BBC news 2008-05-23 加文本

BBC News with Michael Poles.

The head of the oil cartel OPEC has said producers can do nothing to bring down rising oil prices. He was speaking as the price reached a new record high on world markets of $135 a barrel before falling back. Our economics correspondent Andrew Walker reports.(Www.hxen.net)

OPEC Secretary General Abdalla El-Badri said the organization's members are unhappy about the rapid rise in the oil price, but he said there was nothing they could do about it. He blamed financial market speculators, falling production in non-member countries and the decline of the dollar. He and ministers from OPEC countries insist that high prices are not the result of insufficient supply. He described the market as crazy. The price of crude oil has doubled in the last year and is as much as 13 times the lowest hit a decade ago.

The South African government has sent soldiers onto the streets as thousands of migrant workers fend away those xenophobia attacks which have killed more than 40 people. Mozambique says at least ten thousands of its nationals have returned across the border in the past few days. Migrants from Zimbabwe and Nigeria have also been targeted. In the latest operations, police squads backed by troops arrested 28 people around the Johannesburg. …spokesman from the South African opposition, the democratic alliance Tony Lyon, told the BBC why he thinks the violence against foreigners has erupted.

“First of all, we have an almost unregulated border, so we have millions of illegal aliens pouring into the country. There's a scramble for very scarce resources at the bottom of the socioeconomic food chain and our government on this and many other issues has been in a state of denial.”

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who is visiting Burma has expressed frustration that relief workers had been unable to deliver aid at the right time to cyclone-hit areas of the country. Traveling over the devastated Irrawaddy Delta region, he said the disaster was beyond the Burma's capacity to handle. Our Correspondent Laura Trevelyan is traveling with Mr. Ban.

The UN Secretary General wanted to see for himself the damage done by the cyclone and the conditions in which people are living, but the Burmese authorities had other ideas. They are saying in private meetings with Mr. Ban that their relief phase of this is over, it's time for reconstruction. So the first stop we made was not to a scene of devastation and chaos but to a neat and tidy camp with brand-new blue tents and not many people in them, some of them were even empty.

The Democratic Party hopeful for the United States Presidency Barack Obama has visited the synagogue… should go in parador for at least six, seven months

The top American Military Commander in Iraq General David Petraeus says he expects to recommend further cuts in US forces there before leaving his post in September. He didn't say how many troops might be withdrawn. General Petraeus was addressing a Senate panel considering whether he should be promoted to take over Central Command.

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The Democratic Party hopeful for the United States Presidency Barack Obama has visited a synagogue in Florida where he set out his position on Israel. Mr. Obama said if elected, he would maintain the strong bonds between the US and Israel, and would always support Israel's security. Correspondents say Mr. Obama is not doing as well among Jewish voters as his Democratic rival Hilary Clinton. And some Jewish voters are turned off by his expressed willingness to negotiate with countries like Iran.

Voting has ended in a British Parliamentary by-election in the north of England, seen as a test of the popularity of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The constituency of Crewe and Nantwich has long been a stronghold for his Labor party, but after a strong campaign, the opposition conservatives are hoping to take the seat. Our BBC political correspondent James Landale reports.

The counting is not over but the result already appears clear, no one here in Nantwich is disputing the suggestion that the Conservatives will win this by-election. Privately Labor officials are predicting a Conservative majority in the thousands, publicly the Communities and Local Government's Secretary Hazel Blears told the BBC once Question Time that the electors of Crewe and Nantwich might have decided to send Labor a pretty powerful message. Tory in Lib Dem officials claimed that many Labor supporters have stayed at home or voted Conservative. One Tory source estimated that from the votes counted so far, the party could have got as much as 50 percent of the vote with Labor on 28 percent, and the Lib Dems on 17.

The United Nations has called on member countries to review any policies which might affect people's right to food. In its latest warning about the world food crisis, all 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council said developing countries needed to be provided with seeds and fertilizers to increase food production.

BBC News.