BBC news 2009-12-15 加文本

2009-12-15 BBC

BBC News with Marian Marshall.
 
A rift has opened up at the climate summit in Copenhagen between the world’s poorer nations and those which produce most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. African and other developing countries withdrew their cooperation for a period saying their concerns were being sidelined. Roger Harrabin reports from Copenhagen.
The protest by the poor countries reveals the deep mistrust underlying these talks. Some African nations and small island states fear they are being edged out as the big powers of Europe, the United States, China, and India cover up a climate change deal to suit themselves. The G77 members will back in informal talks this afternoon and it’s hard to tell a significance of their refusal to cooperate. Some negotiators see it as a bit of theatrics. Maybe it’s a warning shot. World leaders coming late in the week are unlikely to want to be embarrassed by a full-scale walkout of the very poorest nations who they have pledged to protect.
 
President Obama has told American Bank that they must provide more loans to small businesses in order to help the United States recover from its worst recession in decades. Mr. Obama, who met banking chief executives at the White House, said the banks had received extraordinary assistance from the tax payer during their financial crisis and he now expected an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild the US economy. Here is our economics correspondent, Andrew Walker.
It was a blunt message that President Obama delivered to the banks. They’ve received financial support from the tax payer to get them through the financial crisis. Now he argued they are under an obligation to help stimulate a recovery by increasing lending to small firms. He also wants them to accept tougher regulation following the approval last week of a new law by the House of Representatives. The Senate has not yet dealt with the proposals and is sure to be lobbied by the banking industry.
 
The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on Iran to release three young Americans it’s been holding since they entered the country from Iraq in July. Iran accuses the trio of spying, and said earlier that it would put them on trial. Mrs. Clinton said the allegations against them were unfounded.
 
British Airways cabin staff have voted overwhelmingly in favor of striking over Christmas in a dispute about jobs, pay and conditions. Their union, Unite, said the stoppage would begin on December 22nd and last for 12 days. This report from Martin Shankleman.
This result far exceeded union leaders’ expectations and represents an enormous vote of no confidence in the management of BA. Unite Assistant General Secretary Len McCluskey said it showed that the cabin crew had been pushed so far almost saying, enough is enough. The 12 days of strikes over Christmas scheduled from next Tuesday could ruin the holiday plans for more than an estimated a million passengers scheduled to fly over the period. Unite is offering talks to avert the stoppage. The ball is now in BA’s court.
 
World News from the BBC.
 
The American space agency NASA has launched a satellite which will scan the sky for objects never seen before. The satellite, called WISE, is the most sensitive detector of infrared radiation ever sent into orbit and will seek out objects in the dark spaces between stars and planets, dust clouds, asteroids and suns that have cooled down. A NASA spokesman, Ned Harrington, said it would allow astronomers to see the sky in greater detail than ever before.
"It’s taking a four-color image every 11 seconds. This is very fast for a space astronomy mission. And as a result WISE will take millions of images. We will stitch these together to give a panoramic view of the whole sky. But I am sure that the most interesting things that we actually see are going to be total surprises because we just haven’t looked at this volume of the universe before.”
 
The United States foreign aid agency, USAID, says it’s postponed indefinitely a hydroelectric power scheme in southern Afghanistan because of a lack of security. Several thousand international troops took five days last year to transport a turbine for the project through Taliban-held territory to a dam in Helmand province.
 
The prime minister of Greece, George Papandreou, has warned that the country is in danger of drowning in debt. He was outlining a series of measures to restore confidence in the economy including cuts in government spending and the pay freeze for many public sector workers. The great budget deficit is projected to reach more than 12% of the country’s output this year and international concern is making it more expensive for Greece to borrow from foreign creditors.
 
A gang based in England has been convicted of the biggest fraud ever carried out, using the internet auction site, EBay. Fakes of leading brand golf equipment were ordered from China and sold around the world using EBay accounts. Investigators believed the trade was worth millions of dollars and went on for four years before it was stopped.
 
BBC News.