BBC news 2009-03-02 加文本

BBC 2009-03-02


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BBC News with Michael Poles.

There is renewed concern about security inside the Democratic Republic of Congo. Only a few days after Rwanda withdrew its forces from the east of the country, Hutu rebels have retaken positions they'd lost during military operations against them. Mark Doyle is in Congo and sent this report.

A UN spokesman said he had reports that the Rwandan rebels had retaken several positions in Eastern Congo, including a former military training school. The Congolese government said these were just hit-and-run attacks of a type which had also occurred when the troops of the powerful Rwandan government army was still inside Congo. However, there are bound to be fears among Congolese civilians that their Congolese army has been shown to be weak or is failing to stand up to the rebels.

European Union leaders have ended an emergency summit in Brussels with a pledge to respect the rules of a single market in the face of the worsening economic crisis. But there was no agreement on a 230-billion-dollar regional emergency fund proposed by Hungary. Oana Lungescu reports from Brussels.

The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said that there was a great deal of consensus on avoiding unilateral measures that would affect others in the EU, both in bailing out banks and the car industry. We need a Europe with rules and common principles, he stressed. The Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek dismissed talk of a massive regional aid plan for Eastern Europe, but said the EU wouldn't leave anyone in the lurch.

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Egypt on her first visit to the Middle East since taking office. She will attend an international donor conference for the Gaza Strip on Monday at which she is expected to pledge 900 million dollars on behalf of the United States. The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is hoping to raise almost three billion dollars, much of it for rebuilding Gaza after Israel's recent offensive. After the talks in Egypt, Mrs. Clinton will travel on to Israel and the West Bank.

The American Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the United States is in a better position than in the past to offer military support to neighboring Mexico in its fight against drug trafficking. As Emilio San Pedro of our America's desk reports, the comments may be aimed at smoothing over a diplomatic row between the two countries over Mexico's drugs violence.

Mr. Gates' comments on a major American television network come just days after the Mexican President Felipe Calderon expressed outrage over a report by the US Defense Department which said that drugs related violence could turn Mexico into a failed state.  Now in his first comments since that row, the American defense secretary had nothing but praise for the Mexican president. He said it was mostly due to Mr. Calderon's courageous efforts against the drugs cartels that Washington was now more willing than it had ever been to offer Mexico more military assistance to take on the drugs traffickers. Emilio San Pedro.

This is Michael Poles with the latest World News from the BBC.

An international tribunal set up to try the suspected killers of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has formally opened in the Netherlands. The chief prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, said the tribunal was not about revenge for the Beirut bomb attack which killed Mr. Hariri and 22 others four years ago, but about finding true and credible justice. (www.hXen.com)

Thousands of opposition supporters have been attending a rally in the center of the Armenian capital Yerevan to mark the first anniversary of the country's worst political violence since independence from the Soviet Union. The protesters are demanding early elections and the release of people they say are political prisoners. The former President, Levon Ter-Petrossian, told the rally that the government needed to change its methods and open a dialogue with the opposition. Tom Symonds reports from Yerevan.

This demonstration is by far the biggest to have been held in Yerevan since clashes a year ago left ten people dead and plunged Armenia into a state of emergency. On March the first 2008, Armenian police dispersed hundreds of supporters of the defeated presidential candidate, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who'd rallied for eleven days denouncing President Serzh Sargsyan's February election win as fraudulent. In the following days, more than 100 people were arrested, more than 40 have received jail sentences and some are still on trial.

The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has taken symbolic possession of an important Russian Orthodox Church built in Italy a century ago. At a ceremony in the Italian town of Bari, Mr. Medvedev was handed the keys to the church by his Italian counterpart Giorgio Napolitano. The church is the burial site of Saint Nicolas, the patriot Saint of Russia who is revered by the Orthodox Church. He is popular in the West as Santa Claus. A BBC correspondent says the gesture is aimed at improving the often-tense relations between the Orthodox and Catholic faiths, Christianity's two biggest churches.

And with that story, we come to the end of this bulletin of BBC News.

Glossary:

hit-and-run: A hit-and-run attack on an enemy position relies on surprise and speed for its success.

be bound to: If you say that something is bound to happen, you mean that you are sure it will happen, because it is a natural consequence of something that is already known or exits.

stand up to: If you stand up to someone, especially someone more powerful than you are, you defend yourself against their attacks or demands.

leave sb. in the lurch: If someone leave you in the lurch, they go away or stop helping you at a very difficult time.

smooth over: If you smooth over a problem or difficulty, you make it less serious and easier to deal with, especially by talking to the people concerned.

revere: If you revere someone or something, you respect and admire them greatly. (FORMAL)