BBC news 2009-06-30 加文本

BBC 2009-06-30

 
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BBC News with Neil Nunes.

Six years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq has taken formal control of security as American combat forces withdraw from urban centers across the country. However US troops will still have a presence. They will be embedded with Iraqi forces until they are completely withdrawn from Iraq next year. Ali McConnell has this report.

The withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi cities has been greeted with celebratory fireworks in Baghdad. On the eve of withdrawal, Iraqi soldiers paraded through the streets in vehicles decorated with flowers and Iraqi flags while patriotic songs were played throughout speakers at checkpoints. The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki proclaims June 30th the public holiday to be known as National Sovereignty Day. And Iraqi television broadcast the count-down clock which ticked to zero as the midnight deadline passed. American commander’s describing the withdrawal as an important milestone. But US troops will still be embedded with Iraq security forces.

Iran’s top electoral body, the Guardian Council has confirmed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadineja after a partial recount of votes. State television said few or no errors were found despite claims from the opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi of widespread irregularities. Mr. Ahmadineja’s victory has led to street protests and there are reports of new clashes in the center of the capital, Tehran, between demonstrators and security forces.

The American financier Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison for an investment fraud of 65 billion dollars, the biggest in US history. The judge said he hadn’t got any sense that Mr. Madoff had helped prosecutors as much as he could. Laura Trevelyan has the details in this report from New York.

As Judge Chin told Bernard Madoff he’d been sentenced to 150 years in prison, a few of Bernard Madoff’s victims applauded. Mr. Madoff stood impassively. He’d listened to victims describe him as a monster, as someone who had shattered their dreams and their spirit. Bernard Madoff spoke in his own defense. He said he couldn’t offer any excuses for his behavior. At one point he turned to the victims who were sitting behind him and he said sorry.

President Mamadou Tandja of Niger has dissolved the country’s highest judicial body, the Constitutional Court, which has strongly opposed his attempts to extend his term in office. The announcement followed three separate rejections by the court of Mr. Tandja’s proposal to hold a constitutional referendum on his plan to serve an extra three years as Head of State. The referendum is scheduled for later this year. In a separate development, the president appointed eight new ministers to replace those who had resigned in protest at his decision last week to assume emergency powers.

World News from the BBC.

President Barack Obama has made a personal call for the reinstatement as President of Honduras of Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted on Sunday and hustled out of the country by the military. Mr. Obama said that United States believed the action was illegal and allowing it to stand would set a terrible precedent. Kevin Connolly reports now from Washington.

The Obama administration is now directly demanding Mr. Zelaya’s restoration to office. That call from Mr. Obama created an interesting common ground for Washington. For the group of the leftist leaders in the region led by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, they too have insisted that the Honduran leader must be restored as president. By moving quickly to characterize what happened to the Honduran leader as a coup, the Obama administration will hope to defuse inevitable suspicions in the region that it might somehow have been involved in his removal.

Michael Jackson’s mother has filed for custody of the late singer’s 3 children. Katherine Jackson has already been granted temporary guardianship of the children who are aged between 7 and 12. A Los Angeles court has set the hearing for August. There’s no official word yet from the mother of the two older children Deborah Rowe. Michael Jackson’s youngest child is from a surrogate mother.

Archaeologists in Rome have uncovered what the Vatican believes is the oldest icon depicting St Paul. Duncan Kennedy reports now from Rome.

St Paul is said to have converted to religion on the road to Damascus after seeing a blinding vision of Jesus. Now two discoveries are shedding new light on his life. The first is a fresco on a wall in the Saint Thekla Catacomb underneath Rome. It shows the face of a man with a pointed black beard inside a bright yellow halo. The second discovery was announced by Pope Benedict who said that bone fragments found in a tomb in the basilica of St Paul’s in Rome are those of the Apostle.

That report from Duncan Kennedy in Rome.

And that’s the latest from BBC news.

Vocabularies

topple   vt.使倒塌，推翻，打倒 vi.倒塌，倒下

parade  n.游行，检阅 v.(使)列队行进，(使)游行

irregularity n.不规则,无规律

dissolve  vi.溶解；消失，减弱 vt.使溶解；解散

precedent    n.先例，范例，判例；惯例

surrogate  n.代替品，代理人

shed light on  同义throw light on 使某物清楚显示