BBC news 2009-09-24 加文本

BBC 2009-09-24


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BBC News with Mary Small.

Ten million people in five African countries and Nepal will benefit from free health care under an aid deal worth more than five billion dollars, as announced at the United Nations. An estimated three billion dollars will come from voluntary contributions solicited by the online travel industry with the balance raised by the United Kingdom, Austria, Norway and the Netherlands. The plan was put together by a task force led by the director of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, and the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who announced the deal at the UN.

Today at this United Nations General Assembly, we will see history being made with the beginnings of universal free health care in Africa and Asia as Burundi, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Nepal, Liberia and Ghana all make major announcements that extend free health care and abolish user fees. Ten million people will now for the first time get the treatment they need without being turned away of fearing how they will pay.

President Obama has made his first speech at the United Nations General Assembly, promising that the United States was ready to begin a new chapter of international cooperation. James Robbins is in New York.

President Obama brought his message of change to the United Nations and most countries certainly welcome America’s transformed global stance. "We must embrace a new era of engagement," he said. The president put the dangers from the spread of nuclear weapons right at the top of his list of challenges facing the world. President Obama reminded the original weapon states that they faced a collective responsibility to play their part and seek progressive disarmament. He warned Iran and North Korea that they must be held accountable if they put the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability.

Shops, banks and other businesses in Honduras have been allowed to reopen temporarily after the interim authorities briefly lifted the curfew in force when the deposed president Manuel Zelaya returned to the country on Monday. The Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called for the UN to support the ousted president, describing his return to the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa as a courageous act.

Zelaya is a brave man. Couldn’t you see how he entered Tegucigalpa? The United Nations should now state its position so that Zelaya is reinstated in government and the caveman era of coup d'etat is done away with.

The latest annual report by Transparency International says corruption in business is a global issue and practices such as bribery and price fixing influence public policy. Two out of five businesses surveyed say that they’ve been asked to give government officials bribes. The group’s report also highlights the impact of lobbyists working to influence the European Union and politicians in the US.

You’re listening to World News from the BBC.

A court in Poland has awarded 11,000 dollars in damages to a woman who was likened to a child killer by a Roman Catholic magazine for wanting an abortion. The article also likened the abortion to the experiments of Nazi war criminals at Auschwitz. The woman, Alicja Tysiac, had been warned by doctors when she became pregnant that she could go blind if she had her baby.

Some news just in. President Obama says the United States and Russia have agreed that additional sanctions could be imposed against Iran if it doesn’t demonstrate that it will not develop nuclear weapons. He was speaking after talks with President Medvedev of Russia in New York. In the past, Russia has opposed sanctions against Iran.

The US Attorney General says the Obama administration will adopt a new policy that will limit the government’s ability to suppress information on security grounds. In a statement, Eric Holder said that from October 1st he'd personally review state secrecy claims and that the privilege would only be granted in cases where there was a significant risk of harm to national security.

Pope Benedict is to make a state visit to Britain in September next year, the first full state visit in history by a pope to Britain. It will be only the second ever visit to Britain by a pope since King Henry VIII declared himself head of the church in England more than 500 years ago. The first by Pope John Paul II in 1982 was purely a pastoral visit. David Willey reports from Rome.

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown invited the Pope to visit Britain in the name of the British government on a visit to the Vatican last February. And now the Pope has formally accepted. There’s been a flurry of formal and informal high-level visits to the Vatican this year, including that of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in April and the Baroness Thatcher, who was British Prime Minister at the time of the last papal visit to England, Scotland and Wales at the late Pope John Paul II in 1982.

BBC News.