BBC news 2009-06-03 加文本

BBC 2009-06-03


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BBC News with Mary Small

The Brazilian defense minister has said there is no doubt the debris spotted in the Atlantic Ocean is from the missing Air France jet which disappeared on Monday. The minister, Nelson Jobim, said the debris which appeared to include aircraft seats as well as wires and metal stretched over a wide area.

"Here we have an area of around 9,785 square kilometres, and in this region the aircraft KC13O has located and spotted debris over a total length of 5 kilometres. And that debris is confirmed to be from the plane."

Opposition parties in Britain have renewed their demands for the embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown to call a general election after it emerged that the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and several other Labour figures are to stand down. Jacqui Smith has been embroiled in a scandal over MP’s expenses. She is to step down in the cabinet reshuffle expected next week, following local and European elections. Norman Smith reports.

"If Jacqui Smith's departure was widely predicted at Westminster, the manner of her leaving could scarcely have been more chaotic. Two days before crucial elections in the middle of a firestorm over expenses, it left Downing Street in seeming disarray, gasping for air as they struggled to stay on top of the events. The expected reshuffle was meant to be an occasion for Mr. Brown to re-launch after the feared battering in the local and European elections. Much of the impact of that would now appear to have been preempted and squandered. Worse, Jacqui Smith's planned departure has left an impression of a cabinet slowly crumbling."

The United States military says a Yemeni prisoner at Guantanamo detention camp has died in what’s described as an apparent suicide. James Coomarasamy reports from Washington.

"According to the US military, prison guards found the detainee unresponsive and not breathing when they entered his cell. He was later pronounced dead after what a statement called “extensive life-saving procedures” had been exhausted. It thought that the man known as Al-Hanashi had been taking part in a hunger strike. He's the fifth Guantanamo inmate to have apparently taken his life, but the first since President Obama called for the prison to be shut by next January, a pledge that's encountering considerable political and public opposition here.

The United States is coming under pressure over its Cuba policy at the annual meeting of the Organization of American States being held in Honduras. The US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Cuba should only be allowed to rejoin the regional grouping after it released political prisoners and accepted democratic reforms. But the Honduras President Manuel Zelaya who's hosting the meeting described the expulsion of Cuba in 1962 as a day of infamy.

BBC News.

For the first time in 30 years, the United States government has authorized its embassies to invite Iranian diplomats to celebrations in July to mark the Independence Day holiday. The move was seen as part of the Obama administration's new policy to engage the Iranian government in dialogue. Previously, Iran had been on a list of nations such as North Korea and Burma that were excluded from attending official American events.

Several American banks which were bailed out by taxpayers' money have issued shares in an attempt to extricate themselves from government oversight. The banks, including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanly raised nearly 8 billion dollars of capital today, so that they can repay loans made under the Treasury Department's "Troubled Asset Relief Program" or "TARP".

The British Defense Minister John Hutton says the killing of a senior rebel commander in Afghanistan is a significant blow to the Taliban. British forces said they killed Mullah Mansur and other Taliban leaders in Helmand province. More from our security correspondent Rob Watson.

"British forces described Mullah Mansur as a prominent local leader of the Taliban insurgency in Helmand province. The spokesman for British Forces in Helmand claimed Mullah Mansur helped plan and execute attacks that had probably killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Afghan police and civilians. The British military claimed he was killed along with a number of other prominent insurgents in a helicopter strike on Monday."

The heir to the British throne Prince Charles has accepted an invitation from France to attend ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-day, the landing of allied forces in Normandy during World War II. The French government had previously denied accusations that it snubbed the queen by inviting only the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The failure to invite a member of the royal family had caused an outcry.