BBC news 2009-11-19 加文本

cnn 2009-11-19


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BBC News with Mary Small.

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Afghanistan for the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai on Thursday. US diplomats say she’ll deliver a tough message to Mr. Karzai as he begins his second term. From Kabul, Kim Ghattas reports.

“A US official traveling with the secretary of state said the electoral process in Afghanistan had produced this result and Washington had to deal with the facts on the ground. But he also said Mrs. Clinton would make clear to the Afghan president that the US and its allies expect him to do better in the coming years than he did during his last term as president. Both Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton have made very public statements about the need to fight corruption in Afghanistan, calling for an anti-corruption commission to be established.”

President Obama has said Israeli plans to build hundreds of new homes for Jewish settlers in occupied East Jerusalem could be very dangerous. He said new construction in the settlement of Gilo would embitter Palestinians and make peace harder to achieve. Palestinians say they won’t resume peace talks until Israel stops building on land that it captured in 1967. Israel says it's committed to settlement building restraint in the West Bank but not in East Jerusalem.

The British government has proposed new restrictions on the banking industry, measures to cut the budget deficit and a series of health and education measures. Its legislative program known as the Queen’s Speech was delivered to Parliament by the British Monarch. With the general election due next June, opposition parties say there is not enough time to pass all the bills and the speech is little more than a manifesto. Ian Watson reports.

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, accused the government of acting like an irresponsible opposition and said Gordon Brown is failing to pass laws in the interests of the country. He denounced the speech as little more than a Labour press release. But Gordon Brown said his measures can help the many not the few and he ran through a list which included a better deal for temporary agency workers and banning cluster bombs alongside the well-shelled legislation to halve the deficit and extend personal care for the elderly.

Algeria’s footballers have won the last African place in next year’s World Cup Finals. They beat Egypt 1:0 in a playoff in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. Security was tight at the packed stadium after violence surrounding an earlier match. The BBC’s James Copnall is in Khartoum.

Well, the Sudanese are delighted with the way they've policed, er, this encounter. Certainly everyone was very worried before the game.15, 000 policemen were on duty. During the game itself, the fans were kept, er, pretty much apart. There were some small incidents before the game. The police apparently chased some people from away from the stadium with teargas. Many people who didn’t have tickets. And the game itself passed off without incident, though some people did faint or get injured with the large numbers of people in the stadium and possibly with the celebrations at the end.

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The United States says it’s deeply concerned about developments in Guinea. A leading American diplomat, William Vezdero, said there was evidence that the military leader, Moussa Dadis Camara, was arming militia from his own ethnic group. Mr. Vezdero said Guinea could become a rogue state and he was also worried about the presence of South Africans believed to be providing military training in Guinea.

“Some of us have seen the South Africans who are up at a camp called Forecariah south of the city. So, yes, that is a cause for concern. I believe that they are military trainers.”

The head of the United Nations Food Agency, Jacques Diouf, has questioned how world powers could commit so much money to fighting the financial crisis but so little to feeding one billion people. Mr. Diouf was speaking at the end of an anti-hunger summit which ended without precise pledges of fund. The UN says it needs an extra one billion dollars to feed hungry people in East Africa, half the money is needed for Ethiopia alone. A spokesman for the charity Oxfam，Gawain Kripke, was also critical of the outcome.

“On a scale of one to ten, we rate this summit at two. It didn’t accomplish nothing but it didn’t come close to its potential. The world needs massive action on hunger and climate change and agriculture. More than a billion people are facing hunger today. They are very big challengers and we needed actions out of this summit and there is very little to be found in the declaration.”

Pirates in Somalia say the captain of a chemical tanker seized earlier this week has died from gunshot wounds sustained during the hijack. The nationality of the captain is unknown but the ship, the MV Theresa, had 28 North Korean crew members on board.

Motor racing, the Formula One champion Jenson Button of Britain will drive for the McLaren team next season, his teammate will be another British driver, Lewis Hamilton, last year’s champion. Button won his title with the Brawn GP team.

And that’s the BBC News.