BBC news 2009-10-10 加文本

BBC 2009-10-10


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BBC News with Zoe Diamond.

President Obama says he hopes that his Nobel Peace Prize will serve as “a call to action” for America and the rest of the world to face the challenges of the 21st century. He said these included the proliferation of nuclear weapons and climate change. The Nobel Prize Committee praised Mr. Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international cooperation. Paul Adams reports from Washington.

President Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled, saying he did not feel he deserved to be in the company of past winners. But he said he was accepting the award as “a call to action” and he went on to list elements of his bold foreign policy agenda, including tackling the spread of nuclear weapons, combating global warming and resolving conflicts in the Middle East. A terse statement from the chairman of the Republican Party Michael Steele asks what the President has actually accomplished, saying Mr. Obama won’t win any awards for creating jobs. President Obama has said the Nobel Prize money of about 1.4 million dollars will be given to charity.

Officials in Pakistan have blamed the Taliban for a suicide car bomb attack in which nearly 50 people died. It happened beside a bazaar near government buildings in Peshawar. From Islamabad, Aleem Maqbool has more.

It is the deadliest attack in Pakistan for months. Police say a car bomb went off beside the crowded Khyber Bazaar in the center of Peshawar. School children on their way home are among the dead. A bus filled with passengers was also close to the explosion. Officials are blaming the Taliban. The militant group had been threatening such bombings unless Pakistan’s army operations against it came to an end, but there has been much speculation that far from stopping. The army’s offensive is soon to be intensified.

The French authorities have arrested an engineer working at a physics research laboratory in suspicion of having links with the militant group known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The man, who has family connections with Algeria, was arrested by French police on Thursday. His brother was also detained, Emma Jane Kirby reports from Paris.

Police arrested the pair after following Internet exchanges between the two men and other people believed to have links to extremist groups. Computers, USB and hard drives were removed from the brothers’ home. It is believed the older man was planning attacks in France. According to the Figaro newspaper, the arrests could represent an important step in the hunt for Al-Qaeda networks.

A former Brazilian television crime show presenter and politician accused of ordering killings to boost the ratings of his show has turned himself into the police after going on the run. Wallace Souza disappeared on Monday after a judge in Amazonas State’s ordered his arrest on murder and drugs trafficking charges. He’s accused of ordering killings to get rid of drug rivals and increase the popularity of his TV programme. Mr. Souza, who denies the charges, has been transferred to a prison.

This is Zoe Diamond with the latest World News from the BBC.

After days of tension, Israeli police have lifted restrictions on Palestinian entry to a sensitive religious site in Jerusalem. The police had barred most Palestinians from entering the site, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, and to Jews as the Temple Mount, causing protests and a strike by Palestinian businesses. Israeli police said they had security concerns about calls for a mass Palestinian gathering at the mosque compound.

The troubled American carmaker General Motors has signed an agreement to sell its Hummer brand to a Chinese firm, the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company. It follows months of negotiations. Caroline Hepker reports from New York.

The price tag of 150 million dollars for Hummer is considerably lower than the 500 million dollars GM had hoped for, but it is a deal done, just a week after the plan to sell GM’s Saturn fell through. The agreement will mean the gas-guzzling attention-grabbing lineup will continue to be made in the United States at least until 2011, but the new Chinese owners say they want more fuel-efficient models.

Officials of the American space agency NASA have expressed satisfaction with the deliberate crash of two unmanned spacecraft into the moon to detect evidence of water. Despite the absence of the expected large visible plume of debris, the scientists say enough data is being sent back to earth for evaluation. It may take a number of weeks before they have a definitive answer.

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has described himself as the most persecuted person in the entire history of the world. Mr. Berlusconi was speaking at a news conference following this week’s decision by Italy’s Highest Court to lift a law granting him immunity while in office. However, during his impassioned statement, Mr. Berlusconi mistakenly said he had spent millions of euros on judges before quickly correcting himself to say lawyers.

BBC News.