BBC news 2008-08-28 加文本

And the United Nations persuades Pakistan that the time is not right to send pub-refugees back to Afghanistan. First, the news in detail.

BBC news with Fiona McDonald

Barack Obama has officially become the presidential candidate of the US Democratic Party. In a gesture of unity, Hillary Clinton, who lost out to Senator Obama in a bitter primary campaign, stopped the roll call vote at the party convention in Denver and appealed for him to be nominated by acclamation.

James Coomarasamy reports from the Convention.

It was a highly symbolic moment, one by one, representatives of each American state and overseas territory had been standing up to announce the results of how their delegates had voted in the nominating ballot. As well as Barack Obama’s name, Hillary Clinton's was also put forward for consideration in recognition of her hard-fought primary campaign. And then as the voting reached the state of New York, Senator Clinton herself talked to the microphone to call for the roll call to end, and for Barack Obama to be declared the nominee. (Www.hxen.net)

History has officially been made. The Democrat’s first African-American presidential candidate nominated by the woman he narrowly defeated.

The Russian government says it's monitoring closely what it calls a build-up by NATO of its naval forces in the Black Sea as tension continues in the crisis over Georgia. Moscow accused the United States of engaging in gunboat diplomacy and it sent a missile cruiser and two other ships to the area. The US insists the ships that it’s sent are on a humanitarian mission to Georgia. NATO says four other ships in the area are on a mission that was planned more than a year ago.

The Group of Seven Industrialized Countries has become the latest to deplore what it called Russia's excessive use of military force in Georgia. Western countries have warned Russia against a return to the Cold War. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Moscow's action in recognizing Georgia's two breakaway regions was an unacceptable attempt to change borders.

A spokesman for the Russian prime minister rejected that Russia was seeking a confrontation with western countries. From Moscow Humphrey Hawksley reports.  

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said that Russia was and will continue to be the last country in the world that wants a new Cold War. And it was in any case impossible. There was no ideological difference between Russia and the west he said, and Russia was a responsible member of the international community. Everyone was going in the same direction.

The United Nations says Pakistan has agreed to extend the deadline for the repatriation of some two million Afghan refugees. The UN's High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres says there is now a consensus that given the deteriorating security and economic situation in Afghanistan the deadline of 2009 is unrealistic. Mr. Guterres said the UN would intensify its efforts to improve living conditions in Afghanistan. (Www.hxen.net)

We are convening together with the Afghan government, the conference on return and integration for November, and it is very important that both the Afghan government and the international community do more, creating the conditions for the people to be able to go back.

World news from the BBC.

A state of emergency has been declared in Louisiana, evacuation plans have been prepared in New Orleans amid warnings that the American Gulf Coast could be hit by a powerful hurricane. Tropical Storm Gustav has already killed more than 20 people in Haiti, and is now heading in the direction of the Cayman Islands. Weather forecast has warned that the storm could strengthen to become a hurricane.

In California, the jury has gone out in the trial of a former US Marine accused of war crimes in Iraq. It's alleged that Jose Luis Nazario killed two unarmed Iraqi men during fighting in Fallujah in 2004. From Rajesh Mirchandani reports.

For the first time, a civilian jury must rule on the actions of a soldier during combat. Jose Luis Nazario left the Marine a year before he was charged. Some legal experts have questioned, whether the rules and conditions of warfare can be judged in a non-military setting. Mr. Nazario denies the charges, but if convicted,  could face more than ten years in prison. Two other still active marines face court-martial for their alleged part in the Fallujah killings.

Scientists in the United States say they have transformed one type of adult cell into another inside a living animal. The technique called direct reprogramming bypasses the need for embryonic stem cells whose use is the subject of ethical debate. Writing in the scientific journal “Nature”, researchers describe how they converted ordinary cells in the pancreas of a mouse into the type that produces insulin.

Research in Britain suggests it would be almost impossible to get people in developed countries to cut back on flying to help prevent dangerous climate change. Scientists at the University of Exeter say that even the most environmentally aware people, those who understand the role of carbon emissions from aviation, are unwilling to reduce the plane trips they make.

BBC News.