BBC 2008-12-15
Download Audio
BBC News with Marian Marshall.
A surprise visit by President Bush to Iraq was disrupted when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes and shouted insults at him during a news conference. Mr. Bush ducked and managed to avoid the shoes which hit the wall behind him. The journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards. Showing the soles of shoes is a sign of contempt in Arab culture. Our Baghdad correspondent Humphrey Hawksley said the gesture was a reflection of the mood in the country.
I think it reflects a kind of grassroots anger felt generally throughout the country. Yesterday I was out talking to people on different issues and they were fairly upbeat about things, talking about the economy, and the imports, and that sort of thing. When we were talking to people about President Bush’s visit today, they were condemnatory.
The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has highlighted the extent of the threat posed to Britain by Islamist militants in Pakistan and announced plans to combat the problem. Mr. Brown said three quarters of the serious plots unearthed by the British police had links with al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Mr. Brown was speaking in Islamabad after talks with President Asif Zardari following the recent attack on the city of Mumbai that India has blamed on Pakistani-based（Pakistan-based）militants.
“We will work to ensure that everything is done to make sure that terrorists are denied any safe haven in Pakistan. The time has come for action and not words. And I want to help Pakistan and other countries root out terrorism”.
A Ugandan army spokesman has said that forces from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan, have taken part in a joint military operation against the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army. He said several rebel camps in the northeastern Congo were set on fire and destroyed. He said the operation had been a success but the number of casualties wasn’t known. The spokesman said Uganda provided what he called air assets and all three countries had sent in ground forces. A BBC correspondent says the United Nations mission in Congo was aware of the operation but it played no part.
More details have been emerging of how many companies have been exposed to the alleged fraud carried out by the US broker Bernard Madoff. Mr. Madoff, the former head of the NASDAQ stock market, was charged last week with fraud in the running of his hedge fund. Sebastian Arsher reports.
The list of victims of Bernard Madoff’s investment fund which he’s admitted was one big lie is growing by the day. Spain’s biggest bank Santander now says one of its investment funds has an exposure of three billion dollars. And the top French Bank BNP Paribas says its exposure could be more than 416 million dollars. Like hundreds of others, they fell for Mr. Madoff’s extraordinary returns which it turns out were based on shuttling investors’ money around in a vast pyramid scheme.
World News from the BBC.
The African Union has expressed serious concern over the sacking of the Somali Prime Minister by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad. The head of the AU Commission Jean Ping said the move would undermine efforts to bring peace and stability to the country, and further complicate the situation there. President Yusuf said he was replacing the Prime Minster Nur Hassan Hussein because he had failed to bring security to the country. Somalia has been without a fully functioning government since 1991, and President Yusuf and his prime minister had clashed in recent months over attempts to deal with the Islamist-led opposition.
Russian police have arrested dozens of opposition activists in advance of planned anti-government protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Hundreds of riot police have been sent to the central Moscow Square to prevent the demonstration from taking place. At least 90 people were arrested there, and another 60 in St. Petersburg. But Eduard Limonov, the leader of the opposition National Bolsheviks, said that despite the arrests, it was a moral victory for the protestors.
The victory went to the opposition. The authorities who had tens of thousands of people at their disposal found themselves in the position of being helpless clods, like a clod on ice. In the future, we will not even ask for permission to come out onto the streets. We will come out onto the streets and they will be like ten clod on ice.(WWw.hxen.net)
The head of the World Bank Robert Zoellick has warned that efforts to boost the troubled economies of wealthy nations could cause serious damage to developing countries. Mr. Zoellick said in an interview with the Reuters news agency that some of the measures taken had already made it more difficult for poorer nations to raise funds in the markets. He added that the economic turmoil could lead to humanitarian aid drying up and that together with rising unemployment, it could cause a new wave of protectionism.
手机网站