BBC news 2007-06-16 加文本

BBC 2007-06-16


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BBC World News with Blerry Gogan.

The Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal whose movement has seized control of Gaza says he wants to work with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from the rival movement Fatah for the good of the Palestinian people. Mr. Meshaal said Hamas had not wanted to take over Gaza by force, but had no choice because of the insecurity there. The two sides were supposed to be in a government of National Unity, but had fought pitch battles for the past week in which more than 100 people have been killed. Bethany Bell reports from Jerusalem.

The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah has named Salam Fayyad as the new Palestinian Prime Minister a day after he dissolved the National Unity government. But Hamas has denounced the move as illegal. Ismail Haniya of Hamas says he is still Prime Minister. Speaking in Syria, the exiled leader of Hamas Khaled Meshaal said there was no alternative to the National Unity Government.

The military winger of Hamas has said it is taking what it terms serious and practical steps to secure the release of the BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston who was kidnapped there three months ago. A Hamas spokesman [Abu Obeideh] told the reporters at a late night news conference that Hamas would not allow Mr. Johnston's kidnappers to continue to hold him. He gave no further details as to how the organization hope to achieve his release. But he said Hamas would ensure that kidnappings of foreigners would not occur again.

American astronauts on the space shuttle Atlantis which is docked with the orbiting international space station are making a space walk to repair a tail in the shuttle’s protective thermal covering. From Washington, our correspondent James Coomarasamy.

The two astronauts are spending much of their plan six and half hours space walk trying to step into place parts of the thermal covering that became detached when the Atlantis was launched. NASA officials say they are confident the damage can be repaired and the space shuttle will have sufficient protection to safely re-enter the earth’s atmosphere. Four years ago, problems with the space shuttle Columbia’s heat shield caused deck to explode on re-entry, killing the seven crew members on board.

The South American Football Confederation has decided to ask football’s world governing body FIFA to suspend its ban on high altitude international matches. FIFA says the games put players’ health at risk. The appeal was made at the meeting in Paraguay. From there, Denial Schweimler sent this report.

It wasn't a result that the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales and his large and noisy entourage were hopping for. But football is a game of two halves and there is still time to score the winner. The South American Football Federation decided to ask FIFA to suspend their ban on games being played at more than 2500 meters above sea level to allow thorough studies to be carried out on how games at altitude affect players' health. They were united, they said, on this outcome. FIFA meets in Zurich later this month when they will consider the appeal.

This is Blerry Gogan with the latest BBC world news.

A suicide bomber in southern Afghanistan has killed nine civilians and a NATO soldier. The soldier from the Netherlands was part of the NATO led intervention force ISAF, at whose convoy this attack was targeted. Charles Haviland reports from Carbol.

Senior police in the town of Tirin Kot said six children including one girl were killed on the spot and three other Afghans died later in hospital. Eyewitnesses said the attacker drove a car packed with explosives into an ISAF convoy. Because it was Friday, the town, which is a district headquarters, was crowded. Another suicide bombing took place in the nearby city of Kandahar, injuring at least five civilians. This attacker, on foot, was also targeting ISAF vehicles.

Hispanic journalists in the United States have reacted angrily to comments by the governor of California Arnorld Schwarzenegger that immigrants should avoid Spanish language media in order to improve their English. Mr. Schwarzenegger made the remarks at a convention of Hispanic journalists.

“You've got to turn off the Spanish television set. It's so simple. You've got to learn English.”

The president of the national Hispanic media coalition called the comments naive. Mr. Schwarzenegger, who is from Austria, said that when he arrived in the US, he rarely spoke German. He also said he knew the comments were politically incorrect and could get him into trouble.

The novelist Salman Rushdie has been awarded a knighthood for services to literature by Queen Elizabeth in her Birthday Honours list. The author had to go into hiding and was guarded by British securities services for years after the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini ordered a fatwa against him saying his novel The Satanic Verses was blasphemous. Others honored by the Queen include Oleg Gordievsky, the former Soviet spy who defected to Britain, Barry Humphries who plays the comic character Dame Edna Everage and a cricketer Ian Botham. Cancer sufferer Jane Tomlinson has also been given an award for her fund raising activities.

BBC world news.