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The Burmese authorities say nearly 4000 people are confirmed dead following Saturday's cyclone, but that the total number could be much higher. Daniel Griffith reports from neighbouring Thailand.

The full-scale of this disaster is only now coming to light days after the cyclone hit Burma. The country's state media says that nearly 4000 people were killed by the cyclone. Another 3000 are thought to be still missing. State television is also reporting that as many as 10,000 people may have died in the city of Bogalay. Those reports have not been independently confirmed. The United Nations says that hundred of thousands of people are now homeless with no clean drinking water. Rescue workers have still to reach more remote districts that are cut out from the outside world.

At least two people have been killed after Somali Government troops opened fire to try to hold food riots that have broken out in the capital Mogadishu. Tens of thousands took to the streets after traders refused to accept the local currency, demanding payment in dollars instead. Here's our Africa editor Martin Plaut.

Anger swept across Mogadishu when traders began refusing to accept the Somali shilling. Government troops intervened, firing into the crowd. Protesters, including women and children, smashed the windscreens of buses and cars. Shops closed for fear of being looted. The traders' demand for payment in dollars came after the printing of vast quantities of the local currency on illegal presses, severely devaluing the Somali shilling. The United Nations reports that soaring food prices had already forced more than 1/3 of all Somalis to rely on outside assistance to feed their families.

Iran has said it'll not hold a new round of talks with the Americans about security in Iraq, as long as U.S. forces continue their attacks on Iraqi Shia militiamen. Tehran and Washington have held three rounds of such talks in the past year.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry says further discussions in the current circumstances will be of no use. American and Iraqi government forces have been involved in fierce fighting in recent weeks with militiamen loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Hundreds of people have been killed in fighting, which began in Basra and quickly spread to other Shia areas, including the Sadr City district of Baghdad. The United States accuses Iran of backing the militia. The Iranians deny that and for their part say it's the American military presence in Iraq, which is the main cause of instability.

A bomb attack on a checkpoint in the Chechen capital, Grozny, has killed at least five policemen. A police spokesman said the device packed with nails and bolts exploded late on Sunday. The police fatalities were part of a squad, helping tighten security in Grozny before the inauguration on Wednesday of the new Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.