BBC news 2009-12-31 加文本

2009-12-31 BBC

BBC News with Victoria Meakin.

The latest reports from the United States speak of serious security and intelligence failures before the alleged attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas day by a Nigerian-born man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

President Obama has strongly criticized the failures and said he wants investigators to deliver a preliminary report by Thursday. From Washington, here is Richard Lister.

Unnamed intelligence officials have been quoted by the American media as acknowledging they’d received reports months ago that a Nigerian was being trained in Yemen for an attack on the United States. The CIA has formally acknowledged that it became aware of Mr. Abdulmutallab's journey to Yemen and concerns expressed by his father of the young man’s growing radicalism in November, but he was still allowed to retain his U.S. visa and fly to Detroit. It is the failure to connect those pieces of information that Mr. Obama appeared most concerned about and he is promising to overhaul what he says is a security system which is becoming out-dated.

A British hostage has been freed in Iraq after more than two and a half years in captivity. The man, Peter Moore, who is a computer expert, was released on Wednesday morning and is said to be in good health. He was seized along with his four British body guards at the Iraqi Finance Ministry in 2007. Mike Wooldridge reports.

The Foreign Secretary David Miliband said when he announced Mr. Moore’s release that he just had a very moving conversation with him and found him to be in a remarkable frame of mind, given the misery, fear and uncertainty he’d endured. Mr. Miliband said the release had been made possible by the Iraqi government’s process of reconciliation, more specifically, a senior figure in the Shiite militant group that kidnapped Peter Moore and whose release they’d sought in return for that of  the Briton’s has now been handed over by the Americans to the Iraqi authorities. But the British government says no deal was done for Mr. Moore’s release.

Lawyers in Argentina representing two young heirs of a media empire say police raided their clients’ homes amid suspicions they could be the victims of a forced adoption scheme. It dates back to the country’s military rule in the 1970s and 80s. This report from Greg Morsbach.

The controversy surrounding the true identity of Felipe and Marcela Noble won’t go away. They were both adopted by a childless media tycoon in 1976 at the height of the brutality of Argentina’s police and military state. There are as yet uNPRoven suggestions that they could be the children of parents who were murdered by the military rulers. These accusations are made by campaign groups representing the murder victims of the military era. On Tuesday, the Ernestina Herrera de Noble siblings are ordered to give blood samples. But the campaigners said the samples aren’t accurate enough. The fresh samples taken now are thought to include pieces of hair or skin.

World News from the BBC.

Tens of thousands of Iranians have taken part in pro-government demonstrations in a number of cities. The state-sponsored marches were called in response to a recent spate of opposition rallies.  Iran’s police chief warned that the era of tolerance towards the opposition was over. Iranian authorities have accused western powers of stirring up violent opposition protests.

United States officials say eight Americans have been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan. It is believed all the victims were civilians. The incident took place in the south-eastern province of Host and is thought to have been a suicide attack. It comes as the Americans are sending extra troops to Afghanistan to try to stop a Taliban insurgency.

A United States government agency has approved the imposition of tariffs of up to sixteen percent on imported Chinese steel pipe. The move further increases the tension in trade relations between the leading developed and developing economies.  Here is our economics correspondent Andrew Walker.

The United States International Trade Commissions has been investigating Chinese steel products used in the oil industry. The American steel industry and trade unions complained that the Chinese government was subsidizing the goods’ concerned. The International Trade Commission agreed and so has given its approval to tariffs. US industries have raised a succession of complaints about Chinese imports this year, sudden damaging surges in import volumes and allegations about the subsidies or unfair pricing practices. China, as  for it 's part, accused the U.S of protectionism, and the latest tariffs decisions is likely to reinforce that view in Beijing.

The legendary Cuban nightclub is in its heyday hosted big headliners like Carmen Miranda and Nat King Cole is celebrating its 70th anniversary. The Havana-based Tropicana Club started as a cabaret casino in 1939. After the Second World War, it welcomed members of the international jet sets like Ava Gardner ,Greta Garbo and Sammy Davis, Jr.

BBC News.