Pick of the week

13-19 May, 2000

BBC News Online presents a round-up of some of the week's more remarkable stories covered by BBC correspondents.

---

UK forces build up off Sierra Leone

Despite the UK Government's insistence that its troops will not be used in a combat role in Sierra Leone, the build up of forces there continued. Jeremy Cooke was on board HMS Ocean - just off the Sierra Leone coast.

 Click here to watch

---

Moldova's grim institutions

Aid agencies warned that the European Union's decision to cut funding from part of the former Soviet Union could lead to hundreds of children starving to death in squalid institutions. Sue Lloyd Roberts reported from Moldova where life in so-called care is already intolerable.

 Click here to watch

---

Battle rages in the Horn of Africa

There are fears of a humanitarian crisis in Eritrea, as half a million of its people are reported fleeing from a major offensive by Ethiopian troops. Rageh Omaar was one of the first reporters to reach the frontline of Africa's "forgotten war".

 Click here to watch

---

Birds in paradise

Elsewhere in the world the deserts are swallowing fertile land at an unstoppable pace. But floodwaters in Australia's Lake Eyre basin turned nature on its head, and created a nature reserve from what was one of Australia's driest landscapes, as Michael Peschardt reported.

 Click here to watch

---

Football violence blights Uefa final

Arsenal and Galatasary fans clashed in street battles in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, ahead of the Uefa Cup final. Two people were stabbed - one British, the other Turkish - during an afternoon of running battles. Police fired tear gas to quell the fighting, as Paul Newman reported.

 Click here to watch

---

Picking up the pieces in Mozambique

The UK singer Robbie Williams, in his role as a Unicef ambassador, has been visiting the flood-ravaged country and meeting many of its people. They are still trying to rebuild their lives and Jane Standley travelled with him.

 Click here to watch