BBC news 2008-03-13 加文本

BBC 2008-03-13


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That’s the all here on the world today. News first.

BBC news with John Jason.

The Governor of New York State Eliot Spitzer has resigned following allegations that he has spent thousands of dollars as a client of a prostitution ring. The Democratic politician made his name as a prosecutor who led high-profile campaigns against organized crime, corruption and prostitution. From New York, Laura Trevelyan.

Eliot Spitzer’s fall from grace has all the elements of a Greek tragedy. As the crusading Attorney General of New York who went after corruption and prostitution rings, he was accused of hubris. He became a governor as a rising star of the Democratic Party, promising to clean up government. His nemesis has come in the form of a high-class prostitution agency. What alerted the authorities was the suspicious movement of money from the governor’s bank account that led investigators to the prostitute agency. Federal Prosecutors say there's been no deal done with Eliot Spitzer, quashing speculation that he had made an agreement to avoid charges before resigning.(Www.hxen.net)

The former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro has stepped down from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign team after comments made about Mrs. Clinton’s rival Barack Obama. From Washington, James Coomarasamy.

After a day spent defending her comments, Geraldine Ferraro is no longer a fundraiser in the Clinton campaign, a row model who becomes something of embarrassment. According to a campaign spokesman, the 1994 Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee, the only woman to have been on a major US party’s presidential ticket, has stepped down from her honorary position. The source of the controversy were comments she made suggesting had Barack Obama not been black, he wouldn’t be doing so well in the presidential contest. She’d said he was very lucky to be who he is, and that the country had been caught up in the concept. Although Senator Clinton quickly disassociated herself from those words, Geraldine Ferraro had not.

The Israeli security forces have shot dead four Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Police in Bethlehem say one of the dead was the head of the armed group Islamic Jihad in Bethlehem, Muhammad Shahada. Katya Adle reports from Jerusalem.

Muhammad Shahada has been on Israel's wanted list for years. Police in Bethlehem say he was traveling in a car along with two other Islamic Jihad members, and a member of the armed Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade group. They say Israeli undercover forces traveling in a civilian van, pulled up to the gunmen’s car, spraying it with bullets. Israel's military has confirmed the incident. It says the men in the car were armed.

The killings came after several days of relative calm following Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip earlier this month.

Reports from Tibet say Buddhist monks have kept up their rare protests against the Chinese-backed authorities. 600 monks reportedly marched in Tibet's capital Lhasa, demanding freedom for a detained colleague. Police is said to have used teargas against them.

World News from the BBC.

Hong Kong has shut all primary schools and kindergartens to contain an outbreak of influenza. The move follows recent deaths of three children with flu-like symptoms. Almost 200 cases of suspected flu have been reported so far. Chris Shar reports.

The Hong Kong government announced on Wednesday night that young children shouldn’t attend school in the morning, that the Easter holiday would begin a week early as a precautionary measure. The authorities have reason to be cautious. They had long experience/ of fighting deadly epidemics. Ten years ago, an early outbreak of bird-flu killed 6 people before it was contained by a mass poultry slaughter. Hong Kong was also the frontline of the battle against the respiratory disease Sars when it emerged 5 years ago.

The Human Rights Commission in South Africa has warned of a growing problem of violence in schools. In a report, the commission said school was the single most common site of crime such as assault and robbery against South African pupils. More than a fifth of sexual assaults on children occurred in school. Judith Caroline of the Human Rights Commission said that the endemic sexual violence that even found its way into the children’s playground games.

“One of the most startling examples of violence that was given at the public caring was a seven-year-old’s playing games called ‘hit me, hit me, and rape me, rape me.’ This demonstrates how violence has become highly sexualized in South Africa, how it has become commonplace, and how children at this tender age has obscenely been exposed to such things.”

Austrians are holding a candle-lit vigil to mark the 70 years’ anniversary of the country’s annexation by a Nazi Germany , known as the anschluss. In 1938, hundreds of thousands of people in Vienna celebrated Adolf Hitler’s arrival. On Wednesday evening, people gathered there to light 80,000 candles, one for every Austrian killed by the Nazis.