The flooding in Pakistan has caused hundreds of thousands of people to be in desperate need of food, shelter and water. Nazes Afroz, Regional Executive Editor for Asia & Pacific for the World Service, explains how they have been contacting us and how World Service and BBC Urdu are getting news and information to them.

It's been four weeks since we first reported the flood story in Pakistan. Very rarely, we carry on covering a disaster story like the way we are doing with this one.

In the case of the earthquake in Kashmir in 2005, the 2006 Asian tsunami or Haiti's crisis early this year, the breaking and the unfolding nature of the story ended within a few days and the world media's attention moved away from reporting the disaster to the impact and recovery angles in a week or so.

But currently the disaster phase hasn't come to an end yet. As I write this, new areas are being submerged with more flood waters flowing in and hundred of thousands of people are still moving away from their homes to safety.

Close to a million people are completely dependent on supplies by helicopters, as roads and bridges to those areas have been washed away. Our coverage is still largely focussed to the ongoing disaster and the plight of the survivors.

When the disaster struck a month ago, it became apparent that the story would be very big, affecting millions of people. As the story became bigger within the first few days, we made the decision to start a "Lifeline" programme with essential life-saving information for the flood victims.

The broadcasts contain information like fresh flood alerts, weather reports, how to cope with diseases, how and where to get aid etc. From our past experience we have found that at the time of any major disaster, people tune in to radio for such essential information.

The BBC World Service Trust, the BBC's international charity, quickly found the funding to carry out this humanitarian information service or "Infoasaid" for the victims. We also felt that we needed to broadcast in Pashtu alongside Urdu as the main language of the badly affected north-western part of the country was Pashtu.

When we approached our 34 FM partner stations, they readily agreed to take this "lifeline Pakistan" service on their airwaves ensuring an audience of 60 to 80 million across the country.

The Urdu service had to put together the editorial teams very quickly in Islamabad. They also decided to use a toll-free phone with voice recording facility and asked the flood victims to call and record their stories. This generated a huge number of calls across the length and the breadth of the country.

They recorded more than 800 calls within the first four hours after it was opened up. People were telling their stories of despair and utter hopelessness. They were trying to reach the world through these recordings, saying how desperately they needed urgent help - shelter, food and water. These voices are forming important segments of the BBC's overall coverage of the flood story.

"We are sitting in the Risalpur Centre and waiting for aid. We have been here five times but the administration is doing nothing. There are no arrangements for Sehri and Iftar during the month of Ramadan." Sakina, from Risalpur, Punjab

"We have been without food and water for three days. The devastating flood has damaged everything. People are suffering from diseases. We need medicine, water and food." Ahmed Ali from Kashmore, Sindh

"We are trapped in the flood water. We have nothing to eat or drink. Please rescue us. Our lives are in danger. For God's sake rescue us, otherwise we will die. Please help us, please!" Khyber Husain, Jacobabad, Sindh

Some of these messages are broadcast in Urdu, some in Pashtu and some are passed onto the Pakistani authorities and relief organisations.

After four weeks, the main question now being asked is how we are going to sustain interest in the story.

It needs no elaboration how important Pakistan is in terms of geo-politics. There are already discussions and debates as to what end this massive disaster will change Pakistan.

This is something we will be focussing on soon after the acute phase of the disaster is over, and once the country enters the reconstruction and rebuilding phase. So the story will not go away.

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On Thursday, the BBC and the other UK media will broadcast an appeal by the UK Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).

The DEC is an umbrella organisation of the 13 main UK-based charities - and at times of overseas emergencies, it swings into action.

Earlier this year, following the earthquake in Haiti, the BBC broadcast an appeal by DEC which raised more than £100m - second only to the Asian tsunami in terms of the amount of money raised.

We will broadcast another appeal on Thursday - this time for those affected by the floods in Pakistan.

The BBC is not part of DEC but has an understanding, that at times of international crisis, it will broadcast an emergency appeal provided three main tests are met:

• The disaster must be of such scale and urgency that it requires swift international humanitarian assistance
• The DEC agencies must be in a position to provide effective and swift assistance, at such scale, to justify a national appeal
• There must be reasonable grounds for concluding that a public appeal would be successful

The BBC believes that in the case of the Pakistan floods, the threshold has been met. And while the appeal is quite separate from the on-going editorial coverage of the disaster, clearly, the response is - in part - shaped by what our teams have been reporting on radio, TV and online.

Two years ago, we ran a series of promos on air, celebrating the BBC's global presence around the world.

That value has been demonstrated in recent days. The BBC is the only UK broadcaster to be based in Islamabad - a year ago, we doubled the size of the team in Pakistan, to enable us to focus on the deteriorating security situation there and in Afghanistan.

It's part of the tragedy of this story, that many of the places now so badly affected by the flood waters, are the same as those visited by Orla Guerin, Aleem Maqbool and their colleagues from the BBC Urdu Service in recent months, as they have been reporting Pakistan's insurgency.

But it's also meant that while our colleagues from the other news organisations have been scrambling to report the summer's big story, the BBC has had a head start.

Through the BBC Asian Network, we're also able to reflect and report the response among those in the UK with ties to Pakistan.

Estimates suggest around a million people in the UK can trace their heritage to Pakistan - around 1.5% of the UK population, making it the second largest Pakistani population in the World - the same reason that Pakistani President, Asif Ali Zardari, has chosen Birmingham as the place to launch the political career of his son, Bilawal, this weekend.

It's from Birmingham that the charity, Islamic Relief, is co-ordinating its appeal for Pakistan, as well as being part of the Disasters Emergency Committee.

DFID - the Department for International Development - has already pledged £10m to the relief effort. DEC and other international charities hope to raise much more in the coming days and weeks.

When others go home, the BBC team in Pakistan will remain on the ground, reporting on the relief operation, and following how the money raised is being spent.

It's a vital part of ensuring accountability - part of the BBC's core public service, and why those of you in the UK pay the licence fee.

Jon Williams is the BBC World News editor.

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Two years ago Russia went to war with its tiny neighbour, Georgia. In five days of fighting Georgian forces were heavily defeated.

Who started it and why was hotly contested at the time, something I blogged on then.

The conflict had several immediate results.

Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi went into the deep freeze. Russia and three other countries recognised the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And relations between Russia and the West - the US and the EU - deteriorated to their worst level since the end of the Cold War - there was even a revival of Cold War rhetoric.

Some commentators said at the time that Russian foreign policy had taken a decisive anti-Western turn and things could and/or should never be the same again.

But here we are 24 months later and those predictions couldn't appear more misplaced.

Russian relations with Georgia remain hostile, although the border has reopened in places and some business links remain.

But over the past year relations with both Washington and the EU have improved dramatically.

One of President Obama's most successful foreign policy initiatives to date has been the "reset" of relations with Russia that has led to a new nuclear arms control agreement, START 2, but Washington appears to have been pushing at an open door.

When it comes to Europe, the Russians have reached out to their arch rivals, the Poles, as a way of demonstrating they want to improve relations with the wider EU, damaged by disputes from the disruption of gas supplies via Ukraine, to murder of the Russian exile, Alexander Litvinenko, in London and the harassment of the British ambassador to Moscow by the nationalist youth organisation, Nashi.

What lies behind this change of policy in Moscow?

The reasons for the change of approach from Russia were outlined in a leaked Foreign Ministry paper in May and they appear to be highly pragmatic.

President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin want to modernise the Russian economy, including its ageing oil and gas infrastructure, and diversify away from its huge reliance on energy exports and they think they need good relations with the Western economies to do that.

Last month, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, wrote a significant essay explaining the policy change in more depth.

This kind of incremental shift is quite a challenge to cover on a daily news programme given there are often seemingly more pressing news stories on a daily basis that knock the smaller stories of signs of policy change off running orders.

So occasionally at The World Tonight, we decide to devote special coverage to a significant issue and this Friday it's this.

We'll be reporting from Georgia (Tom Esslemont: Georgia and Russia still bitter foes amid scars of war) and Poland (Paul Moss: Russia unleashes charm offensive on Poland); talking to senior European and Russian leaders; and discussing what lies behind this change with a panel of experts in Russia, the US and Germany.

But already one lesson that comes through from the past two years seems to be wary of ever thinking nothing will be the same again.

Alistair Burnett is the editor of The World Tonight.

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