BBC news 2008-06-25 加文本

BBC News with Jerry Schmitt.

The Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe has rejected international criticism of his refusal to call off Friday’s presidential election. Speaking at a rally for his supporters, he said the Washington and London could, as he put it, shout as loud as they liked, but the poll would go ahead. Meanwhile the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said she believed Robert Mugabe didn’t consider himself accountable, neither to the people of Zimbabwe nor his party.

“He’s gone so far as to say that only God can remove him. So what he is essentially saying is that he is not accountable to the people of Zimbabwe, I would argue that that means he is not even accountable to Zanu-PF as well, and so that there are, are divisions growing within its own military, there’re divisions growing within his party. And at some point, the people of that country, that want to see peace, that want to see the economy restored will decide that they are gonna to have to deal with him and his supporters.”

Southern African leaders will hold an emergency summit in Swaziland on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Zimbabwe. Last week, the head of the regional body SADC, the Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said the escalating political violence there had made it impossible to hold an election.

The former American President Bill Clinton has offered his support for the first time to the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee Barack Obama. From Washington, here is James Coomarasamy.(Www.hxen.net)

President Clinton is, according to his spokesman, obviously committed to doing whatever he can and he is asked to do to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president of the United States. What he can do is pretty clear. Although some of his comments during the primary campaign were criticized, Mr. Clinton remains a hugely popular draw amongst Democrats, and could help Senator Obama in particular in those working-class areas where he’s found it hardest to connect. While the Obama campaign says they are confident he will play a role in unifying the Democratic Party, relations between the Clinton and Obama camps remain strained.

An airport ceremony in Israel to bid goodbye to the visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy was disrupted when an Israeli border policeman shot himself dead. After the shooting, bodyguards escorted Mr. Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni up the stairs of their plane, while the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was whisked away to his car. An Israeli police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the policeman’s death was suicide and there was no assassination attempt.

“A shot was heard in the background and immediately security guards moved in in order to make sure that there was nothing going on, an incident, a major incident which at the beginning it seemed to be, and immediately, what we did is (to) examine the scene to see what took place and we can confirm that unfortunately this was a separate incident where a border guard committed suicide. He was actually involved in the security on the outer circle, approximately 200 meters away from where the ceremony was taking place.”

World News from the BBC.

A senior United Nations official responsible for the safety of staff in the field has resigned following an internal investigation into a suicide attack on a UN mission in Algeria last December. Sir David Veness, the head of the Security and Safety at the UN stepped down after he was found that officials may have failed to respond adequately before and after the attack which killed 37 people, including 17 UN staff.

The authorities in Mexico City have fired 17 police officers after a stampede at a night club on Friday in which 12 people were killed, including three policemen. From Mexico City, Duncan Kennedy reports.

Nine young party-goers, including a 13-year old girl, were killed during a stampede at the weekend. It all happened during a police raid on the club to investigate claims of underage drinking. Police blamed the club owner for the tragedy, saying he announced that officers were there to arrest everybody. But now, in video released by the city’s Public Security Department, it appears police were blocking one of the main exits. They are shown forming a barrier on the stairway that leads to the exit, a number of young people can be seen screaming and beating on the ceiling of the stairway, trying to get out.

A leading American scientist has warned that poor people in the United States are increasingly at risk from tropical diseases, normally associated with the developing world. Dr. Peter Hotez at George Washing University blames climate change and increasing poverty for the spread of illnesses, including Dengue fever and Chagas disease.

A judge in the United States has refused to allow the sprinter Justin Gatlin to compete in this week's selection trials for the Olympic Games. Gatlin is contesting a four-year ban from athletics for a doping offence, and wanted the court to order the US Olympic Committee to let him run in the trials. But the federal judge ruled that the legal system should not interfere with the selection process.