BBC news 2007-07-28 加文本

BBC 2007-07-28


【电信用户1】在线播放和下载

Download mp3

..bill which implements many of the recommendations of the commission which investigated the attacks of September 11, 2001. The bill which President Bush is expected to sign allocates a big share of funding to cities thought to be at great risk of attack. Our Washington correspondent Bunacy Hinny outlines the new measures.

The bill will require all cargo on passenger planes be screened within three years. Container ships will be scanned for nuclear devices within five years. Anti-terrorism money will be allocated to US cities depending on the risk of attack. Improving communication between federal authorities, state and local government will also be a priority. People who report the suspicious activity near transportation systems will also be given protection under the bill.

The World Trade Organization has ruled against the United States and in favor of Brazil in the interim decision over US government subsidies to cotton producers. Brazil has long claimed that the subsidies violate international trade rules and the issue has been one of the main stumbling blocks in the Doha round of trade talks. Our America's editor Will Grand reports.

As recently as late June, Brazil and India walked out of global trade talks in Germany over the issue of fund subsidies. They said the continued payment of subsidies to US cotton farmers was harming much poorer cotton producers in Africa and was in violation of global trade rules. It now appears that the WTO agrees. For its part the US trade representatives’ office has said it's very disappointed by the panel's findings.

The main runway at Brazil's busiest airport has reopened ten days after a passenger plane skidded off and causing the country's worst aviation disaster. The runway at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport has been repaved but there will still be restrictions on landings because modifications to improve the drainage of rainwater are not complete.

The Pakistani authorities say a suicide bomber has killed at least thirteen people in an attack near the Red Mosque in Islamabad. A BBC correspondent to the scene says the target appeared to be police officers deployed nearby during an Islamist demonstration. During the protest, police use tear gas to disperse students who briefly occupied the mosque. Pakistan's deputy Information Minister Tariq Azam Khan said the attack may have been coordinated with the demonstration.

"Some people who got their mayhem impact the mosque that enlightened some reaction trembles the security forces and there was really large numbers to control the situation inside the mosque and while they were there then this attack happened."

Officials in Serbia say a gunman has gone on the rampage in the village in the east of the country shooting dead at least eight people. The Interior Minster Dragan Jocic said the shooting happened in the village of Y near the border with Bulgaria.

World news from the BBC

The Palestinian born doctor who was in prison in Libya for eight years on charges of infecting children with HIV says he was tortured while in custody. Doctor Ashraf Alhajouj told a Dutch television program he had been given electric shocks to his genitals and been sexually assaulted by police dogs.

United States' Space Agency NASA says that a full-scale inquiry has been launched into disclosures that astronauts were allowed to fly after drinking heavily. Officials stress that medical personnel were routinely assigned to every training and space mission and that any breach of health safety will be immediately addressed. From Washington here is Kim Ghattas.

The panel looking into the health of the NASA crew said the two incidents involved one astronaut who flew on the Russian spacecraft possibly in the year 2000 and the other on the space shuttle at an undetermined time. It is unclear how many hours before the flight the drinking occurred and what quantities were consumed. But the other problem was the fact that doctors who raised their concern about the drinking said that they felt they were ignored.

There have been further sharp falls on world stock markets amid rising concern that an era of cheap credit is coming to an end. A volatile dawn Wall Street ended with stocks down by more than one and a half percent with much of the fall coming in the last twenty minutes of trading. Responding to the slide, President Bush expressed his faith in the strength of the US economy.

"To the economy it is large, flexible and resilient, when the interesting aspect of this economic growth is that we have benefited from increased exports."

Two news helicopters have collided in the American state of Arizona killing at least four people. The aircrafts from rival television channels were broadcasting live footage of a dramatic police car chasing in Phoenix when they crashed into each other and came down in a park in the city center. No one on the ground was hurt.

BBC World News