BBC news 2009-02-21 加文本

BBC News with Marian Marshall.

The leader of Israel's right-wing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, has asked the Kadima and Labor parties to discuss joining a broad coalition with him in the face of what he called huge challenges to Israel. Mr. Netanyahu already has the support of other right-wing and religious groups. The centralist Kadima party won one more seat than Likud in the recent election, but Kadima's leader, Tzipi Livni, said she'd rather go into opposition than provide what she's called a fig leaf for a right-wing administration.

"A coalition has been formed, it's a coalition without a political vision, a coalition that would not allow me to implement my vision, Kadima's vision, the vision we presented to the voters, and therefore I will not be able to serve as a cover for a lack of direction. I want to lead Israel in a way I believe in."

Two rebel Tamil Tiger aircraft have attacked the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. The Defence Ministry said a tax office was destroyed, at least 42 people injured. Warren Bull of our South Asia desk reports.

One of the two Tamil Tiger aircraft dropped a bomb on the main tax office in the capital, setting it on fire and causing a number of casualties. The military said it'd shot down one of the small planes and recovered the pilot's body. Power in the city was cut and searchlights swept the sky, trying to detect the rebel aircraft. The raids come as government forces continue their assault on the Tamil-held enclave in the north of Sri Lanka. The latest attack will be seen as a major embarrassment for Sri Lanka's government, which had driven the insurgents from many of their strongholds, and it had claimed to have destroyed all the Tamil Tiger's hidden runways.

The Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said it could cost as much as five billion dollars to reconstruct his country. At a news conference in Cape Town, Mr. Tsvangirai described the situation as dire and said his priorities were food, health and education. The South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said South African finance ministers would be meeting next week to consider financial assistance for Zimbabwe.

Financial regulators in the Caribbean have taken control of an Antiguan Bank owned by Allen Stanford who's been served with legal papers in the United States relating to alleged fraud. The regulators from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank said their action was to prevent the bank's collapse. Greg Wood reports from the island.

Over the past few days, customers have been lining up at the Bank of Antigua to take out their money. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank which is the financial authority for eight Caribbean islands said the withdrawal was so big that Bank of Antigua would have been unable to meet its obligations. It also said the situation was threatening the financial stability at the region. In taking full control of the bank, it promised to take all necessary steps to protect the rights and interests of creditors and depositors.

World News from the BBC.

Britain says the United States has agreed to return a British resident held at Guantanamo Bay, Binyam Mohamed. The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said he would be sent back to Britain as soon as practical arrangements could be made. Mr. Miliband said the immigration status of Mr. Mohamed, an Ethiopian, would be reviewed on his return. Mr. Mohamed's lawyer said he's been tortured since his arrest in Pakistan in 2002.

The United States says it and its partners can't delay addressing concerns about Iran's uranium enrichment program after a UN report raised new questions about its nuclear activities. A White House spokesman also accused Iran of failing to prove that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Andy Gallacher reports from Washington.

On Thursday, the United Nations nuclear watchdog concluded that Iran was continuing to enrich uranium, a key stage in the process of making an atom bomb. The White House called the report which also said that Iran's enrichment activities are slowing, a missed opportunity for Teheran. The US government accused Iran of ignoring its international obligations and warned the international community that Iran's enrichment program may not exclusively be for peaceful means.

The Italian government has passed an emergency decree to toughen penalties for rape, following a spate of highly publicized assaults which have been widely blamed on immigrants. The decree sets a mandatory life sentence for rapes that result in death, makes stalking a crime and speeds up trials for alleged sex offenders. The measure also enables local authorities to organize patrols of unarmed citizens to boost security on the streets.

The authorities in the Serb entity within Bosnia-Herzegovina have been ordered to pay 42 million dollars to local Muslims for the destruction of all the mosques in the main town Banja Luka during the Bosnian civil war. Hundreds of religious buildings were destroyed in the conflict in the 1990s. Banja Luka originally had 16 mosques.

BBC News.

Glossary:

fig-leaf: People sometimes refer disapprovingly to something which is intended to hide or prevent an embarrassing situation as a fig leaf. (JOURNALISM)(www.hXen.com)

a spate of: A spate of things, especially unpleasant things, is a large number of them that happen or appear within a short period of time. =series 

stalking: the crime of following and watching someone over a period of time in a way that is very annoying or threatening.