BBC news 2009-08-23 加文本

BBC 2009-08-23


Download Audio

BBC News with Jonathan Weekley.

The head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, has issued a scathing attack on the Scottish authorities for allowing the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to return home to Libya. In a letter, Mr. Mueller described the decision by the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to release Mr. Megrahi on compassionate grounds as a mockery of justice. Daniel Sandford reports.

Robert Mueller is now the director of the FBI, but his connection to the Lockerbie case goes back to the early 1990s when he was the assistant attorney general. In his exceedingly strongly-worded letter to the Scottish Justice Secretary, he says he wouldn’t normally comment on the action of others, but he says Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombings has caused him to abandon that practice. He says he is outraged at the decision. The FBI director says the release is as inexplicable as it is detrimental and gives comfort to terrorists around the world.

Militants in Nigeria have handed over weapons at a ceremony organized by the authorities in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The militants are followers of a commander known as General Boyloaf who’s a senior member of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. But as Caroline Duffield reports not everyone has accepted the amnesty.

Hundreds of guns, twelve gunboats and a number of rocket-propelled grenades were dumped. Almost immediately, a statement from other members of the group was emailed to the media attacking the decommissioning as a shroud. It said that Bayelsa arms dumping was fraudulent and that the weapons had in fact been supplied by the Nigerian government. The statement said that the group would now suspend its ceasefire and resume attacks on the Nigerian military and the oil industry.

Firefighters in Greece are battling a large wildfire raging out of control northeast to the capital Athens. Special aircraft have been dropping water on the flames near the town of Marathon. But strong winds have been fanning the fire. Malcolm Brabant reports.

In the past 24 hours, there have been more than 70 new fires started across the nation. And there’s a strong suspicion that arsonists have been at work, especially in the village of Grammatiko, north of Athens, where residents have been trying to thwart construction of a landfill waste disposal site. Gale-force winds have hampered the efforts of the firefighters. Occasionally thick smoke has prevented the fixed-wing water bombing aircraft from joining in the fray.

Police in Hungary have broken up a meeting of the recently banned right-wing paramilitary Hungarian Guard organization at which new members were being inducted. The move comes as four of the group's members have been held for questioning in connection with a series of attacks against ethnic Roma people over the past year, in which six people have been killed. A political party connected to the Guard won nearly 15% of the vote in elections for the European parliament back in June.

World News from the BBC.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry says a team of North Koreans visiting the country will meet President Lee Myung-Bak on Sunday. The envoys had extended their visit to the South after requesting a meeting with President Lee who North Korea has traditionally denounced as a lackey and a traitor. The request was reported after they held talks with the South’s unification minister.

The former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is reported to have called on the country’s political factions to follow the orders of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has publicly endorsed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Rafsanjani has been supporting the opposition over the disputed presidential election in June and correspondents say his latest statement appears to be in contrast to a speech last month when he said the country was in crisis

The top prize in Italy’s massive state lottery draw worth some 210 million dollars has been won for the first time since January. The long delay led to mounting lottery fever with people from around Europe traveling to Italy to buy tickets. Mark Duff now reports.

The numbers are simply mind-boggling. In return for buying a two-euro ticket, someone in a Tuscan village has just scooped a record 146.9 million Euros. Italian lottery winners usually prefer to remain anonymous. But what is known is that the winning ticket was bought at the Bar Biffi in the medieval village of Bagnone. Anticipation had reached fever pitch before Saturday night’s draw. The jackpot winning combination of six numbers hadn’t emerged for 87 consecutive draws and almost seven months.

The Jamaican sprinter Usian Bolt has won his third gold medal at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin. His latest success came as a member of the Jamaican 4×100 meters relay team.

And that is the latest BBC World Service News.