BBC news 2009-02-14 加文本

BBC 2009-02-14

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BBC News with Cathy Clarkson.

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the United States is determined to strengthen its partnerships and alliances in East Asia. Speaking about her tour of the region next week, Mrs Clinton said Washington was willing to normalize relations with North Korea.

"If North Korea is genuinely prepared to completely and verifiably eliminate their nuclear weapons program, the Obama administration will be willing to normalize bilateral relations, replace the peninsula’s long-standing armistice agreements with a permanent peace treaty and assist in meeting the energy and other economic needs of the North Korean people."

The President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai has spoken of a tension between his government and the new American administration. The television channel, Al Jazeera, quoted Mr. Karzai as saying, he’d not spoken to President Obama since he moved into the White House last month. His comments followed reports of dissatisfaction with Mr. Karzai among members of the new administration in Washington.

A spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe says the party’s nominee for deputy minister of agriculture, Roy Bennett, has been charged with treason. He was arrested just before a new unity government was sworn in by President Mugabe. The ceremony which took place nearly a year after disputed elections went ahead despite last-minute disagreements over the exact division of posts between Mr. Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the former MDC opposition. The BBC is banned from Zimbabwe. But our correspondent Andrew Harding is in Harare.

It’s been a scrappy day here in Zimbabwe. The new unity government has finally been established in a ceremony presided over by a tetchy-looking Robert Mugabe. But it very nearly didn’t happen. At the last moment, Mr. Mugabe tried to add some extra names to the list of ministers, a furious argument delayed the proceedings for several hours. Eventually the new cabinet was sworn in, half of them from Zanu-PF, half from the rival Movement for Democratic Change. Then came the news that the police had arrested Roy Bennett, a senior MDC official and prospective deputy minister.

A Canadian educated former diplomat has been chosen as the new prime minister of Somalia. He is Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who's held various international posts with the United Nations. Correspondents say it’s hoped Mr. Sharmarke can function as a bridge between the Islamists within the interim Somali government and the international community. Kevin Mwachiro reports.

The appointment of Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke seems to have ticked all the right boxes. His father was Somalia's first civilian president and is still fondly remembered. He is from the Darod clan, ensuring that the country's three major clans are represented in the country's struggling leadership, and he enjoys widespread support from parliamentarians and Somalis living at home and abroad.

World News from the BBC.(www.hXen.com)

The US House of Representatives has passed the revised economic stimulus package worth 787 billion dollars requested by President Barack Obama. No Republicans voted for the measure despite President Obama’s calls for bipartisan support. Seven Democrats also voted against. The bill now goes before the Senate where a vote is expected later today.

The Lower House of the German Parliament has approved an economic stimulus package worth about 65 billion dollars. Its approval came on the day that new figures showed the German economy shrank by 2.1% in the final three months of last year, the country’s worst economic performance since reunification in 1990.  

A museum director in Turkey has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison after being found guilty of stealing precious artefacts from collections in his care. The curator was convicted along with nine members of his staff for the theft of a coin and a golden brooch in the shape of a winged seahorse. Sarah Rainsford reports.


This theft was exposed by an anonymous letter to local officials. The informer claimed that a golden coin and a golden brooch shaped like a winged horse had been stolen from the local museum and replaced with worthless fakes. The brooch was one of the most valuable treasures of King Croesus unearthed by villagers in western Turkey in the 1960s, but dating back to the 7th Century BC. After a long investigation, Turkey’s culture ministry concluded that the theft was an inside job. And the museum’s director will now serve almost 13 years in prison. The stolen treasures have not been recovered.
 

The United Nations agency, UNESCO, has announced the creation of the world’s first international human rights center in Argentina. At a signing ceremony in Buenos Aires, the head of UNESCO said the center would be based in a former detention facility which was used at the time of the country’s military dictatorship.

BBC News.

Glossary:

scrappy: If you describe something as scrappy, you disapprove of it because it seems to be badly planned or untidy.

tetchy: If you say that someone is tetchy, you mean they are bad-tempered and likely to get angry suddenly without an obvious reason.

furious:Someone who is furious is extremely angry.

prospective: You use prospective to describe someone who wants to be the thing mentioned or who is likely to be the thing mentioned. =would-be

artefacts:An artefact is an ornament, tool, or other object that is made by a human being, especially one that is historically or culturally interesting.

brooch:胸针

signing ceremony: 签字仪式