BBC news 2008-11-27 加文本

BBC News with Neil Nunes.

About 80 people have been killed and 200 wounded in a series of coordinated attacks on the main tourist and business area of the Indian financial capital Mumbai. At least 7 high-profile locations were targeted, the assailants used grenades and automatic weapons, with the very latest on the attacks, here's Andrew Whitehead.

Several hours into this emergency, troops and police are still struggling to root out remaining attackers and free those either held hostages or trapped. Indian security forces have sealed off one luxury hotel, another is on fire with pictures of the flames broadcast live across the country. Explosions have been heard, among the dead, several of the assailants and the head of the police anti-terrorist force. This was a sophisticated series of attacks, targeting the sort of places where local and visiting business leaders gather, and also a hospital and Mumbai's main commuter rail station.

Senior members of the Indian government are called to emergency meetings as the attacks in Mumbai unfolded. A little-known group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen has claimed responsibility. Mumbai was the target of a wave of bombings on commuter trains in July, 2006, which killed almost 190 people. Police at that time accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of planning those attacks, which they said were carried out by an Islamist militant group, Lashkar-e-Toiba. Pakistan rejected the allegation.

The United States and Britain have led international condemnation of the latest attacks. In Washington a State Department spokesman called the violence horrific. President-elect Barack Obama said the United States must work to strengthen ties with India to root out and destroy terrorist networks. The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the attacks were outrageous and would be met with a "vigorous response". In New York a spokesman for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said the perpetrators should be brought to justice swiftly.

The South African Health Minister Barbara Hogan says an outbreak of cholera in neighboring Zimbabwe has created a humanitarian crisis. She said anyone who was ill who crossed into her country from Zimbabwe would not be stopped, and that South Africa was doing everything it could to help with the cholera crisis.

Given the scale of the outbreak, the weakened health system in Zimbabwe and the extent of cross-border movement of people, it was agreed that all aspects of our interventions needed to be scaled up and a renewed sense of urgency to deal with this outbreak was needed at all levels. Clearly, a major focus should be to assist the people of Zimbabwe to access clean water and to repair sanitation plants.

Barbara Hogan also questioned the Zimbabwean government's decision not to declare a state of emergency over the cholera outbreak. The authorities in Harare had said that it's under control.

World News from the BBC.(WWw.hxen.net)

The American President-elect Barack Obama has named a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, as the head of a new White House panel to advise him on stabilizing financial markets and avoiding an economic recession. Mr. Volcker led the Federal Reserve under two previous presidents, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Announcing his appointment, Mr. Obama described Mr. Volcker as one of his most trusted advisors.

Paul has been by my side throughout this campaign, providing a deep understanding of the financial markets, extensive experience managing economic crisis and keen insight into the global nature of this particular crisis.

Some news just in; the Untied Nations Security Council has unanimously endorsed a plan drawn up by the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the deployment of a European Union police and justice mission in Kosovo. The EU mission is intended eventually to take over from the UN mission that has administered the former Serbian province since 1999.

A jury in the United States has convicted a woman in connection with an Internet hoax that led to the suicide of a teenage girl. The 49-year-old woman, Lori Drew, was found guilty of accessing a computer without authorization and could face three years in jail. She invented the character of a teenage boy on the social networking website Myspace who developed a relationship with a girl Megan Meier and then broke it off, Miss Meier later hanged herself.

The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has arrived in Venezuela on the next step of his four-nation tour of Latin America. Earlier Mr. Medvedev had talks with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The two leaders agreed the world's four leading emerging markets: their own countries and India and China would hold their first summit next year. President Lula said the four countries represented a powerful force.