BBC news 2009-12-24 加文本

2009-12-24 BBC

BBC News with Marian Marshall.

The scandal in Ireland over complains of child abuse by Roman Catholic priests has led to an offer of resignation from another bishop in the church. Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare said he didn’t accept the criticism of him in an official report but was offering to stand down for the good of the church. Chris Lando reports. 

Bishop James Moriarty’s resignation is the second of an Irish bishop in the space of a week. It comes after a government inquiry condemned the church for years of failing to provide police with evidence in cases of child sex abuse by priests. In a statement, Bishop Moriarty said he hoped his resignation opens the way to a better future for all concerned. But this makes for a bleak Christmas in Ireland whether church is rapidly losing worshipers and public trust.

The United Nations Security Council has imposed sanctions on Eritrea, which it accuses of helping rebels in neighboring Somalia. From the UN, here is Barbara Plett.

The resolution approves an arms embargo on Eritrea and it imposes travel bans and asset freezes on some individuals and companies. These will be designated by an existing sanctions committee but they are expected to include Eritrea’s leadership. The resolution demands that Asmara stop supplying arms and other support to Islamist insurgents trying to topple Somalia’s fragile western-backed government. It also presses Eritrea to immediate withdraw troops from a disputed region along its border with Djbouti. Eritrea’s UN ambassador has denied what he called unfounded accusations called the resolution politically motivated and suggested Asmara was being punished because it didn’t conform to US policy in the region..

The Eritrean ambassador to the United Nations Araya Desta said his government had never given any supplies to Somali insurgents and the UN monitors had unearthed no concrete evidence to the contrary.

An opposition politician in Nigeria has begun legal action against President Umaru Yar’Adua, demanding that he step down on health grounds. Mr Yar’Auda has been in hospital in Saudi Arabia. Mary Harper reports.

Farouk Adamu Aliyu of the All Nigeria People’s Party asked the federal high court to rule on whether the president’s month long absence in a Saudi hospital was constitutional. And whether it meant the president no longer had the capacity to govern. Mr Yar’Adua has not formally handed over power to anyone else and Nigeria is locked in a political impasse. The president had sought medic treatment abroad on a number of occasions. His docter says he’s suffering from a mild heart problem but he’s also known to have a kidney complaint.

The Pakistani Supreme Court says eunuchs and other transgender people must be allowed to identify themselves as a distinct group in order to insure their rights. The court said the group, known in Urdu as hijras should be issued with national identity cards, showing their distinct gender and should also be entitled to inherit property.

World News from the BBC.

There has been a series of attacks against Shiite pilgrims and other Shiite targets in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Police sources say at least 5 people have been killed and more than 40 injured. Iraqi security forces have been on high alert in the run-up to the Shiite religious festival of Ashura in four days time.

An American man who perpetrated a hoax in October that his son had been carried away in a helium balloon has been sentenced to 90 days in prison. The judge said the man, Richard Heene, and his wife, Mayumi were guilty of deception. As McRached MerchaDoney reports.

In a court in Colorado, Richard Heene was sentenced to 90 days jail time, his wife, to 20 days however she will spend her sentence doing supervised community work rather than in a jail cell. The couple carried out an elaborate hoax in which they pretended their 6 year-old son had been carried away by their home made helium balloon. TV cameras, local authorities, even the US national guards tracked the balloon for several hours but all the time little Falcon Heene was hiding at home. Under investigation, the shroud collapsed and the couple admitted planning the publicity stunt in the hope it would lead to their own TV show.

Health officials in Scotland are investigating an outbreak of anthrax among drug users. A second man who used heroin and tested positive for anthrax has now died in Glasgow. Another male drug user with the infection died in the city last week. Health workers say that contaminated heroin may be to blame.

The death has been announced of the captain of the Jewish immigrant ship the Exodus which was at the center of an international outcry when it was refused entry to British controlled Palestine in 1947. President Shimon Peres said the mariner Yitzhak Ike Aharonovitz, who was 86 had made a unique contribution to the state of Israel. The Exodus was carrying 4,500 mostly Holocaust survivors when British authorities forced the ship to return them to Germany.

BBC News.