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BBC news 2009-02-03 加文本
2009-02-03来源:和谐英语
BBC 2009-02-03
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BBC News with Jonathan Izzard.
The US Senate is debating President Obama's 800-billion-dollar economic stimulus plan. Speaking before the debate, President Obama predicted a difficult next few days, but the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, said he hopes to push the measure through by Friday. From Washington, Rajini Vaidyanathan.
Speaking at the White House, President Barack Obama said politicians should not let very modest differences over the economic stimulus package for the US economy get in the way of it moving swiftly. The president has set his own deadline on it. He hopes the plan will be signed into law by the middle of February. The package has already passed the vote in the House of Representatives, but despite the president's pledge to win cross-party support for it, it failed to win the backing of Republicans. A version is now before the Senate, but some senior Republicans there have already expressed their reservations.
The Prime Minister of France, Francois Fillon, has unveiled a series of measures costing more than 33 billion dollars designed to revitalize the French economy. The plans include a thousand public projects to build new housing and invest in transport, higher education and the renovation of historical sites. The French government hopes the projects will create employment. Unemployment in France grew by 45,000 in December alone.
The Sri Lankan government has called on civilians trapped in territory held by the Tamil Tigers to move to a demarcated safe zone. The warning comes as Sri Lankan forces continue to put pressure on rebel fighters holding out in the gradually shrinking enclave in the north of the island. Alan Johnston reports.
The rebels have suffered a series of defeats in recent months. They are now boxed into an enclave just north of the town of Mullaittivu. There is real concern for the many tens of thousands of civilians who are also in the rebel-held territory, and the government says that they must move to what it earlier designated as a safe zone within the enclave. But aid workers say that in recent days, shells have fallen into the supposedly protected area and people have been killed there. Both the army and the rebels deny being responsible for firing into the safe zone.
Reports from Somalia say African Union soldiers have opened fire after a roadside bombing causing heavy civilian casualties. The Deputy Mayor of Mogadishu, Abdifitah Ibrahim Shaweye, has described the incident as a massacre. Peter Greste reports from Nairobi.
It's hard to confirm exactly what happened in Mogadishu on Monday evening, but what is clear is that a roadside bomb exploded as a convoy of African Union peacekeepers passed by. The AU says one of its soldiers, a Ugandan, was wounded while three civilian onlookers were killed. But ambulance drivers said they transported 16 dead, many allegedly victims of indiscriminate shooting by the AU troops in response to the attack. Yet another source said as many as 39 may have died.
World News from the BBC.
The joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, UNAMID, has said it will not pull its soldiers out of the Sudanese town of Muhajeria despite a request from the government of Sudan. The rebel Justice and Equality Movement seized Muhajeria two weeks ago, and the government's aircraft have since raided it several times. A UNAMID spokesman said Sudan had made it clear that it intended to attack the town. News which has caused about 5,000 residents to seek protection at the UNAMID base.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the recent agreement by Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to join a coalition government with President Robert Mugabe. But he said there was still a long way to go to restore full democracy and respect for human rights. Mr. Ban said Zimbabwe should release all political prisoners detained in recent months.
Britain is bracing itself for further disruption as weather forecasters predict more snow. Many schools have said they'll remain closed on Tuesday. The heaviest snowfall to hit southern England for 18 years prevented many people travelling by air, road or rail. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said the capital was not equipped to deal with such extreme weather. Rob Broomby reports.
Why wasn't Britain better prepared? Well, truly icy conditions are rare indeed, even the mayor of London admitted it was hardly worth investing in more snowy equipment, plows and the like for them to stand idle for decades after. There is nothing inherently incompetent about the British reaction, but clearly funding choices have been made which affect how we all cope in extremity.(www.hXen.com)
A US soldier said guesswork and calmness helped him to survive his first ever skydiving jump when the instructor he was tethered to died from a heart attack. Daniel Pharr used the knowledge he had gleaned from watching parachuting on television to steer himself to safety. He said he knew something was wrong when the instructor stopped answering his questions after he had jumped from more than 4,000 metres.
BBC News.
Download Audio
BBC News with Jonathan Izzard.
The US Senate is debating President Obama's 800-billion-dollar economic stimulus plan. Speaking before the debate, President Obama predicted a difficult next few days, but the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, said he hopes to push the measure through by Friday. From Washington, Rajini Vaidyanathan.
Speaking at the White House, President Barack Obama said politicians should not let very modest differences over the economic stimulus package for the US economy get in the way of it moving swiftly. The president has set his own deadline on it. He hopes the plan will be signed into law by the middle of February. The package has already passed the vote in the House of Representatives, but despite the president's pledge to win cross-party support for it, it failed to win the backing of Republicans. A version is now before the Senate, but some senior Republicans there have already expressed their reservations.
The Prime Minister of France, Francois Fillon, has unveiled a series of measures costing more than 33 billion dollars designed to revitalize the French economy. The plans include a thousand public projects to build new housing and invest in transport, higher education and the renovation of historical sites. The French government hopes the projects will create employment. Unemployment in France grew by 45,000 in December alone.
The Sri Lankan government has called on civilians trapped in territory held by the Tamil Tigers to move to a demarcated safe zone. The warning comes as Sri Lankan forces continue to put pressure on rebel fighters holding out in the gradually shrinking enclave in the north of the island. Alan Johnston reports.
The rebels have suffered a series of defeats in recent months. They are now boxed into an enclave just north of the town of Mullaittivu. There is real concern for the many tens of thousands of civilians who are also in the rebel-held territory, and the government says that they must move to what it earlier designated as a safe zone within the enclave. But aid workers say that in recent days, shells have fallen into the supposedly protected area and people have been killed there. Both the army and the rebels deny being responsible for firing into the safe zone.
Reports from Somalia say African Union soldiers have opened fire after a roadside bombing causing heavy civilian casualties. The Deputy Mayor of Mogadishu, Abdifitah Ibrahim Shaweye, has described the incident as a massacre. Peter Greste reports from Nairobi.
It's hard to confirm exactly what happened in Mogadishu on Monday evening, but what is clear is that a roadside bomb exploded as a convoy of African Union peacekeepers passed by. The AU says one of its soldiers, a Ugandan, was wounded while three civilian onlookers were killed. But ambulance drivers said they transported 16 dead, many allegedly victims of indiscriminate shooting by the AU troops in response to the attack. Yet another source said as many as 39 may have died.
World News from the BBC.
The joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, UNAMID, has said it will not pull its soldiers out of the Sudanese town of Muhajeria despite a request from the government of Sudan. The rebel Justice and Equality Movement seized Muhajeria two weeks ago, and the government's aircraft have since raided it several times. A UNAMID spokesman said Sudan had made it clear that it intended to attack the town. News which has caused about 5,000 residents to seek protection at the UNAMID base.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the recent agreement by Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to join a coalition government with President Robert Mugabe. But he said there was still a long way to go to restore full democracy and respect for human rights. Mr. Ban said Zimbabwe should release all political prisoners detained in recent months.
Britain is bracing itself for further disruption as weather forecasters predict more snow. Many schools have said they'll remain closed on Tuesday. The heaviest snowfall to hit southern England for 18 years prevented many people travelling by air, road or rail. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said the capital was not equipped to deal with such extreme weather. Rob Broomby reports.
Why wasn't Britain better prepared? Well, truly icy conditions are rare indeed, even the mayor of London admitted it was hardly worth investing in more snowy equipment, plows and the like for them to stand idle for decades after. There is nothing inherently incompetent about the British reaction, but clearly funding choices have been made which affect how we all cope in extremity.(www.hXen.com)
A US soldier said guesswork and calmness helped him to survive his first ever skydiving jump when the instructor he was tethered to died from a heart attack. Daniel Pharr used the knowledge he had gleaned from watching parachuting on television to steer himself to safety. He said he knew something was wrong when the instructor stopped answering his questions after he had jumped from more than 4,000 metres.
BBC News.
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