BBC news 2007-09-13 加文本

BBC 2007-09-13


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BBC World News with Mike Cooper.

The United Nations Children's Funds says there's been a worldwide decline in child mortality, with fewer children under the age of 5 dying than ever before. Figures from the UN agency indicate that in 2006, for the first time, the number of children dying worldwide dropped below 10,000,000. UNICEF said the number of fact was responsible including immunization programs, wider use of mosquito nets and more mothers' breast feeding. Ann Veneman, is the head of UNICEF.
"As we see, more resource is going into Africa both for malaria, HIV/AIDS. The research that's ongoing in terms of finding vaccines for these diseases. All of these are very promising signs for the future. But we cannot let down our guard and we have a tremendous amount of work yet to do."

Democratic Party leaders in the US Congress have described as insufficient a proposal to withdraw 30,000 American troops from Iraq by the middle of next year. The Senate majority leader Harry Reid said the plan was simply more of the same to keep at least 130,000 American troops in the midst of what he called an "intractable civil war". The recommendation to cut the size of US forces in Iraq was put forward by the commander, General David Petraeus. President Bush is expected to confirm it on Thursday, but Senate Reid urged Republicans to withhold their support from the President and to endorse the Democrats' still undefined plans for a wide-ranging pull-out of troops.

I call on Senate Republicans to not walk lockstep as they have with the President for years in this war. It's time to change. It's a President's war. At this stage it appears clearly it's also the Republican Senators' war. I hope that they will drop their legacy next week.

United States Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, has accused Iran of trying to exercise malign influence in southern Iraq through extremist militias. Mr. Crocker told the BBC that some captured militia leaders had been very clear about their Iranian connections. In a British television interview on Channel 4, President Ahmadinejad denied that Iran was creating instability in Iraq, saying such instability was harmful to its own country.

The Russian President Vladimir Putin has surprised everyone by choosing a little known Russian official Viktor Zubkov as the country's new Prime Minister. It followed the resignation of the government earlier on Wednesday. Before becoming Russia's new head of government, Mr. Zubkov led a financial crimes monitoring agency.

The price of crude oil has hit a new high. The main New York price briefly climbed above $80 a barrel for the first time before closing at $79.91 a barrel. The rise followed news of a decline in stock of crude oil in the United States. It came despite Tuesday's decision by OPEC to increase production in an effort to restrain prices.

World news from the BBC.

International agencies including the World Health Organization have begun airlifting emergency medical supplies to try to contain a new outbreak of the deadly Ebola fever in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Local health authorities are helping to set up bioisolation tents and disinfect contaminated areas. More than 160 people have died over the past three months, and further 300 are apparently infected. Mary Christine Pharyiris is an emergencies coordinator for the relief agency Medecins Sans Frontiers.
"The problem is that we have no treatment for this disease, so the only measure that you can take is to isolate the patients, to avoid contamination of the families and of the medical staff, to protect also the medical staff and to treat the symptoms."

Senators in Brazil have voted by a narrow margin to absolve the Senate President Renan Calheiros of various allegations of corruption. The vote which has been held behind closed doors came after a parliamentary ethics committee voted to remove Mr. Calheiros last week. From Sao Paulo, Gary Duffy reports.

Renan Calheiros is one of the most influential politicians in the Brazilian Congress, and his long-running controversy has overshadowed political life here since May. The Senate President fought a fierce battle to preserve his position. And finally in a tightly controlled vote held in secret, he managed to retain the support of 40 of his colleagues while 35 voted for expulsion. Such was the tension surrounding the vote that outside the chamber a scuffle broke out between deputies from the Lower House of Congress and security officials.

The Indonesian government is sending relief supplies to Sumatra where a powerful earthquake of the south of the island has destroyed buildings and disrupted communications and power supplies. At least 9 people have been confirmed dead and dozens injured. The two worst hit towns, Bengkulu and Padang, have a population of about 2,000,000 people.