BBC news 2009-11-22 加文本

BBC 2009-11-22


Download Audio

BBC News with Marian Marshall.

The spiritual leaders of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches have agreed to press for closer relations, following talks in Rome. It was their first meeting since the Pope announced he was setting up a special section within the Roman Catholic Church for disenchanted Anglicans. The Anglican leader, Rowan Williams, said he’d been concerned about the Pope’s overtures to Anglicans and was pleased to hear that his commitment to dialogue between the two churches was unchanged.
"I think it went just as well as I could’ve hoped really. I was able to express some of the concerns that many Anglicans feel about the way in which the Apostolic Constitution was handled and learn that it’s been made public. But we moved on from there to talk about more positive matters of cooperation and he was extremely enthusiastic about the next stage of official dialogue between our two churches."

Democrats in the United States Senate say they’ve secured the votes they needed to begin a full debate on a landmark health bill. The bill is designed to secure health care coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, but it’s staunchly opposed by the Republican minority because of the cost. From Washington, Kim Ghattas reports.
It looks like the Democrats will get all the 60 votes they need to pass the motion and send the bill to a floor debate in ten days. Three centrist Democrats have been wavering but have now joined their colleagues in the Senate. This may be just a procedural vote, but it was built as a crucial test of Democratic unity. Most of the time, bills that clear this hurdle in the Senate are eventually passed. Senate Republicans are united against the 2,000-page bill, which is designed to rein in cost and expand coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. Republicans say the bill is too costly and will mean heavy-handed government intrusion into the private insurance sector.

The Sri Lankan government says all the remaining civilians, who’ve been detained in special camps since the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels, will be allowed to make visits outside from the beginning of next month. The government said it wanted to close the camps and resettle their inhabitants by the end of January. Charles Haviland reports from Colombo.
The Sri Lankan authorities say they’ve had to investigate each of the Tamil refugees to ensure they have no links to the defeated Tigers. They say those screened off are being rehabilitated, but this process and the screening methods haven’t yet been opened to outside scrutiny. Releases and resettlements are now happening more quickly. Many people are returning to devastated villages in depopulated countryside, much of it mined. But de-mining is also in progress. And a senior UN diplomat, visiting northern Sri Lanka this week, said returnees were highly resilient.

The only five-star hotel in the Afghan capital Kabul has been hit by a rocket which wounded at least two people. The rocket struck an outer wall of the heavily fortified Serena Hotel where visiting diplomats and officials often stay.

World News from the BBC.

Rescuers are working through the night in northeast China to try to reach more than 60 people trapped by a gas explosion at a coal mine. At least 42 miners were killed in the blast early on Saturday at the colliery in Heilongjiang province, near the border with Russia.

Scientists at the CERN, nuclear research centre in Europe, say they are delighted with the progress made after they restarted the Large Hadron Collider on Friday night. They hope to use the collider to recreate conditions which existed at the start of the universe. Pallab Ghosh reports.
After the euphoria of last night was the euphoria of the morning debrief. Scientists here could scarcely believe their ears when they heard that the LHC had accelerated subatomic particles hundreds of thousands of times overnight in both directions. The particle accelerator has done more in a few short hours than it did in nine days last year before it broke down. The LHC's operating team believed that they may have the first low energy collisions by next week and higher energy’s early next year.

Saudi Arabia says four people taking part in the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca have died of swine flu. The Health Ministry said those who died had come from outside Saudi Arabia and that none had followed recommendations to have a vaccination against the disease. Three were in their 70s, and the fourth was said to be a 17-year-old Nigerian girl.

The Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip say they’ve reached agreement with other Palestinian factions to curb rocket fire into Israel. Fathi Hamad, who acts as Hamas’s interior minister, said the groups had agreed to halt all rocket attacks except those carried out in retaliation for Israeli military incursions into Gaza. Hamas has maintained the ceasefire for months, but other groups have carried out sporadic cross-border attacks, mostly without causing casualties or damage.

BBC News.