BBC news 2007-05-17 加文本

BBC 2007-05-17


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BBC World News with Blerry Gogan.

Gun battles in the Gaza Strip between rival Palestinian factions have left at least twenty people dead after the latest ceasefire broke down. On Wednesday hours after the main factions Fattah and Hamas ordered their fourth ceasefire in four days. Gunfire was heard again in Gaza City. In the recent development, gunmen opened fire on guards of the Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. No one was injured. But as Aleem Maqbool reports from Ramallah many people in Gaza feared that the authorities are powerless to stem the violence.

“We were talking in the first couple of days of this renewed violence about worries about the unity government falling apart, frankly a lot of ordinary Palestinian now are saying it really wouldn’t make any difference if they fell apart. They are clearly having no real influence on what’s happening on the ground. They have announced, I think four new security plans in last four days, certainly four truces. The first couple of truces last maybe an hour or so, the third maybe few minutes. The last one barely registered at all. So nobody is really particularly in terms of ordinary Palestinians thinking in most times any more.”

There has been widespread international concern about the violence in Gaza. King Abdullah of Jordan said it could rebound on the future of Palestine and would only serve Israeli interest. The head of the Arab League Amr Moussa condemned what was happening while the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the international fighting, the internal fighting, rather, had crossed a red line.

The World Bank in Washington has announced that it will continue deliberations on the fate of its president Paul Wolfowitz who's at the center of a scandal over alleged favoritism on Thursday. An insider at talks between Mr. Wolfowitz’s lawyer and World Bank Directors on Wednesday told the BBC that they’d been finalizing a deal to settle terms of his resignation. But Mr. Wolfowitz’s lawyer has said that he will not resign under what he called the current clouds rounding him and he would rather push the matter to a full vote of the bank’s board. Mr. Wolfowitz is reported to be agreeing to go only if bank acknowledges that he does not bear sole responsibility for the controversies surrounding a big pay rise given to his girl friend who also works for the bank.

The French President Nicola Sarkozy has ended his first day in office after a working dinner in Berlin with the Germen Chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany’s presidency of the European Union ends next month, and Mr. Sarkozy said there was an urgent need to end what he called the EU’s paralysis. Mrs. Merkel is trying to get an agreement on re-launching the EU constitution after the French and Dutch voters turned down the version of the treaty in 2005. At a joint news conference, Mr. Sarkozy and Mrs. Merkel said they wanted to get straight down to work on the major issues facing the EU. Mr. Sarkozy used his inaugural speeches president in Paris on Wednesday to pledge dynamic social and economic reform in France. He said he would make human rights and fight against global warming his foreign policy.

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The leading foreign policy think tank in Britain has warned that Iraq faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation. In a new report, the Royal Institute of International Affairs or Chatham House argues that the Iraqi government is now largely powerless and irrelevant in large parts of the country. James Robbins reports.

It's not the first time that Chatham House, a respected foreign policy institution, has been highly critical of American and British strategies in Iraq. This latest paper, written by Dr. Gareth Stansfield, a Middle East expert, is unremittingly bleak. It argues that the breakup of Iraq is becoming increasingly likely. Dr. Standsfield contends that the American security surge is moving violence to different areas but not overcoming it. The Chatham House report urges the governments in London and Washington to change track, both by dealing with the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr as a political partner, not an enemy, and by increasing dialogue with other countries in the region, particularly Iran.

Queen Elizabeth's grandson Prince Harry who is a serving officer in the British Army and third in line to the throne will not now be posted to Iraq. The chief of the British Army General Sir Richard Dannatt had announced last month that the prince would go with his regiment when it is deployed in Iraq. But today General Dannatt said that following a visit to Iraq last week and wide consultations, he had changed his mind.

There have been a number of specific threats, some reported, some not reported, which relates directly to Prince Harry as an individual. These threats expose not only him but also those around him to a degree of risk that I now deem unacceptable.

There has been another attack on the highly fortified international zone in Baghdad - the second in two days. A spokesman for the American Embassy said 2 people had been killed and 10 injured.

BBC World News