BBC news 2008-02-07 加文本

BBC news 2008-02-07

 
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BBC News, I'm Michael Poles.

The United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that the future of NATO is at risk due to differences over Afghanistan, and it could become a two-tier alliance. On the eve of a NATO Defense Ministers' meeting in Lithuania, Mr. Gates told the congressional committee that without more sharing of the burden of the counter-insurgency fight in Southern Afghanistan, the willingness of those engaged in combat would disappear.

I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people’s security and others who are not. And I think that it puts a cloud over the future of the alliance, if this is to endure and perhaps even get worse.

United States forces in Iraq have released videotape footage, which say they show children under the age of 11 being trained by al-Qaeda in the use of guns, kidnapping and other activities. The American military believes the footage was to be used in propaganda films aimed at attracting new recruits to the al-Qaeda cause. Jim Muir reports from Baghdad.

The footage put together by the Americans from five videotapes they say they found in the al-Qaeda hideout is deeply disturbing. It shows around 20 young boys, some of them very young, all running round with guns and rocket propelled grenades. They are also shown posing in sinister black facemasks to announce the slaughter of their hostages, a scene chillingly familiar to those who’ve watched such film statements for real. There is no suggestion the boys are acting under duress.

The aid agency, Save The Children, says the recent fighting in Chad between government troops and rebel forces has had serious consequences for the half a million people living in refugee camps in the east of the country. Save The Children says an emergency air link to eastern Chad is needed urgently, because the capital N’Djamena can no longer be used as a base from which to fly and release supplies to the camps. David Bamford reports.

Save The Children says that international agencies have no more than 48 hours to find a new route to send food supplies into eastern Chad, or the humanitarian effort there will stop to unravel. Aid workers at the eastern harbor of Abeche say half a million Chadian and Sudanese refugees there are dependent on the supplies which have now been halted. They are calling on the UN to set up a new lifeline, perhaps using Cameroon and the Central African Republic.

The rival parties in the race for the White House are weighing up the results from a series of presidential nomination contests on Tuesday. Republicans and Democrats in 24 states voted on who they want to be their candidate in the American presidential election in November. The Republican Senator John McCain has a strong lead and now has more than half the delegates he needs to win his party's nomination. Among the Democrats, the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama remains tight.

World News from the BBC

Rescue crews in the United States are continuing to search for more victims of tornadoes and thunderstorms that tore through four southern States on Tuesday night, killing at least 52 people and injuring hundreds more. The storms swept across Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee, destroying shops and factories, crushing cars and trapping people in their homes.

The New York authorities have said that the death of the Australian film actor, Heath Ledger, was caused by accidental overdose of prescription drugs. The actor was found dead in his Manhattan apartment last month. Sarah Morris reports.

The New York City Medical Examiners Office has issued a statement saying the 28-year-old Australian actor's death was an accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medicines. It said he died just a result of acute intoxication from a combination of painkillers, tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Heath Ledger was best known for his role in the Oscar winning film Brokeback Mountain. He had said in recent interviews he was having trouble sleeping during the making of his latest film The Dark Night which is due out in July.

The Turkish parliament has approved a government move to hold a vote on its controversial proposal to ease the ban on women wearing Islamic headscarves in the country's universities. The vote will take place on Saturday. The ban was introduced in 1980 when the military seized power to shore up Turkey’s secular principles against the perceived encroachment of Islamic politics. But opponents say it denies an education to Muslim women who wear the scarf.

The Romanian government has issued an emergency decree to allow a probe into the country's Communist Past to continue. The move follows a ruling by the Constitutional Court last week that the work of a council studying the archives of the notorious secret police was illegal. That ruling annulled thousands of investigations into people standing for public office in Romania. It prompted protests demanding that the work by the council should continue.

BBC News.