BBC 2008-12-03
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BBC News with Michael Poles.
The Chief Executives of the big American carmakers, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, have each promised to work for a dollar a year if Congress approves emergency aid for the ailing industry. The three companies are returning to Washington later this week to make a renewed plea for 25 billion dollars in government loans. General Motors says it needs 12 billion dollars by March to survive. It also announced plans to shed a further 30,000 jobs, close nine plants and reduce the number of its brands to just four. Ford meanwhile says it will cancel all management bonuses for 2009 and sell its corporate jets as a part of a reorganization plan. A spokesman for Ford, Mark Truby, said there were far more than just gimmicks.
I think we wanna to show that everybody’s been asked to sacrifice here, to some degree, as we are in, you know, what is a pretty difficult economic period, one of the worst we’ve seen in a long time.
American officials say Washington warned India of a possible attack on Mumbai before last week’s rampage by heavily armed militants. One intelligence official, who declined to be named, told American reporters that the US had information that the attackers would come by sea and would target hotels and business centers. Richard Lister reports from Washington.
US intelligence routinely tracks phone and satellite communications between those it considers terrorist suspects. That work is continuing with a renewed focus on those who may have been involved in the Mumbai attacks. A senior US official has told the BBC there are strong indications the Kashmiri separatist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba, was involved. Other officials are quoted as saying there is evidence that preparation for the attacks was done in Pakistan. But all the quoted sources agree there is no evidence of any involvement by the Pakistani government.
NATO has agreed to gradually resume dialog with Russia that was suspended over its conflict with Georgia in August. NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels also agree to help Georgia and Ukraine prepare for eventual membership of the alliance. The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the intention was not to isolate Russia after she dropped Washington’s earlier resistance to restarting talks with Moscow. Russia's permanent representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, welcomed the decision and said Russia was ready for dialogue.
I understand that the NATO secretary general has now received instructions from the foreign ministers of / alliance member states to start talks with Russia. We are ready for these talks. It is now clear that NATO has accepted the reality that has been shaped by Russia.
British Airways says it is in talks on a potential merger with the Australian carrier Qantas. The deal would create the world’s third largest airline. Both carriers have been looking at ways of cutting costs and reorganizing their businesses because of the global economic crisis which has led to a big drop in business travel.
World News from the BBC.
The United Nations Security Council has renewed its authorization for the pursuit of pirates in Somalia’s territorial waters and given its support to a European Naval mission aimed at ending piracy off the coast of Somalia. The EU operation called Atalanta will include at least five warships, patrolling the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Somalia’s Ambassador to the UN, Ahmedou Ould Abdullah, said the operation would be successful only if the UN tackled the conflict inside Somalia.
You'll see the piracy will go down if as in the same resolution, it states that there should be also peace on shore, then Yes, piracy who can, who will stop because then the coast would be secured from the inland.
The World Health Organization says an outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe has killed nearly 500 people since August and that 12,000 cases have been recorded. The WHO said about 50% of those infected with cholera were dying in some areas, and that the outbreak had severely strained Zimbabwe's already overburdened health system. A spokeswoman for an aid agency in Zimbabwe says there’s also an outbreak of anthrax with 60 infected people at one hospital.
Thousands of anti-government protestors in Thailand are preparing to end their blockade of Bangkok’s main airports after holding a final rally at the city’s international terminal. The decision to end the protest came after the Constitutional Court moved to ban the governing party earlier on Tuesday and exclude the Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat from politics for five years.
The United Nations body investigating the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, says fresh evidence could help identify additional suspects in the case. The investigating commission says it’s acquired new information that may link additional individuals to the network that carried out the assassination.
That's the BBC News.www.hxen.net
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