BBC news 2010-01-31 加文本

2010-01-31 BBC

BBC News with Gaenor Howells

The United States has defended plans for a six-billion-dollar arms deal with Taiwan despite a warning from China of serious consequences if the sales go ahead. China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and says it will impose sanctions on American companies that sell weapons to the island. However, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley said the deal would contribute to maintaining stability across the Taiwan Strait.

"This is a clear demonstration of the commitment that this administration has to provide Taiwan the defensive weapons it needs and as provided for in the Taiwan Relations Act. And we think that this action is consistent with the US One-China policy, and contributes to maintaining security and stability across the Taiwan Strait."

The United Nations World Food Program says it has established fixed sites for food distribution in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, where only women will be allowed in to collect earthquake relief supplies. More from Hugh Williams in Haiti.

Over the past two weeks, the World Food Program has distributed millions of meals to hundreds of thousands of people in Port-au-Prince. But it says setting up a network of 16 distribution points and inviting eligible families to cash in vouchers to collect food should almost quadruple the number of people it can help. There has been criticism of the speed and limited scale of aid efforts so far, but the WFP denies it's changing strategy to answer those complaints. The vouchers and the food will only be given to women because the WFP says they are more likely than men to make sure supplies get to those who really need them.

Health authorities in Puerto Rico have launched an investigation into a group of Puerto Rican doctors in Haiti who posed for pictures with guns and earthquake victims. The health secretary said ethical guidelines prohibited the photographing of patients or operations other than for medical purposes. The pictures came to light when the doctors posted them on Facebook.

Togo says it will appeal against the decision by the Confederation of African Football, CAF, to ban its national team from the next two Africa Cup of Nations tournaments. The ban came after Togo withdrew from the current competition in Angola because of a gun attack by separatist rebels on its team bus earlier this month. Three people were killed. Alex Capstick reports.

The governing body of African football has said it's merely followed the rule which forbids political interference at the Cup of Nations. While renewing its condolences to the families of the victims, CAF has pointed out that Togo's players were willing to stay in Angola and complete their matches despite the gun attack on their team bus, but the Togolese government ordered them home. The regulations contain a loophole which allows the authorities to take into account exceptional circumstances. It appears CAF has so far chosen to ignore it.

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The elections authority in Sudan has named the candidates who will stand in the country's presidential poll in April, the first genuine multi-party elections in more than 20 years. The BBC correspondent in Khartoum says the incumbent President Omar al-Bashir, who is considered the favourite, but will face tough competition from the former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. The former rebels, the SPLM who controls southern Sudan, have nominated Yasir Arman as their candidate.

Officials in northwestern Pakistan say a suicide bomber has killed at least 16 other people at a military checkpoint. They said two of the dead were Pakistani security officials. The attack took place in the Bajaur tribal region near the Afghan border.

Britain has temporarily suspended student visa applications from northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh because of concerns of a possible abuse of the system. British officials say in the last three months of last year, there were 13,500 applications from northern India alone, seven times as many as a year earlier. Chris Morris reports.

British officials say the system has been overwhelmed, and there is clearly concern about how many of the applications are genuine. Unscrupulous agents offering student visas as a way of settling in the UK are not uncommon. The British High Commissioner in Delhi Sir Richard Stagg said abuse of the system would not be allowed to happen. So while extra checks take place, visa applications have been temporarily suspended, a decision which will be reviewed at the end of February.

Shia rebels in northern Yemen have said they'll accept the government's conditions for a ceasefire once the Yemeni army has stopped its offensive against them. The rebels' leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in an audio message posted on the Internet that further attacks against his groups wouldn't achieve any useful political result, and that it was now up to the Yemeni government to respond.

BBC News.