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BBC news 2008-07-17 加文本
2008-07-17来源:和谐英语
BBC 2008-07-17
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BBC News with Dabura Mccarthy.
The release of five Lebanese prisoners by Israel in exchange for the remains of two of its soldiers has been marked with jubilation in Lebanon and gloom in Israel. In Beirut, the Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah told cheering crowds that the age of defeats was over. The five ex-prisoners sat by his side. One of them, Samir Qantar, had been convicted of killing four Israelis, including smashing the skull of a four-year-old girl. Mr. Nasrallah said the culture of resistance was a central feature of Lebanon’s identity.
I would like to stress though what I have said before that the true, original and permanent identity of our region’s peoples and our nation is that of resistance. It is an identity of the will and culture of resistance, and of the rejection of humiliation and occupation.
The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert castigated the people who celebrated the return of what he described as a beastly man. It was the capture of the two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid two years ago which triggered the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Scientists say they’ve discovered a genetic risk factor in people of African descent which increases their chances of contracting the virus which causes AIDS. They believe the genetic changes which evolve to protect African people from malaria have made them more vulnerable to HIV. Here is our health correspondent Jane Dreaper.
Writing in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the scientists explain how they studied a protein called Duffy, which helps protect the blood from HIV. Genetic differences mean 90% of people in Africa don’t have this protein on the surface of their red blood cells, and therefore more much likely to contract HIV if exposed to the virus. And intriguingly, the scientists say these genetic changes occurred over time as the Africans’ bodies responded to guard against another fatal disease malaria.
The US government’s key measure of inflation shows that consumer prices have risen 5% over the past year, the biggest annual rise since 1991. The increase was mostly due to soaring energy prices and rising food costs. From New York, Greg Wood reports.
The United States now has a real and growing inflation problem. The dire news on prices puts the US Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, in a rather helpless position. In normal times, it would raise interest rates to curb inflation. But these are not normal times. High oil prices, tight credit, and the housing slump are putting a huge squeeze on household incomes and there is a crisis in the financial system. Raising interest rates now could well push the economy into recession.
Oil prices have fallen for a second day running with the price of crude closing in New York more than ten dollars lower than two days ago. Light sweet crude closed at just over 134 dollars a barrel.
BBC News.
The US Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Pentagon is looking for ways to send more troops to Afghanistan as he put it sooner rather than later. At the same news conference, the Chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said he would recommend further troop cuts in Iraq this year and warned that the threat in Afghanistan was accelerating.
The president of Colombia Alvaro Uribe has admitted that a member of the military wore a Red Cross emblem during the rescue earlier this month of Ingrid Betancourt. Falsely portraying military personnel as members of the Red Cross is considered a violation of international law. Mr. Uribe said one member of the rescue team, who was posing as charity worker, had become nervous and placed a Red Cross symbol on his shirt.
This official when confessing his mistake to senior officers has said that when the helicopter was about to land, he saw so many guerrillas that they made him very nervous. He feared for his life and he took out the piece of cloth, carrying the symbol of the international committee of the Red Cross that he had in his pocket and he put it over his jacket.
The Italian government has sought to defuse a row over its plans to fingerprint Roma children by announcing that everyone living in Italy will have to undergo the same procedure from 2010. Critics said the proposal to fingerprint Roma children was discriminatory, but the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi argued it was essential. There are about 150,000 Roma living in Italy.(www.hXen.com)
Britain and Nigeria want to declare oil smuggled out the Niger Delta blood oil, just as illegally-mined diamonds were labeled blood diamonds. The aim is to identify people behind the trade in stolen oil which is used to buy weapons and use international law to bring them into justice. The British Primer Minister Gordon Brown said Britain was also willing to provide support for Nigerian maritime security.
BBC News.
Download Audio
BBC News with Dabura Mccarthy.
The release of five Lebanese prisoners by Israel in exchange for the remains of two of its soldiers has been marked with jubilation in Lebanon and gloom in Israel. In Beirut, the Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah told cheering crowds that the age of defeats was over. The five ex-prisoners sat by his side. One of them, Samir Qantar, had been convicted of killing four Israelis, including smashing the skull of a four-year-old girl. Mr. Nasrallah said the culture of resistance was a central feature of Lebanon’s identity.
I would like to stress though what I have said before that the true, original and permanent identity of our region’s peoples and our nation is that of resistance. It is an identity of the will and culture of resistance, and of the rejection of humiliation and occupation.
The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert castigated the people who celebrated the return of what he described as a beastly man. It was the capture of the two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid two years ago which triggered the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Scientists say they’ve discovered a genetic risk factor in people of African descent which increases their chances of contracting the virus which causes AIDS. They believe the genetic changes which evolve to protect African people from malaria have made them more vulnerable to HIV. Here is our health correspondent Jane Dreaper.
Writing in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the scientists explain how they studied a protein called Duffy, which helps protect the blood from HIV. Genetic differences mean 90% of people in Africa don’t have this protein on the surface of their red blood cells, and therefore more much likely to contract HIV if exposed to the virus. And intriguingly, the scientists say these genetic changes occurred over time as the Africans’ bodies responded to guard against another fatal disease malaria.
The US government’s key measure of inflation shows that consumer prices have risen 5% over the past year, the biggest annual rise since 1991. The increase was mostly due to soaring energy prices and rising food costs. From New York, Greg Wood reports.
The United States now has a real and growing inflation problem. The dire news on prices puts the US Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, in a rather helpless position. In normal times, it would raise interest rates to curb inflation. But these are not normal times. High oil prices, tight credit, and the housing slump are putting a huge squeeze on household incomes and there is a crisis in the financial system. Raising interest rates now could well push the economy into recession.
Oil prices have fallen for a second day running with the price of crude closing in New York more than ten dollars lower than two days ago. Light sweet crude closed at just over 134 dollars a barrel.
BBC News.
The US Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Pentagon is looking for ways to send more troops to Afghanistan as he put it sooner rather than later. At the same news conference, the Chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said he would recommend further troop cuts in Iraq this year and warned that the threat in Afghanistan was accelerating.
The president of Colombia Alvaro Uribe has admitted that a member of the military wore a Red Cross emblem during the rescue earlier this month of Ingrid Betancourt. Falsely portraying military personnel as members of the Red Cross is considered a violation of international law. Mr. Uribe said one member of the rescue team, who was posing as charity worker, had become nervous and placed a Red Cross symbol on his shirt.
This official when confessing his mistake to senior officers has said that when the helicopter was about to land, he saw so many guerrillas that they made him very nervous. He feared for his life and he took out the piece of cloth, carrying the symbol of the international committee of the Red Cross that he had in his pocket and he put it over his jacket.
The Italian government has sought to defuse a row over its plans to fingerprint Roma children by announcing that everyone living in Italy will have to undergo the same procedure from 2010. Critics said the proposal to fingerprint Roma children was discriminatory, but the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi argued it was essential. There are about 150,000 Roma living in Italy.(www.hXen.com)
Britain and Nigeria want to declare oil smuggled out the Niger Delta blood oil, just as illegally-mined diamonds were labeled blood diamonds. The aim is to identify people behind the trade in stolen oil which is used to buy weapons and use international law to bring them into justice. The British Primer Minister Gordon Brown said Britain was also willing to provide support for Nigerian maritime security.
BBC News.
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