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BBC news 2009-09-19 加文本
BBC 2009-09-19
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BBC News with Galen Horace.
The United States, Germany and Britain are among western countries who have condemned the latest speech by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Nazi Holocaust was a lie under myth. President Ahmadinejad was speaking at a rally in Tehran. From Washington, Kim Ghattas reports.
The White House described the comments as hateful and ignorant. The Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also warned Teheran of increased isolation and economic pressure if they did not provide answers soon about its nuclear ambitions. But despite the Holocaust comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s disputed election, Washington’s offer to engage diplomatically with Iran is still on the table. Mrs. Clinton did say, though, it was time for Tehran to show it was serious about engagement and nuclear negotiations.
Russia says it's canceled plans to station missiles in its enclave of Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania. The move follows the United States’ decision to scrap a planned missile defence system in Eastern Europe. James Read reports.
Russia has always made it clear that its threat to station missiles in Kaliningrad was a direct retaliation to America’s plans for a missile defence system in Eastern Europe. So the announcement that the deployment will not now go ahead is probably the least President Obama could expect in response to his decision to scrap the missile shield. The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, said Russia would now listen more attentively to American concerns. But he said he was not interested in what he called "primitive compromises". This may allude to American hopes for closer cooperation on other issues, for example on addressing Iran’s nuclear ambition.
A senior United Nations envoy to Sri Lanka has given a stark warning to the government that it risked putting the country’s future in jeopardy if it didn’t do more to heal the wounds of the country's civil war. The envoy, Lynn Pascoe, said allegations of human rights breaches during the conflict against Tamil Tiger rebels had to be addressed as did the freeing of more than a quarter of a million displaced Tamils in internment camps.
A big British metals company says it’s suspending all purchases of tin ore from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company Amalgamate Metal Cooperation said this followed a negative campaigning from advocacy groups and adverse international media coverage. Many Congolese mines are in rebel hands. Karen Allen reports.
Although it is not illegal, the militarization of mining in the Congo has long been associated with horrific human rights abuses and the minerals are used to prop up a multi-million-dollar global electronics and mobile phone market. In a statement AMC has now confirmed that its subsidiary is suspending all purchases of tin ore from the region. In a statement AMC said it did not take the decision to pull out lightly but said adverse coverage by the international media was undermining the credibility of the process.
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The US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has ended his latest round of shuttle diplomacy between the Israelis and the Palestinians but he’s made no statement on the outcome. The Palestinians said Mr. Mitchell had failed to persuade Israel to stop expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and they wouldn’t return to peace talks unless construction was halted. The US has been hoping to re-launch talks between Israel and the Palestinians with a meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
A suicide bomber in Pakistan has killed 33 people near the northwest city of Kohat. The bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a crowded market area in the town of Ustarzai, ahead of the Eat Festival marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. From Islamabad, here is Ali Macbul.
The bomb destroyed most of a town market. A hotel and several shops were also badly damaged in the blast and some casualties are still believed to be trapped. Police say the explosives have been in a car and also that most of the dead are members of Pakistan’s Shiite Muslim minority. Lahskar-e-Jhangvi al-Almi, one of the many groups that united to operate under the banner of the Pakistan Taliban, says it carried out the attack.
The Canadian military has announced that one of its soldiers will face second degree murder charges over the death of an Afghan man almost a year ago. Captain Robert Semrau was serving as a liaison officer with Afghan troops in Helmand province when according to prosecutors he fired two shots into an Afghan prisoner.
Shiite rebels in Northern Yemen say government forces have renewed their attacks on the main town in the area, Saada. There was no word on any casualties but the rebels say the Yemeni army destroyed a number of houses and mosques. The Yemeni government hasn’t commented. The rebels known as the Houthis, say there were also air-attacks on several villages in the area, though the accounts can’t be independently verified.
BBC World News.
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