BBC news 2010-02-17 加文本

2010-02-17 BBC

BBC News. This is Mike Cooper.

President Obama has given his backing to building the first nuclear reactors in the United States in three decades. He said the country needed a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power stations to meet its energy needs and fight climate change. Mr Obama is offering an 8-billion-dollar loan guarantee to the first plant, but only if legislation against greenhouse gas emissions is part of the package. He said that without funding for new technologies, the US risked falling behind other nations.

"Make no mistake whether it's nuclear energy or solar or wind energy. If we fail to invest in the technologies of tomorrow, then we are gonna be importing those technologies instead of exporting them. We will fall behind. Jobs will be produced overseas instead of here in the United States of America. That's not a future that I accept."

The Afghan Taliban is said to have lost one of its key leaders. Reports say its top military commander and leading strategist, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was captured at the beginning of this month in a joint operation by Pakistani and American forces in Karachi. A spokesman for the Afghan Taliban denied that the leader had been taken. From Karachi, Orla Guerin reports.

Pakistani security sources say Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was detained on February 8th at a religious school outside the city limits without a shot being fired. He is second only to the Taliban's reclusive supreme leader Mullah Omar, and critically he's thought to favor negotiations with the West and the Afghan government. It's hoped he could provide key intelligence and be a bargaining chip in any future talks.

Pope Benedict has called the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland a heinous crime that wounded human dignity. His comments followed a meeting about the scandal with Irish bishops in Rome. The Vatican said all will agree that the church's teaching had been damaged. With more, here is Duncan Kennedy in Rome.

The two days of talks between Pope Benedict and the 24 bishops of Ireland were described as frank and open. In a statement afterwards, the Vatican spokesman said the pope shares the outrage over the abuse, which had resulted from years of failure to act by the Church in Ireland. The scandal was revealed last year in two reports that highlighted systematic abuse of children and young people by priests and others connected with the Church. At a news conference, the bishops said measures were already being put in place to stop future abuses.

The Inter-American Development Bank says the cost of rebuilding Haiti after last month's earthquake could reach 14 billion dollars. The estimate is based on preliminary damage assessment and comparisons with previous disasters. The bank says the earthquake was proportionately the most destructive natural disaster of modern times when viewed in relation to the size of Haiti's population and economy. The quake killed about 230,000 people and left the capital Port-au-Prince in ruins.

World News from the BBC.

Argentina says it's imposing new controls on shipping to the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic in a growing row over British plans to drill for oil there. The Argentine government said all vessels leaving for the Falklands from Argentine ports or passing through Argentine waters would need permission from Buenos Aires. Britain and Argentina fought a short war over the Falklands in 1982. Argentina still disputes British sovereignty.

The French Defence Minister Herve Morin has promised a transparent investigation after a newspaper reported that France deliberately exposed its soldiers to contamination during nuclear tests. The Parisien newspaper had published what it said were official documents, detailing how several hundred soldiers were ordered to enter contaminated zones during atomic bomb tests in Algeria in the early 1960s. The document says the aim was to assess the physical and psychological effects on humans.

New research suggests that the Egyptian boy pharaoh Tutankhamun was killed by malaria and wasn't murdered or killed in an accident. Tutankhamun is probably the best-known pharaoh of ancient Egypt because of his marvelously preserved tomb discovered in 1922. Michelle Roberts reports.

Scientists, who painstakingly studied the pharaoh's remains, think Tutankhamun died from a bout of malaria that attacked his already weakened body. They say he had a cleft palate in club foot likely forcing him to walk with a cane. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, lead scientist, Dr Zahi Hawass, says how he found traces of the malaria parasite in Tutankhamun's blood along with signs of bone disease.

Researchers in Colombia say they may have an answer to food shortages in the conflict zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where livestock are often stolen. They suggest that guinea pigs, which are high in protein and easy to hide, have immense potential because they reproduce quickly and can be fed on kitchen waste.

BBC News.