BBC news 2009-12-14 加文本

2009-12-14 BBC

BBC News with Fiona McDonald。

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised a new push against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mr. Brown was holding talks with President Hamid Karzai at an airbase in Kandahar. A senior American General David Petraeus has suggested how a new offensive might work. Frank Gardner reports.
Village by village, valley by valley, Afghanistan's insurgents will need to be driven away from the local population, according to the man in command of all US forces throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. General David Petraeus said there were similarities between the methods used to win over Iraq's Sunni insurgents in 2007 and those now been employed in Afghanistan. But the terrain was different. The infrastructure was lacking. And it was likely to cost around 30 billion dollars to absorb the coming surge of additional US troops.

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been hit in the face after a rally of supporters in Milan. There was blood on Mr. Berlusconi's face after the assault. Reports say he lost two teeth. A suspect was arrested, and the Italian news agency ANSA said he'd been mentally ill. From Rome here's Duncan Kennedy.
The attack happened at the end of a rally during which Silvio Berlusconi had been addressing his supporters. There’ve been some hackling during his speech and scapples between members of the audience and security staff. As Mr. Berlusconi was signing autographs, he appeared to have been punched in the face. Television pictures showed the 73-year-old Italian leader looking stunned with blood under his nose and around his mouth. He was by bundled into his car by his aides and eventually driven away to hospital. His condition is not known. Police arrested the man at the scene and have taken him to a police station in Milan.

The president of Cuba, Raul Castro, has accused the United States of continuing to treat Latin America as its backyard. He was speaking at the opening in Havana of a summit of the left-wing regional bloc ALBA. President Castro criticized what he called the colonialist policies of the United States.
"The confrontation between two historic forces is sharpening. On one side, the model of political and economic dependence, elitist and exploitative. The air of colonialism subordinated to the interests of the empire. On the other side, the advance of revolutionary and progressive political forces representing the classes traditionally disposed and discriminated against."

The Israeli cabinet has approved plans to allocate extra funds to some Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. The settlements are regarded as illegal under international law. But about 100,000 settlers were qualified for new grants, aid and tax benefits, after being designated as living in national priority zones. Palestinians say settlements are one of the biggest obstacles to peace, but Israel rejects this.

World News from the BBC.

Another commercial sponsor has ended its relationship with the golfer, Tiger Woods, following the disclosures about his sex life. The management consulting firm Accenture said Woods was no longer the right representative. Last week, Tiger Woods issued a statement, apologizing for his infidelity and saying he was taking a break from professional golf.

Church leaders from across the world have held a service dedicated to climate change at a cathedral in Copenhagen, where politicians are meeting to debate the issue. Many carried symbols of global warming including bleached corals under Pacific Ocean and their dried-up cop of corn from Zambia. Afterwards, bells rang out 350 times to highlight what many scientists consider a safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This man in Copenhagen said the bell ringing had a powerful message.
"I was very pleased that they did so. I think it's a very good message. Obviously not everyone could hear them. But even in the little village that I live in in England, they also were ringing the bells. So all across Europe, wherever there are church bells, I think there have been ringing and that's a very good message."

Voting has ended in the presidential election in Chile in which a centre-right politician is the favourite to win for the first time since the end of the military government in 1990. Sebastian Pinera is a billionaire businessman who lost to Michelle Bachelet in the last election in 2006. Gideon Long reports from Santiago.
Around 8 million Chileans have been voting in what might prove to be the closest election since the country returned to democracy in 1990. Since then the centre-left has dominated the political landscape. The right has been largely discredited, tinted by its association with the human rights abuses of General Pinochet’s era. But the centre-right has staged something of a come-back, taking advantage of divisions within the ruling coalition. Mr. Pinera has campaigned on a tough law-and-order platform and has promised to revitalize the economy.

BBC News.