BBC news 2010-02-16 加文本

2010-02-16 BBC

BBC News with Mary Small

Greece has warned that last week's promise of European Union support might not be enough to stop its debt problem from undermining the single European currency, the euro. As eurozone finance ministers began a meeting on the crisis, the Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said their potential rescue plan must be more explicit to stop the markets attacking Greece. Ronny Smith reports

International confidence in not only Greece but also the stability of the 16-member eurozone has been badly shaken since member nations pledged aid to Greece last week without revealing specifics. The eurozone ministers say they will check Greece's progress in March, but in fact what they really want is the ability to audit Greece's public finances. Trust in Greece's ability to do what it says has been eroded by an official report that showed that Greece had falsified data to hide the extent of last year's deficit.

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been holding talks in Saudi Arabia with King Abdullah about Iran's nuclear program. Mrs Clinton was expected to seek his help in getting international backing for new sanctions against Iran. Earlier in Qatar, she said the United States feared Iran was becoming a military dictatorship.
"We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. So what we are trying to do is to send a message to Iran that we will not stand idly by while you pursue a nuclear program that can be used to threaten your neighbors and even beyond."
A BBC correspondent travelling with Mrs Clinton says Gulf countries are worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions, but don't want to provoke Tehran.

NATO countries have reported mixed progress on the third day of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan. British and Afghan troops are said to be advancing swiftly in the district of Nad Ali in Helmand province. But American forces around the Taliban stronghold of Marjah have been hampered by sniper fire and improvised explosive devices or IEDs. An independent Afghan MP Fauzia Koffi said the use of such explosives and weaponry was making the local population more vulnerable.
"The Taliban now use a lot of IEDs, and certainly the Afghan forces and international community will also use different weapons and equipments
to win this war. This will put the Afghan nation, the nation in Marjah district more vulnerable and it has caused civilian casualties."

In an incident unrelated to the offensive in Helmand, NATO says an air strike against suspected insurgents in Kandahar province has killed five civilians. It said a patrol of NATO and Afghan troops saw people digging a path and mistakenly thought that they were planting explosives.

World News from the BBC

The United Nations agency UNICEF says it’s sent relief teams into Mongolia to help the authorities cope with the effects of an exceptionally severe winter freeze. Paddy Clark has more.
Cold winters are to be expected in Mongolia but this one is way out of the ordinary and worse than the severe freeze of 2001. Thick snow and temperatures of minus 40 have killed two million livestock and left isolated herders and villagers without food, fuel or medical care. UNICEF says it's trying to get an aid convoy through to one area where 4,000 children are in urgent need of help. The Mongolian authorities say nine children have already died from the cold in one province alone. At least 11 other provinces have been badly hit, but figures from these are not yet available.

European train operators say services through Brussels will remain suspended on Tuesday after a rail crash on the outskirts of the Belgian capital, in which at least 18 people were killed. Two commuter trains collided earlier on Monday. A BBC correspondent in Brussels says initial inquiries are likely to focus on reports that one of the trains had passed a stop signal and gone onto the track, along which the other train was coming in the opposite direction.

The daughter of the mayor of the Ukrainian capital Kiev says she has had more than six million dollars worth of jewels stolen in Paris. Kristina Chernovetskaya told police she was being driven into the French capital from the airport when a man pulled open the door and stole her handbag as they were caught in traffic.

The French anti-doping agency says an arrest warrant has been issued for the American cyclist Floyd Landis in connection with a computer hacking incident at an anti-doping laboratory in 2006. The same laboratory was responsible for test results earlier that year which led to Mr Landis being stripped of victory in the Tour de France for doping offences. Mr Landis has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

BBC News.