BBC news 2009-08-12 加文本

BBC 2009-08-12

 
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BBC News with Michael Poles.

The United Nations Security Council has adjourned an emergency session without agreeing a response to the sentencing of Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a further period of detention. Some countries including China and Russia asked for time to consult their governments on the terms of a statement condemning the verdict of the Burmese court. Britain's ambassador to the UN John Sawers was optimistic that an eventual agreement would be reached.
Of the 15 members of the council, there's quite widespread support actually for the US draft statement which would set out clearly our views and our deep concern about the decision of the Burmese courts to jail Aung San Suu Kyi for further 18 months.
The ruling to extend Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest means she will be unable to play a role in multi-party elections next year.

President Obama has defended his plans for wide ranging reforms for the US health care system, urging an audience to the public meeting not to be misled by what he called the scare tactics of some of his opponents. Speaking at a meeting at a school in New Hampshire, Mr. Obama said change was needed because hard-working Americans were being held hostage by health insurance companies. Jonathan Beale reports.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats are on the defensive with claims by Republicans that America is on its way to a socialized health service that’ll lead to rationing and add to the national debt. The President said he wants to take those critics head-on.
Every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got. They use their influence. They use their political allies to scare and mislead the American people. They start running ads. This is what they always do. We can't let them do it again.

A senior military officer involved in rescue efforts in Taiwan says more than 700 people are trapped and possibly dead in two southern villages engulfed by mudslides after Typhoon Morakot swamped the island. The Officer General Hu Jiuchou said they included people buried in a massive landslide in Hsiao-lin.

Kenya's cabinet has decided to mobilize the military to help deliver food, water and medicines to parts of the country's hardest hit by drought. The cabinet convened an emergency session to discuss a rapidly deteriorating food crisis which has forced at least a third of the population to rely on emergency aid. From Nairobi, here's Peter Greste.
The Kenyan cabinet's resolutions tell you much about the extent of this crisis. It promised to immediately mobilize the military, the National News Service and the police to help distribute food, water, medicines. It promised to keep schools open through the current holiday so the school feeding program can continue and it promised to continue with subsidized seed and fertilizer to try to improve next season's harvest. In all the government estimates that at least ten million Kenyans, a third of the entire population, is in need of food aid.

World News from the BBC.

A senior associate to the disgraced American financier Bernard Madoff has admitted to helping to carry out a massive fraud that affected thousands of people. The man, Frank DiPascali, was appearing at a court in Manhattan. He was the Chief Financial Officer of Mr. Madoff's investment business which swindled people out of billions of dollars. The ten charges against him include money laundering, perjury, tax evasion and carrying a maximum jail term of 125 years. Mr. DiPascali is believed to have been cooperating with the investigators.

The alleged head of a Colombian drug cartel Diego Montoya has pleaded guilty in Miami courtroom to involvement in cocaine trafficking to the United States. Montoya appeared on the FBI's list of ten most wanted criminals before he was captured by the Colombian military and extradited to the United States last year. Andy Gallagher reports from Miami.
Over time he became known as Don Diego, but Diego Montoya Sanchez first rose to power during the 90s in Colombia after the fall of the famous Medellin and Cali drug cartels. As a reputed head of the North Valley Cartel, Montoya was responsible for exporting ten billion dollars worth of cocaine into the US. At one point, he was on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most wanted list. At the height of his powers, Don Diego is said to have controlled more than half of Colombia's cocaine trade.

The leader of Brazil's most influential evangelical church has been accused of diverting millions of dollars in untaxed donations to his church to personal and business interests. Prosecutors in Sao Paulo accused Bishop Edir Macedo a fraud along with nine other people linked to his Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. It is alleged that two fund companies were used to move funds to tax havens and then back into Brazil transferring more than 38 million dollars in one two-year period. Lawyers for the church said the tax authorities approved the accounts of the two companies.

And that's the BBC News.