BBC news 2007-09-21 加文本

BBC 2007-09-21


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That's World Today. We will join Wharton and Fragus Nicol all after the news.

BBC World News, I'm Roy Lamar.

The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has told Congress that global financial losses following the crisis in America's home loan sector have exceeded the most pessimistic estimates. At the same Congressional Hearing, the US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the US government was considering allowing mortgage lenders to temporarily use loans to raise urgently needed cash. Benassi Hinny reports.

With repossessions at a record high and late mortgage payments continuing to soar across the United States, the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warns that the situation would get worse as many borrowers face their first interest rate adjustments. He said thousands of home owners would be unable to make their increased mortgage payments and were expected to default. But he offered his assurances that regulators would take steps to curb the economic fallout related to the mortgage crisis.

The International Criminal Court has urged the United Nations to do more to facilitate the arrest of the two Sudanese men charged with war crimes committed in Darfur. The court's Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo says he wants a major meeting on the Darfur crisis due to be held at the UN on Friday to discuss Sudan's failure to detain the two suspects. Mr. Ocampo said the meeting should be an opportunity to remind the Sudanese government of its responsibility to arrest its minister for humanitarian affairs, Ahmad Harun. "I'm concerned that silence by most states and international organizations had been understood as a weakening of international resolve. There can be no political solution, no humanitarian solution as long as Harun remains free in the Sudan."

Civil rights protesters from across the United States are leaving the small town of Jena in Louisiana after a day-long rally in support of six black teenagers who were initially charged with attempted murder after the beating of a white youth. One black civil rights campaigner, the Reverend Al Sharpton, said the Federal Government should intervene. "All of these families have suffered and I think that the people in Jena are underestimated the kind of support they would give. We brought in these thousands of people. Now other groups are coming in and we want everybody to come in. It's not about who got here first. It's about these six kids walking out of this unfair situation together."

President Bush has said he is hopeful the international community will convince Iran to give up the ambitions it has alleged to have to develop nuclear weapons. He said the alternative was economic sanctions. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are due to discuss their next step in the confrontation on Friday. Mr. Bush was responding to remarks by the French Foreign Minister suggesting that the world should prepare for war against Iran.

This is BBC News.

The American cyclist Floyd Landis has lost his appeal against the doping conviction, dashing his immediate hopes of saving his title as winner of the Tour de France last year. Mr. Landis tested positive for a banned hormone during the race in 2006 but appealed, saying the tests were not properly conducted. Allemia San Padrio has the details.

Floyd Landis has always denied the findings of a French laboratory that said it found he used a synthetic form of testosterone to spur his comeback victory in the 2006 Tour de France. The three men arbitration panel of the US Anti-Doping Agency however has now decided that those findings are accurate and that Mr. Landis is guilty of the doping allegation. The decision means he could lose the Tour de France trophy as well as face a two-year ban from the sport. He does, though, still have the possibility of appealing against the ruling before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

A row has broken out in South Africa between the governing African National Congress and its political ally, the country's biggest trade union federation Cosatu. The ANC has described as unacceptable and arrogant a decision by Cosatu to back a bid by the controversial politician, Jacob Zuma to be chosen as ANC leader at the party conference in December.

A new message said to be from the Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden has called for the overthrow of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The audio tape denounced the storming by Pakistani security forces of the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July and promised retaliation. The Pakistani army said it wouldn't deter the authorities from pursuing terrorists.

The deputy commander of the American Forces in Iraq says violence in Baghdad is half what it was before the plan to improve the city's security was put in place earlier this year. Lieutenant General Ray Odierno said the number of car bombings and suicide attacks in Baghdad had fallen to the lowest level since 2006.