by plane, are taking boats. the british government recently estimated that around 4,000 britons were stuck in sudan. 0ur diplomatic correspondent paul adams has been following the situation from nairobi. the evacuation of foreign nationals from sudan does continue, largely now from port sudan, where people are able to leave by ship across the red sea, and also by plane. britain now says it is evacuating more than 2000 people altogether since the airlift began. but far more sudanese people are on the move. the un estimates 50,000 have crossed sudan s borders into egypt, chad, south sudan and ethiopia, and as many as 75,000 people are thought to be internally displaced, fleeing the fighting in khartoum and in darfur, to places where they feel more safe. the un is warning it could get a whole lot worse, with the head of the unhcr saying today as many as 800,000 people could be on the move if the fighting worsens. that is a sharp increase in the estimated numbers of people who co
but if you zoom further back, you can see that three million is nothing compared to the minor strikes or the winter of discontent, or in fact, to the 200 million days of sick leave that people took last year. now, how do you put a cash value on this? well, one thing that people tried to do is they multiply that day s loss figure by some estimate of the value of the work that people do on average every day. it s pretty rough and ready. there s three big reasons for that. first off, it s hard to come up with the value. what s the value of a french class or what s the difference in value between an appointment with a nurse versus a doctor? we don t really have figures that go to that level of detail, and so the figures are pretty imprecise. secondly, for most of us, if we don t do work today, well, it goes on tomorrow s to do list. so a day lost, it s probably more like a day of work delayed. and thirdly, strikes don t just affect one company. their effects ripple out