BBC news 2009-11-13 加文本

BBC 2009-11-13


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BBC News with Michael Poles.

The United States army has formally charged a military officer accused of carrying out last week’s mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. The officer, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an army psychiatrist, has been under armed guard in a hospital since being wounded in the shooting.  Matthew Price reports from New York.

There are still many questions surrounding the mass shooting at the America’s largest military base, but one of them has now been answered. Major Nidal Hasan, an army psychiatrist who was due to be deployed to Afghanistan, has been charged with 13 counts of murder. That could rise if prosecutors decide also to charge him with the murder of an unborn child being carried by one of his victims. He will be prosecuted in a military court. If convicted, he could face the death penalty, although no one has actually been executed under the US military justice system for almost 50 years.

The world’s largest maker of microchips, Intel, is to pay its main rival, AMD, one and a quarter billion dollars to settle a long running anti-trust and patent dispute. In return, AMD will drop all its lawsuits against Intel. Mark Gregory reports.

By reaching a settlement now, the two sides avoid uncertainty over the outcome of the trial and millions of dollars of legal costs. The deal is a particular relief to AMD’s investors. The company’s finance has been strained by the unequal battle with Intel. AMD shares rose nearly a third in value on news of the deal, but there are also advantages for Intel which has faced multiple investigations into its business practices along with several lawsuits by regulators in the US, Europe and Asia.

The body responsible for organizing Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections has recommended the polls be delayed. It said the elections couldn’t go ahead as planned in January because the Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip wouldn’t allow the vote to take place there. The Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said last week that he wouldn’t stand in the election because of the impasse in efforts to restart peace talks with Israel.

The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called for sweeping changes to transform Russia into a modern democratic country. In his State of the Nation Address, Mr Medvedev said modernization was a matter of survival.

Instead of a primitive economy based on raw materials, we shall create a smart economy, producing unique knowledge new-goods and technologies, goods and technologies useful for people. Instead of an archaic society in which leaders think and decide for everybody, we shall become a society of intelligent, free and responsible people.

The BBC’s Moscow correspondent said there was much in Mr Medvedev’s speech which implied criticism of his predecessor, Mr. Putin. But he says that’s unclear, what is unclear is whether Mr Medvedev can deliver on change.

World News from the BBC.

President Obama is still considering his options over whether to send thousands more US troops to Afghanistan after the American ambassador in Kabul argued against further reinforcement. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry said he doubted the competence of President Hamid Karzai’s government. The current commander of international forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal has asked for another 40,000 troops.

The Italian authorities have arrested six Algerians accused of being part of a Europe-wide counterfeit ring used to raise funds for terror attacks abroad. It’s alleged that they used the identities of Algerian professional footballers playing in France, stole money in armed robberies and burglaries and sent it back to Algeria to be used for terrorist purposes.

British Airways and the Spanish carrier Iberia have approved an agreement of establishing the basis for merger. This would create Europe's second biggest airline and the two companies are hoping it will help them face one of the deepest recessions the industry has ever known. Iberia said earlier the deal would give its investors 45% of the new airline while BA shareholders would have 55%.

A rescue mission to save one of the world’s rarest birds, the Madagascar Pochard, seems to have succeeded. Conservationists say they have so far reared 17 ducklings by hand and had to improvise by letting the baby ducks swim in a hotel bathtub. Jon Stewart has the details.

The Pochard, a diving duck was thought to be extinct. But in 2006, biologists spotted just a few of them living on a remote lake in Northern Madagascar. Plans were put in place to increase their numbers, but a reconnaissance visit in July this year revealed that only six females were left alive. Team pochard, as they are known, mounted a rescue mission to get to the lake and collect some new ducklings to raise them safely. Two clutches of eggs have now been safely hatched with a third due in about a week. The long term plan is to release the birds back into the wild.

BBC News.