BBC news 2007-10-25 加文本

BBC 2007-10-25


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BBC News with Jack Mackintosh.

A senior figure of the US State Department has resigned after heavy criticism of his office's supervision of private security firms in Iraq. The assistant secretary for diplomatic security Richard Griffin did not mention the issue in his letter of resignation, but he left his post just a day after the department announced a thorough review aimed at strengthening government oversight of the security companies. The changes were prompted by an incident last month in which the private security firm Blackwater was blamed for the deaths of a number of Iraqis. Another of the companies affected by the new rules is Dina Corp. Their spokesman is Glery Legon. "Iraq and Afghanistan all of a sudden created huge unforeseen demands. I think anyone could have anticipated that we'd be in a situation like we have in Iraq, where it's nominally a post-conflict situation and yet we have our diplomats who have to do their daily businesses in a difficult environment and need to be protected and the military can't or doesn't want to take on that role."

There has been a further dramatic slump in house sales in the United States, making the continuing downturn in the housing market one of the worst in recent decades. Figures show that the sale of homes in the US fell by another 8% in September. Mark Gregory reports:
The US housing market has moved from boom to slump in a matter of months. It's given ammunition to those economists, still are minority probably, who believe the US is heading for recession. Meanwhile the latest financial results from Merry Lynch, the world's largest brokerage company, have given more cause for gloom. The investment firm reported a quarterly loss of 2.3 billion dollars and has written down the value of its assets by nearly $8 billion, to reflect problems in the subprime mortgage market.

President Bush making his first major address on Cuba since Fidel Castro fell ill last year has urged Cubans to put an end to communist rule and bring about democratic change. From Washington here's Jonathan Beale, "Mr. Bush made clear that the US embargo on Cuba would stay in place as long as, he said, the regime maintained its monopoly on power. He denounced Cuba as a tropical gulag, adding that America would have no part in giving oxygen to a criminal regime that victimized its own people. In Havana, the speech has been swiftly denounced. Cuba's Foreign Minister said that it was a plea for violence and the use of force to topple the revolution and to impose the president's own ideas."

A rebel group from Darfur the Justice and Equality Movement says it's kidnapped two foreign workers employed by a Chinese oil company. The two workers, one Canadian and one Iraqi, were taken from an oil field in the Kordofan Region of Sudan, east of Darfur. Rebels say they want China to withdraw its support for the Sudanese government. China is a major importer of Sudanese oil.

World news from the BBC.

The NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says a number of alliance members have offered more resources for the military campaign in Afghanistan. He was speaking after a NATO defense ministers' meeting in the Dutch coastal town of Roudwick, where he'd earlier called for members to honour commitments to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Prosecutors in the Netherlands say the police have smashed an international people trafficking ring alleged to have been smuggling Nigerian children into the country. Twenty arrests have been made in seven countries. Prosecutors say the international gangs used what they called voodoo rituals and threats before smuggling the children, mostly girls, to the Netherlands, from there they were sent to other countries to work as prostitutes.

Weather forecasters say the winds that have been fanning the devastating wild fires in southern California are expected to weaken over the next few days. But with little sign of rain to come, the fires could rage for some time yet although they may not spread as fast as before. The head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, David Pollison, said rescue and evacuation efforts had been efficient because lessons had been learned from the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005.

"Then we are gonna work together as a team. What we see now that we did not have during Hurricane Katrina is a very good team effort from the local, the state and the federal government and across the ederal agencies, we are working inured as partners, and that is what we've changed in this organization and that is how we are gonna help get these fires under control, and get people back in their homes as quickly as possible."

A court in France has prevented a museum in the city of Rouen from returning to New Zealand the 19th century tattooed and mummified head of an indigenous Maori warrior. The culture ministry requested the ruling after the mayor of Rouen offered to return the artifact saying he was acting out of respect for people who'd refused to let their cultural identity wither.

and that's the latest BBC World News.