday President Bush warned Iran to stop supporting militants fighting against US forces in Iraq. He said he had authorised US military commanders in Iraq to confront what he called "Tehran's murderous activities."

Earlier, the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said US power in Iraq was on the verge of collapse and this would lead to "a huge vacuum" which Iran would be willing to fill.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called Iran’s nuclear ambition the world’s problem and has raised the possibility that the country could be bombed if it persists in building an atomic weapon, something Iran denies it is doing.

Perhaps today is the day to go big on Iran.

Another story Mark is keen on is Pakistan. According to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto she is close to reaching a with President Pervez Musharraf. She wants him to step down as chief of the Pakistani Army, before the presidential elections in parliament in mid-September, and drop corruption charges against her.

The deal would allow her to return from exile. Another former premier, Nawaz Sharif, who who was deposed in a coup by General Musharraf, said last week that he also plans to return from exile. Are things really changing in Pakistan?


The Reverand Bill Murdoch, an Episcopal priest in the US is so frustrated by the Episcopal Church's selection of an openly gay bishop that he is beinga bishop by the Anglican Church of Kenya today.

He is not the first priest to split with the Episcopal Church on the matter, but Rev Murdoch's brother, Brian, is also an Episcopal priest and is openly gay. Maybe we can try and talk to one or both of them in the programme.

Here is a story that our loyal listener and participant in Baghdad, Lubna, suggested we put on the blog. Palestinian girl , who turns six today, was paralysed in an Israeli missile attack on an Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip. Her grandmother, mother and older brother died in the attack.

She has been receiving treatment in an Israeli hospital, but now the Israeli Defence Ministry wants to send her to a hospital on the West Bank. Maria's father has appealed against the ministry order and Israel's Supreme Court has said she cannot be transferred until a hearing is held next month.

The Israeli hospital says she won't be moved until her well-being is assured and that the Palestinian rehabilitation centre is unable to look after her if something goes wrong.

Zambian and Spaniard Antonio Puerta are the latest to collapse and die while training or in matches. A British player, Clive Clarke, also had a narrow escape this week.

The Zambian and the Spaniard are the latest in a tragic line of young footballers, and other athletes, to die in what ought to be their peak years of fitness. Are such sports men and women being pushed too hard?

And there has been lots of reaction to the gold medal win by Brtain's Christine Ohuruogo in the 400m at the World Athletics Championship in Japan.

Her victory cam just three weeks after she completed a one-year suspension for missing three drugs tests. She told Ö÷²¥´óÐã's domestic radio station 5Live this morning that she had missed the tests through f.

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