BBC news 2009-04-29 加文本

BBC News with Sue Montgomery.

The Democrats in the United States have moved a step closer to nominal control of the Senate with the defection of a veteran Republican. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said he was changing sides because the Republican has swung too far to the right.

“This is a painful decision. I know that I'm disappointing many of my friends and colleagues. I do not undertake this because of the absence of rather challenging or interesting things that I could undertake outside the Senate. But I do this because there are many projects that I wanna move ahead for Pennsylvania. ”

The authorities in Mexico City have banned restaurants and cafes from serving all food except takeaways, in a bid to help prevent the spread of swine flu. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is sending a team to investigate allegations that pig farms in Mexico were the source of the outbreak. From Mexico City, Steven Gibbs.

Mexico City may not be where this virus started, but it could be where it spreads rapidly. The vast metropolis, home to more than 20 million people with incessant water and sewage problems, is the perfect environment for an epidemic. Now the city authorities are doing what they can to mitigate the risk. Already, all schools, theaters and churches are closed. Now restaurants are also to be shut down. A week ago this was one of the noisiest， most bustling cities in the world. Now with those that dare venture out wearing protective masks, it seems a strangely sterile, quiet place.

The World Health Organization says countries should check their contingency plans for dealing with a possible swine flu pandemic. President Obama has asked Congress for an additional 1.5 billion dollars to bolster the US response. The Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency.

More than 300 Catholic priests in Argentina have signed a document drawing attention to a dramatic increase in drug trafficking and addiction. They said the drug trade was like a tsunami that had broken over the Capital Buenos Aires since the country's financial collapse in 2001. Canders Pierce reports.

Last month the archdiocese of Buenos Aires published a document making clear the size of the problem. It says hard drugs like Paco, a kind of crack cocaine, are sold openly often near schools. And children as young as 12 are becoming addicts， taking up to 40 doses a day. The church says there is a lack of spending on education and decent schooling and that Argentina as a whole has a disregard for the problems of the young and poor. Two years ago, government figures said there were 27, 000 addicts in Greater Buenos Aires, but recent research estimates this figure has doubled.

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Community leaders in northern Somalia have formed their own militia group to fight against locally based pirates who have seized dozens of foreign ships in the Gulf of Aden. Somali fishermen say they are fed up with the pirates attacking their boats and destroying their livelihood. A local leader, Faro Mohamed, said local groups were determined to tackle the problem.

A security committee will set up by the communities who live in Bago and Dalula and they decided to confront the problem of the piracy and their effort led to the capture of three boats although one got away and the arrest of 12 pirates with their weapons.

A military court in the West Bank has condemned a Palestinian man to death by hanging for selling land to Israelis which is regarded as treason by the Palestinian authorities. But the sentence is not expected to be carried out. It has to be approved by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He has withheld his approval in several similar cases.

The head of the Moscow police Vladimir Pronin has been sacked by President Dmitry Medvedev. It comes the day after a senior police officer went on a rampage in south Moscow, opening fire in a supermarket, killing three people and wounding several others. It was said the officer was facing family problems and had been drinking heavily before the attack. President Medvedev also suspended several other officers in the district where the shooting took place. (www.hXen.com)

Astronomers in the United States say they've photographed the most distant object yet seen by humanity. The snapshot captured the aftermath of a massive burst of energy from a dying star 13 billion light－years away, by far the furthest event ever witnessed from earth. The explosion was first detected by US satellite designed to detect such gamma ray bursts. Ground based telescopes were then trained on the same spot in the sky and observed the fading afterglow.

BBC News.