BBC news 2009-09-23 加文本

BBC 2009-09-23


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BBC News with Ally Macue.

President Obama has warned the United Nation’s climate summit in New York that the current generation would be judged by history if it failed to address climate change. The Chinese President Hu Jintao said China will try hard to prevent its carbon dioxide emissions growing as fast as its economy. Barbara Plett reports from the UN.

Hu Jintao told the summit that his country would endeavor to cut carbon emissions by a notable margin but he didn’t give figures, a fact noted by US officials. In the past Washington has cited inaction by China as a reason for not making ambitious commitments of its own to reduce greenhouse gases. However President Obama didn’t announce any new clean energy initiatives of his own. It wasn’t clear if the speeches by the leaders of the world’s two biggest polluters would provide the hopeful momentum to break a deadlock in negotiations on a global climate treaty.

President Obama has held joint discussions for the first time with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Before the meeting in New York, Mr. Obama told the two leaders they have to work with the sense of urgency towards peace talks.

It is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward, it is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that’s necessary to achieve our goals. Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon. And more importantly we must give those negotiations the opportunity to succeed.

Afterwards President Abbas said that Israel must honor its commitments under the Middle East road map to halt all settlement building. The Israeli leader called for a swift resumption of talks without preconditions.

Brazil has warned the interim government in Honduras not to touch its embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa where the deposed President Manuel Zelayer has taken refuge. Riot police had earlier surrounded the building, using tear gas and water cannon to drive away Mr. Zelayer’s supporters. The Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he’d urged Mr. Zelayer not to give the security forces an excuse for violence.

This morning I spoke to President Zelayer simply to ask him to be very careful about not giving pretexts to the coup leaders to carry out any violence. The country is under martial law and the airports are closed. He spent a calm night in the embassy, as calm as it could have been, the only thing he is telling me is that he is asking the people that if they hold demonstrations they should do so peacefully.

The Bulgarian ambassador to France Irina Bokova will be the next head of the United Nation’s cultural agency UNESCO. The victory took five rounds of voting over five days. Mr. Bokova’s main rival, Egypt’s Culture Minister Farouk Hosni was controversial because of a comment that he'd burn any Israeli books he found in Egyptian libraries.

World News from the BBC.

Iran has announced it’s testing an improved type of centrifuge for enriching uranium. The head of the country’s nuclear agency said the machines had been developed by Iranian scientist but didn’t say when they’d be ready to be used on the production line at the Natanz Enrichment Plant. Centrifuges can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power and to make nuclear weapons.

A court in South Africa has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of the lesbian rights activist and international football player Eudy Simelane. Themba Mvubu was found guilty of participating in the gang rape and murder which took place in April last year. Two other defendants were acquitted. The 4th man had been sentenced to 32 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder earlier this year. From Johannesburg, here is Jonah Fisher.

The question as to whether the Eudy Simelane was attacked because she was a lesbian remains a matter of debate. The judge at Delmas Magistrate’s Court rejected that suggestion. Eudy Seimelane was famous locally for playing for the South African women’s football team. She was also one of the first lesbians to live openly in her township near Johannesburg. In April last year she was robbed, gang raped and stabbed multiple times before her body was left by a stream not far from her home.

The Massachusetts state senate has approved a bill that would let the state governor appoint an interim replacement for the late US Senator Edward Kennedy. Without the change, Senator Kennedy’s seat would have stayed empty until January. Democrats have been pushing for the new laws so that the replacement can vote on President Obama’s reform agenda this autumn. Edward Kennedy was a champion of health care reform.

The Belgian tennis player Justine Henin is to return the professional circuit a year after she’s said she’d retired. Miss Henin, a former world NO.1, won seven Grand Slams during her career. Her announcement comes shortly after another player from Belgian Kim Clijsters marked her return from retirement by winning the US open title.

BBC News.