BBC news 2009-05-07 加文本

BBC news with Jerry Schmitt

President Barack Obama says he’s had an extraordinarily constructive day of talks in Washington with the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan, saying they have reaffirmed their commitments to confront Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgence. Mr. Obama said the three countries faced a common goal, to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda and its allies. Kevin Conolly reports.

As the three leaders talked in Washington, there was grimly familiar business on the ground in the troubled region from which Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari had traveled. In Afghanistan, the United States apologized for killing civilians in an air raid. In Pakistan, the army was engaged in bloody operations to reverse an insurgent advance in the northern provinces.

Washington’s strategy is to persuade the Afghan and Pakistani governments to make common cause against the common threat, and the White House says it is satisfied with what the two visiting presidents had to say. The bottom line in all is more American troops for Afghanistan and more aid for Pakistan.

Businesses across Mexico are open again after a five-day shutdown caused by the swine flue outbreak, which has killed over 40 people and cause worldwide alarm. Steven Gibbs reports.

Mexico City’s rush-hour traffic has been back in force as millions of people in the capital return to work. Shops, restaurants and businesses are all opening their shutters. Pedestrians can be seen walk in the streets, many but not all without facemasks. The Mexican government says it is seeing clear signs that the number of new infections from swine flu is on the wane, but it is discouraging complacency, let alone celebration.

The President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus says he has no intention for now of ratifying the European Unions’ Lisbon treaty, even though the country’s Senate has approved it. Mr. Klaus says he’ll wait for any new legal challenge before signing the treaty which is designed to ease decision-making
among the EU's 27 members.

The Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg told the BBC that the president’s opposition to the Lisbon treaty would not stop its ratification.


“The president is entitled to do whatever he wishes in the framework of his constitutional rights. I do think it's lamentable, but the Lisbon Treaty isn't dead, as we proved today by ratifying it.”

Georgian opposition protestors and riot police have clashed in the capital Tbilisi. A government spokesman said some of the protestors had tried to enter a police station, where three people are being held over the alleged beating of a journalist.

Nepal’s caretaker Prime Minister Prachanda says his Maoist Party will only form a new government if President Ram Baran Yadav goes back on his decision to block the dismissal of the head of the army. The Maoist-led government moved to sack the army chief for refusing to integrate Maoist former rebels into the army.

World news from the BBC

United Nations nuclear inspectors say they’re investigating the discovery of traces of highly enriched uranium at a nuclear research site in Egypt. The International Atomic Energy Agency which made the disclosure did not specify whether the particles found were of weapons-grade. They were detected in the Inshas research site northeast of Cairo during inspections last year and the year before.

New studies into ancient remains found in Indonesia five years ago suggest they belong to a previously unknown branch of humanity. Since the discovery, there’s been debate of whether the bones were from a distinct species or ancestors of modern man with afflictions that stunted their growth and gave them tiny brains. The ancient people have been nicknamed to the “Hobbit” because of their small size. One of the researchers, Dr. Elena Western, said it was possible their brains had shrunk.

“The Hobbit, of course, intrigues scientists because the brain was about the size of a chimpanzee which has never been seen before in human species and I found if you talk one of our very recent ancestors like Homo erectus and you’ll apply to the same degree of brain reduction. It was mechanistically possible potentially to explain this small brain size.”

A cult leader who escaped by the helicopter from a prison on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion last week has been recaptured. Officials said the man Juliano Verbard was seized in a raid by 50 police on a building in Saint-Denis, the capital of Reunion, which is owned by France. He’d been serving a 15-year jail term for sex attacks on children and he’s being investigated in connection with other cases.(www.hxen.net)

Maine has become the latest American state to legalize gay marriage. The Democratic governor signed the bill into a law after it was approved by both houses of the state Legislature. A campaign is under way to allow gay men and lesbians to marry in all the states in New England and the traditionally liberal northeast.

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