BBC 2009-03-26
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BBC News with David Austin.
The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the United States must accept its share of responsibility for Mexico's savage drug wars. Mrs. Clinton is in Mexico for talks with the Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa and President Felipe Calder n. From Mexico, Stephen Gibbs reports.
Secretary Clinton's comments will encourage her hosts. Forcefully, she stressed that the drug trade which is causing turmoil in parts of northern Mexico, is fueled by vast demand from American consumers and she said that the weapons which have been used by cartels to battle each other and federal forces are often bought in the United States. Both points have been repeatedly made by Mexico, which sometimes sees itself as the setting for an American financed and armed war.
The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on the group of 20 leading nations to contribute to a substantial international stimulus package to help poor countries weather the global economic downturn. Mr. Ban warned that the global financial crisis could affect progress on poverty alleviation.
"We must not allow this crisis to erode the progress we have already made toward the Millennium Development Goals. Our social recovery will take much longer than economy recovery. "
Speaking in New York after talks with the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Ban added that he hoped next week's G20 summit in London would also stand firm against protectionism. Mr. Brown said a new consensus was needed on economic development and stressed the importance of agreeing international banking standards.
The British government says a full independent inquiry into the events leading up to British involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq will be held as soon as practicable after the end of July. That's when the last British combat troops are due to be withdrawn from Iraq. Our political correspondent, Nick Childs, has the details.
The government has been saying for a while now that the right time to hold an inquiry into the Iraq war was when British troops were no longer engaged in operations there. The opposition has seen this as an effort to deflect its long standing calls for such an investigation, something that government always denied, but an investigation has now come a significant step closer with the confirmation in parliament by the Foreign Secretary David Miliband that an inquiry will be set up as soon as practicable after British combat troops depart, and that's expected at the end of July.
The American Defense Department says it believes China is developing what it calls "disruptive technologies" for nuclear, space and cyber warfare that are shifting the military balance in Asia and have implications beyond the region. The Pentagon also again criticises China for a lack of transparency in reporting military spending and security policy. It says it creates uncertainty and increases the potential for misunderstanding. However, it says china's ability to sustain military power to distance remains limited.
World News from the BBC.
Intelligence officials in Japan and the United States say that the North Koreans have positioned a long-range rocket on a launch pad in the east of the communist state. The report suggested it's a Taep'o-dong 2 ballistic missile. North Korea announced in February that it intended to fire a rocket carrying a communication satellite into orbit.
A Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group in Pakistan has confirmed its involvement in a five-day gun battle with Indian forces in Kashmir, close to the line of control that divides the region between India and Pakistan. A spokesman for Lashkar-e-Taiba, Abdullah Gaznavi said ten militants and 25 soldiers were killed in the fighting. The Indian army alleges that the militants have the backing of official agencies in Pakistan. However, Mr. Gaznavi denied this.
"No, whether Indian officials are pointing, we have no concern with that. The Indian market is too vast and we've got Indian sources, too. They can be army sources also. I don't want to disclose too much detail, so if anybody is pointing across the border, we're denying that. "
Thousands of people have attended the funeral in Beirut of a top official from the Palestinian Liberation Organization， killed by a roadside bomb on Tuesday along with three other people. The official, Kamal Medhat, was the PLO second-in-command in Lebanon. PLO guards marched in front of the funeral procession while mourners chanted revolutionary songs and fired shots in the air. (www.hXen.com)
Scientists have been meeting in Brussels to agree on the rules and regulations for a European biobank, a way of storing human genetic materials such as blood, tissue and DNA samples. The project aims to widen access to samples held across the EU. Supporters of the biobank say it will speed up the development of drugs for diseases like cancer. But critics say there are no Europe-wide laws to protect the rights of donors.
And that's the latest BBC News.
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