BBC news 2009-11-25 加文本

BBC 2009-11-25

BBC News with Michael Poles.

President Obama has underlined his country’s strong ties with India. Speaking after talks in Washington with the visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Obama said the two leaders had agreed to strengthen cooperation on a range of issues. Paul Adams reports from Washington.

Barack Obama describes India as indispensable. Speaking after a morning of talks, the president said the US-India partnership will be one of the defining relationships of the 21st century. He described Mr. Singh as a wise leader and said they had talk about cooperation on trade, climate change, terrorism and nuclear noNPRoliferation. For his part, Mr. Singh said he was very satisfied with the outcome of their discussions on security. President Obama was asked not for the first time when he would announce the conclusions of his lengthy review of strategy in Afghanistan. He said this would come shortly.

More than six years after the invasion of Iraq, a long-awaited inquiry into Britain’s role in the war has opened in London. On its first day, it heard from senior civil servants and a former intelligence chief. The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also being called as a witness. Naomi Grimley reports.

The first day of this inquiry looked at how British and American attitudes towards Iraq began to shift in early 2001. Former officials told how they are being growing frustration in London that the old policy of containing Saddam Hussein wasn’t working. But the inquiry heard that British diplomats were still reluctant to embrace a policy of regime change despite what one witness called the drumbeats from Washington. Earlier the inquiry’s Chairman Sir John Chilcot said his final report wouldn’t shy away from making criticisms of individuals, if they were warranted.

Pirates have attacked an oil tanker near the West African state of Benin. It was sailing from Nigeria’s Niger Delta region when it was attacked. A crew member was killed and the contents of the ship's safe were stolen. This report from Casper Leighton.

The pirates who are believed to be from Nigeria, boarded the ship in darkness after coming along side in a speed boat. It’s not clear how the crew member lost his life but it seems there was an attempt to confront the armed pirates as one of them was captured by the ship’s crew and handed to local authorities. Medics on the German owned tanker said four other crew members were injured in the attack. There is increasing concern about rising piracy off the coast of West Africa as the region grows in importance as an oil producer.

A Sudanese woman convicted of breaching the country’s decency laws by wearing trousers has defied a travel ban by going to France to publicize her new book. Lubna Hussein, a journalist who used to work for the UN, faced 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public. But in September, a Sudanese court ordered her to pay a fine instead. Refusing to pay the fine, she chose to serve a day's imprisonment.

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About 150 prominent Arabic writers and academics have signed an online petition appealing for an end to a growing row between Algeria and Egypt over two football matches. Madeline Morris reports.

The appeal calls for reason and conscience to rise above what it calls pettiness and nonsense. The signatories blamed the media for fanning the flames of nationalism and criticized the Algerian and the Egyptian elite for failing to show leadership over the issue. It says those behind the violence in the World Cup qualifier last week which Algeria won represented only themselves and not their teams. In the ensuing row which has seen further violence, Cairo has recalled its ambassador to Algeria’s, and the Egyptian president’s son has accused Algerian football supporters of being terrorists.

A court in Poland has begun hearing a libel case against President Lech Kaczynski, brought by the former President Lech Walesa. The action related to a television interview last year in which Mr. Kaczynski said Mr. Walesa was a communist era spy. Mr. Walesa said the solidarity movement against communist rule in Poland and denies the claim. He’s demanding an apology and 36,000 dollars in damages.

A human rights group in the Czech Republic has said an expression of regret by the government on Monday for the illegal sterilization of Roma women does not go far enough. Coercive sterilization was allegedly used to curb the traditionally high fatality rate among the Roma prior to the collapse of communism in 1989. However, human rights groups say the last recorded case occurred as late as 2008.

Members of the Shining Path guerrilla movement in Peru say they intend to form a political party to stand in general elections in 2011. The movement called off its armed insurrection 17 years ago after tens of thousands of people were killed in a civil war. The two factions of the group have continued to kill soldiers and police in remote areas where drug traffickers are active.

And that’s the latest BBC News.