BBC news 2009-07-20 加文本

BBC 2009-07-20


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BBC News with Joe Macintosh

The family of an American soldier kidnapped in Afghanistan has asked people across the United States to pray for him. The man is Private Bowe Bergdahl from Idaho. He is 23 and believed to be the first American soldier to be seized by the Taliban. He’s been shown in television pictures, saying he was scared he might not able to come home again. The spokeswoman for the US military, Lieutenant Commander Christine Sidenstricker condemned the video.

“The release of this video is a clear violation of international law. This is the Taliban using the soldier for propaganda purposes. We are happy to see the soldier appears physically unharmed, and we are doing everything possible to get him back, safely and unharmed. And we are using all available assets to do so. We use every available means to communicate with the local people and we have used, for example, leaflets to provide a phone number for Afghan who may have information about where the soldier is being held to communicate back with us.”

The Iranian authorities have released on bail an employee of the British embassy who was detained some three weeks ago. He’d been charged with involvement in the unrest that followed the disputed presidential election. Jon Leyne reports.

Hossein Rassam was the last and the most senior Iranian employee of the British embassy being held by the Iranian government. The authority has accused him of helping to stir up the protests over the disputed election, a charge strongly denied by Britain. Observers believe the real purposes may have been to scare off Iranians from working in Western embassies and so make it more difficult for the embassies to operate. According to his lawyer, Hossein Rassam was released on bail of around 100,000 dollars. He may still be charged with action against national security, though ofte the Iranian authorities do not bring cases to court but leave them open as a future threat.

Differences have emerged between the Iraqi authorities and the American military over how their forces cooperate now that Iraq controls security in its towns and cities. The Iraqi Defense Ministry said there had been no joint patrols since US troops pulled out of urban area at the end of June. Gabriel Gatehouse reports.

According to an agreement signed between the two sides, US forces are not allowed to enter Iraq’s towns and cities unless specifically requested to do so by the Iraqi authorities except in cases of self-defense. The spokesman said the military adhered to a strict interpretation of these new rules, but some in the American military appear to take a different view.  The Washington Post newspaper quotes what it says is an email written by the commander of the US forces’ Baghdad division, saying that his troops would continue to engage in operations inside urban areas to avert or respond to threats whether or not they were supported by the Iraqis.

Firefighters in western Canada are struggling to contain two wild fires which have forced the evacuation of about 17,000 people from their homes. One of the fires which started near the city of Kelowna in British Columbia on Saturday has burned at least three square kilometers and destroyed several homes.

World News from the BBC.

The interim government in Honduras has rejected the return of the deposed President Manuel Zelaya following two days of talks in Costa Rica. The head of the interim government’s delegation said the proposal put forward by mediators was absolutely unacceptable and amounted to interference in his country’s affairs. The chief negotiator for Mr. Zelaya who was ousted in a coup last month condemned what she called the intransigence of the other side.

The government in Mauritania says the general who seized power in a military coup last year Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz has won the presidential election. He is said to have won more than 52% of the vote. Opposition candidates described the results as a fabrication, but international observers told the BBC that they found few irregularities in Saturday’s poll.

A man has been charged in the American state of Tennessee with shooting dead of his wife and several of her relatives. Police found Jacob Shaffer sitting on the porch at one of two homes where he allegedly shot his victims near the town of Fayetteville, along with the body of his wife. Police discovered the remains of her son, her brother, her father and a neighbor.

The veteran American golfer Tom Watson has failed at the age of 59 to become the world’s oldest player to win a major title. At the end of the final round of the British Open, Watson squandered a short putt, forcing him into a tie with his fellow American Stewart Cink. Watson’s game then collapsed in the playoff when he found himself repeatedly in the rough. Afterwards, he said he’d let himself down.

“In my profession when you have a chance to win the World Open as I call it, I mean you give it away like I did, it’s a big disappointment, but it was a wonderful atmosphere obviously. The fans, here in Scotland, some of them remember what I did in the past years. It is fun to put them through it again.”

Stewart Cink eventually won by six shots. He said his final putt was the sweetest of his life.

And that’s the latest BBC News.