BBC news 2008-12-08 加文本

BBC News with Fiona MacDonald.

The Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has expressed his sympathy to the parents of a teenage boy whose killing by a policeman on Saturday sparked riots across Greece. Mr. Karamanlis said his government would work to prevent what he called such a tragedy from happening again. Disorder has spread from Athens where the 15-year-old boy was shot to Thessaloniki and Patras in northern Greece and to the islands of Crete and Corfu. Here's Mike Sanders of our Europe desk.

Central Athens looked like a battleground as masked rioters took to the streets for a second day. Glass from smashed shop windows laid strewn over the pavements. And reports said at least 20 shops had suffered fire damage, ruining trade in the busy Christmas shopping period. The Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis promised the dead boy's father that action would be taken against the two police officers implicated in Saturday’s shooting. The officer says he fired warning shots over the heads of youths throwing stones at his patrol car, but witnesses say he did take aim.

Reports from Pakistan say there's been military activity at a camp used by the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. A BBC correspondent in Muzaffarabad said the camp was cordoned off and witnesses had heard several loud explosions and seen army personnel at the scene. Pakistani officials have not confirmed reports of an offensive on the camp. Pressure has been mounting on Pakistan to take action against Lashkar-e-Taiba which India accuses of being involved in last month's attacks on Mumbai.

The United States President-elect Barack Obama has called for a new approach to fighting militants in South Asia. Speaking on American television, Mr. Obama said that the US needed a strategic partnership with Pakistan, India and the Afghan government to fight Al-Qaeda. It could not continue to look at Afghanistan in isolation. From Washington, here is Sarah Morris.

President-elect Obama called for a change in the way the US fights terror in the South Asian region. He said that military means alone would not be enough and that there has to be the promise of a better life for impoverished Afghans. When pressed on whether India has the right to pursue militants over the Pakistani border after the Mumbai massacre, he said that if a country is attacked, it has the right to defend itself, he added that the Pakistani government has sent the right signals and indicated that terrorism is also a threat within the country, too.

The United States military in Afghanistan says the first public statement for almost a year by the Taliban leader Mullah Omar suggests the movement is coming under increasing pressure. Colonel Greg Julian said increasing numbers of troops were being deployed against the Taliban. He said there was also improved cooperation between the American, Afghan and Pakistani armed forces. Early Mullah Omar warned that the violence in Afghanistan would escalate.

World News from the BBC.

The Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga suggested that the African Union should either send troops into Zimbabwe or allow the United Nations to do so in order to help those suffering from disease. Mr. Odinga told a news conference that outside forces now needed to take control of Zimbabwe to ensure urgent humanitarian assistance for people dying of cholera and from starvation. He said the power-sharing attempts in Zimbabwe had failed.

Ireland's chief Veterinary officer has said that pork tainted with a cancer-causing chemical may have been exported to up to 25 countries. The chemical went into the food chain when pig feed was contaminated with an industrial oil. The Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, said an investigation was underway.

We take whatever measures are necessary to reinforce confidence in the industry for the future. And the problem has been located, the continuing examination inquiries would proceed and we must take action to reinforce confidence to the public and obviously also allow the industry to move on from this point.

A group of scientists have said that healthy adults should be allowed to take drugs that enhance the performance of their brains, but critics say that this is another attempt to sell drugs to healthy people. Christine McGourty reports. (WWw.hxen.net)

In a commentary in Nature magazine, a panel of leading experts in neuroscience and ethics say that taking such pills is not much different to other forms of cognitive enhancement, such as double espressos or expensive private tutoring. There's already anecdotal evidence that some healthy university students who want to improve their memory are taking Ritalin prescribed for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The experts say that if brain-enhancing drugs proved to be safe and effective, they could bring substantial benefits to individuals and society.