BBC news 2009-03-14 加文本

BBC News with Fiona McDonald.

The Obama administration is to drop one of the key phrases used by President Bush in what he called his 'war on terror', and will no longer describe the inmates of the Guantanamo Bay detention center as enemy combatants. Jonathan Beale reports from Washington.(www.hXen.com)

The decision to drop the term 'enemy combatant' marks another clear break with the past for Barack Obama. The term was adopted by President Bush to justify holding alleged terrorist suspects indefinitely and without trial. By calling them enemy combatants, the Bush administration argued that they were not prisoners of war, international laws like the Geneva Conventions, therefore did not automatically apply. The decision to drop the term is deeply symbolic, but it also sets a new standard to continue holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay. It's Congress, not the President, who now authorize their detention.

The United States has assured China its one trillion dollars worth of investment in the United States is safe. President Obama's chief economic advisor Larry Summers said Washington would be what he called "sound stewards". The Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has earlier called on Washington to ensure its response to the slowdown did not endanger China's investments.

Swiss financial institutions are to reveal customers' details to foreign law enforcement agencies, but only if the foreign government has concrete evidence of tax evasion. The Swiss government has been under pressure from countries, including the United States, Germany and France, which want information about alleged tax evaders. Imogen Foulkes reports from Bern.

The meeting of G20 finance ministers threatening to put Switzerland on a black list of tax havens, the Swiss government had to act. A black list could have led to sanctions not just against the Swiss banks, but against Swiss industry too. The decision to cooperate on tax evasion cases is all about damage limitation. It's a superficially small, but hugely important change in Swiss banking regulations. With its introduction, a long-standing Swiss tradition has become history.

Italy's Foreign Ministry and the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontiers says three foreign aid workers, who were abducted in Darfur on Wednesday, have been set free. This report from David Willey in Rome.

An Italian doctor, a Canadian nurse and a French administrator who work for the Belgian branch of Medecins Sans Frontiers in Darfur were taken hostage together with two Sudanese staff last Wednesday. They were seized near the northern Darfur town of Saraf Umra. Kostas Moschochoritis, the head of the MSF medical charity in Italy, said that no money was paid for the release of the aid workers. The Sudanese staff had already been set free, he said.

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President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil says he will focus on the shortage of global credit and the threat of protectionism when he meets President Obama at the White House on Saturday. President Lula said money had disappeared and he wanted to discuss how to reestablish credit around the world.

Lawyers for the fraudulent American financier Bernard Madoff have appealed against the judge's decision to revoke his ten-million-dollar bail and send him to prison. The papers were filed with a federal appeals court a day after Mr. Madoff pleaded guilty to swindling investors of billions of dollars, the biggest fraud in Wall Street's history.

The government in Sri Lanka has rejected a UN report which says it could be guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the conflict in the northeast of the country. The UN high commissioner for human rights also accused the rebel Tamil Tigers of similar abuses. The Sri Lankan minister for human rights said the UN's information was unsubstantiated. From Colombo, here is Anbarasan Ethirajan.

The unusually strong message from the UN has taken the Sri Lankan authorities by surprise. It comes at a time when government forces say they have launched a final offensive to defeat the Tamil Tigers in the northeast. The UN statement said according to credible sources, more than 2,800 civilians may have been killed and 7,000 others wounded in the fighting over the last two months. Hundreds of children are believed to have died, Mr. Pillay said and more than 1,000 injured. Sri Lankan officials have challenged Mr. Pillay's claims.

The Italian city of Verona is to hire out one of the world’s most romantic venues for weddings---the balcony reputed to be the setting for the famous scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Brides and grooms will be able to take their civil vows in either the room with the balcony or the courtyard below at a cost of around $800 for Verona residents.

BBC News.

Glossary:

tax evasion: Tax evasion is the crime of not paying the full amount of tax that you should pay.

damage limitation: Damage limitation the process of limiting the damaging effects of an action or mistake, or the attempt in war to use careful planning to avoid unnecessary death (BRIT; in AM, use damage control)

reputed: If you say that something is reputed to be true, you mean that people say it is true, but you do not know if it is definitely true.