BBC news 2008-11-19 加文本

BBC News with Michael Poles.

The heads of the three major American car manufacturers are testifying before the Banking Committee of the US Senate, seeking to secure an emergency financial rescue package. In their opening remarks, several of the committee’s highest ranking members said the car makers are partly to blame for their economic woes. With more, here is James Coomarasamy.

The heads of Chrysler, General Motors and Ford are calling for immediate financial help from the government to avoid what they argue would be the devastating impact on the US economy of anyone of them going bankrupt. They are asking for a $25 billion bridging loan to span, what the head of GM called, the financial chasm that's opened up before them. The majority Democrats in Congress are broadly in favor, but many Republicans say it would simply be throwing good money after bad, arguing that many of the industry's problems are due to bad management.

Pirates have hijacked another two ships in the Gulf of Aden just days after the uNPRecedented capture of a giant Saudi oil tanker. The International Maritime Bureau said a Hong Kong registered cargo ship and another vessel were the latest to be seized. Robert Walker reports from Nairobi.

The International Maritime Bureau says that the latest hijackings both took place in the Gulf of Aden, the narrow waterway between Somalia and Yemen. One of the ships was a cargo vessel registered in Hong Kong with 25 crew members on board. The other was a fishing vessel registered in Kiribati in the South Pacific with 12 on board. The IMB says this brings to 95, the number of ships hijacked by pirates this year in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia.

The rebel group led by Laurent Nkunda in the Democratic Republic of Congo had said it’s willing to withdraw 40 kilometers from positions it occupies in the eastern Kivu region. The move follows pressure from the UN special mediator for Congo, the former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo .From Kivu, Mark Doyle reports.

The current main frontline lies about 100 kilometers north of Goma near the strategic crossroads town of Kanyabayonga. When I travelled through rebel-held territory, I saw confident-looking rebel soldiers lining the roads and occupying villages. In recent days, the rebels have been pushing towards Kanyabayonga, causing tens of thousands more people to flee. The offer of a partial rebel pullback sounds encouraging, but a senior rebel political figure made it clear that if they were attacked, they would respond.

A military court in Nigeria has sentenced six soldiers to life imprisonment for selling thousands of weapons to militants and criminal gangs in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The court ruled that the soldiers led by an army major stole about 7,000 weapons which they then sold to groups in the Delta region. The weapons included assault rifles, submachine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The continuing unrest in the area has caused severe disruption to oil and gas production over many years.

This is Michael Poles for the latest World News from the BBC.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has accused Israel of breaking International Law by blockading the Gaza Strip. She said the blockade had deprived Palestinians of their most basic human rights. Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.

The tone of Navi Pillay's statement leaves absolutely no room for doubt. She wants Israel to lift its blockade now and allow access right away to eight convoys waiting to bring in food, fuel and medical supplies. Only immediate action, she said, could hope to relieve what she described as the massive humanitarian suffering evident in Gaza today. Her statement points out that half of Gaza's population are children, and that decisive steps are needed to preserve their welfare.

A Spanish investigating judge, Baltasar Garzon, has reversed the decision to hold a nationwide investigation into the disappearance of thousands of people during the civil war in the 1930s and the ensuing rule of General Franco. Mr. Garzon had faced strong opposition from the Spanish public prosecutor who argued that such an inquiry would violate an amnesty agreed by political parties after Franco's death in 1975.

The American Food and Drug Administration is due to open its first offices outside the United States in the Chinese capital Beijing on Wednesday. The move follows worries about the safety of Chinese food and medicines which has harmed China's reputation as an exporter. The American officials will be conducting their own inspections and providing technical advice.

The mayor of Baghdad has proposed building an underground railway to ease congestion in the rapidly growing city. Plans for a metro were made in the 1970s, but since then the need for an efficient public transport system has become more urgent, especially as the hundreds of checkpoints set up after the US-led invasion often slow traffic almost to a standstill. The city is initially hoping to build two lines, both of them about 20 kilometers long.

And that's the latest BBC News.(WWw.hxen.net)