BBC news 2008-07-25 加文本

BBC 2008-07-25


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BBC news with Jonathan Weekly.

The American presidential candidate Barack Obama has said he will renew the partnership between the United States and Europe if he becomes the next president. Speaking to thousands of Germans in Berlin, he said that neither Europe nor America could afford to withdraw into isolation in the face of challenges such as terrorism and global warming. James Coomarasamy reports from Berlin.

Barack Obama took the themes of change and unity which have served him so well in his run for the presidency and brought them to the global stage. In front of a large crowd, many of whom waved American flags, he used the city once divided by a wall as a symbol for bringing down walls between countries, races and religions. He called on the United States to play a bigger role in fighting threats to global peace and security, but said Europeans had to do their part as well. He called on Germans to put aside their opposition to sending more troops to Afghanistan.

An American counter-narcotics official, who used to be based in Kabul, has accused the Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government of obstructing drug eradication efforts and protecting drug lords. Thomas Schweich said that many of Mr. Karzai's supporters were financed by the drugs trade. He blamed Mr. Karzai directly.

I think that he's part of the problem in the sense that he perceived that there are certain people he can not crack down on, that it's better to tolerate a certain level of corruption, than take an aggressive stand and maybe lose power. That's my perception. I think that's particularly true in his base in Helmand in Kandahar, he seems more willing to allow aggressive counter-narcotic activities outside of his political base.

President Karzai denied the allegations, saying his government had eradicated or greatly reduced drug production in more than half of Afghanistan's provinces. (Www.hXen.com)

One of the world's biggest car manufacturers, the American company Ford, has reported multibillion dollar losses. Ford posted a loss of 8. 7 billion dollars for the second quarter of the year. Ford also announced that it would realign its North American operations to reduce its reliance on trucks and sport utility vehicles by producing smaller cars.

The head of the Anglo-Russian oil company which has been at the center of an intensifying struggle for control has left Russia. The chief executive of TNK-BP, Robert Dudley, said he had been subjected to sustained campaign of harassment. He said he would try to continue his work outside Russia. Richard Gofer in Moscow has more.

After months of increasing tension, Russian tycoons who control half of the joint venture seem to have achieved their main goal, forcing the American chief executive Robert Dudley who was originally a BP employee out of Russia. Since March, the company has been the subject to raids by the Russian security services, a raft of legal cases, and even a lockout to foreign employees, many of whom are now also leaving the country.

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France is to shed over 50,000 jobs in the armed forces and close down 20 regiments and 11 air bases. The cuts are part of plans to modernize the defense sector, announced last month by President Nicolas Sarkozy. The French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said current strategic needs required a lighter force that could act quickly, frequently and away from home.

The authorities in Cameroon say 12 people have been killed in an attack by militants in the disputed oil-rich Bakassi peninsula close to the border with Nigeria. The Defense minister said two of the dead were Cameroonian soldiers and the other ten were militants. Earlier this week, a Nigerian militant group opposed to the handover of Bakassi from Nigeria to Cameroon, threatened to increase attacks in the area. From Lagos, Alex Last reports.

This is the latest and a series of deadly attacks by armed men in the Bakassi peninsula, a triangle of potentially oil-rich mangrove swamps Nigeria. It's not clear who was responsible for this raid on a Cameroonian military camp but it comes just days after a new Nigerian rebel group claimed a series of similar attacks in the region.

The government of Niger has ordered the medical charity Medecines Sans Frontier to stop work because of suspected links to Tuareg rebels . The MSF confirmed that it had been ordered to suspend operations, but said it was continuing to offer a reduced level of help in Niger. The charity organizes its food distribution for tens of thousands of malnourished children in Niger.

The chief spokeswoman for President Bush says she is disappointed that Iraq has been banned from competing in the Beijing Olympics next month. Dana Perino said the Iraqi athletes would have represented a country that was free and working to establish its democracy. International Olympic Committee banned Iraq from the games after accusing the Iraqi government of interfering in sport by taking over the country's Olympic Committee. 

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