BBC 2007-05-03 加文本

BBC 2007-05-03


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With the final vote for the French presidency just four days away, the two candidates, the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist Segolene Royal, have held their only television debate of the campaign. Watched by estimated 20 million people, the occasionally ill-tempered exchange dealt with issues including pensions, the environment and the economy. Alex Desanford sent this report from Paris.
The most heated and personal exchange came during the second half of the debate. Segolene Royal said Nicolas Sarkozy had reached the pinnacle of political immorality, accusing him of dismantling Socialist measures on handicapped children. Mr. Sarkozy criticized his opponent for losing her temper. "No, I haven't," she replied, "I'm just angry." There were several clashes during the two and a half hour debate on the economy, pensions and the environment.

The US House of Representatives has failed to overturn President Bush's veto of a bill tying funding of the war in Iraq to a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. The vote on the bill, which is sponsored by the Democratic Party, came well short of the 2/3 majority required. Later, the President met congressional leaders, who try to hammer out a com..., a compromise over Iraq policy. Jane Bran has this report from Washington.
The Democrats who control congress are in a difficult position. They want to use their hold over funding to change American policy in Iraq, but they don't want to be accused of failing to support troops in a time of war. They also know that President Bush will not sign a bill agreeing to any time table for withdrawal. Democratic leaders refused to be drawn on whether they will compromise on that issue, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said they remained committed to ending the war.

The American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is in Egypt for a conference on stabilizing Iraq, says everything is at stake, not just for Iraq, but for the region as a whole. United States hopes that the meeting of foreign ministers from more than sixty countries will make a commitment to give Iraq billions of dollars in aid and debt relief.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has joined those in Israel calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert following a damning report on his handling of the war in Lebanon last year. Ms. Livini told reporters after meeting Mr. Olmert that she had told him that resigning would be the right thing to do, and she proposed herself as his successor as head of the Kadima Party, the main party in the governing coalition.

Russian railways have reduced freight to Estonia, ostensibly for engineering works, amid escalating dispute about the relocation of a Soviet's army monument in the Estonian capital Tallin. Russian oil and coal exporters say they are looking for alternative routes. Meanwhile, Estonia has recalled diplomats' families from Moscow. The Estonian ambassador there said pro-Kremlin youths had tried to storm a news conference to attack her.

World News from the BBC.

The crisis in Turkey over the parliamentary vote for a new president has prompted another warning from the European Commission. The Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said Turkey must uphold the supremacy of civilian power over the military if it was to join the European Union.

“If a country wants to become a member of the European Union, we have all the legitimate right to inspect that the democratic principles of the European Union are respected in that country. And that's why we are concerned, you know, interfering into internal matters, rather, we deserve an expression of concern, because we want to see that a country which wants to become a member of Union totally respects the democratic principles.”

British scientists say they have found an effective way of combating the MRSA superbug, the resistant strain of bacteria responsible for deaths in hospitals in many countries. Researchers say that they have carried out successful trials using maggots to treat patients infected with MRSA. Danial Savage has this report.
Maggots have been used to treat wounds for hundreds of years. They remove dead tissue and bacteria and leave healthy tissue to heal. Researchers in Manchester University have now found they can use the larva from green bottle flies to combat MRSA. They've carried out trials to treat diabetic patients with foot ulcers, and found in virtually all the cases that patients have been cured in less than a month.

Scientists in the United States say they have devised a new way of scanning the surface of Mars for water, which offers much more accurate readings than previously obtained. They say initial data using the new method suggests that up to half the surface of Mars may contain ice, and the data also shows there is a considerable variation in how far below the surface ice can be found.

And that's the latest BBC World News.