BBC news 2008-12-20 加文本

BBC News with Mary Small

The U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has welcomed the multi-billion-dollar funding package for the struggling U.S. car industry. The Bush administration announced an emergency funding of around 17 billion dollars with the money expected to go to General Motors and Chrysler, those of which have been struggling in the global credit crisis. The aid is conditional on the companies’ restructuring themselves.

However, Mr. Obama also had this warning “The auto companies must not squander this chance to reform bad management practices and begin the long-term restructuring that is absolutely necessary to save this critical industry and the millions of American jobs that depend on it while also creating the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow”.

The Governor of the American State of Illinois Rod Blagojevich has said he won’t resign over allegations that he’s tried to trade the vacant Senate seat of the President-elect Barack Obama for cash or a plum job. In his first official statement since being arrested on corruption charges last week, the governor told reporters that he would stay on the job he’d been elected to do and would answer every allegation in court.

“I know there are some powerful forces arrayed against me. It's kinda lonely right now, but I have on my side the most powerful ally there is and it’s the truth, and besides, I have the personal knowledge that I have not done anything wrong”.  

The Judiciary in Argentina has reversed the controversial court decision, ordering the release from prison of more than a dozen men charged with the murder or torture of political opponents during the country’s last military government. The court changed its decision after prosecutors argued that the men could flee if released on bail. Daniel Schweimler reports from Buenos Aires.

Most in Argentina was surprised and outraged by the court’s decision on Thursday to allow the men to go free. These were not just any prisoners. These were some of the most notorious men accused of committing human rights abuses in Argentina under military rule between 1976 and 1983. Among them were Alfredo Astiz, and Jorge Acosta, officers who worked at the Naval Mechanics School, the largest detention center operated by the military in Buenos Aires and it was here that new-born babies were taken from their mothers and given for adoption to childless military couples. The mothers were then killed.

New research on Switzerland’s glaciers has found that they are melting at an accelerating rate and that many will disappear completely by the end of the century. Two studies by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology looked at 30 glaciers in the country and concluded that they are losing about a meter of thickness every year. The researchers blame climate change for the melting. They say that only the largest glaciers will still exist at the end of the century and even those will be much smaller than they are now.

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An independent study published in Turkey says there’s growing evidence that those who do not observe Islamic customs are being discriminated against despite the country’s secular constitution. Researchers from Bogaziçi  University in Istanbul and the Open Society Institute link the issue to the government of the religious-conservative AK party which it says had appointed people to public bodies on the basis of their  political and religious beliefs.

Construction has begun on a memorial to hundreds of thousands of Roma or Gypsies murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. The memorial takes the form of a square well brimming with dark water and bearing an inscription of a poem about the holocaust. The head of the Alliance of Sinti and Roma, in Germany Natascha Winter said the memorial would improve relations between the Roma and the German government.

“I think this has  a really positive effect because the German government is coming clean over this evil event and recognizing us not only as part of the population, but also instilling in us a sense of trust that we belong to the population over the last several hundred years because we define ourselves as German Gypsies. Now we feel that we really belong.(www.hxen.coM)
 
The United States has filed a legal challenge with the World Trade Organization over what it says the protectionist policies by China in its marketing of home-produced goods. The U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said China’s use of export subsidies to promote Chinese products was a violation of global trade rules.

The Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme has decided to offer his government resignation to King Albert the Second in a growing row over the troubled bank Fortis. The move came shortly after a senior judge said that there were strong indications the government had tried to stop the Judiciary, blocking the proposed breakup and sale of Fortis to the French bank BNP Paribas.

And that’s the latest, BBC News.