BBC news 2009-11-16 加文本

BBC 2009-11-16


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BBC News with Debora MacKenzie.

President Barack Obama has made a personal appeal to the Burmese Prime Minister General Thein Sein for the release of the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. He delivered the message at an uNPRecedented meeting with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on the sidelines of their summit in Singapore. The US has begun a policy of engagement with Burma arguing that sanctions alone have failed to promote democracy and human rights. President Obama’s now arrived in Shanghai to begin his first presidential visit to China. He is due to hold a meeting with young people there on Monday before moving on to Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders which are expected to focus on trade, security and efforts to fight climate change.

Just days before Hamid Karzai’s sworn in for a second term as Afghan president, United States has delivered another pointed warning that it expects him to do better in tackling corruption. Speaking on American television, the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington would be looking for tangible evidence that the government from Mr. Karzai down to local level was more responsive to the needs of the people. She warned that future funding for Afghanistan was at risk. “I have made it clear that we are not gonna be providing any civilian aid to Afghanistan unless we have a certification that if it goes into the Afghan government in any form that we are going to have ministries that we can hold accountable.”

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned the Palestinians against any unilateral move in their quest for independence. He was responding to Palestinian plans to take the matter to the United Nations Security Council. Katya Adler reports from Jerusalem.

Mr. Netanyahu said unilateral action by the Palestinians would only serve to unravel previous agreement. Earlier in the day, Palestinian officials said they wanted to take their quest for independence to the United Nations Security Council. Their statements reflect growing frustration amongst Palestinians with the deadlock in peace efforts. But their declaration is largely symbolic. The Palestinians already declared independence unilaterally in 1988. The move was recognized by dozens of countries, but never implemented on the ground.

Votes are being counted after local elections in Kosovo. The poll was the territory’s first since it declared independence from Serbia last year. Mark Lowen has sent us this report from the capital Prishtina.

This election has passed off calmly across Kosovo with very few isolated problems. In some Serb-dominated areas, turnout appears to have exceeded expectations, a significant change given the general Serb boycott of all previous Kosovan polls. Counting is now underway under the close scrutiny of several thousand observers. They will declare on Monday whether the vote met international standards, a crucial goal for Kosovo, keen to gain wider recognition as an independent state.

World News from the BBC.

Tens of thousands of people have attended a public memorial service for the German national football team goalkeeper, Robert Enke. Enke committed suicide last week by jumping in front of a train. The service was held at a football stadium in the northern city of Hanover, with members of the German football squad leading the tributes. The death of Robert Enke caused widespread shock. His wife said he’d suffered long and deep bouts of depression.

Egypt says it will apply for the world’s first internet domain name written entirely in Arabic. Officials said the new domain name would be “.masr” which means Egypt. The announcement comes several weeks after the body which governs the internet, the US-based ICANN, decided to end the exclusive use of Latin characters at the end of web addresses.

A three-day meeting in South Africa between the governing African National Congress and its left-wing allies has ended with the unions and the Communist Party backing down. The meeting was described by the ANC as difficult and complex. It ended by supporting the country’s former finance minister, Trevor Manuel, as head of government planning, something the left had opposed.

The coach of the Argentine national football team, Diego Maradona, has been banned for two months and fined for swearing at journalists after the team qualified for the World Cup. He was disciplined for what the world football body FIFA called an offensive outburst. Imogen Foulkes reports.

FIFA’s disciplinary committee took three hours to conclude that Diego Maradona should be banned from all official football activities for two months. The 49-year-old Argentina coach was also fined almost 25,000 dollars for his outburst following last month’s qualifying match against Uruguay. But his punishment could have been far more severe. FIFA took into account the fact that Diego Maradona came to Zurich to apologize and showed sincere remorse.

Imogen Foulkes reporting.

BBC News.