BBC news 2009-10-04 加文本

BBC 2009-10-04


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BBC News with Mike Cooper.

Political leaders across the European Union have welcomed the strong Irish referendum vote in favour of the Lisbon Treaty which is designed to strengthen the 27-nation bloc. The President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso said it was a great day for Europe. John Pinna reports from Dublin.

The Irish Yes vote was emphatic. More than two to one in favor, just over 67% to under 33%. That compares to 53% who voted No last June against just 46% in favour of the treaty. And the turnout was a good deal higher too, at just under 60%. The scale of the win exceeded all expectations and the pre-vote opinion polls. Public opinion inevitably remains divided here. Critics of the treaty insist Irish voters were bombarded with propaganda by their better-funded highly organised opponents and exploited fears heightened by recession. The victors, simply the compelling arguments were better explained.

Rescue workers who’ve reached outline villages hit by the earthquake in Indonesia are reporting hundreds more deaths. Officials said at least three villages in West Sumatra had been obliterated by landslides. In one village they said a wedding party of 400 people had been sucked 30 metres underground. Even the minaret of the village mosque was swallowed by the earth.

Nigerian militant groups in the conflict-riven Niger Delta have been handing over weapons as part of the government amnesty which expires on Sunday. Three powerful militant groups have pledged to give up their guns in return for cash and the promise of jobs. The militants have been fighting for a greater share of oil revenues in the Niger Delta, as Mary Harper reports.

Dozens of boats crowded with fighters carrying machine guns and rocket launchers arrived in the city of Port Harcourt for the disarmament ceremony. People lined the streets as the militants marched through the town swigging whisky, chanting and singing. With only hours to go before the amnesty expires, one militant leader, Government Tompolo, is still to disarm. He says he will surrender his weapons on Sunday. But unless the government keeps to its promises, it’s possible that the militants will resume their campaign of violently disrupting oil production in the Niger Delta.

In Italy, tens of thousands of Italians have demonstrated on the streets of Rome against what they say are threats to the freedom of the press by the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The protestors say Mr. Berlusconi has control over too many media outlets. He’s described the protest as a farce, insisting freedom is greater in Italy than in any other western country. Duncan Kennedy reports.

Rome’s famous Piazza del Popolo filled with protestors who usually write the news not make it. Many here were journalists, fearful their profession was being targeted by a prime minister taking revenge for their coverage of his private life. Some carried banners calling for press freedoms. They say Mr. Berlusconi has too much control of Italy’s print and electronic media and is using it to suppress free speech.

World News from the BBC.

The Iraqi Defense Ministry says the security forces have detained at least 140 suspected Sunni Arab militants in and around the northern city of Mosul. A spokesman said they’d been held in raids since Wednesday, targeting Al-Qaeda in Iraq and supporters of Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party. Gabriel Gatehouse sent this report.

The Defense Ministry says that 100 of the detainees have already been transferred to the capital for questioning and that around 100 are still wanted. The operation is being led by an elite Iraqi anti-terrorist unit from Baghdad and this is the largest of its kind since the Americans handed back control of urban areas to Iraqi forces. There are still large numbers of US troops stationed in the area, though it is not clear to what extent they were involved in the operation if at all. While security is improved in many parts of Iraq, the government in Baghdad has struggled to stamp its authority on Mosul where attacks on security forces and civilians remain a daily occurrence.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, is in Iran to arrange for UN inspectors to visit a newly disclosed uranium enrichment site. Iran agreed to allow inspections last week, following claims from western countries that the revelation of the facility raised doubts over Iran’s promise that it was not seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has again denied that the plant had been kept secret, saying Iran had disclosed details to the United Nations before it was required to do so.

Cuba has blamed what it described as the irrational American policies towards the island for the cancellation of two concerts that the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was due to perform in Havana later this month. On Friday, the American orchestra said the concerts had the backing of the Obama administration, but had to be canceled because of the decades-old US embargo on Cuba which bans most Americans from either traveling to or spending money on the island.

BBC News.