BBC news 2009-07-28 加文本

BBC 2009-07-28


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BBC News with Jerry Schmitt.

More than 100 people have been killed in two days of continuing violence in northern Nigeria. There have been gun battles between Islamist militants and police in four mainly Muslim states. The clashes began when militants demanding the wider adoption of Islamic law attacked a police station in the city of Bauchi. Caroline Duffield reports from Lagos.

The worst of the violence is in Maiduguri in Borno State. Eyewitnesses there describe corpses piled up at the police station. People who’ve seen the bodies say that they are mostly young men and civilians. Around the city, there are corpses scattered on streets and pavements. These appear to be civilians who have been pulled out of cars and shot. Residents in Maiduguri are now hiding in their homes. They say that the streets are now empty with the police and army moving through neighborhoods, firing shots into the air.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used a meeting with the visiting American Defense Secretary Robert Gates to underline Israel’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. An Israeli statement said Mr. Netanyahu had told Mr. Gates that all available means should be used to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Mr. Gates said President Obama will consider further sanctions against Iran if there was no improvement in bilateral relations.

“If the engagement process is not successful, the United States is prepared to press for significant additional sanctions that would be non-incremental, in other words, we will try and get international support for a much tougher position. Our hope still remains that Iran will respond to the president’s outstretched hand in a positive and constructive way. But we’ll see.”

President Obama has said the US and China must coordinate their economic policies because the recession has shown how closely their decisions affect each other. He was addressing the first meeting of the new US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue held in Washington. John Donaldson reports.

Little of substance was announced today, but President Obama said America’s relationship with China would shape the 21st century. He said the two countries needed to work together on issues such as climate change, trade and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, with particular reference to North Korea. On the economy, he said both powers needed to work together for what he called a “lasting economic recovery”. America’s financial health is very much in China’s interest given that the US is in debt to Beijing to the tune of over 700-billion dollars.

The Swedish government says it’s investigating reports that powerful Swedish-made rocket launchers were found in camps of Colombia’s Maoist rebel group, the FARC. The Colombian government says it believes the weapons were sold to neighboring Venezuela by a European country and it’s appealed for international help to stop the trade. Colombia has in the past accused Venezuela of supporting the rebel movement.

World News from the BBC.

Canada has described a ban by the European Union on the imports of seal products as an unfair restriction on trade. It says it will appeal to the World Trade Organization. The international trade minister defended the annual hunt in which hundreds of thousands of seals are clubbed to death has been scientific, sustainable and humane. European foreign ministers had agreed to the ban following years of appeals from animal rights groups.

The British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says insurgent groups in Afghanistan must be broken up and some of them reintegrated into Afghan politics. Mr. Miliband called for NATO and Afghan forces to make protecting people from the Taliban their top priority.

The French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says the European Union has agreed to train Somali security forces to fight piracy. At talks in Brussels, EU foreign ministers said they wanted to stabilize Somalia which has been without a functioning government since 1991. Analysts say trainers from EU countries could soon be posted to Djibouti which neighbors Somalia.

A house in Johannesburg in South Africa where the Indian spiritual and political leader Mahatma Gandhi lived is being put on for sale. The owner of the property says she’s selling it after failing to find anyone interested in preserving its historical legacy. Richard Hamilton reports.

Gandhi lived in the house on a quiet street in the northern Johannesburg suburb of Orchids for three years from 1907 at a time when he began to formulate his philosophy of Truth and Nonviolence. He lived there with a friend Herman Kallenbach who actually designed the house with round walls and a traditional African thatch. The current owner, an American artist who has lived there for 25 years, was hoping that a university or charitable foundation might be interested in preserving the house for antiquity. But having failed to attract such a buyer, she is putting it onto the open market.

BBC News.