BBC news 2008-11-02 加文本

The French and British Foreign Ministers Bernard Kouchner and David Miliband are in the Rwandan capital Kigali on the second leg of their diplomatic mission to try to find a way to end the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thousands of civilians have been displaced by a rebel advance in the eastern town of Goma near the Rwandan border and are living in desperate conditions. Congo accuses Rwanda of backing the rebels. After talks in Kinshasa on Saturday with the Congolese President, Mr. Miliband said there was a pressing need for emergency relief to reach camps for people displaced by the conflict with the establishment of a safe humanitarian corridor to Goma a priority. He added that the contingent of 800 UN peacekeepers currently in the city needed to be reinforced. The Under-Secretary-General of the UN responsible for peacekeeping operations Alain Le Roy agreed the UN force in Congo MONUC needs more troops.

“MONUC has 17,000 troops, almost the figure that they need to have in Kosovo and you should know that Congo is 200 times bigger than Kosovo, and our troops are clearly overstretched. We are in a process of reconfiguring the mission, but we still consider we need additional force.

The Bolivian President Evo Morales has announced that he’s suspending the operations in his country of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA. He did not say whether the DEA staff will be ordered to leave the country as coca-growers have asked him to do. Mr. Morales accused the agency of political spying and said they could not be trusted.

“They were DEA agents who worked as political spies. They funded criminal groups to attempt against the life of certain authorities, if not the president himself. And it financed civilians to sabotage airports in eastern Bolivia. The DEA denies any wrongdoing or involvement in Bolivian politics. ”

The former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra has been addressing tens of thousands of his supporters who gathered at a stadium in the capital Bangkok. Speaking by telephone from his self-imposed exile, Mr.Thaksin greeted them as people who love democracy and regretted he could not be there in person. There was tight security in Bangkok for the rally which entered to counter months of demonstrations by opponents of the government, who say it’s unduly influenced by Mr. Thaksin. He was sentenced to jail in his absence for abuse of power, but still enjoys significant backing, particularly in rural Thailand.

The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been holding talks with the Russian leadership on his first visit to Moscow since the Soviet era. Both countries are major oil and gas producers.

And Colonel Gaddafi said closer energy cooperation with Russia was particularly important. Correspondents say Russia is keen to persuade Libya to back its plans for a cartel of gas-producing nations similar in concept to the oil organization OPEC. It's also reported that the two countries are negotiating a civilian nuclear cooperation deal.

World News from the BBC.

As the race to become president of the United States entered its final three days, the two candidates are both campaigning in battlegrounds usually considered to be Republican strongholds. Democratic Party contender Barack Obama is leading the polls. But he told a rally in Nevada that no one should believe for a second that the election was over. Janet Warner reports from Washington.

Barack Obama is campaigning in Colorado today, a state that has voted Democrat only once in the last 40 years. But like many other traditionally Republican strongholds, it’s become a potential prize for Mr. Obama. His Republican rival John McCain has been forced to spend the last critical days of the race seeking support in areas he should have been able to take for granted. He has been in Virginia, for instance, another staunchly Republican state that, the polls show, could be captured by the Democrats.

The Swiss marine explorer and inventor Jacques Piccard has died at his home on the edge of Lake Geneva, at the age of 86. In 1960, Piccard and his co-pilot took a submersible vessel developed by his father to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. Their 11km descent beneath the surface of the sea, remains the deepest ever carried out. Paul Legg reports.

The historic dive attracted worldwide attention and some controversy among marine biologists who disputed Piccard’s claims to have observed flatfish, and a new type of shrimp at the bottom of the ocean. In his later years, Piccard became an outspoken critic of marine pollution and over-fishing. He only retired from deep sea diving four years ago at the age of 82. (WWw.hxen.net)

And the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has arrived in Saudi Arabia to start a four-day visit to Arab Gulf states. Mr. Brown will be talking to leaders in the oil-rich region about coordinating the response to the global financial crisis. Mr. Brown said it was in the region’s best interests to secure stable energy prices.

 BBC News.