BBC news 2009-05-15 加文本

BBC 2009-05-15


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BBC News with Marian Marshal.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said its staff in Sri Lanka are witnessing an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe in the area where the army is trying to crush remnants of the Tamil Tiger Guerrillas. The Red Cross said it wanted unimpeded access to the area immediately in order to save hundreds of lives. Anbarasan Ethirajan reports.

 The statement by the Red Cross is the strongest yet on the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka. It said aid workers on board a ship off the northeastern coast had been unable to deliver food aid and evacuate sick and injured civilians from the conflict zone for the third consecutive day. The United Nations says about 50,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone. Meanwhile, Britain has said that Sri Lanka government could face investigation into possible war crimes as a result of violence against civilians caught up in the fighting.

 The United States has called for the immediate release of the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was deeply concerned about new charges that the Burmese military government had brought against Ms. Suu Kyi. She’s being charged with violating the terms of her house arrest following an incident in which an American man swam across a lake and entered her home. In a statement read on his behalf, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was gravely concerned by the developments in Burma.

 The Secretary General believes that Aung San Suu Kyi is an essential partner for dialogue in Myanmar’s national reconciliation and calls on the government not to take any further action that could undermine this important process.

 The American carmaker Chrysler has announced that it wants to close down a quarter of its dealerships in the United States. The company has received 4 billion dollars in US government loans in an attempt to stay in business after the economic recession cut its sales figures by almost half. Greg Woods reports from New York.

In a move which would deal a serious blow to small towns across the United States, the company plans to eliminate nearly 800 dealerships in a matter of weeks. It says the network is antiquated and sells far fewer of cars per dealer than foreign competitors like Honda. The dealerships are independent, often family-owned businesses, which now face the loss of their livelihoods. The move will have to be approved by the bankruptcy courts.

A new report about the effects of global warming has predicted that the collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet would raise global sea levels by only half the amount previously thought. But researches writing in the journal Science say it could still cause sea levels to rise by more than three meters enough to swamp many major cities. They say the potential consequences for the west and east coasts of the United States are especially acute because the melting in Antarctica would affect the Earth’s rotation, causing sea levels to rise fastest in northern oceans, particularly around North America.

 World News from the BBC

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi says the Central Intelligence Agency misled her over its use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects. The senior Democratic Party Congresswoman has been accused of failing to protest against the use of simulated drowning, known as water-boarding, which has since been banned. Mrs. Pelosi said she'd been told by the CIA that the technique had been approved for use but wasn't actually being employed.

An American couple has gone on trial in Egypt on charges of child trafficking after they tried to adopt a pair of new-born twins. The couple traveled to Cairo last year to adopt the twins from a Coptic Christian orphanage. They allegedly made a donation of 4,500 dollars to the orphanage which provided them with document, saying the woman had given birth to the twins. The couple said they didn't realize they were doing anything wrong.

A Spanish government has proposed a liberalization of the country's abortion laws to allow abortions without restrictions during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The current law permits it only in certain well-defined cases though loopholes in the law make abortion relatively easily available. The Spanish Equality Minister Bibiana Aido said all women would have access to free abortions if the changes went ahead.

"Under the new law, women can't be put in jail for terminating a pregnancy. But this doesn't mean the illegal practices will go unpunished. The voluntary termination of pregnancy will be guaranteed by this law within the sphere of the National Health Service."

Anti-abortion groups have condemned the proposals and the Roman Catholic Church has started a campaign against abortion.

The two main Tuareg rebel groups in Niger have agreed to a ceasefire after talks with the Prime Minister Seyni Oumarou. The rebel said they were ready to relinquish their arms within a short period.

That’s the latest BBC World Service News


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