BBC news 2007-07-05 加文本

BBC 2007-07-05


【电信用户1】在线播放和下载

Download mp3

BBC World News, I’m David Leg.

On the day he was freed after nearly four months in captivity, the BBC’s Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston has won a radio award from the human rights group Amnesty International for his reporting on the conflict in the area. The award was presented to his father Grim at a ceremony in London. “On behalf of my son Alan, I accept the thanks this award from Amnesty International. I know he will be highly honored to have received this. I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight all those journalists, a great many, from around the world, who campaigned for Alan’s release, and in particular the Palestinian journalists who day after day, week after week, they had their free Alan campaign.” Earlier speaking from the British consulate in Jerusalem, Alan Johnston said the worldwide campaign for his release had kept his hopes alive during his captivity when he didn’t know if he was going to live or die. Mr. Johnston was held in solitary confinement. He said he didn’t see the sun for three months and it was like being buried alive. He said he felt exhilarated to be free. “It is unimaginably good to be free; maybe you have to have been a prisoner or some kind for some time to know how good it is Just to be able to do the most basic things that freedom allows. Not least to get a haircut, and to drink what you want, to walk through doors that you want to walk through.” With more details, here is Bethany Bell in Jerusalem.

After 114 days in captivity, tonight Alan Johnston is free and has been celebrating with his friends and colleagues in Jerusalem. He was released in the early hours of this morning after a deal between Hamas and his kidnappers, the Islamist group, the Army of Islam. Alan has been speaking about his ordeal throughout the day. One of the things that helped him was being given a radio which broadcast the BBC’s World Service. That way he was able to follow details of the world wide campaign for his release. A Hamas spokesman told the BBC that once Hamas had taken control of Gaza last month it had been able to use the threat of direct force to help secure Alan Johnston’s release. A spokesman for the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas congratulated Mr. Johnston as did governments around the world. The new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged what he called the crucial role of Hamas.

Police in the Pakistani capital Islamabad say the chief cleric of the Radical Red Mosque has been detained while trying to escape the complex. He’s been at the center of violent clashes between Islamist students and security forces. He was attempting to flee wearing a burka. And within the last few minutes, reports from Pakistan say a number of explosions and heavy gunfire have been heard near the mosque.

World news from the BBC.

Six Canadian soldiers serving with the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan have been killed by a roadside bomb in the worst such attack in three months. They died along with an Afghan interpreter in the southern province of Kandahar, a stronghold of Taliban insurgents. Johnathan Heavyland. reports from Bamian.

The six Canadians and their translator died when their vehicle detonated an explosive device planted by the road about twenty kilometers southwest of Kandahar’s provincial capital. The head of Canadian forces in Afghanistan Brigadier General Tim Grant told a news conference that they had been returning from a joint operation with Afghan security forces. They were in a convoy of twelve vehicles.

Russia has given a fresh warning to the United States about its plans to locate part of a missile defense system in eastern Europe. The Russian deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said that if the US went ahead, Russia could respond by deploying rockets along its western borders, possibly in the enclave of Kalinigrad. Last week, President Putin made new proposals to try to resolve the dispute which involve Moscow and NATO sharing information. Mr. Ivanov said if these were accepted, Russia wouldn’t need to order a new rocket deployment.

One of the most notorious torturers during the military government of general Augusto Pinochet in Chile has died in prison aged seventy. Osvaldo Romo who was serving a fifteen-year sentence for the killing of three dissidents had openly confessed of torture and repression of dozens of political opponents during the Pinochet era.

The contest to stage the winter Olympics in 2014 is, now, between just two cities, the Russian black sea resort of Sochi and Pyeongchang in South Korea. Salzburg in Austria was eliminated in the first round of voting by delegates of the International Olympic Committee meeting in Guatemala.

And that’s the latest BBC world news