BBC news 2009-09-17 加文本

BBC 2009-09-17


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BBC News with Julie Candler.

The campaign team of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called European Union election observers irresponsible for saying they had doubts about one quarter of the votes cast in the election. The EU said most of the suspicious votes were for Mr. Karzai. Martin Patience reports from Kabul.

The count may be over, but this election is far from finished. President Karzai has a convincing lead, but now begins a task of waiting on fraudulent votes, a process that will take weeks. The Electoral Complaints Commission says it's focusing on votes from about 10% of the polling stations across the country, but on Wednesday the EU election observer mission said up to a quarter of all the ballots were, in their words, suspect, and the President Karzai had been the main recipient. The creditability and outcome of this election will hinges on the fraud allegations being fairly investigated.

The American official responsible for closing Guantanamo Bay, Daniel Fried, has appealed for help from other countries to resettle detainees. In his first media interview since he was given the job, Daniel Fried acknowledged that he had a tough task resettling detainees and spoke of his frustration at some countries reluctance to take them. "What I have the least patience for is the argument that one, Guantanamo was a mistake they are all innocent. Two, they’re all dangerous so we can’t take them. Three, it’s your problem and we don’t care and that usually after years of lecturing us, I don’t have much patience for those arguments."

Five directors of Bank of America have been summoned for questioning by New York's attorney general as part of an investigation into the bank's takeover of Merrill Lynch. The attorney general’s office is reportedly preparing charges against a number of Bank of America executives. From New York, Michelle Fleury reports.

Almost a year ago at the height of the credit crisis, Bank of America bought troubled rival Merrill Lynch in a rushed deal. Now Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney general is forcing directors to testify about what they knew about Merrill Lynch’s losses and bonuses ahead of the merger. He also wants to know if they were pressured by the government into completing the deal as they have claimed. Bank of America has been trying to put this controversy behind it and had earlier agreed to pay 33 million dollars to settle a civil charge from US market regulators.

France has announced it will close an illegal camp in the border of Calais used by migrants trying to get into Britain. The Immigration Minister Eric Besson said that he intends to close the camp known as the jungle by the end of next week. Many of the estimated one and a half thousand migrants in the camp come from Iraq and Afghanistan. The minister said they will be offered the chance to apply for a silent mode return to their country of origin.

World News from the BBC.

Scientists in the United States say they’ve cured color blindness in monkeys, a development, which they say could lead to the discovery of cures for common types of blindness. The research has treated the monkeys using gene therapy. They say that after the treatment the monkeys responded to colors that had previously been invisible to them.

The three main opposition leaders in Iran’s disputed presidential elections say they'll attend a government-organized rally on Friday. The Iranian authorities had originally organized the mass rally in support of the Palestinians, but now they fear it will be taken over by the opposition and become an anti-government demonstration. Opposition rallies have been banned since the disputed election in June.

The head of the United Nations World Food Program has called on donor nations to give it more funds urgently and has warned that programs will be severely cut if donors don't respond. Speaking in London Josette Sheeran said that for the first time more than one billion people were going hungry. Martin Plaut reports.

The appeal from Josette Sheeran is to the leaders of the developed world at a time of global crisis do not forget the poor and hungry. She said that only a tiny fraction of the money now being spent on propping up global financial institutions is required to meet these urgent needs. "We just need to take what really adds up to about 0.01% of that amount, to help alleviate the worst forms of human suffering during this hard time." Josette Sheeran.

The authorities in Bulgaria have ordered an investigation after the same six numbers were drawn in two consecutive rounds of the national lottery. The numbers was chosen by machine live on television. An official of the Bulgarian lottery said manipulation was impossible. A mathematician said the chance for same six numbers coming up twice in a row was one in four million, but he said coincidences do happen.

BBC News.