BBC news 2008-04-17 加文本

BBC 2008-04-17


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BBC News with Puniger Juicy

President Bush has called for United States to halt the growth in its greenhouse gas emissions, but not until 2025. In a speech on climate change, he said American needed to make sure that emissions peaked within 10 or 15 years, but he put forward no proposals for cutting them.

"Today, I'm announcing a new national goal to stop the growth of US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. To reach this goal, we will pursue a economy wise strategy that builds on the solid foundation that we have in place. For this strategy, we will work with Congress to pass energy legislation."

President Bush has had talks at the White House with Pope Benedict who is on his first visit to the United States since becoming Pontiff. Both men agreed that terrorism was an unacceptable weapon for any cause or religion. Their joint statement also expressed the need for immigration policies to be humane. Before meeting President Bush, the Pope had promised to raise concerns over US laws affecting unregistered migrants from Latin America.

15 Palestinian civilians, 5 of them children, and 3 Israeli soldiers, have died in a day of intensified violence in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians were killed in Israeli ground and air attacks, which followed a gun battle between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters early around Wednesday morning. An Israeli army spokesman Major Avital Leibovich said Israel is defending itself against Palestinian attacks.(Www.hxen.net)

"The actics of operation is to try and locate snipers that are threatening Israeli communities, and also to try and track down those squads that either try to infiltrate or to launch mortar and rockets."

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told the United Nations Security Council that no one believes Robert Mugabe won last month’s presidential election in Zimbabwe. Mr. Brown said a stolen election there would not be a democratic election at all. And he urged the immediate publication of the results from the poll. The South African President Thabo Mbeki, who called the UN session to discuss conflicts, such as Darfur and Somali, didn't mention Zimbabwe. From the UN, Laura Trevelyan

"South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has been insisting his dealing with Zimbabwe through quiet diplomacy. At the special session of the UN Security Council, Gordon Brown called for international observers to be present as there’s a runoff in the election, a call echoed by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the U.S. However, most African leaders didn't even address Zimbabwe in their speeches. "

The Japanese government has used security concerns to block a foreign hedge fund from increasing its shareholding in the country's major power supplier. The Children's Investment Fund, which was set up in Britain to raise money for children in developing countries, wanted to double its stake in the J Power Company to 20%. But Japan's finance and trade ministers ruled against it. (Www.hxen.net)

World News from the BBC.

The Bank of England is reported to be planning significant changes in the way that lends money to British banks to try to break the logjam in the credit markets. The BBC understands that the banks will be allowed temporarily to swap their mortgage-based assets for government bonds. The plan which is similar to moves in the United States could be launched early next week. Our business reporter Mark Gregory has the details.

The problem in Britain as in America is that money markets have ceased down, which makes it hard for financial institutions to raise funds to make loans. The root cause is lack of confidence. To get things moving again, the Bank of England plans to allow commercial banks to swap some of the mortgage-linked securities clogging up their books for government bonds. American central bank-- the Federal Reserve, is trying something similar in the U.S. Experts say it hasn't worked very well.

And the Supreme Court in the United States has opened the way for the resumption of the use of lethal injections to execute criminals sentenced to death. It rejected a challenge brought by two prisoners on death rule in Kentucky, who argued that the use of lethal injections amounted to cruel punishment, which is banned by the United States Constitution. The procedure involves injecting condemned inmates with three drugs to sedate, paralyze and finally kill them.

BBC News.