BBC news 2007-06-22 加文本

BBC 2007-06-22


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BBC World News with Blerry Gogan.

European leaders have set up their positions on the first day of their crucial summit in Brussels. Germany, holding the EU presidency, hopes the talks will result in a deal on a new treaty to replace the failed draft constitution. The second and final day will be one of hard bargaining on the detail of the German proposals. Britain and Poland are among those countries which are seen as presenting the most difficulties in the way of an agreement. From Brussels, Jonny Dymond reports.

This European summit is not going well. The British government wants to water down the role of proposed European Foreign Policy Supremo to retain a veto over police and judicial cooperation and to gain an opt out from the charter of Fundamental Rights. The Poles want to renegotiate entirely the proposed voting system. Friday will see bilateral meetings between the German Presidency and the problem countries, a long day beckons.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has dismissed the notion that the Taliban posed any long term threat to his country. He was responding to a statement by a Taliban spokesman that the rebels planned to increase attacks on the capital Kabul. Mr. Karzai told the BBC that having been removed from government the Taliban did not have the guts to confront it. All they could use was bombs. He also said he could not understand why / American led NATO troops had killed so many Afghan civilians in their operations against insurgence. “Sometimes, it just happens, they want their own troops sometimes, but we can not say that we understand it, every effort has to be made in order for civilians to stop being casualties.”

The director of the World Trade Organization Pascal Lamy has said that he believes the global free trade deal is still possible despite the collapse of a new round of talks in the German city of Potsdam. On Thursday, Brazil and India walked out of trade talks with the United States and the European Union citing ongoing difficulties over fund subsidies in western countries. A spokesman for the White House said Brazil and India were standing in the way of a deal that would improve the lives of people in developing nations.

The US ambassador in Zimbabwe Christopher Dell has /forecast that runaway inflation will bring about regime change there. Mr. Dell says he expects the inflation rate to reach 1.5 million percent by the end of the year and it would act as catalyst in driving Mr. Mugabe from power. Rachel Walker reports.

Mr. Dell who’s approaching the end of his three years as ambassador in Harare has told the British newspaper “The Guardian” that his inflation forecast is a modest one. He said prices in Zimbabwe were going up twice a day. Sapping popular confidence in the government which is now, in his words, committing regime change on itself. He said massive disruption and instability and growing dissatisfaction within President Robert Mugabe’s Harare PF Party would combine to remove him from office.

This is Blerry Gogan with the latest BBC world news.

Bangladesh’s special anticorruption court has handed down its first sentence to a former government minister Amamullah Aman, a state minister for labor and employment in the last government, was jailed for thirteen years and fined more than $14,000. The case was part of a big drive against corruption by the emergency government in Bangladesh. At least sixty former members of parliament including many formal ministers are due to stand trial.

The ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said the charges of corruption made against him in Thailand over a land deal are politically motivated. Mr. Thaksin told the British Television Channel that he would not be going back to Thailand to face the charges before a police deadline runs out next week. Here is our East Asia analyst Steve Jackson.

Thaksin Shinawatra said he would be prepared to go back to Thailand to clear his name. But he didn’t want to return now because it would cause confrontation between his supporters and the military government. He described the corruption charges brought against him as politically motivated. Prosecutors say he illegally help his wife to buy government owned land at a bargain price. Mr. Thaksin said his bid to buy Manchester city wouldn’t be affected by the seizure last week of more than a billion dollars of his assets by the Thai authorities.

Poland is considering using convict labor to help build the roads and stadiums it needs to co-host the 2012 European Football Championships. As many as 20,000 prisoners could be employed on the multi-million construction projects. Poland is short of construction workers as many have left for better pay jobs in Western Europe. Poland and its co-host Ukraine face a major challenge in updating the crumbling communist era stadiums and other infrastructure in time for the tournament.

And NASA space agency has delayed an attempt to land the space shuttle Atlantis until Friday Bad weather in Florida prevented the shuttle from taking its first opportunity to land on Thursday at the end of a troubled mission to the international space station.

BBC World News.