BBC news 2009-05-22 加文本

BBC 2009-05-22


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BBC News with Jerry Schmitt

In a major speech on national security, President Barack Obama has vigorously defended his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, saying the facility together with brutal interrogation methods had alienated others from America and served as a recruitment tool for terrorists.

A day after the US Senate denied his request for 80 million dollars to fund its closure, Mr. Obama said he wanted to see as many as possible of the Guantanamo detainees tried in US civilian courts and the most dangerous transferred to maximum security prisons in the US. Referring to the Bush administration's approach to the terror threat, Mr. Obama said the government had made a series of hasty decisions based on fear. America, he said, had gone off course and urged Americans to reach consensus on national security.

“I ran for president because I believe that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together. We will not be safe if we see national security as a wedge that divides America. It can and must be a cause that unites us as one people and as one nation”.

Speaking elsewhere in Washington, the former Vice President Dick Cheney said closing Guantanamo was, as he put it, unwise and extreme, and will make Americans less safe. Mr. Cheney said it was easy to win applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo, but tricky to devise an alternative that served the interest of justice and US national security.

“On this one, I find myself in complete agreement with many of the president's own party. Unsure how to explain to their constituents why terrorists might soon be relocating in their states, these Democrats chose instead, to strip funding for such a move out of the most recent war supplemental”.

The White House in Washington has announced that Vice President Joe Biden will travel to the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday for talks with President Michel Suleiman. It said Mr. Biden would be announcing fresh US military assistance to the Lebanese armed forces.

The Sri Lankan government has pledged to return home within six months the bulk of the hundreds of thousands of Tamils displaced in fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appealed for tolerance in the celebrations over the defeat of the insurgency. Charles Haviland reports.

With the national flag being raised all over the country, the president said people should ensure that what he called the outpouring of joy at the defeat of terrorism leaves no room for anyone’s feelings to be hurt in any manner. The celebration, he said, should be expressed with magnanimity and friendship towards all. Some members of the Tamil minority and a group of leftist parties say Tamils and Muslims have in some cases been harassed or insulted, or forced to dance by people celebrating in the streets.

World News from the BBC

People fleeing fighting in the Niger Delta have described how Nigerian fighter jets and military helicopters bombed their homes and sprayed their villages with gunfire. Speaking to the BBC, women and children sheltering in the village of Albeiger on the outskirts of the town of Warri, said many people have been killed and that others were dying from lack of food. From the Delta region, Carolane Daphil reports.

All of them have spent days walking through swamps and traveling by boat to reach the outskirts of Warri. Those who’ve made it described those that they’ve left sleeping in the forests as numbering thousands. Nigeria’s Joint Task Force, the JEF say they are not targeting civilians or the local Eigor ethnic groups. They insist instead that they are dismantling militant camps, searching for hostages and hunting the militant leader Government Tompolo.

The British government has reversed its policy of limiting the rights of some Gurkha veterans to settle in Britain. The Home Secretary Jackie Smith announced that all former Gurkha soldiers who retired before 1997 and served more than four years in the British army will be allowed to apply to remain in the United Kingdom along with their families.

There is to be a series of televised debates between all the candidates in the Iranian presidential election next month. Each candidate will debate one-on-one with his rivals in a series starting on June 2nd. The four candidates will also get equal air time for their individual election broadcasts.

Police in Italy say they’ve seized ten million dollars in counterfeit currency and a large cache of guns and ammunition from the homes of a mafia clan chief and his relatives in Sicily. Most of the fake money was found at the home of Fabia Manno, one of scores of people arrested last December in a major anti-mafia operation focusing on Sicily and central Tuscany. More money and weapons were uncovered hidden inside a wall at the home of Manno's aunt. A police uniform was also recovered in the raid.

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